Monkeys amongst the banana trees

Yesterday was a lovely day again and David spent it working in the garden.

The girls joined him later and helped him replant the banana trees from our front garden, moving them to the back.  After this they must have played there for at least 2 hours.  David called me and commented that they do not need a jungle gym to keep them busy!  Needless to say the bath was quite a mess last night!

The mountains were especially clear yesterday and I tried to take some photos of that along with the clouds but my camera does not do justice!

Paint Progress Report

The back of the house is also yellow now and everything looks so clean!  Even the pillars on the stoep looks better from inside when we look outside from our kitchen!

The ugly pink and black-green wall is also yellow and the difference is almost unbelievable!  

The more I look at it the more I like it!  Yellow is such a more natural colour!  It does not clash with the colours in nature surrounding us!  It actually seems to enhance the greens and browns!

Aaaah! Cyber fix!

The lightning struck our modem yesterday afternoon and as a result I felt lost for 36 hours! I could not get the news or stay in contact and it was awful! It only made me realise how addicted I am to the internet!

Here are a few updates:
The house is still not finished and it turns out that it is going to need a 3rd layer of paint. Looking very good so far though!

The girls had a little tea party this afternoon on the front lawn. It is amazing what little things make them extremely happy! All I did was give them a whole pot of tea (4 cups), some 100's and 1000's, coloured sugar and caramel choc chips. It kept them busy for more than an hour because they were drinking the tea out of 10 ml porcelain cups!

Look, look, look!

Our house is slowly turning yellow! It is looking so much cleaner already and it's only the first coat! I LOVE IT!

Here are some photos of it!

Days gone by!

I found these photos of my girls while looking for some to put on my facebook profile this morning.

They were taken in September 2004.  We were visiting my aunt and uncle in Phalaborwa.  We had put the two to bed and about an hour later we heard loud noises coming from the room.  

We found them playing with the blanket like this.  Luzaan turned 2 that weekend and Suzelle would have been 4 that December. 

I loved seeing this again and thought I would share it with you!

Not working today

Nothing will be happening around our house today.  The plasters will have to say!  

The reason?!! See the  photo!

Ouch!!!

Well, after the first day of work it looks like our home is held together with white plasters!

First they had to chisel out the cracks and treat/kill the fungus.  Then they closed up the cracks again.  The photos show the chiseled cracks and the plasters!  

The other photo is for the colour.  We chose the yellow one on the right.

Soooo Excited!

The preparations for painting our house have started this morning and I can not wait for it to really be our house!  

It is the first time we get to paint it the colour we chose and the scribbling on the wall that the previous people did will be gone along with the PINK colour!  

I will be posting before and after photos, so look out for those!

Fairy party and sunset!

The girls were spoiled at a friend of Luzaan's 6th birthday party!  It is such a special family and Suzelle was invited even though she was 2 years older than most of them!  They had to dress in their fairy dresses and received fairy letters that they had to write their names on and put in the post box.  (The mommies got prezzies to put in the box in exchange for the letters!)  It was so nice and what a beautiful hot day it was!  The Cape is such a wonderful time in Autumn!

Here are some photos of the girls and the sunset!

Easter Weekend

I'ts been a very full easter weekend!  We had guests for a meal 3 of the 4 days and it was hectic but we loved every minute of it!  We love having people over!

On Friday we went to church for the Good Friday service.  I was on creche duty and after moving it to another room they had not put a sound system in there but I was told that it was a wonderful and challenging sermon!  Our tradition for Good Friday is to, in memory of our Lord Jesus Christ that was the Lamb slain for our sins, have leg of lamb and invite a family we have not invited for it before.  It was so nice!  We got to know another family better and it made me enjoy it even more  when, while making coffee in the kitchen, I could hear them chatting and laughing around our table on the 'stoep' (like a porch)!  It always makes me happy when I hear people enjoying themselves!  We were 8 adults and 4 children.  The children ran around in the garden and played upstairs while the adults just relaxed and enjoyed each other's company.

Saturday was a working day for David and me.  He worked in the garden while I was cleaning inside.  We had guests for supper though and this time we were 6 adults and 6 children.  It was to windy to sit on the stoep like Friday but it was so nice to be able to sit 3 full families around our dining room table! Once again we were thankful that our table can seat 12 people easily!  We planned to do a 'snoek braai' (fish barbeque) but after defrosting we saw that the snoek was off and had to make other plans quickly!  I took out some boerewors (sausage) and lamb tjops but that would take too long to defrost so David and the other men left to get some quickly.   Fortunately they were very good friends and spiritual family of ours! Everyone was very patient and we enjoyed having them over and spoiling them a bit. 

Sunday we had church again of course.  The guests we had for lunch was a bit unplanned though!  After starting to defrost the tjops the previous night I did not want to refreeze it again and now we had all this meat we could not possibly eat by ourselves, so we decided to invite a family who drives all the way from Bredasdorp (2 hours drive normally, now even more because of roadworks) to attend our church.  We have wanted to get to know them better and it was really lovely!  They are such nice people and the girls enjoyed playing with their little girl.  We hid easter eggs for them which they could eat when they found them.  

I jokingly asked David who we should invite for Monday but his immediate reaction was to say we should not invite anyone!  He was busy thinking this when I asked him!  Monday is my washing day anyway and David had a couple things he wanted to do in the garden again (he is working very hard and it is looking so good!).  

Well, today is Tuesday and tomorrow is school again!  The holiday was way to short!  The girls had a party today and the sunset was awesome but I will write more about that tomorrow, I hope!

Grotto Bay, West Coast, South Africa

While David was in Johannesburg this week, the girls and I went to Rista and Stephan's house in Grotto Bay for 2 nights this week. It was supposed to be one night only but we decided to stay another. Once there we usually do not want to come back home!

I kept it as a surprise for the children and only asked them whether they wanted to go at Rista's house just before we left to go. Everything had to be packed very slyly and sneaked to the car without them knowing. They were so excited! The weather is usually also better there than at home!

These are some photos I took of the children Stefani, Kristiaan, Suzelle and Luzaan and a seascape or two.

The Tooth Mouse

Luzaan pulled her first top tooth on Friday morning (well, she actually pushed it out with her tongue, it was so loose). She put the tooth in her shoe by her bedroom door.

Later I gave David the money to put in her shoe because I was going to bed and was worried that she was not sleeping deep enough and would see me.

On Saturday morning I woke up with a soft crying. David was awake in a flash sitting up and saying that he forgot to put the money in her shoe! We told her that it had rained and maybe the mouse got lost or did not feel like going out in the rain. Not long after this David put the money in her shoe but she did not notice untill after we had been out. This worked well for us of course because she believed that the mouse had been while we were out!

The best part though was when Suzelle came to me and quietly asked whether the tooth mouse was real. I asked her what she thought and she said no. I then told her that in that case the tooth mouse would not be visiting her anymore to which she, without even thinking about it, replied: "No, but my mommy will!" She is so sharp and what could I say?! A little while later she came to me and softly, so that Luzaan could not hear, said: "So that's why Luzaan and I are getting the exact same amount for each tooth!" I didn't even know but she was obviously keeping score!

We are amazed at the things the children pick up on every day and are enjoying seeing them grow and seeing their sense of humour develop along with the many sayings they are already able to use in very appropriate places! They are also very bilingual (not surprising since their daddy is English) and Suzelle has even started using English sayings! I know this is helped on by her love of reading in both languages.

We have an appointment tomorrow with a friend who had twins in February and later we are going to Grotto Bay on the west coast for an overnight stay with Rista and her children while David is in Johannesburg again. The children does not know yet and I will try to keep it a secret untill we go, but it will be difficult to pack without them noticing!

Will post some photos when we are back. Or try at least since Easter weekend is upon us already!

Another visitor

We had another visitor today. This time it was a juvenile mole snake of about 15cm.

The children thought it was very qute untill it jumped out of the bowl David had caught it in!
Even I had a massive fright!

It is amazing to see how quickly one gets used to things! We have only been living here for 3 years now and already things like this do not keep the childrens' attention like it used to!

Anyway, David and I still enjoy seeing the wildlife around here!