Big excitement in the house tonight!! The boys have just received their personalised video from Father Christmas via the Portable North Pole site.

I must say that Connor was rather nervous that the naughty/nice machine’s light would be on red, because that apparently happened to a friend of theirs… and Santa is giving him  a piece of coal!!

Connor’s video is here

Bradley’s video is here

I love the magic of Christmas!

And now… I’m taking them to the Spur and then we’ll drive around the suburbs and find those 2 houses close to us that are covered in lights.

Not sure what the point of this blog post is going to be, just needed to jot a few things down about Christmas and the kids this year.

Firstly, let me explain the title… that my friends, is my favourite part of this Michael Buble song  .  I bought the album and the first time the kids heard it, Connor piped us “Mommy, he’s being really rude about Father Christmas”… now he shouts that part really loudly every time we hear the song

There’s nothing like music to get you into the Christmas mood… so this year I’m making a concerted effort to play Christmas music as much as possible.  I’ve even got my iPhone blaring music in the kitchen while I’m cooking (which reminds me, if you haven’t bought me a gift yet, a iPod/iPhone music system for my kitchen would be appreciated).  And I dance to the music and for the last 2 nights, the kids have come to join me, and we spend an hour in the kitchen cooking and dancing and singing it’s a little chaotic!

It’s all about making memories.

As far as gifts is concerned, I’m a little concerned. I haven’t done much shopping, and now all my ideas I had seem to be unavailable.  I’m a little stressed about it, considering the 7 shoots I have to edit as well in the evenings.

And then Bradley’s list is also concerning. He’s asked for a drum set or an electric guitar.  Seriously?! I chatted to him about this in the car the other day, because I think it’s a bad idea and I know Father Christmas won’t give gifts that are a bad idea.  Not because of the noise, but that kind of thing is fine if you’re learning to play the instrument, KWIM?  He’s not phased though, because apparently there’s some TV program on Disney XD that teaches him how to play the chords on an electric guitar.

I think I’m going to have to get hold of my cousin in Canada to find out the best way to start drumming.  My mom seems to remember that he learnt on an african drum.  I like that idea a little more… and get him drumming lessons for next year. Or he can go to guitar lessons at school… and then maybe revisit this idea for his birthday.

And it’s not like he’s got staying power when it comes to extra murals anyway… he didn’t stick to horse riding or karate for very long.

Oh well… we’ll just have to see what the big fat man with the long white beard pitches up with…

I found this YouTube clip posted on my sister-in-law’s (Nicole) Facebook wall, and then my mom noticed that one of my images had been included, so I had to share it.

My image was taken at Connor’s birthday party (link to the party), not sure if you remember… Fiona’s son Ethan had got injured in the pool, and thankfully Carl and Nicole were there and called ER24 or else we would have really damaged him. Wow that video brought back lots of memories from that eventful day.

ER24 asked me a few days later if they could use images from the day, which is why they had it (and Fiona agreed).

It’s quite a video actually… the guys in emergency services in South Africa all deserve medals

I did a list with Connor’s favourite things a few days ago, and here are Bradley’s current favourite things…

TV programme:  Star Wars
iPhone App:  Words with Friends… yip, that’s right… if you’re playing against me, you actually can’t be sure whether Bradley has made the last move or me.  As soon as he notices that it’s my turn, he makes a beeline for the app.
Meal:  homemade hamburgers
Fruit:  the only fruit he eats is watermelon and naartjies… and if we’re lucky an apple every now and then
Vegetable:  potatoes and carrots and broccoli
Breakfast:  chocolate pronutro with warm milk which he now makes himself
Drink:  vanilla flavoured milk
Drinking yogurt flavour:  strawberry
Sweets:  This week it’s an Aero chocolate

Chips/crisps:  plain salted Lays or salt and vinegar chips
Toy:  Lego and action men
Colour:  blue
Something that happened yesterday: He’s starting to read Afrikaans books, and now gets one Afrikaans book a week to read as homework.  It’s quite funny to hear him try and pronounce the words, and I’m sure that Lance now regrets the decision to not let them be bilingual at home.  Bradley is so keen though, but it’s not easy to relearn the way that letters sound in a word… especially when he’s only recently learnt how to spell comfortably in English.

Remember the competition I ran to win tickets to see Riverdance?  Well, Southern Sun also gave me double tickets to see the show.  Cool hey?!

So, Lance and I went on a date

We dropped the kids at my parents house where they had a romantic meal (candlelit dinner with my parents and my sister Elaine and Bryan), and then stayed awake for as long as possible before crashing.

We went to Montecasino.  We had an awesome meal at Kai Thai.  I had a red curry and Lance had a cashew nut stir fry.  And then we went to see the show.

I didn’t manage to bump into Cheryl, who won the tickets on my blog… but we did sit next to Angel and her mom.  It was awesome sitting next to friends in arguably the best seats in the house.  Seriously, we could not have chosen better seats ourselves! We were RIGHT in the middle a few rows from the front.  It was perfect!

I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed the show! I loved the irish dancing of course, and the tap dancing scenes were magnificent, especially the one with the irish dancers dance against the tap dancers (I managed to find a video with that scene which is below).  Oh and the music, simply amazing, the musicians were fantastic.  I really really wish I could have taken photos so that you can see what I’m talking about.

If you haven’t managed to see it yet, make the effort and book.  You won’t be sorry.

Thanks so very much Southern Sun for the tickets!! I think their specials with a night’s stay with theatre tickets would be a win, if we had built in babysitters at home!

Oh, and they’re now giving away tickets to Don Quixote, so follow Southern Sun on Facebook and Twitter to see the details.  Now that I’d LOVE to see, oh man, I love ballet!

I saw this on Cat’s blog, and decided to do it too.  It’s always a good idea to remember what the boys like at various points in time.

TV programme:  Star Wars
iPhone App:  Pet Zoo, he’s obsessed with checking to see whether he has to pick up rubbish in the animal enclosures and whether there’s enough money to buy more animals
Meal:  Spaghetti bolognese
Fruit:  grapes and strawberries.
Vegetable:  broccoli
Breakfast:  Squillos if I let him
Drink:  At the moment vanilla flavoured milk
Drinking yogurt flavour:  Granadilla
Sweets:  Anything with sugar
Chips/crisps:  Tomato fritos or those prawn chips from Woolies
Toy:  Anything that looks like the Star Wars weapons, and Lego men
Colour:  blue
Something that happened yesterday: Last night, he got hold of my phone to check on his zoo, and hid under the diningroom table to play. It was bath time and he wasn’t listening, so I shouted at him to get in the bath. I heard him run and assumed he had gone to the bathroom, but soon realised it was too quiet. So I went looking for him. Neither Lance nor I could find him anywhere. We checked in all the usual places, under the beds, in the cupboards, behind the curtains and in the other shower. Nothing. As I was walking back through my bedroom for the 3rd time, I noticed the laundry basket move ever so slightly. He was inside!! As quiet as a mouse! It’s amazing how long he’ll stay in a dark cramped space just to hide from everyone!  There was no way I could shout at him after that… I was too impressed.

I went to a baby’s memorial service.  If you follow me on Twitter and Facebook you would know that I’ve been asking for prayers for Shayna for the last while… well, she died during the week, and her memorial service was yesterday.

No mom or dad should ever have to say goodbye to their baby.

Now I don’t ordinarily blog about someone else’s story on my blog… it has always got me into trouble whenever I’ve attempted it… but I feel the need to talk about this.

You see, Shayna and her twin brother Davyn were born at 24 weeks, and he’s doing so very well in NICU at the moment.  The reason this particular story is so close to my heart is because I’ve known their mother virtually for years.  We met on a local online mom’s forum (Babynet), and I’ve been following her struggle for fall pregnant for years.  I was so so very pleased for them when they finally fell pregnant.

And one of the reasons I followed her story so intently, even though I haven’t really been active on the forum lately, and I think we’ve only met IRL a handful of times… because Kim was one of the moms that gave me SO much support when Connor was in NICU.  Her oldest son was also in NICU… so she knew what I was going through, and her and a few other moms gave me such amazing first hand support on BN during that time (and during all my miscarriages before that).

So, I had to make a plan to get to the service.  And although it was dreadfully sad, the minister was so very right when he said that Shayna may have only lived for 48 days, but she touched so many people in that short time… she really did live it to the fullest.

The most beautiful part of the service (apart from the speech by her oldest brother) was when the family let go of the 48 balloons for her 48 days of life.  And if you saw purple, pink and white balloons floating in the sky around South Africa and the world at approx 10:30am know that they were let go from other online moms who were following the story and thinking about Shayna.

No matter how badly my day has been going during the last few weeks, I’d log into their Facebook group (A tale of two tiny tots) to see if there was any news and be in awe of her strength and resilience…. and the family’s amazing amazing strength too… and know that my troubles are really trivial in the grander scheme of things

Anyhoo, I’ll be continuing to follow Davyn’s story on FB and BN, but I’m actually going to send Kim a message in a few days (once the dust has settled a bit) to find out if they’re keeping this story in another way.  It’s going to be virtually impossible to export from Facebook, and I’m sure they’re going to want Davyn to read it in future.  I think they should start a blog, and I’ll quite willingly help them to export the story… so that they can have a proper record of it.

Seriously, could the teachers not have eased the parents into this school lark a little gentler?  Oh no, not Bradley’s school… first weekend of Grade 2 and he had a project!

So I spent a few hours today trying to find photos of him for a Life Snake. My oath what a lot of effort… by me of course! If this is a taste of the next few years, I’m going to have even less spare time!

It was interesting for me though… I got to see how much my photography has progressed in the last 7 years!! And one of the photos we chose in the end, was taken by Bradley.

Don’t you also get flash backs of memories when you eat or even just taste certain things?

That happened to me this morning, and in fact happens every time I eat Otees cereal.

Otees’ cereal is one of Connor’s favourite type of cereal, and I had a few while I was getting his breakfast ready this morning.  Not the fancy strawberry or chocolate flavoured one, just the plain one.

Just the taste of them sets off my memories.

I immediately remember being on holiday, as a child, at my grandmother’s house in Harare, Zimababwe.  I thought it was a huge treat to eat that type of cereal when we visited her that time (no idea when that was, but I’m sure my mom will give the answer in the comments to this post). I loved it, the cereal that is

And every time I eat it now, I immediately picture myself eating them in her diningroom.  I also remember the cuckoo clocks, and the kitchen, and the enormous garden with big trees… and the private road that they lived on, that for some reason fascinated me.

Isn’t it funny how such a simple taste can bring back so many memories?

Over dinner a few months ago, Madi and I started chatting about how nice it would be to have a day without the kids and other people, and spend some time at a spa. Well, she’s so organised that within the next few days, she’d found a well priced spa not far from home and we booked the day away!

My word, the Body Sense Day Spa in Chartwell was amazing!

It’s not often that a place is actually nicer than the photos on their website! We didn’t spend ANY time outside, mind you, because the weather was so miserable and cold… and inside it was nice and toasty and warm with fireplaces and heaters in every room.

We both opted for the Stress Relief Half Day package (half day because both of us don’t like full day spa packages… I get a migraine).

It started with a yummy breakfast of muesli, joghurt, honey and fresh fruit; and that was followed by croissants.

Then the treatments started… a back, shoulder and neck massage (and it was good so very good), then a facial, then an indian head massage (which was the first time I’d actually enjoyed that kind of treatment).  We then had paraffin manicures and pedicures… ooh and I got green varnish on my toes

It was awesome!!   The perfect way to spend a public holiday. Well worth the money! And we’re definitely going again

Only problem… didn’t take my camera, so there are no photos