Friday, December 2, 2011

Wow, time does fly!!

Look at me, saying I'm going to post more regularly and then nothing! Zip! Nada!!

Oi, maybe one day I'll get my a into g and blog regularly. I am quite busy at the moment with commitments to Kidz shoebox project (finished now) and Santa for Seniors (finished tomorrow) plus I need to get gifts for all and sundry. Then Tiny Toes organises a Secret Santa and of course I can't resist!! I have a very good idea of what I want to get my secret santa but just need to find some time to get it and then send it. I have to do it this weekend so that she gets it before Christmas! Besides delivering for Santa for Seniors tomorrow, we have 2 weekends to get ourselves organised for our camping trip! We are going up to Magaliesberg to visit my boet and his family and are going to camp along the way, else it is way too far to drive with a toddler. Anyone know any good camping spots between Cape Town and Jhb or nice 4x4 trails?

On the kids front, Branston has finished school for the year and forever at CBC. He is starting a new school next year and I can't wait. I really hope they live up to our expectations! We were very disappointed with CBC and we were not the only ones. The spider bite which Branston got in September still has not healed properly, the doc thinks we should cut it open again but we are not too keen to go that route right before we go away for the holidays! He says it could be infected but it might just be hectic scar tissue so I think I would rather not put him under the knife again based on uncertainty.

Mitchell is being really cute at the moment, he is like a little parrot, repeating everything he hears. We have to be really careful what we say around him or are likely to find it repeated endlessly and very loudly. But the temper! Lordy me! Takes after his father! And very stubborn. If he doesn't want to eat or sleep (which he generally doesn't) then you can stand on your head but he will not do it! Even now that he is not napping during the day it can still be a battle to get him to sleep at night. But just one kiss and hug and a look into those baby blues and all is forgiven! More to follow(hopefully soon!) on him getting his own room - yes, skande, he is still in our room!

Friday, October 21, 2011

Stitches and more...

Well, so much for a post every day!! But I went to the bloggers meet-up and it was great to meet in person some of the bloggers whose blogs I read regularly, and to find some new ones to read. I still need to go through the list of bloggers that were there and check out some of their blogs. See here and here for some pics etc





So, my kids have really been in the wars lately. First Branston gets bitten by a spider and has to go into theatre to have the resulting abscess drained, then Mitchell trips up the stairs and has to have stitches in his bottom lip!!! And we all know what 'fond' memories I have of hospitals...






















The pics are of the spider-bite before and after draining. Yuk!! Plus we had to cancel Gathry's kite-surfing lesson which he was supposed to do on Saturday 24 Sep but instead Branston was in the hospital being operated on. We still don't know if they'll allow him to do the kite-surfing lesson since the voucher was only valid till end September! But Branston was a real trooper and I think he kind of enjoyed the experience! It is just up his alley to be allowed to stay in bed and watch tv or play minecraft on the computer with nobody telling him to feed the dogs or get outside and do something active!! He did not even mind the drip. It is taking its time to heal though, he is going to have quite a scar.













Then young master Mitchell falls on Wednesday and cuts his lip open. His poor daddy was alone at home with him and had to deal with all the blood and drama till Annette (nursie) and I got there. Then we took him to the hospital where he had to be knocked out for stitches - 3 inside the mouth and 2 outside. Then I still had to wait at the hospital until he woke up again, which he took his sweet time doing. Poor kid gets home and keeps trying to spit out the stitches and was getting very upset that they stayed put! He still has a fat lip but at least is eating and drinking.




When this kind of thing happens it does tend to stress one out quite a bit but I try and step back and look at the bigger picture. I think of people with kids in hospital for so much worse. I think of the moms in my support group and what some of them have been through. Just puts it into perspective a bit. Still hard to be in the hospital with your child and feel so helpless to help them after having been through that with Kendra. My friend Tammy's little boy Connor passed away the week before Branston had to go into hospital so all those memories were fresh in my mind and he had been in the same hospital as Branston. Lucky it was not the one where Kendra died but a hospital is a hospital...


Friday, September 30, 2011

Blogger get-together



Well, I have not been very good at updating this blog so don't know if I really deserve to go to this, but I have been reading some of the blogs written by people going for a while so it will be really cool(giving away my age here!) to meet up with them. Perhaps if I do a post every day I will feel as I am justified in going!! But they did say stalkers could attend........



Tuesday, May 10, 2011

More holiday updates

So the time we spent in EL was over far too quickly and we had to drive up to Kokstad and then through to the farm. Well, let me tell you, the little towns in the Transkei/Natal/Eastern Cape that we either lived in or drove through in my youth have seriously deteriorated. Our old house in Umtata now looks absolutely dreadful, the once green street is now a churned up mess of dirt. The Transkei is a nightmare to drive through, will think long and hard before doing that again. Just getting through Umtata and Mt Frere added an hour to our journey. And so much for thinking master Mitchell would sleep through the trip! He nicely fell asleep when we were 1/2 an hour from our destination! And then woke up cos the road out to the farm was so bumpy, esp in my low profile tyred car!

But it was nice to see the family again, some have changed a lot, some not so much. But seriously, that place is COLD, bloody freezing! And winter hasn't even started yet. We were I think in the coldest room in the house. Mitchell stayed in bed with us as I didn't have the heart to put him on the floor all by himself. Branston slept in the lounge where it was warmer. Then we left the next day for the party place, after Gathry had to drive into town to put new tyres on the car after noticing that our front tyres were smooth.

Once again it was freezing! And the party was in a big shed next door to the house so it was in and out of the cold all night. I believe half the family was sick last week. Branston's throat was really sore and he was not feeling well at all. So I was running back and forth between him and the party and running around after Mitchell all evening. I wanted to take him in to the hospital but was convinced not to. Should have just followed my instinct as I ended up with a very sick, dehydrated boy. Had maximum 1 hour's sleep that night. Spent half the night cleaning up after a puky, runny-tummed, coughing boy. We took him to the private hospital in the morning and waited there for about 2 hours to get some meds, then left for PE. Anyway, it was nice to see the family and to meet some new family members. The house we stayed in was really nice and Diane and hubby were great hosts.

Sooo, back to PE, through the Eastern Cape. We went inland in the hopes of getting there sooner. Well, the roads were VERY potholed through most of the trip. I'm not sure if we took the best route but we got there very late on Sunday all extremely tired and miserable. Well, Mitchell was VERY miz for the last hour or so of the journey and once we got there he was full of beans. We left the next morning for Cape Town and got as far as Knysna.

Valentin and Mirjana twisted our rubber arms to stay over and with both kids (and us) not feeling so great, we decided to stay and visit with old friends. Even though the weather was miserable we had a great visit and great accomodation.

Next day was the long trek to Cape Town. We decided against stopping in Hermanus to visit other old friends St. John and Eleanore as by now we just wanted to get home and could not handle any more time on the road. Got home to find a clean house, well looked after - thanks Matthew! Soo happy to be home again!!

Monday, May 9, 2011

Holiday update

As you can see from the pics below, we went away for about 10 days over Easter. Driving!! In my small car!! Never again - next time we fly or we go in a bigger vehicle, preferably the Toyota Hilux we hope to buy sometime soon.

However I am happy to say that we travelled over 3000km and kept the kids strapped in the entire trip. Quite an achievement with a 21month old, I must say!

We first drove up to PE, stopping in Knysna to see our old friends from Jhb, Mirjana and Valentin. Well, just Mirjana on the trip up, Valentin was gallivanting all over the countryside with friends. Why did I not take any photos, silly me!! Last time we saw their youngest 2, they were barely knee-high to a grasshopper, now one is a teenager and the other looking exactly like her oldest sister did at 9 years of age. Had a lovely lunch, Mirjana has not changed one bit, still cooks up a storm.

In PE there was the usual family drama, but we had a good time esp the kids on Easter day. The weather was amazing and the kids spent a lot of time running around and tiring themselves out totally. Mitchell fell asleep at 8pm on the way back to the folks house and slept through! Leads me to thinking I must renew my efforts to put him into a creche! He really enjoyed spending time with other kids. Gathry had a fairly quiet birthday on the 26th and unfortunately had to drive up to EL on his birthday. We were thinking of going out for his birthday but were so tired that it never happened. We took the kids with shopping the next day which was also exhausting and there is no decent baby change room at the biggest shopping mall in the Eastern Cape! Poor granny was also feeling rather miserable due to a bout of shingles but felt brave enough to look after the kids the next day so that we could go and do a bit of gambling ie throw our money away. Rather depressing watching some guy throw R10000 onto the table and gamble it away in less time than it took to count it while we put down our miserable little R100 note!!

To be continued tomorrow - running out of time....

More holiday pics

Having fun with Grandpa

More fun with the cousins in PE

Fun with Mommy's cousin's kids - what does that make them??

Cousins once removed? Second cousins?


Lots of tiring travelling - poor sick boy!

Stopping to enjoy the view in the Eastern Cape

Holiday fun

Keeping ourselves amused on the long journey...


Cousins ....



Easter chocolate - yummy!!




Eating choccies in the tent


Cousins connecting



Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Brothers

Aren't they gorgeous? I kinda messed up the red-eye reduction on my phone so will have to download it again and do it properly on the computer at home but this will do for now.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

WW

'Wink wink'

'Trust my brother to take such an unflattering shot!!'
Poor sick baby...




More K-day pics

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Wordless Wednesday(again)


Sunset walk.



Mitchell discovers Teletubbies - uh oh!!


Branston buries himself.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Wordless Wednesday (almost)

This IS a big wheel!

Very hot and bothered at K day concert in Paarl - 44 deg Celcius!!

Time for a haircut?






My gorgeous boys - pics taken last year.










Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Quick update

I have decided to rather do more quick and short updates than longer posts. At least this way I will get something onto the blog rather than wait till I have time for a better post.

Mitchell update: This young man is getting so clever! He is walking beautifully now and only crawls now and then if he gets a fright and needs to move extra fast! His understanding of what you say is really progressing though the talking not so much. Yesterday in the bath I asked him to sit flat and let me wash his feet, so he sits and lifts his foot out of the water! Then the other one. Last night we (myself and Gathry) were lying watching TV and Mitchell was wondering around. Gathry had the remote and fell asleep so I asked Mitchell to get the remote from Daddy nad he did! He went straight to him, took the remote and brought it to me!

Branston update: Branston is doing really well in learning to play the guitar. He has mastered a few simple tunes and is not bored with doing chords yet. I really hope he can maintain his interest and keeps playing for longer than a year(which is his normal attention span on a new hobby/sport). I think he will, though, he is really keen.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Updates

Well now, look how dreadful I have been about updating the blog. I tend to put all my family updates on Facebook these days as at least there one gets more feedback plus it is easier to put up photos. But of course one cannot write lovely long essays there either. So I need to make a point of updating more often this year - new years resolution number 999!!

So just a quick one for now. I have entered Mitchell in this baby competition where I know he would stand a good chance of winning if it was up to an independent panel of judges but life is never so easy! It relies on votes to get into the top 10 and, knowing how some mommies are able to rally votes, I am pretty sure we don't stand a chance. But anyway I am trying. I should have posted this here long ago as there is only 10 days left of the competition. Anyway this is what you do:

Go HERE and vote for Mitchell. It won't tell you that you have voted but it does take your vote into account. You can only vote once a day but you can vote every day until the end of January. And if you have more than 1 PC/laptop/phone to vote from then you can use each of them.

Please please please PLEASE vote everyday till end Jan. We would SO love to win the competition!! Branston would especially love us to win as the prize includes a trip to Sun City for the family!

In other news, Mitchell is walking beautifully now but is not so big on talking. I will put some pics up next time.