I ride my little bicycle.

Today the girls took part in the Cape Argus Pick 'n Pay Junior Tour and Tricycle tour.

All participants with the surname "Hutton" started out a bit grumpy!

But in the end they enjoyed themselves.

Actually, Niave was a bit under the weather and probably didn't enjoy it that much but it wasn't too bad. She took part in the 1,5km Tricycle tour on a black push-bike (we are still working on the pedalling!!) while I "jogged" alongside. Well, that is how it was supposed to be, in actual fact Niave ended up walking most of the way while I carried her bike!!

The only evidence I have of her having taken part is a photo with her number on her back and her certificate!! I didn't even get 1 picture of her on her bike!!

When Niave was finished with her "ride" she sat with my mom in the shade of the Coke truck while my dad and I went off to take pictures of Abigail's ride. She rode in the 5km Junior tour with her friend Kelsey and Kelsey's Dad, Quinton who was their co-pilot, I think next year they might be able to do it without an adult...but we'll see!

They were both hot and tired by the end but they were all smiles.

All this was while Grant was having a very trying time at Cavendish where the lifts were out of order! Making it very difficult for him to get around. But he did manage to come home bearing gifts from the book shop!! "The Best of Dr. Seuss" for Abigail and "I Love Trucks" for Niave!

Abigail decided to read Niave her bedtime story tonight... The Cat in the Hat!!

We couldn't get Niave to eat much today but she did fancy a bowl of butternut soup!!
She soon ditched the spoon for a much easier, more direct option!!

Lastly, this is my 100th post!! Happy centenary Huttons.blog!!!

Daddy's Birthday.

Today was Grant's birthday! He is almost, but not quite yet 40! As you will probably have realised Grant does not appear very often on this blog and that is because he very often has to miss out on things because of his disability. Sometimes it is due to accessibility, there are many things you take for granted until you are presented with a wheelchair. Sometimes it's due to pain. Sometimes it's due to having to work odd hours to keep up when physical limitations are a problem. But for whatever reason he often misses out on events/activities that other fathers would take for granted. As a result there are not that many pictures of him (although probably more than there are of me seeing as I am always taking them!!). So just so that we can say he is on the blog, here are some shots taken over the last few years.

I had great plans to take a picnic to a flat spot I spied in Tokai forest this afternoon but it didn't quite work out that way. With carting children around to swimming lessons and having do to a desperate grocery shop!! we didn't get that far, but we did have some visitors (mostly grandparents) pop in for cake and coffee and lots of phone calls.



We had Grants favourite - pizza - for supper and lots of cake and other yummy things for dessert (he actually had his dessert before the pizza but hey, when it's your birthday you can do that!!) Grant spoilt himself this birthday and bought himself an MP3 player. It seems walkman and discman are a thing of the past...nowhere to be found. Grant recently bought a exercise bike that he has rigged up to take most of his weight on his arms and is very diligent about using it. However he needs to have music, loud music, while he is exercising!! So to spare the rest of us from blaring 60's music an MP3 it was going to have to be.



We may still surprise him with a belated gift or 2...


Hopefully we'll still get to do the family picnic and hopefully it will a place that we can go to more often, but come to think of it we're still trying to get to go on our anniversary dinner!!!


Well, even though it was a pretty ordinary kind of day, we want to say:
and Debbie!

Shopping.

You can tell by Niave's comment at Pick 'n Pay this afternoon that we don't often have a full trolley of shopping.
Just as we stopped to queue at the check-out she saw a trolley full to overflowing with groceries. This must have been quite novel to her as she commented "Wow! She's got everything"!!
Fortunately the trolley was unattended at the time...maybe "she" realised how much "everything" was going to cost her and made a run for it!!

The tooth fairy.

Last night the Tooth fairy paid us a visit, leaving 2 treasures next to Abigail's bed.

A R5 coin and a little note - tooth fairy's these days are very technologically advanced!!!

Abigail has a habit of smelling things, she often smells things my sister has sent and declares "it smells like London"! So this morning she came into the kitchen sniffing the note and said "it smells like fairyland" and then "no, actually it smells like PNA"!

But, she still believes it came from the tooth fairy and has not yet asked how come she has the same paper as I have lying on my desk!

Toothless wonder.

This may very well be the last picture of Abigail with 2 top front milk teeth in her mouth!

Last night (at about 9pm when she should have been asleep!!) her first top tooth "fell" out - with a little help!!

She had been in bed for a while - long enough to have fallen asleep, when she came to tell me that her tooth was bleeding. We wiggled and tugged but it didn't come out so I sent her back to bed. It must have been irritating her because this cycle repeated itself a few times when finally she came to me with tooth in hand and a toothless grin!!

She had to phone Ouma and Oupa straight away and did not want the tooth fairy to take it because she wanted to show them the tooth today. That was a good thing as I had zero cash in my purse and I wasn't about to go off to the ATM in my pj's!!

So, she has left it in a little bowl next to her bed tonight and I think the tooth fairy may have visited already and left a shiny coin!!

We'll have to wait until tomorrow to see...

A pink party

This afternoon Abigail went to yet another party!! It was a "Pink Party" for her friend, Imaan's 9th birthday, which is tomorrow.Abigail, Imaan, Kelsey - the Rotherfield rd girls!!

There was a lot of pink!! Pink cake, pink sweets, pink party boxes, pink plates, pink cups, pink treasure hunt, pink balloons, pink wigs... as I said there was a lot of pink!!

They had a great time with lots of fun games and lots to eat, including a (pink) chocolate fountain! Mmmmm!!

There was also a big pink flower pinata which was a lot of fun. I've never had a pinata at any of my own kids parties but I think this is going to be the year!!

Thanks Imaan, and Imaan's mom, for a super afternoon.

Tokai Market

On Saturday we finally got to go to the Tokai Market in Tokai forest! I have heard a lot about it and have been meaning to go for ages.

It was really good, very rustic and foresty! Very child friendly and full of yummy things to buy! And also other inedible things to buy!!

We bought some homemade chicken liver pate, 3 loaves of homemade bread, delicious smoked snoek and pancakes!

There is a great kiddies play area and huge sandpit that Niave really enjoyed.

It is well worth a visit. (Sorry Bev, this is another outing we're going to have to do when you are here, I think you best extend your stay by at least 2 weeks!!)

Swimming gala.

Yesterday Abigail had her inter-house swimming gala. She swam in the grade 2 class race. Last year she had a grade 7 helping her, this year she has improved so much she was with the "swimmers"!! I am amazed at how well she is doing seeing as the only time she swims is at school. Today she swam a whole length of crawl (freestyle).

Anyway, here are some pics:

ready,

set,

go!

She had a good time cheering as well, although it is competitive, there is a lot of emphasis on fun too. Her house came second (lost by 4 points!!!) but the girls all enjoyed themselves.

There was a picnic in the schools gardens afterwards and so we were all exhausted by the end trying to keep track of Niave who was on the run - I'm hoping by next year I might be able to eat my picnic in one sitting without having to hop up every 2 minutes to rescue her from somewhere!!

But, well done Abs on a good race and on becoming such a good swimmer!

4:30 a.m.

At 4:30 a.m. this morning Niave was having this conversation with me:

"Mom, if the aeroplane squishes me,you must squish the aeroplane"!

All she got in return was a half hearted "okay" because as I said it was 4:30 a.m.
I have no idea what prompted this train of thought, there may well have been an aircraft flying over but I was fairly asleep so I wouldn't know!

Happy birthday - part 2!!

Hopefully this will work, I've been up since 5 a.m. trying to get this uploaded but so far I've been unsuccessful... hope this time I've got it right.

Happy Birthday Bev!

It is my sister, Beverley's birthday today. She lives in England and as it is very cold and snowy there at the moment, we wanted to send her a cheerful birthday greeting!! BUT, I am still trying to figure out how to do that!!! (Watch this space...) So here are some pictures in the meantime: (hee hee hee!!)

The collage above is made up of pictures from her younger days!
And below more recent ones.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEV!

We hope you have a wonderful not-too-cold birthday. Love from all of us in Sunny South Africa.

Cooling off.

What do you do on the 3rd day of a heatwave, when it is so hot you can't even think?

You cool off in any way you can.

Desperate times call for desperate measures!

And you make mud cakes, because - according to Abigail "that's what children do"!!

Birthdays.

Today was Kelsey's birthday, Abigail's friend from across the road.
She invited 5 friends to go ice skating. Since they are all getting taller now we went to the big rink, for most of them it was the first time. Kelsey is an absolute natural, she just glided onto the ice without holding onto the rail at all.

The others were a bit more cautious but got the hang of it eventually. Thank goodness for Kelsey's dad, Quinton who was there to hold the hands of the more nervous ones (mostly Abigail!!). When it was time to hand the skates back they were treated to pizza, Coke and cupcakes.

Then it was back out into the heat (34 deg) and back home.

Abigail stayed to play with Kelsey while Niave and I packed up again and set off for Hout Bay to another birthday party. This time it was for 1 of my friends! Actually it was 2 friends combined birthday celebration at the Clay Cafe.

These 2 lovely ladies, Renette and Adele, invited a whole bunch of friends to paint pottery and have delicious cake.

Niave got to paint again (although she painted more of the table than her bowl!) and I also painted another plate.

Some of the ladies hard at work!

Some of the creations.

It was a hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, HOT day and Hout Bay seemed to be even hotter but we had a good time anyway.

We have just had a wonderful thunder storm and so it is, thankfully, a little cooler now.

February.

It's February, and while some members of the family had to spend 20 minutes digging their car out of the snow,

others felt the need to cool off!

Abigail had "Wacky Wear Day" at school today. She borrowed a hat from my Dad as her contribution.

Interesting conversation.

While driving in the car today, this conversation took place:

Niave: "Where are we going?"
Mom: "To fetch Daddy."
Niave: "Where is he?"
Mom: "He is at the hospital."
Niave: "What is he doing at the hospital?"
Mom: "He had to see the doctor."
Niave: "What is his doctors name?"
Mom: "Dr. Swart."
Niave: "Dr. Swart? Why is it Dr. Swart?"
Mom: "Because that's her name."
Niave: "Is it a lady?"
Mom: "Yes."
(a few moments of silence)
Niave: "Is the man going to help her?"

Even at the age of not quite 3 she is not quite sure if a lady is capable of being a doctor!!!

The Echo.

{Lisa (Carter), I thought you'd appreciate this story!}

In our house we have an echo!
Most things get said twice.
This is because Niave copies everything Abigail says.
It can be quite funny but also quite annoying at times - especially for Abigail.

This evening we had Chicken a la King for supper, while we were eating Abigail asked "how can you make rice yellow?"
After I'd explained the process Niave asked with a rather confused expression, "how can we paint Bryce yellow?"!!

"Yellow rice" is obviously not as easy for her to relate to as "yellow Bryce"!
Of course she does have a bit of experience with paint!!!

11 years ago...

...there was a wedding!

On the 31st of January 1998 Grant and I became husband and wife.

Yesterday was the eleventh anniversary of that day.

There were a couple of similarities:- 1) the heat and 2) the Met!

But there were also a few differences:-

1998 - waking up to hair and make-up appointments and walking down the aisle,

2009 - waking up to "Mom, I'm hungry" and hanging up the washing!

Well, we didn't get to celebrate really, Grant was working and I was rushing around but we did get to spend a lovely evening with friends. We had been invited to a combined husband and wife birthday party and so decided we would do our celebrating on Friday night and still be able to go to the party. As it turned out Grant wasn't up to going out on Friday having been flat on his back for 2 days, but we will still, hopefully get to go sometime:-)

My parents popped around on Saturday morning to wish us and gave us this wonderful Wok! I've never owned a Wok, and so I am going have to experiment a bit. But it's sure to become one of the most used pans in the drawer.

After they left Abigail disappeared into her bedroom and when she reappeared she handed me a sweet card she had made.

She hastened to add "it's you and Dad and look, you're holding hands"! So sweet.

Baking.

On Friday it was baking day at school and as I have recipe that makes enough dough for 25 children and I only have 7, we had quite a lot of dough left over. So, yesterday we did some baking at home to use up the dough.

Let me introduce you to the bakers:

First we have "Niave-grab-the-vermicelli-Hutton",

and then there's, "Abigail-I'll-never-ever-eat-a-cherry-Hutton".

Here they are rolling out their dough.

Now, let me tell you, 2 year old baking lacks the finesse of 7 year old baking, it is quite something to behold! Without intervention we would have had biscuits 6cm thick with chocolate chips gouged right through to the other side, piled high with colourful vermicelli!

But they had fun and despite the interesting shapes and decorations they were edible, in fact they were so edible they were almost all gone in under an hour!!

Yum, yum!