Once Upon a Time....

Once upon a time in the land of the long white cloud there lived a King, Queen and their 2 princesses. One day the Queen gave birth to her first son, whom they named Prince Samuel. The Queen & King and princesses loved their son very much, but were so sad as he was very sick. But they were relieved that he could be given the best royal treatment in the land at Starship.

5 months later and Princess Jasmine & Princess Candace were a spot jealous of all the attention the new prince was getting and were sad as they were missing spending time with the King & Queen. Sometimes they remembered days of old when they had lived in a land far far away and they wept because they wanted to return but couldn't. One day the princesses skipped happily home from school waving invitations in their hands. The school was to celebrate NZ Book Week and all the children were invited to come dressed as their favourite book character. After scouring the royal library they decided on Puss'n'boots and Little Red Riding Hood.

The Queen thought this would be a wonderful opportunity to work with the princesses and have some quality time together, so she requested the company of the Queen Mother, who merrily arrived with sewing kit in hand.

The Princesses weren't very excited about making costumes as they wanted to raid the royal coffers and buy the best outfits that money could buy. The Queen explained as sweetly as possible that this just was not going to happen and they'd all have a jolly good time being creative and make something themselves. So the Queen and the Queen's mother went to the local charity shop with $10 and bought old jackets, ribbon and an old hat and set to work. The girls watched on and then became enraptured in the excitement as the costumes came to life - cuffs off the jacket became tops of gumboots, a snip snip here and an old basket from someones rubbish pile to boot!

The day of the fancy dress arrived and there was great excitement in the Palace as the Queen applied make up and walked them off to school. The King was not in attendance as he was looking after prince Samuel in hospital, but although he is talented at many things, applying make-up is not one of them! He got to see his princesses after school and to hear all about their exciting day.

The princesses didn't win any prizes but Princess Jasmine said that she'd had so much fun helping make her costume that she didn't mind not winning...and that it was much more fun and better than buying one.

We do not know how the story of this King, Queen and their family will end. But we do know, just like princess Jasmine found out, the time and process of being and working together is what really counts.

Prince Samuel continues to be in hospital and today had an ongoing low-grade temperature, wheezy cough and fast respiratory rate, so he was possibly worse than yesterday. Tomorrow will be day 4 of his virus and typically day 3 - 5 are the worst, so we've been warned not to be distressed if tomorrow he is even worse. We continue to pray to the God, the King of Kings for prince Samuel's life.

..... and they all lived muddling along together......

Sleep well. X