Christmas 2009

This year, Christmas eve was at our house. Ingrid was in charge of the tables and Rob the food. The theme was silver and 'Tiffany' Blue, with lots of fairy lights, it all looked beautiful.

Chris and James had to help decorate, putting up lights, putting out the favours and serviettes etc.

We had 20 people in all and had a great evening, the food was absolutely fantastic and poor Dawn roasted about 70 potatoes.

This year each person had to buy a gift to the value of R50 which was put under the tree and we then played a game where you drew a number and picked a present, the problem being that the next person to draw a present could, if they liked your present, simply take yours.

The only theiving that went on was between Chris and Gill and Grandpa, to see who could secure the biggest box of chocolates.

It was sad that this year my father didn't join us, but it would simply have been too much for him, so he came around with my Mom on Christmas Day, with Nicky as well.

James spent most of Christmas day building his lego that he received, he ABSOLUTELY loved the 3 in 1 lego set he received from John and Sandy.

Gill and Morten chuckling about something . . .

Chris and Rob removing all the paper from boards they got from Granny and Grandpa, that apparently give you the same sensation as surfing, snow boarding etc.

Gran and her daughter (Rob's mom) Dawn.

Scamp! Our latest addition

So there I am innocently minding my own business when a friend of our Tracy phones to tell us about a little border collie puppy that someone has rescued from a farmer who was going to drown it, but that they can't keep it as their Jack Russell dog is trying to kill it.

So off Rob and I go to have a look and 15 minutes later we are home with our new addition. Of course Splash just growls, Kelly is oblivious and most of the cats just run for the hills, all except of course Mickey, who now has a new playmate, check out the video below.

the first night, Rob's all, ' oh no, its got to sleep in the kitchen' so we barricade the kitchen closed, well that lasted about 5 minutes before she jumped over and charged down the passage to James who was in our bedroom on a mattress on the floor. (Reason for this is we had Granny and Grandpa staying with us for Christmas). Needless to say that was the end of that idea and now she sleeps wherever her fancy takes her.

Splash has also started warming up to the idea of her.

Cheeseball the Mummy

Every year at school the kids in Grade 5 learn about Egypt and do a project where they have to build a pyramid during their technology lessons.

When they are done they get to dress up (anything Egyptian) and present their projects to the school and the parents. James and Ingrid created this mummy costume from rags lying around and James was so pleased when he won the best dressed boy in his class. Tried to get him to share his chocolate he won with Ingrid, but that was eaten before we even got to see what it was.

[click on the picture to see the full images]

James turns 11 AGAIN

Finally we managed to agree on a date of have James's party, so Saturday night it was, we cleared out the TV room of all the furniture and hired a disco ball, lights, loaded the Ipod and let the kids run riot.

They all seemed to have a ball, many of them landed up on the trampoline, others in the pool and a good mix of them dancing.

Needless to say the parents also had their own party, but that one went on way longer than the 9pm deadline for all the friends.

Catching Up

So Rob is off overseas and his instruction were to clear the camera so that he can take it with him. Was finally the excuse I needed to update the blogsite.

Last weekend we had a little birthday party (cake and jelly joll) for Chris, here is with his new watch on, getting his concoction of cupcakes filled with candles.

A couple of weeks ago we went to George to watch Chris and his U14 Rugby Team play their matches whilst on tour of Wilderness and George. Chris and his team stayed in a place that he called a haunted prison - he swears there were ghosts floating around, it was in fact an empty school boarding house.

We on the other hand stayed at a 5 star hotel . . . James found the pool table and conned both Rob and I into games - he is actually pretty good at it.

Here are Rob and James inspecting the huge koi fish that were right outside our room, separating us from the Golf Course. Of course whilst we were there, we had to visit the Knysna Elephant Park www.knysnaelephantpark.co.za, which was a huge treat for James. We got to feed the elephants and the guides gave us a very interesting run down of the elephants and their lives.

They are incredible animals and a definite must for foreign visitors to experience.

Had to capture this moment, we had a lovely roast for dinner this evening with Gill and Josh (James's friend from school), when I went through to Gran I found James, Josh and Gran playing , which is game like rummy except you have spell words from the cards in your hands. Gran even had the boys looking up words in the dictionary - WONDERFUL.

Chris is still making excellent progress with his Kumon Maths and has now started on the English program as well. Lets hope the report reflects the improved marks.

James has also presented us with his report and it is fantastic, he has done soooooooo well this term. All the hard work, banned TV, moaning and threatening has been worth it.

Gill arrived with her homework, something to do with Shakespear, to be honest I just switched right off, as that is one thing that made NO sense to me at school. I don't even remember what setwork book we read - but then I have a way of blocking trauma out of my brain - that's all I can put it down to (hee hee) sorry Gill - keep at it.

As you can see there is also a lovely bunch of flowers on the table from Brian for Secretaries day - isn't that sweet.

Finally the picture of Michelle (in cognito [NOT!!]). This is going to become her official facebook picture.

Sore Foot, sick Gran and sick Chris

Its amazing how life has its own way of slowing us down. Going over on my foot as forced me to slow right down, but it is so frustrating hobbling around the house, relying on other people to do things for me etc etc.

Frances, my mom and Ingrid have been wonderful and of course my master chef and parents in training James has been wonderful.

Yesterday Chris went to school but by 11 I got an sms to please fetch him as he was feeling ill. Frances . . . He then still had to to go to Kuman Maths (Extra maths) www.kumon.co.za Mom . . . but then I thought I have to start driving at some stage so went to fetch him, driving extremely cautiously, but that was a bad idea as last night my foot was paining and pretty swollen again.

Whilst cooking supper I also bent down to get a bowl out the cupboard and nearly dropped it from the pain - but what can a mother do, life still goes on.

Gran gave me a bit of scare yesterday, when I went through to her flat, she was still in bed and said she was really not feeling well. Now those of you that know Gran know that she doesn't do bed during the day AT ALL!! anyways bottom line is she seems to just have flu, doctor says we must treat the symptoms and only if she gets a high temperature and shortness of breath that we must get her in to the doctor. I tell you what the people that make Corenza C and panado must be smiling all the way to the bank at the moment. Kind of makes you wonder about all the conspiracy theories out there as to how and why this virus was started . . .

Chris on the other hand seems to be fighting his way through his cold but that is driven more by the fact that he is due to go on school rugby tour next week and I think he thinks, that if he misses school he might not be able to go. As it is last night he got messages from his team members that the coach is concernced they may have to cancel the tour due to the number of children that are sick. In his class it was 9 kids off yesterday, some schools in Cape Town have less than half the kids at school and Gill's school Westerford has 5 cases of confirmed swine flu. There are so many variations of this flu going around and the kids all infecting each other over and over again, they should just close the schools for a week so everyone can recover and the classes are not so disrupted.

How Do you Stop Dogs Digging?

OK so this isn't a dog, in fact it James. We went to my sister for my Dad's birthday and the boys raided their uncle's dress up box, and this was the result. Bergie 1 and punk rocker1.
GO SOUTH AFRICA!!



Of course when Chris saw the picture all he could comment on was, 'look at my skin!' Shame, he is battling the with curse of a teenager.

My dad seemed to have a great day out, but was exhausted by all the activity so spent a lot of the time sleeping in the chair, through all the noise of children playing.

Chris and James were playing with a ball and manged to kick it onto the roof of Ingrid's house, so as you can imagine, they did not need a lot of encouragement to climb up onto the roof to retrieve it, after the second time of 'accidentally' flying onto the roof, James also went up, much to my horror.


Little Geraldine was also with us for the afternoon and also got in on the dress up action.
Now anyone who has a solution for how to stop dogs digging is welcome to step in here anytime. As you can see we generally have a beautiful green lawn


AND THEN THERE'S THIS!!! The dogs are chasing something in the lawn and systematically trashing our garden.

On another front, we have put in an application to Wynberg Boys High School for Chris for next year. He feels that their sport is better there. The bizarre thing is we put the application in on Monday and by Tuesday 2 of his teachers said to him, so I believe you are going to Wynberg? Maybe they are worried he is leaving as he scored the 2 winning tries at his match against Westerford on Saturday.

This weekend could be a challenge though as Chris is playing Reddam and James Wynberg, at about the same time, at 2 different venues AND ROB IS AWAY, so not quite sure how I am going to split myself in 2 yet.

But before we can cross that bridge, we seriously have to do something about Christopher's school marks, got his report and were horrified by the drop in his marks. Serious buckling down required, along with extra maths and english - oh the joys, just more pressure on our already stressed time constraints during the week.

Tomorrow morning Gran is back from her VERY long stay in England. It is going to be great having her back. She and my mom are such wonderful support systems to me.

Poor old Rob is in Jhb (freezing his goolies off) this week, and on Friday leaves from there for Bangladesh again, so we don't get to see him till next week. Don't know how he does it, all this flying around.

SHEW!!

We finally got the desk from my dad and Chris spent some time sorting out his room. Long may that last, the plan is that all homework can now be done at the desk. The new rule this term is no TV until 5pm, PROVIDED that all homework is completed at that stage.
Chris also spent a week away with Gill's family, so James and I were left to fend for ourselves. James decided he wanted to do a puzzle, which I knew was a bad idea, because I am one of the puzzle builders that sits staring at the pieces telling myself I will go to bed when I find just one more, then its another one more and another . . .

So we manged finish the border and begin building pieces of the puzzle, which had by now taken us about 4 evenings. The following morning though we came through to find the bits we had joined together all over the floor. The CATS had jumped up on the table and slid across the table, taking the puzzle with it. Well that was the end of that, I packed it up and no more puzzle!

There are times I could just kill them, but then there are times like this. Tigger climbed into one of our drawers (where he feels safe), but poor little Mickey who wonders around like a lost fart without Gran here, jumped up to join him - how cute!!
Last Saturday night Rob decided that rather than cook dinner, he would take us all out to Den Anker for beer stew. Sadly it was not up to its usual standards, but we all still had a good evening out.


It was so exciting, my mom came back from being away for 6 weeks in England. It is sooooooo nice to have her back. Tomorrow (Sunday 26th) is my dad's birthday so we are all going for tea and cake with Ingrid. It all just become too much for him otherwise, so a short visit out from the home and then he can go back and rest.

It been the first week of back to school and we have all survived, but now it looks like Chris could be changing schools. Big decisions to be made this weekend.

Can't wait till Thursday when Gran comes home as well, not sure who will be more excited to have her home, Mickey or us?

Well its 6 days left for Miracle Kidz to find a new home and still nothing . . . its a weird feeling, but its that kind of surreal feeling, where there is no panic [hopefully that means my sub-conscience knows something is going to happen before then]

2nd week of holidays over

It's frightening how fast this year is flying past. I spoke to my mom this morning and she told me that on Wednesday its a week till she comes home. I can't believe the 5 weeks are almost up. Selfishly though I am glad, we are all missing her terribly, but it sounds like she's been having a ball and a WELL DESERVED rest.


Wednesday night when we got home, we saw Traffic parked at the end of our road, and speed traps right outside our house. Finally, Rob's complaints have paid off. But sod's law of course was the roads were dead quite, they only manged to catch 1 guy flying down our road, when stopped he said he was test driving the BMW and there were no signs to give the speed limit [DUH!! Residential area?]


We have now finally had the cracked windows and doors repaired, all done except for one window that they apparently need to have an entire new aluminium frame built for, but what can we do, it has to be done.


The kids went off to Ratanga Junction on Thursday with Gill and her family. It was so nice, because they both went, which meant I had the afternoon off for myself. (not prizes for guessing where I spent it).

Problem with Ratanga is it now become so expensive, R120 per child to gain entry (full rider ticket), but this excludes any food or drinks and you can't take your own in, so its not cheap, particularly when children normally want to do something different every day.


Chris and James decided to have a fondue at our house with a couple of their friends. They seem to have had a ball, but I did make them prepare and clean up afterwards, so it really was pretty easy.

Got Sarah coming round this evening to sleep over as poor Michelle is in for her operation tomorrow. She is having a gum graft (don't ask, will get the details) but it certainly sounds VERY painful.

It has not stopped raining her the whole day today, my heart goes out to those without a roof over their head (all except for Gillian and Clinton, the street people that took us for a ride)

Not the warmest outlook for the week either. . .

Sunday

15°C

Current: Light rain Wind: NW at 40 km/h Humidity: 94%

Sun 18° 10°
Mon 17° 8°
Tue 12° 8°
Wed 15° 11°

9 kids and 4 adults

We certainly can pick them, we went away to Betty's Bay this weekend with the safe house kids, Frances and her kids and ourselves. Well any of you that are parents will know what a challenge that was. The first challenge was getting all the luggage into the house and finding somewhere to store it.

The first night we arrived, we spent a fair amount of time changing dirty nappies, running baths and generally unpacking.

Frances ran the bath for the little ones, but Liah one of the smallest, decided the bubbles in the bath were not enough and added some toilet paper, which we only noticed when the kids got into the bath . . .

During the bath routine, Frances and Elsie attempted to catch the mice that were resident in the bedroom I happened to be sleeping in. They managed to catch 5 mice (including the babies that were in the nest in the bottom drawer of the chest of drawers). Well needless to say I didn't get very much sleep as there was still at least one running around, so if you can picture the scene in the middle of the night, there I was sleeping with one eye open and when I heard the mouse, grabbed a blanked and swatted around the bed, just in case it decided to walk over us YUK YUK YUK.

Ingrid drove down and joined us for Saturday night, she too was not afraid of the mouse and dove into the cupboard where he was hiding to try and catch him, to no avail. Between Sarah, Chris and Ingrid they put down rat poison in the roof, as the next night it certainly wasn't a mouse scuttling around the roof (far too large). It was also nice for Ingrid to change some stinky nappies and bath Geraldine, good practice. Lets hope the whole fostering thing comes off.

The first night the mouse managed to escape out of the room, well I was crying I was laughing so much. Christopher, who had been standing in passage watching the goings on, saw the mouse come out and literally flew down the passage and lept up onto the kitchen counter (my big macho man - NOT!!!!!). He did redeem himself thought by making an awsome braai for us one evening.

Aside from the night time activities, we had the most glorious weather and went to the beach with the kids, where they all had an absolutely ball.

Elsie and the kids certainly seem to have enjoyed their weekend away. I had to return to town for a meeting, but Frances, Elsie and kids stayed on to clean up and will be motoring back later.

I also have to say how PROUD I am as a parent of my boys, they are such good children and seeing them help and interact with the kids, brings tears to my eyes.

Its always soooooooooooo nice to get away, its just the logistics of getting away when life is so hectic.

I got an sms from Rob who is in Bangladesh, he says sms's only this week, as its about R25 per minute to phone. He seems impressed with Bangladesh, particularly about how cheap things are, says he got peri peri chicken and chips and 2 x sprite in a restaurant for R21.00 - can you imagine?

He says he's battling with the time different thought, i.e. when its 4pm here, its 9pm there. He is going to suffer this weekend when he comes home, lots of sleeping will need to be done.