The Last Post of August.

August has been a bit lean here so I'm squeezing this last post in.

Here are some random pictures from the last few days/weeks:

After a few weeks without a dishwasher and after paying Defy R400,00 to NOT fix it, I arrived home 1 afternoon to find a new one waiting for me!! (NOT Defy!) This month I have been without a dishwasher, microwave and domestic helper at one time or another and all at once in a particularly bad week! I am glad to say they are all back!A couple of times a year Niave has a "pyjama party" at her school, also known as a babysitting evening. You can drop your kids off at 7pm and fetch them at 10:30pm and have a night out. They watch DVD's and have a torch hunt (treasure hunt in the dark!) and pass out at random intervals. The first one was just after Grant had come out of hospital so we stayed very much at home while Niave went to watch DVD's at school and fall asleep in her sleeping bag! This time Grant had been out all day and only come home at 6pm so instead of us going out I invited Kelsey over and she and Abigail had their own pyjama party. Sometimes there are DVD's that are suitable for Abigail but not for Niave, Nanny McPhee is one of them that Abigail has been dying to see, so they watched that while they munched on popcorn and chocolate! Abigail was riveted as you can tell!!!

No, your eyes do not deceive you, that is Grant in a boat! He has been out a couple of times recently to Teewaterskloof dam in Villiersdorp with his uncle who has a boat there. Although he is smiling in this picture it was, apparently not a pretty sight getting him in there!! (I won't post those pictures, not very dignified!!) However he did get in and they did go out on the water and he had a marvellous time.On Sunday Niave was invited to a party at The Play Shed at Oude Molen Eco village in Pinelands. There is also a horse riding centre there so afterwards they each had a ride, Abigail was in her element, loves horses, and Niave was nervously happy! She used to run a mile but is now happy to go for a short ride. Abigail rode Milo (in picture) and Niave rode Tinkerbell but she wasn't in a photo mood!While going through my photo's earlier I realised that I had not taken a single picture of Niave in August! Shocking, I know, so here it is - the only picture of Niave from August 2010.

Getting to the point.

Niave has a bit of separation anxiety in the mornings when I take her to school. Simply, that means she screams when I say goodbye and walk away. Now I know from experience that it doesn't last long and she is not unhappy the whole day or probably even a whole minute but never-the-less it is still rather distressing to leave your child crying and screaming "mooommmy" and it's not a nice way to start the day.
Today she was more upset than usual so when I fetched her at home time we had a little chat.


I said: "How was your day?"
She said: "Fine."
I said: "So was it necessary to scream and cry this morning?"
She said: "No, but I just don't want you to go"
I said: "But my 2 year olds that come to my school don't cry when their mommies leave, and they're only 2"
She said: "Yes, but the point is they're not me"!!!

Biology 101.

After finding a "terrifying" bug in the bath Niave had this to say: "the reason why I don't like bugs is because of their footprints" (confused look from mother) "you see they leave their footprints and then other bugs smell their footprints and then you have more bugs"!

Smash!

Not the best way to start the week:

Grant's car was broken into right outside our house, nothing was stolen but the inconvenience and expense are so annoying. There are bound to be bits of glass rattling around for ages to come. Oh well, the World Cup is over and little vandals have nothing to do at night anymore!!

A new era: Shopping!

We've reached a new era - Grant can go to Pick 'n Pay - on his own!
I can send him to buy groceries!!
Now that might not mean much to you, but when you haven't had the "luxury" of asking hubby to pop down to the shop for something or stop off on his way home to buy bread and milk, it's a big deal!
Pick 'n Pay have these great wheelchair trolleys that attach to the frame of the chair and you can scoot around quite happily. He's not going to fit a months groceries in there but it's big enough for a few basics and a couple of odds and ends.
We did a shop yesterday but he still has to have try on his own.
I feel like a weight of errands have been lifted off my shoulders!!

A Whole New World.

This weekend both Abigail and Niave had a teacher at their school getting married. Niave's own teacher and the grade 1 teacher at Greenfield.

Last week Niaves school had a kitchen tea for Miss Kalis and Miss Dock asked the grade 1's and 2's to sing for her at her wedding. This caused much excitement and yesterday was the day.

We headed to Fish Hoek and they took their seats waiting for the bride to arrive.

There was a state of awe as she came down the aisle and I'm not sure how they manged to keep singing (they sang as she walked down the aisle), it was like every little girls dream was coming true as they saw their teacher dressed like a princess.

(My video is not great and it's just a snippet as somebody hopped up right in front of me so I couldn't carry on.) Notice the little girl on the rights eyes as she spots the bride! There were similar reactions all round when the minister said the words "you may kiss the bride"!!


At the end the bride and groom went off to sign the register while the girls made an archway with their flowers for the newly weds to walk through. As they reached the doorway 1 little girl next to me exclaimed in utter disbelief "Miss Dock, you're wearing a tiara"!! It was so sweet.

Afterwards all the girls were supposed to have a photo together (with Miss Dock) but there was some confusion and Abigail and her friend missed it so we managed to get a picture with the 2 of them which was very special.

(I just have to say that I am completely in shock that this video actually loaded! Last time I tried this it took me 5 hours and it still didn't load!)

Yum!

Yay! It's August!! July seemed so very long and by the time we got to the 28th I was ready for it all to end!

Today Abigail begged me to make chicken pie for supper and although only 2 of us would eat it I couldn't resist. (Niave doesn't do pie and Grant doesn't do chicken.)

So we made a pie:

It was yummy!

And seeing as the oven was on, I just had to make some biscuits because I discovered an easy, easy, easy recipe and so I just had to!

I came across the recipe on a friends blog and as I've never had a satisfactory biscuit dough recipe for school I tried it on Friday and it worked really well. I hate biscuit dough that spreads across the baking tray as it's baking so that the biscuits are 4 times the size they were at the beginning or dough that requires more and more and more flour to be added and then still sticks to everything. But this one was not like that at all, so if you're in the mood for some home-made biscuits here is the recipe: it is simply 100g sugar, 200g butter and 300g flour - that's it!!

Cream the butter and sugar.(now I just have to say that one of the reasons why July felt so long was because I took so many photo's - 500!! and I was looking forward to starting a new folder for August and here I am taking pictures of butter!!)

Anyway, then add the flour.

Mix to a dough.

(you need to use your hands at the end as it gets too stiff for the beaters) And start cutting!

Decorate to your liking and bake for 10 - 12 minutes at 180C.

There you go, you are done Mmmm - enjoy!