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

Every cloud has a sliver lining they say

In this case, make it platinum! For years we have been used to the most rediculous water pressure - really if you open a tap downstairs there was no water in the shower.

So on Monday, on Hunter's day off when he was suppose to do things he like as Lucy was there for the kids (it was a school holiday too), he phones just after 8 to say that the geyser is leaking - big stream of water (into my cupboard mainly). I call our friendly plumber and he confirms that indeed the geyser has burst and that it will be an insurance claim - he very kindly did not bill us a cent after rushing to our help in minutes. At all of 13 years old I guess it is expected. The insurance was rather brilliant (especially as it is the red bank's whom I really hate) and sent over a really nice plumber who for our excess amount of R500,00 provided us with a brand new geyser that has a spiffy new temperature regulator in that should save some electricity.

He also had to change a valve to fit the new SANS regulations and as he took off the old one, he remarked on how this must have been faulty for years. This just flies by us - just a little fact - he shows Hunter how to clean the valve from time to time. As they open the water and the top bath's taps I hear something close to the Vic falls rushing into the bath. Wow! My word! We have water pressure to die for!

You can not believe how happy this little thing makes me. Totally! Huge huge platinum lining.

Another (slightly hidden) platinum lining is that at present while my cupboard is drying out, I have almost all my clothes stacked in a spare cot in the boy's room and in their cupboards. The perfect time to de-clutter big, big time.I am going to be totally ruthless and just chuck out! I know of a couple of charities that would make good use of them.

A honey day....

Last night my Facebook status read: "A day filled with the promise of Spring and so much more that's good and great. Thank you God for this golden day." Indeed it was a great great day.


We had a bumper sleep the night before and although L woke up at 4:30 he fell asleep within minutes and the first one to stir at 7:40 was little man C. Despite a quick visit to the doctor for me (eye infection), the day just flowed. The kids played outside, Hunter did heaps of DIY, I baked, we all worked in the garden. We all had a rest with a book (although no naps) in the middle of the day and the kids and I made playdough. There was peace and love and a whole lot of nice-ness. Wow, may we hope for more like these.

Our play dough - I let each kid mix their own colour in - and one for me. I truly have a great recipe - check here. It keeps for ages and does not go "off" as it has no oil in.

But the very very best of it all was seeing a small alteration in the sibling dynamics. The Princess and Little man C has always been the best of buddies - mostly because he falls into her girly games of pretend play filled with Princesses, dragons and brave knights. Little man L just does not function on the same imagination and verbal level. He is just always the one left out -the third wheel on the wagon. And my heart aches for him.But yesterday things somehow were different - he and the Princess played with her baby dolls (she very recently "discovered" them) - he has always been fascinated with babies - he loves them. And there, for a while, I saw his imagination come to play. It was such a wonderful moment. 

Later the day it got even better - they are all about racing now and I have to shout "ready, steady, go!" a million times a day. So he and the Princess were up and down with their bikes, raving for a long time. Back in the front garden they got their wheels out and a pram and were busy racing again. Little man L kept going to his brother, who was busy sulking a bit, to try and get him involved in their game. It truly warmed my heart.

Dare we hope that he is busy catching up somehow? Dare we hope that his social skills have taken a leap? Dare we hope that we will have a happier, more balanced sibling relationship? I really truly have to. Because we need way more golden days like these.

 

Playing along today with Angie

Blast from the past post 3

My blast from the past today (from July 2008) features one of the most brilliant parties we have ever attended. Please have a look - especially if you have a soon to be one year old.

A first Bday party actually for the one year old set.

You know how first birthday parties are actually for everybody except the one year old? Well to re-cap, on Saturday the 21st June we went to H's cousins little darling's first birthday party. The mom warned on the invite that this was a baby party and not really for the bigger brothers and sisters although they were welcome to attend.Click here to read more...

Family time.

The weekend was rather social - with friends over on Saturday evening, a visit with granny on Saturday morning and Hunter's uncle's 70th birthday yesterday at Catemba restaurant. After that we dropped in at other family of his for another birthday.

We have never been to the restaurant, and it was a huge hit for all. Quite family friendly (apart from the stairs where little man L fell from -the owner has promised to close these up), we had such great food. And on  Sunday they have a big Portugese buffet and the kids order for free from the kiddies menu. The Princess' calamari was the best I have ever tasted. And the kids run free - dance and enjoy themselves.

WIWT edition 5

The WIWT series is to capture what we wore during a period of time - fun to look back on , but I also find other blogger's WIWT posts inspiring.

It's a nice warmish winter's day and Friday - which translates to jeans in our office. I am wearing:
black bootleg jeans (Woolworths, 2 seasons back), Blue leather shoes  (Woolworths countless years back but that's the thing with leather - keeps for years), Blue long sleeve T (Woolworths), Grey T shirt cardi (Zoot - last season), beads - KZN vendor and scarf (Marilyn's in Brooklyn Mall). Feeling comfy but I need to get to the hairdresser tomorrow!

In other news:

• The Princess scored her first Netball goal on Wednesday. She was so excited!
• The next term seem to be so full of things to be done. Am feeling a bit overwhelmed.
• Due to being really just not "here" I did not realize that Monday is the ideal day to take leave and have a long weekend. Hence, I approved many people's leave for the day and did not put any in myself. I shall be holding the fort here. Stupid girl!
• But Hunter has leave and Lucy is working, so maybe we can have a lunch date?
• Had a lovely lunch with my friend Elaine yesterday and although we discussed heavy issues, it was so uplifting. 
• Tomorrow will be some me-time at the hairdresser. Looking forward to that.
• We had such a fun Bookclub on Tuesday. It was one of the girl's birthdays and due to the long weekend coming (for some) we had to have it this week. The girl hosting had a wonderful dinner, followed by cupcakes, candles, singing and Sponge Bob Squarepants party packs for us all. We giggled like mad. It was huge fun,

Loving at the moment...

I have not done one of these in ages, so here goes - 5 things I am loving at present (and this excludes loved ones)

1. Oh so Heavenly by Clicks has this wonderful new product - Close shave smooth moves body wash. A body wash with strips of shaving lotion in. Perfect - works like a charm. Smells great too.

2. Umsoba or Nastergal jam on toast. I bought a bottle when we were in the Berg and it has only a few dregs left. It is truly the best jam ever - sweet, but not too much. I will have to source more soon... I have such fond childhood memories of this - Umsoba is a little berry that grows wild amongst the maize fields. My aunt used to make this jam every year. Holiday on the farm memories.

 

3. Lillifee face paint from CNA available with a sponge and brush but also in crayons. I had so much fun doing these faces, and then they did some more themselves. And you will not believe what they cost - yes, R5,95 for each one of the two options.

4. Door hung organizer bought at Clicks - I bought it to use for the craft supplies - glue, scissors, crayons, stickers, ribbons, pipe cleaners, glitter glue  etc. The bags are of different sizes and some are the perfect size for pencil and koki sets etc. I used to have it in a box - did not work. This seem to work well. (Aldo available in a blue boy version)

5. Wrapping presents and making them pretty - mainly because I can now easily find the things I need in the above mentioned organizer.

 So what are you loving at the moment? Answer in comments or do a little post.

Blast from the past post 2

As the blast from the past post was a success last week, here's my featured post for this week - our little min-architect - also from June 2008. The first paragraph is just some chit chat, and then the cuteness follows.

Playing house

We erected her play tent in the garden as she asked for it. She immediately moved her doll's camping cot, pram and stove and pots and pants into the tent. When checking on her half an hour later, she was busy "having a nap " on top of her jungle gym. Click here to read more

I guess you are all rather tired of hearing about the sleep thing...

You know, that thing most people do at night. As most of my regular readers know, I now believe a night of uninterrupted sleep is just a rumor. But I have decided to keep a little sleep "diary" - a print out of the calender where I record the sleep we had every morning. In the week before this, from Tuesday to Tuesday., we had Little man L only sleeping through 3 nights - one of which was the Tuesday after Occupational Therapy and the Saturday when he only fell asleep at 11:30 after a huge afternoon nap. We used to see a pattern that he slept badly after OT (stimulated?) and on the nights when he had his eyedrop in his good eye. The problem was that 3 of the other nights he wake up between 2:30 and 3:00 and then was awake for 1 to 3 hours - apparently a typical SID kid issue. The 7th night he woke up briefly and went back to sleep. The problem is that C had a bad week too and they only both slept through one night.

I was hugely relieved when the OT on Tuesday morning had some more suggestions after discussing the issue with some of her partners. She had quite a few suggestions (and heavens, we have tried many both suggested by her or reasearched by me- the weighted blanket, the melatonin...) - let him sleep in a sleeping bag, do deep pressure with him before bedtime, keep up with the Melatonin and see if he wants the weighted blanket - let him decide. We also changed our routine to bath just before bed and not before dinner. The result - he has now slept through for 4 nights in the last 7, 2 where he did the hours awake thing (I call them epic sleep failures) and one where he briefly woke up at about 3:00. A slight one night improvement. Little man C kept waking up at about 3:00 this week, but somehow on Friday night it all came together and they both slept through for the following 3 nights. Last night was epic sleep failure time again - but from 4:30 so I guess it is ok. But L fell asleep directly after bath and I did not do the deep pressure exercises with him so I do not know if that was the issue.

Regardless - one would assume I had a good sleep for 3 nights? Nope! I woke up every night at 3:30 - jip, I now have their sleep routine. This morning at least I slept until L woke up.

So this morning the OT showed me the brush technique used by OT for SID kids - she die explain that it must be followed by the deep pressure and she has lent us a brush so that we can see if it works for us. This is something that will either work or not but Little man L seem to enjoy it. So the experimenting goes on. I have given up on finding "the answer" to the issue, but maybe I keep hoping.

BTW she has also suggested that we have his tonsils removed - it's been a long time coming, the tonsils thing, so maybe?

So another weekend is done and dusted...

and we had plenty to do, but it ended up being a great one. Amongst enjoying ourselves we cooked 10 meals (well mostly Hunter) for the freezer and I did a bit of decluttering. There were also some napping involved.

On Saturday the Princess had a playdate at a friend and I took the boys to a party of one of their classmates at the Spur. My, did they have fun with their school buddies.

Due to his sensory issues Little man L does not like face painting, but on Saturday he went on his own, sat and waited in line and asked to be Spiderman.I was rather pleased. And he sat at the table and ate his lunch like the rest. Soething to be said for group dynamics.

On Sunday after a bumper night's sleep, the Princess at last got her much desired ear piercings. Those pretty new ears needed a bit of bling.

Seeing her this happy makes my Monday, plus a great weekend too. So what was your weekend like?

Playing along with Cheryl.