It's been a busy couple of weeks! Some of the happenings:

On the weekend, Jonathan picked this up for me:

It is our first piece of bedroom storage that isn't shelving. With Sarah now in the bottom bunk and the portacot packed away, I wanted some bedroom furniture - for storage, and to put some pretty things out on. Yes, I found this one on eBay :) Thank you, my hubby, for buying it for me and picking it up (took him nearly 2 hours return trip due to roadworks). I love it!

I got Jonathan a sushi kit for Christmas. He then came across a nifty device that could make sushi-making easy and neat, so I got that for him for his birthday. Last weekend he made us lots of yummy sushi - doesn't it look good!? Any recommendations for fillings/flavourings?

I spent a lot of time in the kitchen processing tomatoes, mangoes and passionfruit I got cheap at the fruit and vege shop this week. I made tomato sauce and cooked tomatoes and jarred them - the first time for me. Some of the seals didn't take so I had to redo them (a lot of work - cooking, sterilising, and setting; I've put the rest of the tomatoes in a bucket to ferment for a fermented tomato sauce recipe I want to try. If it doesn't work, at least it only costs me 50c/kg!). I froze the passionfruit, and some of the mango - the girls and I have been enjoying mango parsley/kale smoothies. Abigail and I sat on the floor in the lounge to eat ours yesterday (it has an instant pudding consistency so we used spoons) and Sarah went back and forth between us getting spoonfuls from us both. Very cute :) Glad to see my girls enjoying green smoothies - fantastic way to get raw leafy greens in them. The parsley and kale are from our garden.

I am currently reading my way through the Little House series (just finished The Long Winter). I am loving it - their hard work and productiveness has been very inspiring (hence the couple of busy weeks!). Highly recommend these books - teach such good values. Looking forward to reading them to our girls when they're a bit older.

The week started out wet. Sarah would often stand at the back door looking out at the rain and banging to go out. The sounds of pleasure she made when I opened the door for her were adorable. Abigail has been wearing her new (second-hand $3) gumboots as much as possible - they're very good for jumping in puddles! She consistently puts them on the wrong feet :) And even with the rain, we have continued to go swimming. Abigail gets about with just a swimming noodle now, and Sarah still loves to dive on in over and over again. Swimming is normally an afternoon event, but this morning we left the dishes on the bench (still there now) and went for a dip. Very thankful that there is a swimming pool in our complex - it is such a blessing.

There was a lot of out and abouting this week, and our home has suffered because of it (ie. it's a mess). I am reminded of a couple of verses from Titus:

"Then they (the older women) can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God."

God is so wise - He knows that I need to be home; for getting things done, focusing on my kids, and having a peaceful atmosphere. I will make this my endeavour for next week!