We all knew the day would come

When the twins were not both invited to the same party. I think the day arrives for every set of twins somewhere in their pre school years. It was inevitable this year, being in two grades and two classes. Up until now they were always invited, almost as a unit to school friends parties. So when Mr L came home with an invite 2 weeks ago I was almost relieved - he being older than his class mates and maybe slightly odd, has made the social inroad.

I try to get the kids to attend class mates parties for more than one reason - it is a way to socialize outside the class and to reinforce friendships formed there. I can see them interacting with their friends which gives me in turn an idea who to organize play dates with and to invite to their party. It also gives me the chance to observe the other kids and their parents and decide who I actually want to have my kids interact with.In addition I find allies in the class and grade amongst the moms- believe me, you need those as the years goes on more and more into Primary school.

So I arranged with H to do something with the other two siblings and RSVP for it. Two days later Mr C received and invite to one of his classmates party - two hours later on the same day. So Hunter will go with him to his party (a gymnastics one) and A will have some quality time with granny. What did amaze me is that they both just accepted naturally that the one will go and they will not go with. I think it is the clear division between friends that helped with this. Grateful that one issue I thought could pop up just didn't. A also has a party on Sunday afternoon but they invited the boys too (she has brothers of their age)

So let's talk gifts and cards. I buy batches of gifts - when I see something at a good price, I will buy a few, or when I need some gifts, I buy 3 more. So I keep an age appropriate stock of gifts in a box and wrap them when I need them. When they run out I fill with about 4 or 5 more of the same. I do buy special gifts for direct friends' kids or older or younger ones - but these are my "stock" class friends gifts. It saves me a lot of time.

At the moment the 8 year old girls get a sticker book (bought on sale at Exclusive books for about R25 less than the usual price), Disney Princess body wash and cream. The 5 or 6 year old boys get a great book (our favorite) and a sticker/work book -I bought a variety.

For cards I doodled the 3 ages we will have a lot this year, scanned them in and printed on white cardboard. I then add the child's name in a doodle. The kids will colour them in tonight for their friends. Cheap but very special.

Here's wishing you a great weekend - ours is going to be partyish busy ( we are also attending a Christening on Sunday morning)

Safari again?

The week before last was rather "Princess heavy" . I spent a morning with her when she was sick on the Wednesday and went to the doctor, most of the morning on Thursday with the ballet exam and again on Friday afternoon with the drama Eisteddfod and she then spent the rest of it at the office with me. When I realized that she had a party on Saturday morning I took the chance to spend some time alone with my little men and treat them to a visit to Safari. To be honest we have not been in a while and I doubt if we will ever go again. The animal area was stinking even more so than the usual. So much so that I actually felt terrible. The service in the tea garden was shocking - it took us 15 minutes to place the order for two milkshakes and a cappuccino and another 15 to get them. Brought to us without straws for which we had to wait another 8 minutes. Although the boys certainly enjoyed the play area and jumping castle and the pony was as always a hit, I doubt if we will go there again. Certainly not to the tea garden. It was just one bad experience too many.,

But fun together we certainly had and each of the boys spent a while alone with me while the other one played around. As always, I have to share some pictures.

There was another set of twins in the animal enclosure.

So how was your weekend? Ours was good - a visit to the new school for next year for Mr L - more about that later, a very relaxing afternoon around the pool with friends yesterday and a lot of searching for a certain pair of glasses - still mysteriously missing.

There's no place like space for a great party.

Imagine having twin boys with very different passions and having to organize a party that both of them will love? Up to this year I think anything would have been fine for them and they did love their Lion and Crocodile party last year, but by 5 they very much have their own opinions and I wanted a theme that would thrill both of them. Mr C is at the moment totally obsessed with space - he knows all the planets, how many moons and rings they have and all sorts of facts that I do not even know at all.Mr L is still obsessed with everything with engines be it with wheels, wings or whatever. His ideal party would have possibly been excavators etc, but the promise of many rocket ship items the week that space was the theme for the week at school did it. And a space party was born.

We had the party at their pre-school - a brilliant idea. You can rent the school for a Saturday for a fee - it is cheaper than a party venue, has all that you need in terms of playground, tables and chairs etc and theirs even have a braai area as it is connected to a church. The school gets extra money for maintenance of equipment etc and you get a great party venue where the kids totally feel at home.

On to the decor/theme stuff:

The party packs were plain silver paper bags with each child's name on their rocket ship. Inside were some stickers, and "alien" to grow and bangles and rings for the girls and a slinky for the boys.

Silver paper plates and cellophane bags to take left over sweeties home in the party packs

A few balloons with silver stars on and CD/dvd's with silver pipe cleaners hung on the gazebo edge.

Mr C's Uranus cake. I swear I am the first mom in history to make a Uranus cake (yes, I did Google and found one bakery one). I was so stressed that he would not like it but he counted the moons, confirmed that 9 was indeed correct and gave his blessing. He loved it! (Chocolate oil cake with butter frosting)

Mr L's rocket ship cake. My, was that boy crazy about his cake! He totally loved it. (Vanilla hot milk sponge cake with butter cream frosting.)

I made some of my now (almost) famous colouring in table cloths for the tables. But due to the sunny weather not much colouring happened.

 For the first time ever I did a sweetie buffet in stead of sweets pre packed in party packs. The little aluminium containers on the left had names on and was used to dish sweeties in. Every sweet type was named something to do with space like "Space cadet vitamins" and "Alien faces". What was left at the end of the day was taken home (plus some just because). Amazingly the kids ate very little sweets, chose only what they liked so the waste was minimal and I totally loved that so many parents had some sweets and took party packs home for themselves.

Below you can see why a pre-school is the perfect party venue - lots of equipment, dressing up, sandboxes and yes, the ever popular jumping castle.

The kids just played and played until we gave them all a nice Boerewors roll to eat (Prego steaks for the parents.).

We then let them loose on the sweetie buffet. The only item that was totally finished by the end of the party was the sherbet. A total hit with all!

 Then we went on to make each kid's own little bit of space by making little mini space globes (snow globes). I used little plastic containers bought at the packaging shop, beads for planets, big stars and smaller stars and glitter for the final stardust touch. I then added water and sealed the lids with bostik. Most kids loved it, even the smaller ones.

 After a lot more playing and chatting we all dispersed just in time for us to tidy up and be back home just as the Springboks took the Aussies on.

I loved that the party had a relaxed atmosphere, I loved that it was relatively low intensity - I made everything before hand - to set it up took us about and hour, to tidy up less. Above all I loved that the boys declared it the very best party ever.

(BTW - I did not take many pictures - thanks to teacher Wendy for the ones marked "Captured by Cat" and Marcia for the rest - you two did a great job.)

On milestones

We as parents often celebrate those big moments, those milestones that we wait for so long. That first tooth, well if you ask me the whole teething thing is no celebration. That first crawl - mobility at last to mommy's delight. To be replaced by urgent packing away of everything on eye level when baby gets the hang of standing. And talking - all 3 of mine followed that first "mama" or "papa" (yes, my Mr L said papa first - he is still daddy's boy though) with floods of words often talking together to my frustration. And so we continue - it seems those first ones, celebrated with zest often have negatives to them. Then there are the other big, only positive ones -like potty training, riding the bike without trainer wheels, brushing your own teeth and tying shoelaces. All onwards and upwards towards Independence.

But I do find that the other less big in anyone else's books are often the ones that makes me the happiest. Learning to pour your own juice without making a mess, making your own bed however shabby, being able to press play enter on the DVD remote, wiping your own bum. A big one for us was to teach them to play in their rooms after they wake up on weekends - giving us an hour or so to sleep a bit more. You know, those things that really makes my life easier.

So last night when, on asking if they want to shower, the boys enthusiastically said yes, and showered without a single tear and big talk of how big they are, I shed a tear of happiness. Both where so afraid of showering - it has taken us (especially Hunter) many many frustrating tries to get this achieved. To on their own prefer the shower is BIG! Yeah to easier camping, gymming etc. And much faster bath and bed times.

Any unusual milestones that you loved? Anything you are working on at the moment?

Choo-choo!

During the long weekend, a month ago, the 3 boys in the house had their own very special morning out. The Princess had a sleep over and I spent the morning getting my craft groove going. They attended the special steam powered weekend at the Centurion Model Trains where, rather than the usual little diesel model trains, steam trains ran as well as steam boats. It was heaps of boy fun.

Filling up with water. This give you an idea of the scale of the trains

Steam boats on exhibit and on the lake

More trains in the yard

All photos by Hunter. Centurion Model trains are open every weekend with a nice play area and big lawns to picnic on. Tuck shop available for treats.

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When the school rings

On Friday afternoon just as I was busy doing a blogpost about our little project during my lunch time( see tomorrow) , my phone rang, showing that number, you know the one that immediately charges your heart beat to 150 bpm with no exercise involved. The boy's school number. I just knew.

It turns out that Mr L had somehow managed to cut his forehead open and it was rather deep - deep enough to go to the doctor. So I quickly rang our GP and confirmed they could help us, then picked him up at school and went straight to the doctor. My, was he a brave boy - no crying, just a whimper or two as it was cleaned and fixed with strips. It turned out to be small but rather deep. So he got a nice plaster over to match his brother's ( see yesterday's photos) who fell at school on Tuesday right in front of me as I picked them up. When we picked up C later he showed us at the Wendy house where he hurt himself on a nail sticking out a bit. The school had it fixed first thing this morning.

So, matching twin war wounds.

BTW - Our server has been a tad cumbersome this morning -this whole post with photos was done with the Blogger app on the ipad

Looking back, we had a fabolous weekend.

It was the last weekend of granny's visit and we made sure it was one to remember. The highlight being the Boys' school's annual sports day. A day that is filled to the brim with enthusiasm, energy and heaps of fun. All the parents and grandparents are encouraged to support the team their kids are in and in general the atmoshpere is loaded with fun with red, blue and yellow seen everywhere. It was great to have our granny from Port Elizabeth here to share in the fun. The Princess was delighted to be asked to participate as one of the grade R girls called in sick for the day.

Do your kids' school have a fun sports day? I just love this little tradition.

On moving forward.

We have certainly come very far in the last year. Looking back a year ago, at the start of Mr L's OT, I struggle to even remember how tough it was - somehow the brain blocks out the worst. The tantrums that we only see now and again on a very scaled down version was in full swing. There was almost no recognition of any abstract concepts like shapes and colours. The tiniest thing ticked him off. The isolation tent was in full use.We were so sleep deprived, I can hardly express how tired and totally exhausted we were (2 to 4 hours awake up to 5 nights a week). It was tough just to get to school and work and back, never mind potty training etc. Life was a huge struggle.

A year on and things have certainly changed a lot. He is fully potty trained, he is loving his school and can not wait for his weekly OT appointments. And lo and behold, I am almost scared to put it out there, but we are sleeping. At last after more than 4 and a half years. The last month has gone without one of L's classic SID kid total sleep failure nights.It is a huge thing in our lives! And I am so grateful, reading that a lot of SID kids only start sleeping through at about 6 - but we worked on it, believe me. We are still using Melatonin and rushing and compressing.

He is also learning his letters via letterland as the class proceeds (but have to mention that Mr C knows every single one of the alphabet) and although a lot of the time it is still difficult to get and hold his attention, we are certainly moving on towards better times. We have had a preliminary speech evaluation and in future we might have a stint of speech therapy. But we are moving full scale - to our target being sending them both to grade 1 at the same time at the same school. The alternatives just stress me out too much. To send him a year later (because we will not be able to hold back C who is at the moment testing a year ahead of age) to the same school has it's problems, to send him to a different school to catch up and later to the same school also has its issues. But both his OT , his current teacher and the head mistress of the school they will be attending next year for grade R(on the grounds of A's school) believes that a lot can happen in the next year and a half that could possibly just realize our dream of having him ready for main stream school on age.

O yes, it is indeed going well. He seem to progress in leaps, then stand still or even regress a bit, and then take another leap, rather than the steady development rate of our other kids. I know it is typical, but it both provides for huge stress and huge joy when achieving a new goal.

Blood brothers...

Or so you think they will be. After all, they have shared more time together than any of us did - spending 9 months snugly together in utero. But those scans showing them kicking each other must have been a warning I forgot. The honest truth is that since opening their eyes on Saturday morning, it has been the one fight after the other. They are both covered in bite marks, pinch marks and lots of tears have been shed. Its almost a full on war! They kick, they tease, they cry. The intensity of the fights far surpass anything I have seen between non-twin siblings.

We are exhausted, feel rather defeated. Hunter in an attempt to promote peace sat and showed them how to (peacefully) play cars together. It worked, for a bit. Just a bit. This morning seem to have been a bit calmer. The calm before the storm?

Lets party! The awsome two some turns 4.

On Saturday morning we had a small party for the boys - just our best friends and their kids - in total 12 kids.The theme were L the Lion and C the Crocodile - so Jungle-ish. But best told in pictures:

Crocodile cake - white hotmilk sponge cake with butter icing.

Beautiful sugarpaste crocodile (and L's Lion) - a present from Shayne and the Yummy mummy cupcake foundry sent via speed post from Stutterheim nogals! - the plants are made of green fizzers and glitter gives the water effect

L's lion cake - a chocolate cake with chocolate filling and butter icing on top.

I made all the paper stuff - the festive flags in the previous picture, the names on the party packs and the centre piece and the "table cloths" featuring pictures to colour in. The centre piece was made using the Boys' Duplo zoo animals.The party packs were paper bags and the favors were the crocodile or lion clips (fridge magnets).

Pizzas baked and back at the table - but the kids are playing! And the adults were heaving a hearty breakfast and watching a bit of World cup rugby

Playing along today with Angie
and My Little Drummer boys for a Wordless Wednesday and