Mia's First School Concert

For the last two months, Mia's playgroup has been practising for their concert.

It was quite an emotional "first" for me!

The theme was "splish splash" and all sorts of songs about the sea, swimming, pirates, etc. The kids had to all be dressed in jeans or jean skirts with white t-shirts, and then they got given cute sailor caps and scarves, they looked adorable!

We arrived early so that I could sit right in front.  It was all very informal - the stage set up, and then all the parents sat on picnic blankets on the grass.  Cute décor was put up all over - the school really went to lots of effort to make it special!

Hubby and my sister, Aunty Boo joined me to watch the concert.  Before the kiddies came up on stage, the teacher said that if any kids are upset, the mommies are welcome to go stand by them, or else the kiddies can come down and sit with their parents.

Then the kiddies all climbed up onto the stage, some staring wide-eyed, some smiling and waving, some standing still, some jumping up and down in excitement.  Poor Mia looked like she had been crying, and she looked very overwhelmed. Luckily she caught my eye quite quickly and gave me a wobbly smile.  Oh my heart!!

Teacher Nadia then sat right in front of them to do all the movements with them, and the music started. Mia just sat and stared, sometimes with her bottom lip quivering. Oh I just burst into tears! She was being so brave, fighting the battle against tears and meltdown - and winning!  She caught my eye again and I smiled and did thumbs-up and did the same movements as the teacher was doing, and that got her going a little bit.

 

Some of the songs she took part in nicely, and others she just sort of sat and stared. However, she didn't need me to go stand by her and she didn't try and get off the stage - none of the kiddies did - they were all very brave and looked so cute.

After the concert, each child got given a medal with the school's name and 2014 printed on it, and a party pack - they were very excited about the party packs, it was obviously used as a bribery tool. :-)

Once that was done, everyone had a picnic, and the kids ran around and played together.  Very special. I'm a proud mommy!

xx

My 90 Day Challenge Results!

So I completed Season 5 of my 360XBT challenge.  Due to being sick, having sick lil girlies, and lots of sleep deprivation during this time, I didn't take part in the exercises as much as I had hoped or planned to.  But that said, I'm super happy with the results!!

I lost 7 kg and 8cm off my waist, 16cm off my hips and 5cm off my thighs. Yay!!!

Here's the piccie:

I joined the next season again, because, simply - how couldn't I? I'm loving the eating style - whole foods, healthy foods, and enough food! I love the community of the FB group chat, lots of inspiration, motivation and priceless info, each day I learn something new.

During my pregnancy, I picked up 20kg. I have now officially lost 15kg of that, over the past 6 months, of which about half of that was on the 360XBT plan.  5kg to go, and hopefully a lil bit more after that, plus some firming and toning. Bring it on!

I'm excited to be part of this community over the holiday and Christmas season - always a difficult time with regards to eating right and exercising, so this will help me stay on track.

I'll share some fave recipes soon!
xx

Family Photoshoot 2014

We had our annual photoshoot with my friend Karin two weekends ago.  As always, she just captures perfect special moments and emotion, just love these photos. Special memories forever! ♥

Find Karin on her website or on Facebook.

I just adore all the piccies, Karin got the perfect combination of the girlies on their own, of me with the girls, Wyn with the girls, four of us together, me and Wyn together...  Here's a collection of my fave ones. Will be printing some to give to grandparents and to put in frames on the wall! ♥

Happy 6 Months, Ella Jill!



 My dear sweet girl,

Happy half-year my darling! 

 

You are such a happy, friendly and content baby. We are enjoying you so much! I love to kiss you, and hold you, and watch your awe and wonder at the fascinating world around you.

 

You just love your big sister. You watch Mia all the time, and she makes you laugh when she talks to you.  We love the excited little kicks you give when you get excited!  You love to watch Nala the doggie too, and you've started reaching out to touch her, mostly very gently, but the other day you grabbed her ear and gave her such a fright!

 

We are going on your first holiday next month, can't wait for special relaxed time together. Your first Christmas coming up soon, oh what fun.  Baby girl, lots of special memories and lots of love and fun coming up for us!

 

You just love bathtime. You bath in the big bath with your sister, and you love splashing and touching the bubbles. You don't even mind if you get water in your eyes. Once you're out of the bath, you love to still watch Mia while she finishes her bath!

 

You have completed our family, we love you to the moon and back.

Love,

Mommy

xx 

 

 

Mia got a playhouse!

Last week Mia's birthday present from my parents arrived.  It's a wooden playhouse. We call it "the pophuis", as we weren't really sure what to refer to it as in English, and that's what they call the playhouse at school too, so Mia knows it as a pophuis.

We need to still have it painted - the home owner's association where we live requested that we paint it the same colours as our house.

It's 1.3m off the ground - we're planning on putting a sandpit underneath it.

It's already completely full of furniture!  Mia chose to have her play kitchen and her play dressing table there.  Then we used her birthday money and bought a little doll's bed, a little carpet and some hanging décor.  Mom-in-law will make curtains for the two windows.  Her little patio set is outside on the small veranda.  Super cute!

We've already had our first tea party in the pophuis, Nala the dog also comes up the steps to investigate, and Ella spent a happy half hour in there this weekend, happily sitting in her Bumbo watching her big sister play!

I am planning to make a fairy garden somewhere around the pophuis, have been finding awesome inspiration on Pinterest, looking forward to putting the plans into action and involving Mia in it too.

Lots of fun times to be had in this pophuis, I know!
xx

An update on Ella's world

All about Ella:

 - She's 5 months and 2 weeks old.  She weighs around 8kgs already and I've had to start packing away the 3-6 months clothes already, she's bursting out of them!

 - She adores watching her big sister, whether she's playing in the garden, or just sitting playing on the tablet, Ella just stares and stares.

 - She's been sleeping in her own room for the last two weeks.

 - She loves our Moms&Babes class every Thursday, she's so good during the whole class, enjoying each activity, from the aeroplane movement song, to bouncing on a big ball, to the massage. Really fun for both her and me!

 - Her face lights up when she sees me and her pappa.  Precious.

 - She's enjoying eating! Loves fruit especially, and sucking on ribs and bacon!

 - She's (mostly) very easy to put to sleep.  Her awake time is on average, two hours, then she has a nap.  Usually an hour nap in the morning, then midday is her longest sleep of between 2-3 hours, and then a short late afternoon nap.  I literally just wrap her in her blanky, put her in her cot with her dummy and leave her and she goes to sleep.  Sometimes if she cries I just turn her on her other side and then she goes to sleep.

 - Unfortunately, she doesn't sleep well at night.  She goes to bed around 8pm, then wakes up at 9pm, 11pm, 1am, 3am for a bottle, and then awake for the day between 5am and 6am.  That's on average.  Then we've had a few nights where she's been awake every single hour through out the whole night.  Difficult!  Most of the wakings I just turn her around and give her dummy back and she sleeps again.  Sometimes however, after her 3am feed, she thinks it's playtime and we've had nights where she's then awake for an hour and a half then... eeeek!!

 - She enjoys sitting in her pram with a few toys, watching the world around her.

 - She's a content baby, mostly.  She happily lets other people hold her, usually.

 - She can sit on her own for a couple of seconds at a time.  Actually holds her balance very well, think she's not far from doing proper upright sitting.

 - She was literally sick with alternately snotty nose and cough for 8 weeks.  Two paed visits, and two gp visits later, it had eventually become a secondary infection and she was diagnosed with bronchiolitis.  At the same time, I was diagnosed with pneumonia and Mia with upper respiratory infection.  Ella and I were on antibiotics and Mia on cortisone syrup. It was a hectic week, but we got through it and luckily all better now!

 - Mia made her laugh so much, when I told Mia we're going to all bath together and we can put a fizz ball in the water, Mia said to Ella, "we're going to be all fizzy!" And Ella laughed and laughed, so for 5 minutes Mia didn't stop entertaining her with "fizzy!" and bursts of laughter followed. My heart!

 - Ella is not such a snugglebug like Mia was.  She often doesn't even want to be held when she has her bottle, I have to put her in her cot and hold her bottle for her.  She also doesn't like it when she wakes up and I want to lie in bed with her - she gets very cross - she wants to be upright.

 - Ella doesn't like the UbbaBubba sling at all.  But she does like being swaddled for sleep time.

 - She's not keen on her dummy during awake time, even if she gets upset.  Only likes her dummy for sleep time.

 - Her hair and eyebrows are darker than Mia's were at this age.

 - She's fascinated by Nala, so cute how she watches her.

 - I love the way she reaches out to touch our faces, and the way her hands gently come together when she's exploring a toy.

 - This precious little person has completed our family.  We're all so in love!

Interview with 4-year old Mia

I started this tradition last year - can read that interview here.  It was so much fun to do this questionnaire with her again, she sits with me seriously, and answers the questions with the first thing that pops into her mind.  I'm putting these, along with a photo of her, in a file to keep for her. Love doing this!

2014 Yearly Interview with Mia Jill Viljoen – 4 years old

What is your favourite colour? Purple and blue, like you and pappa

What is your favourite toy? This green motorbike

What is your favourite game to play? Barbie

What is your favourite fruit? A banana

What’s your favourite tv program or movie? Barbie movies. And Tarzan.

What’s your favourite thing to eat for lunch? Just a marmite sandwich

What is your favourite outfit? Ballerina rokkie

What makes you happy? You, Mommy

What is your favourite snack? Chippies and chocolate and juice

What’s your favourite animal? Zebra and bokkie. Bokkies are very cute

Where is your favourite place to go? Spur. I like the people at Spur!

What’s your favourite song? Ek’s ‘n Blou Bul. Also, “Here I Am” from Barbie and the Popstar!

What is your favourite book? Room on the Broom

Who is your best friend? Milla

What do you like to do with mommy? Jump on the trampoline and play in the garden

What do you like to do with pappa? I like to kiss him

Favourite thing to do outside? Pick flowers

Favourite drink? Cream Soda

Where is your favourite holiday place? Sun City.  I love to go there.  There’s monkeys and swimming places!

What do you like for breakfast? Bacon. Just bacon.

What do you want to be when you grow up? A mommy

What did you do on your birthday? A blue Cinderella party, with a blue Cinderella cake! I got a queen Elsa and princess Anna doll.  Everyone came to visit, we played with balloons!

 

Mia's Cinderella Party

Mia enjoyed her party so much.  She chose the theme a while ago - and even though I checked a couple of times to make sure she didn't change her mind - she was quite set on a Cinderella party.  With a Cinderella dress and all!  It was quite fun to do a "blue" party!

The venue is a little tea garden nearby here - it was definitely very convenient, the way everything was set up for us, we just took the few extra Cinderella décor items and balloons.  The snack platters, drinks and party packs were all done by the venue too.  Easy!

I designed the invitation myself this year, was quite happy with how it came out!

Pretty blue princess décor

 

 

 

Birthday Girl! ♥

 

 

Beautiful cake done by Rox, who is not officially doing cakes again but I'm just super lucky!  This cake was just princess-beautiful with the pretty ombre rosette-icing, and blue vanilla cake inside.  Of course - totally delicious too!

 

Mia was the cutest little hostess at her party.  She welcomed her little friends, took them by the hand to show them the play area, accepted her prezzies with a "thank you!", and was just too cute for words.

Birthday prezzie stash, lucky girl! 

 

On the jumping castle, princess rokkie and all!

 

Thank you piccie to send to everyone.

Happy 4th Birthday, Mia Mooi!

Happy 4th Birthday, my beautiful girl!

You are such a happy, energetic, bubbly, funny, precious little girl.  You make me laugh, you make me happy, you make me proud.  My heart could just burst. I love to watch you in awe, I love to be with you and talk to you and do things with you.

This past year was a big year for you: you became a big sister, and you started going to school.  You are being such a fabulous, special big sister to baby Ella, and you enjoy your school and your friends so much.  Well done my darling, I'm so proud of you!

I hope your year ahead is filled with princess fun, sparkly fairies and everything that is pink and shiny.  I hope all your dreams come true.

Love you with my whole heart, forever and ever
Mommy
xx

Spring time, solids and swimming lessons!

Each day I open up this page to write a blog post, and at the end of each day I close the blank page again.  Just not enough hours in a day!!

I am so behind in everything I want to blog about, moments I want to remember...

I am so happy it's September! I rejoice in the beautiful green leaves growing on the trees, and love how my excitement is infectious - Mia points out flowers to me all the time.  We take a walk often to a beautiful cherry blossom tree to see how many flowers are growing - just the other day there were no flowers, only buds - yesterday it was in full bloom! Beautiful, special and symbolic.

I'm feeling a great need to do a bit of a "spring cleaning" around the house - time is an issue, but I've decided to make a list of everything I want to do, break it up into smaller bits, so that I can tackle it one half-hour at a time!

Ella is almost 20 weeks old, and we starting giving her solids last weekend! We started with baby cereal - she wasn't super impressed - then mashed up some papaya, and she loved it! Since then she's started eating the cereal very nicely now, and I made a pot of butternut for her, added about 3 chopped up apples, and a small teaspoon of cinnamon.  I wasn't expecting much, I remember Mia refusing my homemade butternut meal - but Ella loves it!

I'm taking a relaxed approach to feeding Ella solids.  We'll get into more of a routine in a few weeks, but for now I just want to introduce her to the concept of eating and as far as possible I want to only give her homemade foodies - Mia was much too much of a "Purity-baby" and I'm convinced that's where her fussy eating stems from!!

Ella has had a post-nasal infection for a month now! So over it. Been nebulising her and using saline spray and using the NoseFrida and the snottiness is just not clearing up! Finally phoned the paed's office and spoke to a nurse there, who said I can give her Celestamine.  So irritated that they didn't recommend this, and I've been to the paed with her twice!!  Hopefully it works to clear her sinuses up now.

Mia started swimming lessons last week!  At the gym.  Twice a week, for twenty minutes. She swims with the instructor and then one other little girl of the same age and same swimming ability.  The first lesson went really well and she loved it.  The second lesson, aw shame, there was some tears - there were other people in the pool, plus another instructor with two kids also swimming in the same area, and when Mia had to stay on the step while the instructor took the other little girl around the pool, it was just a bit overwhelming for her.  But she recovered quickly and did enjoy the rest of it. 

My 360XBT challenge is going well - still not exercising quite as much as I would like to, but the eating plan is going well.  I'm 5kg down and we're just past halfway through the challenge.  So need to up my game to reach my goal of losing 10kg, but I know I can do it, there is room for improvement.  I'm at a horrible in-between stage where my clothes fit terribly - half are too big and baggy and other half too tight and squishy.  Looking forward to tossing the big baggy ones out soon!!

Wyn has been overseas for work again this week - he gets back tomorrow.  We've coped quite fine, supper time and bed time is a little bit of a challenge but not impossible - no meltdowns, from either the kiddies or me! ;-)

Mia's 4th birthday celebrations are coming up in two weeks' time! Lots of excitement and preparation for the Cinderella themed party and all the family that will be coming to visit.  Added motivation to spring clean the house, indeed!

Okay, this was about 3 blog posts rolled into one, but at least I got around to it!  Will post piccies soon.

xx

A Day At Mia's School

Recently there was a photographer at Mia's school who made a video of their school day, and took piccies too.  It was really sweet to see - Mia is shy and reserved and keeps to the back - but she does take part, singing the songs, doing the movements, clapping and waving.

I'm really so happy with her school and her teacher is wonderful.

Bit of a photo update!

 Mia had fun dressing up for Layla's birthday party recently.

 

Bottle time for little one.

 

I've started showing her picture books, she quite likes it!

 

Everything goes to the mouth now, too cute!

 

I giggled so much at this face she's pulling.  She looks so much like her pappa here!

 

Sisters reading and chilling together. ♥

 

Ella got a makeover. ;-)

 

Mia and her friend Milla at the Monte Casino Bird Gardens. Such a cute special friendship forming!

 

These sparkly eyes and rosy cheeks. Love.

 

Ouma Poppie came to visit for a day recently. We gave her a manicure!

 

Tummy time for blue-eyed beautiful tiny one!

 

And a huge thanks to my sister for designing my new blog header! Yay, absolutely love it and excited about a bit of a new look!