It was really a good weekend.

Flowers for my mom

I had such a great weekend - and I do think the rest of the family had a good one too. I was really spoiled with time for myself this weekend. On Friday night I went to a Stef Bos concert with 5 other ladies and it was such fun. Three of my favorite cousins went with and it was a night of good music and lots of laughter. I always forget how much I enjoy live music and although not one for big venue concerts the smaller scale ones totally fill my soul with joy.

Great eats by Loft restaurant

On Saturday morning I attended the #mombogmeetup and boy, was it a great event. I am not going to go into the details - so many others have already done that but I enjoyed the diverse and great speakers, good food, lovely venue and it was so very well organised by Laura and Heather. I loved putting some faces to the blogs I read and discovering some totally new blogs and the girls behind them. The goodie bags were excellent - I am not going to go into the details but check out the photos:

Thanks to all the wonderful sponsors - who you will find at the link above. I will go into some details about one or two in later posts. I have to mention the lovely creative food Margie made right in front of our eyes. It was fun and very yummy.

I returned home to the boys in the household making bows and arrows. It's the "in thing" in our home right now and as this develops I may give you and insight into it. Suffice to say the rest of the weekend was spent aiming at targets.

On Sunday my mom turned 79 and as she is still not very mobile (knee replacement pending) I went to help early with the many guests that came over. The kids and I made her a secret centre pinata cake which she cut to lots of laughs discovering the inside surprise. It was really tasty - the dark rich cake with the smarties inside. I will definitely make it again.

It was the first weekend in a month that we did not have a lot of grade 4 stuff going - projects, orals, tests etc. Although she does have 3 small tests and a poem to learn for this week we only did about an hour's work for the maths test. It was great having our weekend back!

How was yours?

It was granny's birthday on Friday

Both the grandmothers has often told me that all they actually want for any gift is some form of photos of the kids. Hence we have done calenders, photo books, handmade canvasses, printed water bottles, handbags etc. This year I hit a bit of an inspiration. One of the guys in the office went past the Consol shop the other day and I asked him to pick up a few Solar jars for me (nope, I got nothing from Consol for this - this post is not sponsored in any way - wish they would send me a few but alas ). Then I added a simple little something to it to make it a wow gift.

Step 1: Buy a Solar jar for R130 (Also available at Pick n Pay for about R60 more per jar)

 Step 2 : Compile photos into one image (9 x 22cm works perfectly) I used Photoshop

 Step 3 : Print on tracing paper or bumf (thin transparentish paper)

 Step 4: Paste two edges together with sellotape and insert into jar. You can also add flowers or silk flower, beads, whatever into another jar.

 Step 5: See granny smile astonished about a lovely photo gift of her grand kids and an emergency light in one.

 I love these jars - I think they are such a clever idea. So I would like to know about some of your clever photo style gifts.

A morning at granny's house

My mom lives ina  retirement village - right at the dead end of a quiet little "street" that serves 8 units.. The perfect place to ride your bike (and yes, no helmets, but no traffic there). We spent a delightful morning with her the Saturday of the long weekend. Her garden is always fantastic.

One stem of orchids - the hearts pink or white. Fascinating.

So whic picture is your favorite? I love the first one.

  and Parenting by Dummies for Wordful Wednesday

Getting the craft thing going again

I have been very slow this year on feeding my inner creativity. At the moment my work is very stressful, but I am also in a non- creative stage of a big project, or shall we rather say, less creative. I reached a point where frustration took over and one morning in the long weekend of  27 April to 1 May my hubby gifted me with a morning for myself. I just jumped in , as eager as can be and made 3 mosaic crosses

Without grout

Two of them with grout (the other already gifted by then)

It really just made me so happy to make them, and gift them, after all not to the church for the bazaar as intended but to people shown out to me for each of them.

Then for Mothers day I was totally out of ideas for the grannies, until I saw this post on Marcia's blog. I mean, it is THE perfect gift for them.. So I went ahead, bought my canvasses (R22 for a 30x30 canvass), modge podge and the photos (R24 for a 30 x 30 each). So the total gift cost me R46 plus a negligible amount of modge podge and the grannies are in granny heaven. They came out beautifully.

I was lucky to get a friendly co amateur photographer that was at the course with me the Sunday before Mothers day to take it down for my MIL. It was rather unexpected so no time for a card, but Oupa saw to that and she was totally happy. For my mom, we had a bit more time for a "card" .I found a printable of Crayola's website to make flowers, and made we did. I printed two sheets for each child so that we could make double sided flowers and they coloured it (well I did the boys' second sheet for them). We then cut them out and glued them on drinking straws, and just like that, granny had the most beautiful bunch of child made flowers. She loved them. (and I could not stop photographing them)

Her wrapped canvass and flowers.

So, do you need to craft to keep your sanity? And what did you craft recently?

Special days made special

Today is a special day in South Africa - it's Springbok day and the start of the rugby world cup. As we are the current champions there is much excitement. Oh hec, even if we were bottom of the log, we SAffers are big on our rugby.So Go Bokke!

But last week Thursday and Friday held their own special moments - on Thursday the first of September it was Spring day at the Boys' school. They had to sport silly hats - I took the easy way out - let them both choose a hat and added a pipe cleaner and foam shape flower to it.

 On Friday the Princess had "Ouma en Oupa dag" - Grandparents day at her school where they showed their grandparents their classes, gave them a gift and a bit of a concert and then had picnic with them. As her other two grandparents live in Port Elizabeth, it was she and Oumie.

At the office we celebrated Casual day and Spring day like a lot of other South Africans -casual day is a fundraising initiative for several organizations for the disabled. The theme this year was "Be a rock star" - some of us at the office made our own little rock band

All in good sports all round.So do you celebrate these special days?

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

Beanies to boot!

A while ago I saw a call for beanies for Cancer kids on Pink Hair Girl's knitting blog.. I thought it was a fabulous idea to give back to those that need to know someone else is thinking about me in a time of great distress. But me, not having knitted a stitch for many many years (make that 20), knew even if I started right then, I would not be able to make one in a month. Then the thought crossed my mind that I knew a great community of knitters that every year do some knitting for charity. So I spoke to my mom and the "tannies" (older ladies) in het retirement community and thanks to them I am going to post 33 beanies on Monday. Some have wonderful details and some are just knitted with great wool.

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

My mom has green fingers

No seriously she does. Well, she has always been known for her lovely roses, her pretty garden and this one spectacular orchid that flowers every winter? Last year it had 9 strings - this year it was 11! Spectacular to say the least.

So for your Friday viewing pleasure:

 11 Strings of spectacular beauty with up to 10 flowers per stem.

The Princess with my string with 10 flowers (some hidden behind others), now giving me much joy in the house.

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

Feeling on top of the world....

Playing along with Cheryl.

 ...really makes my Monday. I am so happy today, not even a rather frustrating project can dampen the mood. As you all know, I had a truly wonderful weekend thanks mainly to Hunter who organized the accommodation and initiated the whole trip. But who also did the really tough part - looking after the 2 sick boys back home. What added to my enjoyment is that they had a good weekend too, after all the sickness of the past weekends. The boys are better, they slept better than in ages and Hunter thus got some good sleep too. We did manage to give him his Fathersday goodies, but we need to make another day to properly honour him.

I really need to do a good run of every day as really there were so many great moments. What we thought would be a cold mostly indoor holiday turned into a warm and mostly outdoor one. And making the holiday great was:

Quality time with my Princess

Fun and adrenaline with a favorite cousin and friend

Seeing my mom having laughs with one of her best friends and showing her the Berg for the first time ever.

And two little girls enjoying each other for the full period - not a moment of unhappiness.

The real magic was in the perfect combination - 3 generations of fun.

and the mountains, not to forget the 270 degree view of mountains (fromt he road just outside the resort)

Then Magic within.

The Princess believes that if you dress like a faerie, it will be much easier to see one in the garden - almost a bit like camouflage. As I saw her dancing through the leaves and looking into the flower beds, I thought back to a conversation Hunter and I had driving back from the South Coast after our Easter holiday. We talked about the Easter Bunny, Father Christmas and Tooth faerie and when it is appropriate to tell your kids that these guys do not actually exist. Do you tell them or do you wait for them to hear it somewhere else and then confirm? I myself, would prefer to keep that magic alive for a long long time.

You see, when my dad passed away just after I turned 7, all magic stopped in our house. He was the keeper of the magic, the creator of the paw prints, the builder and decorator of the Christmas tree. My mom was never really the one that was excited about these things and I think that for her, all the magic stopped when he passed away and that she felt the magic had to stop for all. I clearly remember the first Christmas - there was no tree, actually, up and till today my mom never has a Christmas tree. Sadly so, I think - a granny should have one. There was a few presents, but she decided not to cook a Christmas meal. My one gran was with her other kids and the other one was with us and my mom stated (and I remember it to today) that it was not worth cooking a Christmas meal for just us 3. So we drove around on Christmas day, looking for somewhere to have lunch - and of course, everywhere was either closed or fully booked. I remember us stopping at a road house and buying toasted samies and hamburgers. It is the first day that I remember the dark wolf visiting me - how totally sad and depressed I felt in the back of the car - thinking that the magic was gone.

For a few years after we always spent the day with family, but never had anything festive up at home. At age 12 I had enough - so for my Christmas present I asked for a tree. My mom took me that very day to buy a small fold up plastic tree that we used until I moved out of the house. Then my mom chucked it away.

So I fully intend to keep the magic alive in our house for as long as possible - those are such wonderful times to remember. Such joy and anticipation. I also believe that stirring and supporting the imagination of children makes them more creative thinkers and in any branch of business creative thinking is always an asset. I know the day will come when (I suspect it will be Father Christmas) gets dismissed by the Princess, but I will certainly try to get her to become a contributor to the magic until the Boys are big enough to say goodbye to it themselves.

As to Faeries - well, I am sure I saw one on Sunday. Flying past the Princess just before she saw her.

 

Playing along today with Angie

Sometimes my mom is brilliant

A friend of my mom knitted the Princess a beautiful jersey and hat. It is truly beautifully done, only problem being it is in light green - a colour the Princess is not particularly fond of and I have to admit that this not a shade that appeals to me. My mom saw the issue, and decided to do something about it. Despite having rheumatoid arthritis and disfigured hands, she does lovely embroidery - hence, she enhanced the jersey with little flowers. Now the Princess loves it and did a little modeling session for me.

Our little ballerina

Playing along with Cheryl.

The princess had her first ballet recital  on Saturday morning. We all went to watch, even the little boys. Tank goodness that her class was early on in the show as they would not have managed the full concert. The teacher first did the graduating girls, and then started with the pre-primary class (the Princess') progressing through the grades. It was amazing to see how the girls progress through the years.

The Pre-primary girls did a little under the sea mime with mermaids, crabs, dolphins and many more sea animals.

Little mermaids waking up.

Seeing the fruit of a loved extra mural just makes my Monday. Thanks to my mom who really does all the support involved in the ballet.

Veels geluk Oumie!

Happy 74th Birthday Oumie!

It's my moms' birthday today.
I am so grateful that she is part of our lives.
That she is so involved in the lives of her grandchildren.

That she reads to them, teaches them their colours and shapes.
That they sing so many songs thanks to her persistence.

Holds them when they cry and just loves them to bits.

 

Thanks Ouma we love you so much!
And that so totally Makes my Monday.

Playing along with Cheryl.

And just to show how nice my flower cake-lets baked:

First time nap at gandma's house

Never in his whole two years of his life after leaving those initial 6 months of sleep wherever you are, has he taken a nap at Granny's. Seeing that we are often there on weekends it is quite amazing. Today he was just finished, tired, done.....

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