Last day in Cape Town ( sorry about the swimmers Littlebigs)

Jumping castle arrived early, pip may not make it to the party

Girls have discovered computer games:)

My beautiful girls

Yay for Thailand!

School outing!!

Bring on summer!!

Cousins!!

Eva is so good at maths xxx

Fish face x

Pips favourite evening activity is getting into her Pjs and putting both legs in one leg hole and pretending to be a mermaid. Can be quite a dangerous activity. xx

Boreworst roll from Spar!

Matilde Lisa xx

ohhh life

Well, things have been a wee bit busy around here. will get some photos in action. I have a new baby niece!!! Ahh to be an Auntie, i have a chance to return all the love that is shown to my children through their Aunties. Now that's a big benchmark! but give me a chance to spoil little people any day. It's a unique thing. you soon realise that no one loves your children and finds them as cute/fascinating/ brilliant except you AND those aunties and uncles that love them so much. And i could spend a ridiculous amount of time with these Aunties saying 'she's so clever/ beautiful/ funny' 'yes, she is', 'so healthy', 'yes', 'so happy', 'yes'. 'look at her skin', 'yes', you get the idea. bliss feeding bliss. human nature. yes we are brilliant, look at our offspring...
My little ones have just finished a 5 week stint with their nana staying with us. Grandad joined us for the last week, and all in all a great time for my girls. Eva has a soft spot for nana and after getting a little upset that she was shipped off to school each morning while Pip and Thomas could bask in the love of their nana, she had a few special afternoons alone with nana, and trips to her 'funny shop' an ex-circus supply shop that has endless bizarre things for R20. They both now have a full set of my little ponies, and enjoy endless games with them where Pip is always in her extremely high pitched voice, as she plays the voice of 'starburst' or 'apple jack' or whoever is playing in the scene. It cracks me up that she uses this voice for any toy that is 'talking'. Pip loves her games at the moment. If she gave her top 3 it would be Tartoons, sweeties followed closely by games/ riding her scooter. I love that I have so much time to play her games, and even watch tartoons together, but i draw the line when she asks for sweeties before breakfast.
Recently, Eva had one of the sweetest childhood moments of all time. For all those that look from outside in and see kids as the noisy and messy, boob drooping things they are, don't realise what they miss in the private moments between mother and child. The scenario is a wishing well outside our favourite restaurant 'the test kitchen' in woodstock.  Eva and Pip throw their coins in and make a wish. As usual i tease them and ask them what they wished for, because the usual response is if you tell, it won't come true... not this time. Eva looked up at  me and said quietly 'it never comes true anyway'. We sat down and I said if she did tell me, just this one time, maybe I could help, or wish for the same thing to help it come true. 'I wish for wings' she said, and i remembered that this is the same thing she asked santa for the year before. Oh my baby, we talked about how many people we know with wings, and maybe the wish is just too hard to come true. We talked about how maybe the feeling of flying has come to you, when you have felt like you have done better than you thought or felt happy about something surprising. The tangent was probably lost and I quickly began plotting as to how I could make a life like set of wings. Could it be done? I love that my children often take me into the world of dreams and magic, fairies and all things good.
On the previous day Eva had had an argument with her uncle Tommy who was stirring her over the 'toe nail' fairy who was going to come to Pip as she had lost her big toe nail after a long few weeks of a broken nail hanging on. Eva said there is no such thing. 'What about the tooth fairy?' said Tommy, Eva responded with total conviction, 'Well, they only use teeth for building things' said Eva. On that note I must mention that Eva is soooo waiting for her first loose tooth. Maybe to get a gold coin but more likely to affirm her belief in magic.

Book week!!

Ballet is back !

Baby shower, new girl cousin next month x

Let's get out before it rains again!

Little bird has broken her wing

This is a picture of the girls playing with their 'bravery' toys after a long morning at the doctors getting Eva's broken clavicle sorted. What an array of emotions through initial omg she has broken her bone, to I think she's fine, lets just check it out, to  getting to the X-ray the next day, to the radiologists saying (as he took the photo!) 'oh wow its definitely broken!'. Ok hold it together mum. Eva was already having a major panic at the medical environment, she didn't need me close to tears as i looked at the X-ray and saw her little bone snapped in 2!! can you believe! Ok, more panic as we spend another hour in waiting rooms, anti-bac cream slathered all over as we are already all sick with the flu and I am only a germaphobe when you can almost picture the sickness in those places... So off to the bone doctor who scared Eva even further with his lack of bedside manner. He touched her shoulder without warning and left her bawling in the corner and he looked at me like she was crazy. Iiiiiidiot. He did say that the bone would take just 2 weeks to heal and there would be no lump in her collarbone to see. Happiness. At this stage I was silly enough to say she didn't need a sling as she was petrified of these things. When asked she said it would hurt, and I finally had to break it to her she would need a sling, so off we went to another office.

It's in these situations that only retrospect can make things seem funny. Eva is bawling, I am a mixture of being scared for the situation and guilt for not handling the situation like an adult and not being scared (only a mother would understand)...My dear Peach (Pip) on the other hand is very busy telling a complicated story about how she needs medicine when she is sick but she doesn't need a doctor and she is brave too and Eva has a sore bone and look at my fast shoes, i'm thirsty. Her tiny little face just captivates me whenever she speaks.

So we are at the place to get the sling. The doctor walks in with with a large knee brace and ushers us into his rooms. Eva starts crying again and declares she is going home.

She finally gets a little pink sling and cheers up as we head to the toy store. She showed her X-rays at show and tell (fascinated that she can spell one of the few words beginning with x) and keeps her little rabbits from the toy store trip in her sling, along with coins, sequins and other things she likes to collect. 

I love my girls and our adventurers. Breaks my heart that they hurt.

Mother's Day and manky

What are my little girls upto at them moment? Eva is getting very good at her reading and writing and will write letters to people, shopping lists (loves to tick the boxes!) recipes. I have all these tiny bits of paper saved up. cant wait to get home to frame them. For mother's day i got a frame on the wall with writing 'I love my mum because she keeps me safe'. awwwwww heart breaker. Pip painted a lovely from and put a picture of herself in it. Pip is very into her keys at the moment. A bit stressful as we have moved house this week (second time this month) and it proves quite stressful when little bag lady, who actually has a great sense of where things have been put, thankfully; bags up the keys with her manky and usually a pen and paper, a toy and a oty phone. She has also been including a torch as in our last house we were without power for a few days and steve and I learnt very quickly that such an annoying thing can be one big adventure for the little ones. Bath by candlelight, leading the way and directing people with their torches and appreciating th amount of things we rely on for electricity.
Ahh the manky. Can I just say that I have issues with my youngest losing her babydom completely once manky goes. The phsycology does not make sense, but with Eva the dummy had to go as the baby had arrives and she was my big girl. Pip is the cuddliest little girl, rapidly growing up, yet as she approaches 4 I realise she is playing on being the baby still. She will cry to get her own way, Eva will yell, but all the same I think having a manky does not assist her in dealing with frustration and anger and saddness in her own way, instead of a physical/dismissive way through stroking her top lip with manky and sucking on her fingers. Ahhh the dilemha. We have started to leave it at home, and we have lost the main bulk of manky, so maybe just maybe this one will come to a natural end and I will escape decision, but her little voice echoes whenever I think about it; Me:'you are nearly 4 and you dont need to take manky everywhere', Pip:' but manky is my best friend'.

I've got him!

Is Thomas bigger than Pip? Thomas 1.5, Pip 3.5 yrs mmm little bigs is going to be much bigger so soon

My mum is a helicopter pilot!

Cape town parks!!

Easter!

What a mess the Easter bunny made hiding all the eggs in the house! An early start and LOTS of chocolate had by all xxxx A big thankyou to the amazing Steve who cooked a duck and pork feast xxxx

Xx

With G and J at Clifton 4th Beach

Sunday bogans x

Bath time with the cousins!

Best friends x

Sports day!

Eva had great fun at the sports day. 4! medals! She wore them with pride, then stuck them on her playroom wall. I loved being the idiot waving madly from every angle of the field. So proud. I even plucked the courage to go in the parents race, yes, Eva laughed, but it was fun. Ahhh, the smell of the fresh lines marked on the track. I think actually my strongest, earliest memories are from sports days at school.

Holidays!

Sunny Sunday's

The first of many Lofer photos!

We all had the best time in beautiful Lofer, Austria. Snow, sun, friends and family. Love love

Mount Nelson hotel

First day at big girl school

Eva is sooo excited about school. Me? I am still playing catch-up with all the officialdom that comes along with going to school. Who would have thought! We had such an amazing time in Austria, a memorable Christmas for many reasons. back to beautiful Cape Town summer, feeling very spoilt by the world. Also had my first day of work in Steve's office, spent a lot of time trying to time my questions on basic word processing so not everyone could hear..... Did you know a photocopier will print something, scan it and send it to your inbox, wow things have progressed. Anyway, more on the exciting world of my girls. They have their nana and granda staying ( all in the same bed!) and little cousin just turned 1 and crawls around after them. Pip has her preschool in the morning and loves to do her puzzles and has a little friend called Isla. Eva is enjoying the regime that comes with school, and has homework, writing her first words and sentences. "no jewlery at school mum", " You wait there to fetch me mum" Cooking class on a Monday is also a big hit.
Goodbye days of lounging in bed till we decide to finger paint, cook, go looking for new sandals, bike riding the whole day away till we collapse in front of the tartoons. There will be weekends, but it's not the same. But, a big hello to my Eva starting to carve a life of her own, i am excited for her, sad to have to share her...