FIVE

My little girl is five years old.

She is a ball of opposites.

Fiercely bold and adventurous yet sensitive and tiny. She is amazingly agile but once refused to whack a piñata. "Too scary mama"

Loud and funny yet likes to do rabbit and mouse impersonations. Still.

Helpful and thoughtful yet often goes along with crazy schemes of her own making. Like the time she practiced writing letter A...all across our house...in permanent marker. I thought I had stumbled across an anarchist hideaway.

She has a big heart that reaches out to others but often leaves her undies on the ground.

I love her. 

She has taken on Kindergarten like a champ and is starting to read and do all kinds of independent things. 

She has started playing the violin and gets a bit flustered but knows all the tunes (to sing) so well. Thank you big sister. 

She loves cooking with me and her special job is to set the table for dinner. She is a pro at cracking eggs and chopping mushrooms and loves making brightly coloured pancakes which grossly come out the other end brightly coloured too. 

She has a great imagination and is happy to be on her own creating worlds and adventures for her mind. 

She's pretty great.

Here's some questions we ask the kids each Birthday. I'm not sure I've ever blogged Norah's answers but Lucy's are back in the blogging abyss somewhere.

1. Favourite colour - blue
2. Favourite toy - Coconut monkey
3. Favourite fruit  - Strawberries
4. Favourite thing to watch on TV - Magic School Bus
5. Favourite food to have for lunch - Sushi
6. Favourite thing to wear - Dress from Granny.
7. Favourite game - Uno
8. Favourite snack - Donuts
9. Favourite animal - Rabbits
10. Favourite song - Trolls - Hair Up 
11. Favourite book - Thea and Geronimo Stilton
12. Your best friend - Maddie
13. Favourite cereal - Cheerios
14. Favourite thing to do outside - Play on the swings.
15. Favourite thing to drink - Ice cream when it's melted. (?)
16. Favourite holiday - Granny and Waa Waa's house
17. What do you like to take to bed? Little grey mouse. (Toy lol)
18. Favourite food for breakfast - Cheerios...but actually pancakes.
19. What would you like to have for dinner on your birthday? - Pizza!
20. What would you like to be when you grow up? - Science teacher
21. Favourite shop - Kmart (not sure whether to be proud or ashamed)
22. What do you like to do when it's raining? - Stay inside and eat ice cream.
23. When it's not raining? - Go outside and run.
24. Favourite movie - Annie
25. Favourite game with your sister - Chess

When I'm 80

One of my very favourite bloggers, Faith wrote a post the other day about the woman she wants to be. Her writing often speaks really deeply to my heart. She writes honestly and beautifully about everyday things and the way they can be quite beautiful and her post had me tearing up quite a few times. 
She challenged me to write something similar so hear it is. 
You should definitely check out hers though. And her beautiful photography. 

When I am 80 and I look in the mirror the woman staring back at me will have lived more life than I can possibly imagine today. 
Her face and body will bear the marks of a life lived.

She may have never bought an owned a house but I hope she has been a home.
I want to have always had an open door and a well stocked fridge. 
An open ear and a well stocked pool of wisdom. 
I hope the messiness of my house doesn't just end when my kids get older and better at tidying up after themselves. 
I hope I'm never too fancy to have people over when there's a washing basket on the dining room table and dishes in the sink. 
I hope that she's finally mastered how to make soft pretzels and that she is never short of a kitchen hand. 
I hope that her walls still are covered with photos and precious pieces of art made by tiny hands. 
And I hope there's still a husband to chat theology with. 
We will have passed the baton on to the younger generation and I hope that our years will have taught us how to encourage and nurture them. 
I want to be the old lady at church who chats to the young ones and sighs at their babies remembering both how hard and how delicious those days were.

She may not have traveled the world but I hope she has walked many roads beside her friends. 
Rather than postcards on the wall I want to have memories in my heart. 
Hard roads. 
Joyous roads. 
Belly laughs and ugly cries. 
I want to see a sparkle in those eyes. 
I want to have never been too busy or important for my children. 
I want to have taken them on the adventure with us and find contentment as they grow and change. 

She may have not become famous but I hope she has the praise of one. 
I want to have just done the thing in front of me and been faithful in that. 
Whatever place I find myself at 80 I hope that I find myself there after small faithful steps, dreaming big dreams but knowing where the glory truly lies. 

She may not have had everything she wanted but I hope her heart is brimming with Peace Joy and Love. 
I want to look back on the hard days or the days I went without and see the good that was made through it all. 
I want to see all the things I was worried about through the lens of time and realise what is truly important. 
I want to be able to pinpoint on the map of my life the times when God was faithful through it all and in my heart rejoice.

And here's where I shamelessly steal a line because it was so awesome
I want to have spent my life and not saved it.
I want it to have been good and to sit in my old age with the contentment of a life well lived. 
Not an easy or necessarily a fun life. Not a fairytale or a trendy hipster existence but,
a good life.

Sourdough

A lovely friend gave me some of her sourdough starter a little while ago and since then I've been really enjoying crafting my own loaves.
The long drawn out process of sourdough really appeals to my current lifestyle. My dough needs little bits of attention throughout a 36hr period and that works so well.

Here's what I do.

Night Before

In a container with a lid place
- 75g water
-75g flour
- 1 tbs of starter
I got my starter from a lovely friend but you can make your own. I haven't tried it and it looks pretty difficult but is surely not impossible!?!?

Also, in a bowl place
- 400g flour
- 260g water
This makes a pretty wet dough which can sometimes go flat so you've got to play around with the water level. Maybe less maybe more. This is called the autolyse and it is a fancy name which means I Have No Idea.

Then I leave those two bits overnight.

Next Day

In the morning/when i remember after getting home from school drop off I mix the two bits together and give it a good kneed for about 10 mins.
I use a slap and stretch method which is really fun to do and lets ALL the angry vibes out. Basically you grab the ball of dough, slap it on the bench and then pull it off the bench so that it stretches out. Other than sounding like something you might do to induce labour it is the thing to do if you want lovely sourdough holes in your loaf. 

Then I give the dough about an hour while I put the baby to sleep and do some laundry. I have left the slap and stretch till after said baby was alseep but only do that if you want your baby to wake up while you are 3 minutes in with tons of dough on your hands. It will happen.

After about an hour (which really means when I remember I'm making sourdough today) I add 10g of water with a tbs of salt. They say sourdough really needs the salt and it's true. It really brings out the flavour of the dough. Do not leave it out or you will feel like you're eating polystyrene. 
I plop the salty water in and then kinda squeeze the dough with my fingers. Don't worry about it too much. 

Then comes the bulk ferment which goes for 2-4 hrs. or 6 or 8 or whenever. 
Every half hour or so I do a manoeuvre called the stretch and fold which also brings on bubbles and not babies. You pick up one side of the dough and then stretch it over the top. Do this 4 times from each side and you're good to go. 

After that's done I shape the dough ball into a nice smooth dough ball and pop it in a little tea towel blanket in a bowl in the fridge and say goodnight.

Next Day

In the morning (again usually after school dropoff) I heat up the oven as hot as it goes and then put the dough ball in my dutch oven. Once the oven is hot I pop the dutch oven in for about 20 mins with the lid on then 20-30 with the lid off. I know it's done when the outside is lovely and dark brown. 

Then you have to wait and not dig into that juicy hot loaf till it's cool. But once it is...slice it up and slather it with butter. oh yeah.

🍞

A post shared by Rin (@rinny_e) on Feb 14, 2018 at 4:31am PST

my baby - 10 months old

In May last year our precious little baby boy was born.
He's now 10 months old and while his life has been pretty well documented on Instagram, I wanted to write about him here to capture some memories of his baby days.

He is a super smiley baby.
He's got a cheeky grin and a great giggle.
He really likes things that make noise. Any item is given a shake to determine whether it makes sound. Soundless items are often dumped without ceremony. He loves when I move my hand on his mouth while he sings. Endless entertainment. He loves playing hitting the piano and he tolerates my almost constant singing at him. A song for every occasion.

He crawls around the house like crazy, usually looking for me. (Thankyou 10 month separation anxiety) His knees and toes are always covered in dust and all the Lego is repeatedly put up out of mouths way. I'm not sure if he'll match his sisters and walk before the end of the month. Watch this space.

He loves reading books with feely bits and we read the "Thats not my ____" books A LOT. He quite likes being outside and I often spend time just sitting and watching with him on our front steps. He forces me to slow down. He is pretty fascinated by the vacuum cleaner and the washing machine but has a low tolerance for not Mamas attention. And so when he is awake we sit and play and read and sing and count his little piggy toes.

He is very loved by all the ladies at bible study and is generous with his wide smiles. When all the stars align and he is neither tired nor hungry he'll even crawl off and find a new lap to sit in.

He has a bit of a love hate relationship with food. Of course, being put in the high chair means going out of Mamas arms and that really is sometimes a bit too much to bear. But he does love a good bit of avocado, banana, yoghurt, meat and veg. But not together. Much of the food ends up on the floor.

He loves faces. Particularly pinching or hitting them to see what happens. He is learning the words "gentle" and "no". At the moment a stern reproof gets a giggle but he's learning. His big sisters howling in his face after a good hair yank is having a bit of an impact on him.
Oh, his sisters. He adores them and they him. Except when he pulls their hair.

We are all so glad our boy is part of the family.
It is exhausting having 3 kids. Life rushes past and I feel as though I barely come up for air.
I'd love an uninterrupted sleep and I'm loosing hair and a bit of sanity but to see this little fella and the way his eyes light up when he sees me, or the way he cackles when I push him in the swing fills my heart right up.

We hoped and prayed for him for so long and some days I barely believe that he is here with us.
He's such a treasure.

He always forgave

I think I've said it before in this space but I'll say it again, 

I LOVE reading the Old Testament. 

Something about reading the cultural context and history that Jesus was born into adds so many dimensions to the gospel story we read in the New Testament. 

A few months ago I was reading a Psalm which spoke about loving God's laws and I thought to myself, "Heck, I don't even know half of God's laws let alone love them!" 
So I decided to read the more gnarly books of the OT and find out what the deal is. 

I'm hoping to post lots of reflections as I dig in but here's one that really stood out and it's about forgiveness.

I'm back