A wedding reception with a difference!

Yesterday, 26 April 2012, Grant's sister Wendy got married!
However, we were not able to be there...neither were her parents....nor any of her family or his for that matter!
You see, the marriage took place across the Atlantic in Florida, USA where she and her husband work. 
With Wendy being South African and Jose Puerto Rican, it was a small affair at the actual venue BUT back in Cape Town there was celebrating none the less!

Grant's step mom, Poppie who also celebrated her birthday yesterday held a "reception" at her house for family and friends while the bride and groom made their appearance via Skype!
The wonders of modern technology meant that Wendy and Jose in Florida were able to speak to (and see) everyone in S.A. on their wedding day AND talk to Bruce (Grant's dad) who is working in England at the moment!!
There were toasts and congratulations and joyful merriment all round and even a few tears - of joy!

CONGRATULATIONS WENDY and JOSE!!

Chaeli Campaign Walk for Wheels 2012

Yesterday evening we took part in our first "Walk for Wheels", a mini walk (4 km) around Bergvliet to raise funds for the Chaeli Campiagn.
We were a bit apprehensive though as the 4 hours prior to the start were spent listening to a major thunder storm with fork lightning and torrential rain!! But, it stopped just in time and the clouds parted letting the last of the sun through.

4km doesn't sound very far but actually it was quite far especially when you have a person with very short legs and attention span! Stopping to pick up leaves, sticks and stones and to walk through every puddle (a few times) along the way. 
But we made it (even if we take a small detour!!). 
The girls were given very nice Goodie bags filled with lots of Chaeli goodies and we came home with 7 new peak caps!! 4 from KFM, 2 from Chaeli Campaign and 1 from Chairman!! 

We won't have the sun on our faces - that's for sure!!

New additions! They come in two's!!

Lately we've had some changes around here!

It started with a change of cars, for various reasons we decided to trade our old cars in for 2 "new" ones. I am very glad to be back in car that sits a bit higher and Grant has a nice spacious one with plenty of space for a wheelchair +++!

(Will come in very handy when we go away in a couple of months time.)

The next set of new additions were Cinders and Charly:

We had promised Niave that when Bonny died she could get a kitten, however when the time came, there just happened to be 2 kitties that were needing homes and the vet allowed us to have 2 for the price of 1 (all the spaying, vaccines etc. is included) so it was a done deal.

They have now well and truly settled into their new home and Emma has decided that they're not so bad after all!

Charly

Cinders

The final set of new additions came in the form of wheels and pedals:

A trip to Makro to exchange my new vacuum cleaner that wasn't vacuuming revealed a very sweet bike that would be on special today. Both girls have been in desperate need of new bikes as theirs have really seen better days and due to the frustration of chains continually coming off and brakes not working, not to mention sore backs and knees from a bikes that were really too small.

It's funny how easily little girls can twist their daddy's arm!! And so we have 2 shiny new bicycles and 2 happy girls.

Now all we need is a bike for me!!

A Letterland Party

With Niave being so into Letterland at the moment it was a bit of a no-brainer
when it came to choosing a theme for
her party this year,and it turned out
there was so much to do in terms of games and activities, I really had fun
planning it and putting it all together.

Being that her birthday fell over the Easter weekend, I should've known it would rain but ever hopeful I planned it all to take place in our back garden...however with torrential rain forecast a few days before it was time for plan B, we don't have a big enough indoor space so I was very

kindly allowed to use a room at our church, not quite a hall but plenty big enough for our purposes.

The only drawback of having a party somewhere other than your own home is schlepping all the 'stuff' there and back. But at least you come back to some sense of order when it's all over!

The children were allowed to dress up as a Letterland character if they wanted to, Niave chose to be Clever Cat and Ouma was "contracted in" to sew the suit:

Clever Cat with claws and all!

The food was chosen according to letters so we had Peter Puppy's popcorn, Oscar Orange's

oranges and Clever Cat's cupcakes and a few others...

Due to the last minute venue change I found some free downloadable print outs that the children could do as they arrived, these were great and the children really enjoyed them, going back to them all through the party.

Then it was time for games:

To start we had Jumping Jim's jumping game: I divided the children into

2 groups and laid out 2 rows of hoops in front of each team, the aim was to

jump in all the hoops there and back until the whole team had had a

turn...no pictures of that one I'm afraid!

This kind of broke the ice a little.

Second we had Bouncy Ben's ball game: again in teams they had to pass

the ball under their legs and then over their heads to the person behind

all the way to the back of the line with the last person running to the front to start again until the first person was back in the front again! A bit of confusion at first but they got it in the end!

Eddy Elephant loves eggs, especially Easter eggs so with it being the Easter weekend and all we could hardly not have an egg hunt, we took the

gap in the clouds for a quick run outside to retrieve the eggs hidden in the

bushes.

Kicking King loves soccer so for this game they had turns to try and score a goal in the small (and very hard to find) goals. Boy did I search high and low for a set of soccer goals, you'd think after hosting the World Cup they'd be everywhere, you'd be wrong!

This turned out to be a favourite game with most of the children coming back for more and more turns, the girls put the boys to shame by the

way!!

Munching Mike is a metal monster who loves magnets and marshmallows, so in this game they had to use a magnet - fishing rod style to pick up a picture with a 5 cent coin attached to it, some pictures were of things beginning with 'm', some were not, the team to find all the Munching Mike pictures was the winner, this was also quite a hit.

Lastly a letter hunt courtesy of Lucy Lamp light, I had hidden the letters that spell the word 'cake' all around and they had to find them in random order, then bring them back to figure out the word - yes, cake time!!

Enter the lopsided castle cake, the Letterland castle to be specific!!

6 candles seemed like such a lot! But 6 it was meant to be.

Happy party faces!

Aah, another successful party done and dusted!!

Six on the sixth.

Today Niave celebrated her 6th birthday! It's weird how when Abigail turned 6 I thought of her as bigger than I think of Niave now, I suppose your youngest will always remain your 'baby'!

Now in her last year of pre-primary - grade R as it is known, she is growing up so quickly and loving learning new things and doing "work" (which isn't actually work!) and is gaining more and more self-control with each year that passes. She is still a melt-down kid and plays the "spoilt younger child" role brilliantly, but now that she is 6 we are standing for less of that!

Her favourite thing at the moment is letters and Letterland, we have to play "I Spy" everywhere we go! And she's pretty good at it!!

This year her birthday fell on Good Friday (for the second time) and so it was a quiet day. We were up fairly early for presents and then off to church. Most of the rest of the day was taken up with party preparations however they were treated to a Spur visit with Ouma and Oupa, giving me time to bake in peace!!

Big eyes! A new up-to-date Letterland book!

And the much sought after BIG box of Playmobil!!

I love this series of pictures below, the transformation from Younger group on the left to Older group on the right is quite remarkable and a true picture of how her personality has changed and matured:

Happy Birthday to our toothless wonder!!