Muddy Princess, Santa Shoeboxes and School Concert!

Today I'm going to squeeze like, 4 updates into one blog post!! 

Long, long overdue... But hey, here I am!

Mia Mooi has lost two bottom teeth so far.  First tooth earned her R80 from the "tandmuis" and 2nd tooth got her R30. Of course at this stage she loves lots of coins more than paper money, and this "tandmuis" doesn't want high expectations, haha!

She's had her Grade 1 orientation day and says she's looking forward to it.  Luckily her one special friend, Danika, is in the same class next year.

We did our 4th year of Santa Shoebox project - a charity organisation that lets us pledge a Xmas box to specific children - I do hope that Lucky and Princess love their boxes of special goodies!

It was Ella's first school concert at the end of October.  The theme was "In our garden" and she was the cutest lil fairy ever!!  I was expecting her to want to come sit with us as soon as she saw us, but she surprised us all by staying on the stage - without her dummy and dudu bunny.  

Such a big, special milestone! ♥

We went camping at Klein Paradys two weekends ago.  It was great!  A tidy, green resort, just outside of Brits - luckily not far to travel.  The girlies had a blast swimming, playing, and catching fish!

This Sunday I took part in the Muddy Princess 5km obstacle course fun run!  I entered this event 8 weeks ago, in the hope that it would motivate and inspire me to get fit and healthy...  I'd hoped to try and lose 5kgs in the 8 weeks... Instead I gained about 2kg more, didn't train at all - but still managed this event - it was challenging in places - but super fun, lots of laughs, I loved the teamwork efforts between me and my two teammates, and also generally between all the ladies taking part!  Highly recommended - altho next time I will prepare a lil bit better for this event!

Mia's Superhero Party in Pictures

  

  

Happy 6th Birthday, Mia Jill!

Oh my sweet face, you're 6 years old today!
You're such a special soul, you make me so happy with all your love, hugs, kisses, love letters and jokes.  I'm super proud of you, and I love you to the moon and back!

Superhero party planning

Mia's birthday party is this Saturday, and her birthday next Wednesday!

Oh, to be this excited about birthdays... I just love her excitement and anticipation.

We made a quick and easy birthday countdown calendar - this literally took less than 5 minutes to make, but oh man, is she super chuffed with it.

The superhero theme idea originally came from the superhero Barbie movie, but seeing as she did a Barbie theme last year, she said general superhero theme is fine.  Really like the colour scheme of yellow, blue and red, just screams "party!"

I've pinned a couple of ideas on my Pinterest Superhero Party Board, and feel quite in control of all the planning so far.  Jumping castle booked, tables and chairs booked, inlaws arriving on Friday, I'll do the cake on Thursday night and finish it on Friday.

Cutting out zig-zags of exclamations of Boom! Pow! and Bam! until it comes out of my ears, but hey, all in the name of superhero party fun. ;-)
xx

Random thoughts...

This "new blog post" window has been open for a couple of days.  Sooooo many things I want to share here.  More detailed info about Mia's speech therapy and occupational therapy and all my thoughts on it.  Ella's bad sleeping habits.  All about settling into our new home, our home-improvement diy things we're doing and want to do. My beauty salon business. My never-ending see-saw of a weightloss mission.

But, right now, I really just feel like spitting out a couple of arb, random thoughts!  So here goes...

Tomorrow I'm going to the hairdresser.  It's September.  Time for blonde hair again!

I escaped to the salon this afternoon, telling the nanny and my kids that I have a client.  I didn't have a client.  I did some admin work and I painted my nails purple.

I really like my purple nails.

The Weimeraner puppy drives me insane, more often than not.

I really dislike cooking supper.

But tonight's pasta, bacon and mushroom sauce was pretty yum.

Stop coughing Ella.

It's 21:01, I told my hubby I'll come to bed at nine...

Should I pour another few sips of wine?

What can I add to my business to make more profit...

Oh shit, Mia's party is in two weeks time, I need to get to china mall, craft shop and party shop.

Sure could do with more hours in a day

I'm tired and want to go to bed

I need to find pics to show the hairdresser tomorrow, wonder if I should cut a fringe?

I really want to start running.

Really want to generally start looking after myself a bit better.

Procrastinate less.

Does this count as procrastinating?  No. My blog is important.

This newspaper strewn all over the table irritates the shit out of me.  I'm gonna chuck it in the recycling bin.

I'm really chuffed about the recycling service I found in our area.  Paper, plastic and glass, rinsed, and can be mixed together, the collectors do the sorting themselves.

I wonder how my sister's sore eye is feeling.

Stop coughing Ella...

We planted some seedlings today, hope they survive.

Okay it's 21:07, I gotta go.

xx

First loose tooth, toddler in my bed, and a terrorist puppy!

We've been in our new house for 3 months already!  Settling in nicely, slowly but surely - still a couple of boxes that aren't unpacked yet, haha, I guess if I haven't needed those things in 3 months, I never will, right?!

Mia's turning 6 next month.  Her first tooth is loose! Quite an exciting milestone, what a new stage ahead of us, with toothmouse visits - although Mia feels a bit unsure about this whole process - wanting to know if it's painful when her tooth falls out, will there be lots of blood, is it a real mouse and how does it know and how does it get into our house...

Mia's been doing speech therapy classes for two months now, and it's already made a big difference - this weekend she started pronouncing the "r"-sound correctly in Afrikaans for the first time. She's always just pronounced it as an English-sounding R.  The last 3 days she walks around sounding like a motorbike about to take off, "rrrr!"  "rrrr!"  "rrrrrrrrrrr!"

Little Ella has adjusted so well to playschool.  In September we'll go from the current 3 mornings a week, to 5 mornings a week.  I drop her off first, at 7h30, and then take Mia to school who only needs to be there at 8.  I fetch Ella earlier though - her school actually comes out between 12 and 12h30, but I fetch her just after 11h30 - she's so tired and not keen on story time that they have then - she lies down on the carpet in front of the door waiting for me!  She naps as soon as she gets home.  Luckily my time is flexible enough that I can continue fetching her earlier until she's keen on story time.

Ella doesn't sleep very well...  She doesn't want to go to sleep alone at night - she has no problem with her day nap in her room - but at night I have to sit with her until she's asleep - and I have to wait until she's in a deep sleep, because she keeps checking that I'm still there!  Then she wakes up around midnight, and refuses to sleep in her bed further, so I've been putting her in bed with us.  Not ideal, but I literally don't know what else to do.

I've spent hours reading up on toddler sleep, and mostly the advice comes down to sleep training.  I just can't do that.  So for now, we'll just do what's currently working for us. (Although it's not exactly working for us, just can't get a proper night's rest with her restless kicking and turning, and then she wakes up when my alarm goes off, whereas in her bed she would probably have slept a bit later.)

Lily the Weimeraner puppy is 6 months old and an absolute terrorist!  She has eaten so many of the girlies toys, she's digging up the garden, she's so clumsy and jumps up on people so much that we have to banish her outside when we have visitors...  Yikes.  Hoping it'll get better once the puppy stage passes...  She's a beautiful dog though, and a very loving nature, loves to cuddle us on the couch.

Words that inspire me ♥

Quick bit of an update!

Ah my poor lil blog, I'm so sorry you've been so neglected.

My life just takes up so much time, that I don't get any time to actually document any of it, which is a pity, as that was the main aim of keeping a blog...

I do hope to get into a bit of a better time management routine though, and blogging is high on that list of priorities.  But for now...  here's a teeny tiny update in pics:

These two sweethearts.  They drive me crazy, I kiss them a million times a day, they make me want to run away, I love holding them close to me, they make me freak out and yell and stomp about, I love smelling their hair...

We're doing okay.  ;-)
xx

Settling into our new home!

Oh my goodness, moving house is not for sissies!!  What a huge mission.  We moved two weekends ago, with the help of a huge moving van, and 3 family members with bakkies.  The next weekend we continued moving with the help of another family member with a minivan!

Can't believe how much stuff we have.  And how much junk we have, haha!  We hired a mini-skip and filled it to the brim with things to chuck away.  I donated boxes and bags of things to charity.  It was good to do a bit of a clean-up!

We're settling into our new home - but there's still lots to do.  Lots to unpack, and I can't wait to hang all my paintings, ornaments and decor - those are the things that will make this space feel more like mine.

The kids and the dogs have adjusted well!  Mia loves the fact that the bedrooms are not so far away from the kitchen anymore - so she plays happily in her room.

Not finished unpacking yet - and I hate that there are still boxes standing around...  hopefully will finish everything this weekend.

Ella's Bunny Party

My baby girl is two!

The party was wonderful.  Everything looked so nice, I enjoyed all the diy goodies, and most of all - the birthday girl had an absolute blast!

Having a real-life bunny there was the main attraction and a great hit, so glad we could do that.  Ella adored the bunny, and all the little friends that came to the party loved being able to sit in the playpen with the bunny.

I made the cake, and with skoonma's help we got it looking like a bunny...  However, I'll keep my day job - making a bunny cake was way harder than I thought it would be!!

All in all, a lot of fun was had - but I'm relieved that it's done and dusted.

Now I just can't get over the fact that I have a two-year-old in the house!

It's a zoo at our house!

Two weeks ago we got a Weimaraner puppy.  We've named her Lily, and she is absolutely adorable, beautiful, and naughty as hell!!  Mia's been quite scared of her, because of the way she nips and jumps and has sharp nails, but she's getting used to her more and more each day.  Ella just yells "no!" and bumps her out of the way, haha!

Then this week we got a baby bunny!  She's fluffy and super cute.  We're not going to keep her though - she's staying with us for this week, and then she's going to live with a friend of mine.  The girlies have been fascinated.

All these animals are keeping me super busy, but oh how i'm enjoying the cuddles and snuggles!!

Party planning tips and ideas

Ella's 2nd birthday is next month, and I've been busy getting my party planning list ready - so I thought to share some of my tips and ideas here on the blog.

I'm definitely no party planning pro - but I do enjoy it, and love the DIY part of birthday party planning.

♥ Plan the theme:  First of all, about two months in advance, I start thinking about the theme, or in Mia's case, I chose her first two birthday themes, and then the rest she chose - with some guidance from me: I would research some theme ideas myself, and then find a few images of parties in these themes, and then show them to Mia.  This works quite well!

♥ Set the date:  I normally choose the Saturday closest to their birthdays - but also often need to check with the grandparents that this date suits them.

♥ Choose the venue: I alternate between using venues and doing parties at home.  Sometimes it's convenient having the venue do all the decor, party packs, and tidying up afterwards, but sometimes it's also nice to do it all myself - except for the cleaning up part!

♥ Plan a budget:  It's so easy to overspend, especially when finding lots of cute decor goodies, seeing big fancy cakes, or hiring equipment or entertainment for the party.  I set an amount beforehand, discuss it with hubby, and I usually stay within the budget - but only thanks to the way grandparents help out with party food!

♥ Write the guest list: Between the ages of 1 and 4, I pretty much decide who to invite - it's my own friends with kiddies in the same age range, and close family.  At Mia's 4th birthday party, out of the 20 kids who attended the party, she only played with the 3 friends from her school! For her 5th birthday party, it was such a relief to slash the guest list almost in half, having her choose who she wants to invite.

♥ Send out the invitation: I like to send the invite out about a month in advance, and then with the rsvp date at least a week before the party to give me enough time to prepare for the amount of guests.

♥ Shop with the colour scheme in mind:  Something that helps my party planning flow smoothly, is that I don't leave all the shopping to the last minute.  Weeks in advance I start collecting bits and pieces like serviettes, balloons, party pack goodies.

♥ Party food: Some of our parties have been at midday, then we make hotdogs for lunch.  If it's a morning or mid-afternoon party, then we plan a savoury dish and a sweet dish for the adults, and the kids have a variety of cake, chips, sweets and fruit to choose from.

♥ Ask for help!  I'm not afraid of delegating tasks:  I always ask family members to help out with the food, it's a great big help.  Also with setting up for the party, and tidying up afterwards - many hands sure do make light work.

♥ Cake: Plan the cake well in advance: I've mostly had very talented friends and family make the beautiful cakes for our birthday parties.  I must say, the cake is quite an important factor - it's the "centrepiece" of the party, and it must make the kids, especially the birthday girl, go "wow!"

♥ Party packs: I always do a party pack, it works well as the kids can have something to eat out of it at the party, and choose what to take home for later.  I usually put about five items in, of which it could include the following: packet of chips, choccie, marshmallow sweet, sucker, fizzer, jelly sweet, Smarties, sherbet, raisins, dried fruit flakes, or biscuit.

♥ Birthday girl's outfit: I always want the birthday girl to feel super special in a special outfit.

♥ Plan games and activities: I always hire a jumping castle, the kids love it and it definitely gives off a huge "party vibe".
At Ella's first birthday party, we put her play pen on the grass and filled it with balls, the babies loved that.  We also did some messy play with jelly and spaghetti.
At Mia's third birthday party we did a little planting station, where each child could plant a seedling into a pot, and take it home afterwards.
I made a lil photobooth for Mia's 5th birthday party, with all sorts of props on a table for them to dress up in, they loved it and the photos came out so nicely, even the adults had fun playing there!
More party games and activity ideas:  cupcake decorating, treasure hunt, arts & crafts activities, jewellery making, pin-the-tail games, etc.

♥ Party favours:  I like giving a little gift to each guest, as a "thanks for coming to our party".  Often it's in the theme of the party - like with Mia's Minnie Mouse party, each guest got an alice band of Minnie Mouse ears.

♥ Expect the unexpected: It sometimes happens that more people arrive than you catered for! Not such a problem with adults, but for kiddies, it can be a hassle if they're expecting a party pack and there aren't enough...  This has happened to me, but then there are also often one or two last-minute cancellations when kiddies are sick, then there are extra party packs - except if the names have been written on! Also, have a back-up plan for in case it rains!

♥ Thank you notes after the party:  When we open gifts, I write a list of who gave what present, so that I could personalise the thank you message.  I find the "thank you" quite important, and feel the need to send the thank you email out within a week after the party.

♥Remember to take lots of photos!  I don't hire a photographer, but always ask my sister and sister-in-law to grab my camera and take photos, and then I also make sure I snap a few of my own. This is how the special moments get preserved!

Parties we've had:
Mia's 2nd Birthday: Lollos party
Mia's 3rd Birthday: Minnie Mouse party
Mia's 4th Birthday: Cinderella party
Ella's 1st Birthday: Pink and gold Number One party
Mia's 5th Birthday: Barbie party

Fun times indeed!  A second birthday bunny party coming up soon!
xx