Christmas 2013!

We enjoyed a special, quiet and relaxed Christmas with my family in Pietersburg!  Mia had such fun, she loved swimming, and loved all the attention.  She enjoyed putting out milk and cookies for Father Christmas, and woke up at 2am on Christmas morning to tell me that she's got presents from Father Christmas!  We ate way too much yummy food, of course.

Special, magical memories.
xx

Christmas Wishes

Wishing everyone who pops into my blog a blessed Christmas time! Hope the next couple of days are filled with blessings, love, and special memories.

Happy festive season!
xx

The last pics of Elf on the Shelf

 

Day 18 - The Elf was playing with Mia's jewellery box

Day 19 - Went for a pony ride

 

Day 20 - Mia grew a candy cane (post about this coming soon!) and then the Elf had his own little candy cane for Mia

 

Day 21 - Robin the Elf had a tea party with Barbie!

 

Day 22 - Got some stickers for Mia, and got some stickers stuck on himself!

 

Day 23 - The last day. Today we say goodbye to Robin the Elf, as he's not coming with us to Pietersburg for Christmas. He brought Mia a Christmas card, and a big tube of Rolo's. Goodbye Robin, it's been lots of fun!

Christmas Crafts & Holiday Fun!

We've been baking up a storm, making salt-dough decorations, making Xmas cards, and going on fun outings. We've been busy bodies, I must admit I am exhausted - tomorrow we go to my folks for a couple of days, and am looking forward to vegging on the couch!

Baking:
We've done a batch up cupcakes, and 3 batches of cookies already - and counting! Mia loves rolling the dough and decorating the cookies. It does make quite a mess in the kitchen, but hey, the fun is more important!

For the Melting Moments, I've been using this recipe:
       250g butter
       4 tablespoons icing sugar
       4 tablespoons custard powder
       1.5 cups plain flour

       Cream butter and icing sugar until pale and fluffy. Add rest of ingredients slowly until all combined. Roll into balls, working quickly so mixture remains cool. Refrigerate uncooked biscuits for a few minutes so they hold their shape when cooked. (I didn't do this the last time, they still turned out fine!) With a fork, press down to flatten tops slightly.
Bake at 150 for 15-20 minutes.

Optional: Can ice biscuits once cooled.
Can decorate before baking, with vermicelli, cherries, smarties, etc.

Mia has her own small baking pan, which is so cute to use, and she rolls the cookies into her own "balls" without messing mine up. ;-)
My favourite decorated ones, are the ones that she put some red icing on, and then some raw cookie dough on top! So funny and precious!

Salt-dough decorations:
The same as last year's ones we made - see the post here.
Once again, we did them over a couple of days, first baking them, then painting them the next day, then glitter the next day, etc. Very cute and special!

Xmas cards:
There are so many ideas to be found on Pinterest, for ways to make cards with kiddies. I chose these candy cane ones, coz I love how personalised it is when it's Mia's fingerprint.  These were quite quick to do too - bargain!

Holiday Fun:
I took Mia to the movies for the first time today!  What a special mother-daughter outing, I loved it so much.  She kept calling it "going to a concert". We got popcorn, smarties and slush puppy to share, and our 3D glasses for the movie. We watched 'Frozen' - a supercute animated movie. Mia loved it! She watched the whole movie, just a couple of times asking questions or talking loudly, and at the sad part when all was quiet, she could be heard sobbing, be still my heart! We got one of the "love seats" in the movie theatre, so that we could snuggle together - perfect.  I look forward to a lifetime of movies on the big screen with my big girl! ♥
  

 

21 Week Scan! ♥

I had a wonderful scan on Wednesday. I wish I could be permanently hooked to one of those ultrasound to see baby sister whenever!

The doc did a really nice detailed scan. Measuring her brain, showing us her heart - could see the separate chambers beautifully, fluid in her kidneys, stretched out chilling on her tummy, open fingers, little feet pressing against me... So special and precious!

She weighs about 370g, which is 30g smaller than Mia was at the same scan.

I'm seeing a different doctor for my January appointment, Dr Grassie.  Hopefully I'll feel comfortable with her, and will then continue seeing her for the rest of my pregnancy, and she can handle the birth, seeing as Dr Laker is going for an op and will be unavailable in April.  I feel better about doing it this way, than only meeting the new doctor right at the end.

I'm loving the kicks, and felt hiccups for the first time this week, precious!  Wyn could feel her for the first time too.  Mia's not patient enough, she puts her hand on my tummy for a few seconds and then reckons yes, she felt the baby! ;-)

xx

Some more Elf on the Shelf antics!

Robin the Elf has been up to all sorts of fun in our house.  Mia wakes up most mornings with a, "let's see what the Elf has been up to!"

 

Day 10:  The Elf painted one of Mia's salt-dough decorations that she made!

 

 Day 11:  He picked a flower in the garden for Mia

 

Day 12: Robin the Elf decided to be part of the nativity scene!

 

Day 13: Messing with Nala's dog pellets

 

Day 14: The Elf was playing games on the tablet!

 

Day 15:  Mia was away overnight, and the Elf slept in her bed!

 

Day 16: Robin the Elf brought Mia a prezzie: a Xmas story book

 

Day 17: He was wrapping some presents, and got a lil bit wrapped up himself!

 

Liggiefees at the Jakaranda Kinderhuis

Tonight we went to look at all the Christmas lights at the Jakaranda Kinderhuis in Pretoria.  It's stunning!!  They decorated all their houses with millions of lights, so pretty and festive.  They had food stalls, we had yummy curry and rice, very delish.  I bought Mia some bunny ears that light up, but then she didn't want them on, so I wore them. ;-)

I think it's such a fantastic funds-raising initiative, and something the whole family can enjoy.  We'll definitely do this every year!  It's quite a walk, luckily we had comfy shoes on.

Highly recommend it, if you live in Gauteng!  Get more info on their website or their Facebook page.

Really put me in a festive mood! :-)

Mia Loves Dressing Up!

Yesterday, I had a fairy ballerina princess in my house!

 

Today, there's a pirate prancing around!

:-)
xx

20 Weeks!

I'm 20 weeks pregnant this week! Gosh, how this pregnancy is just flying by in a flash, can't believe I'm officially halfway.

I'm loving this middle stage of pregnancy! I'm not queasy at all anymore, I'm not as tired, and I'm adoring this bump - no more pie-thief, now definitely a preggy-lady!

We've started planning the baby room - we're going to paint the walls grey, with a 30cm pink stripe through it at about eye level.  We've bought the paint already, Wyn's been patching up the wall where it needed some work, and we'll probably start painting this weekend.  It's been a big job moving everything out of the spare room - found myself needing to pack all other cupboards right to make more space!

No news on the name-game front - we made a list with about ten names we like, and are not in a big rush yet to decide.

All in all, feeling well, happy and content, if a bit hormonal and emotional sometimes!
xx

Elf on the Shelf - the first couple of days!

 * * A Christmas tradition: The elf comes to stay from the 1st-24th of December, to see if children are naughty or good. He reports to Santa Claus! He sits on a shelf during the day, observing. At night, he gets up to all sorts of things in the house, and children can then look for him in the morning and enjoy his antics! * *

 

Day 1: The Elf arrived nearby the front door, on a reindeer, with a prezzie for Mia.  Mia was quite weary of him, not too keen on going too close to him, but very pleased about getting a lil prezzie.

 

Day 2:  The Elf went for a ride down the staircase bannister!  I asked Mia to think of a name for him, suggesting to her, Jack the Elf, Jolly, or Jingles. She said, "No... His name is... Robin!"  Our Elf is named after Robin Hood. ;-)

 

Day 3:  Robin the Elf was doing one of Mia's puzzles!  She's starting to get used to the concept and wasn't so weary of him today.

 

Day 4:  Robin had tea in the Sylvanian Family house!  Mia loved this.  It's in her room, and she noticed as soon as she woke up, and was amazed. :-)

 

Day 5:  Decorated a pot plant with some Christmassy tinsel!

 

Day 6:  Robin the Elf had a marshmallow bath.  Mia giggled at this, and proceeded to eat all the marshmallows before her breakfast!

 

Day 7: Reading a book to some friends!

 

Day 8: Robin was making himself some Nespresso coffee!

 

Day 9: The Elf took a toy dog for a walk with Nala's leash.

 

This is where Robin the Elf sits during the day: up on the shelf, next to Mia's advent calendar house.

 

 

 

Pine Lake Holiday 2013

As usual, Pine Lake Resort was wonderful.  I don't know if it's the dark curtains, the fresh air, or what - but Mia sleeps like a dream there, until like 8h30 in the morning. What a treat! So we got to sleep in every morning, have a lie-down every afternoon, and had a braai every evening (except one night when we went out for dinner.) Bliss! Exactly how a holiday should be.

The weather didn't play along - out of the 7 days, we had 2 days of proper sunshine where we could swim and be outside.  We had one rainy day. And the other days were overcast, some of them even quite chilly. But, didn't bother us too much, we went out to some shops, to the mall, played putt-putt, and watched Barbie movies with Mia. ;-)

I'll let the piccies tell the rest of the story.  This is truly a special week for us, where we just enjoy being together, relaxing and switching off.

Cutest lil body in her swimming cozzie

 

The water was divine. We really enjoyed this.

 

Wearing mom's shoes, smelling flowers

 

Love my girl

 

The reason why Mia calls this place, "The Ducky Holiday"

 

 

Numerous trips every day down to the water and back up again! ;-)

 

Drying off in the sun after our swim

 

Mia loved the water

 

Melted chocolate - heaven!

 

 

Mia played putt-putt with us.  Well, she tried to. Lost interest pretty quickly!

 

The stream was more interesting than the putt-putt game

 

 

Mid-swim snack!

 

Family ♥