Category: Uncategorized

Sjoe, didn’t realise it’s so late already!

I went shopping today as our children don’t have gowns that fit them anymore.  I know, bad, bad Mommy to only wake up now.  Found 3 blue gowns, Daniel was very upset and didn’t want his gown or new slippers, but when he saw his sisters wearing theirs he was very jealous all of a sudden there was no problem at all!  It all adds up very quickly though when you are shopping for 3!

Here is the obligatory pic:  (they were all eating their after dinner snack, only way I could get them all still and in one place)

Quick question:  do you feed your toddlers soup?  If so, at what age did you start?

We went to the 4th birthday party of my friend Sue’s little one on Saturday.  She will be flat on her back for the next 3 months, so she wasn’t there. I was so sad for her, but what was so amazing is that all her friends were taking photo’s during the course of the party and sending them to her.  So, even though she wasn’t there, she had a blow-by-blow account.  How cool is that?

Here is Daniel on the horse:

They were all playing and twirling on a big tyre for ages, was really hard to cut the other kids out! (I left and M right.)

We had all the parents over for lunch today (I was sure it was Father’s Day today, yes, go ahead and mock me!)  and I made chicken pie.  This entails cooking 2 chickens, de-boning them and then re-cooking with sago etc.  Due to being in potty training hell it took me almost an hour to de-bone those damn chickens.  Here’s why: 

Take chickens out of pot

Put panty and pants on Twin 1

Cut off piece of meat

Run after Twin 2 down passage to bathroom and put on toilet.  Put panty and pants back on. 

Remove skin from meat

Re-dress both twins

Cut up 2 chicken legs

Run after Twin 1 down passage to bathroom and put on toilet. Put panty and pants back on.

Debone 2 chicken wings

Put panties back on.  Eff the pants.  Too much hassle.

And so on so forth, you get the picture.

I eventually gave up, ran a bath and left them there playing in peace for a while.  I snuck closer to see what they were doing and found them whispering to each other.  So, so cute!

Daniel asked to call his friend R earlier today.  He had his first actual phone conversation with a friend.  Sigh.  Here we go.

Hope everyone has a great week!

We went off to buy our appliance late this afternoon.  All of us.  I felt like you do when you go to a really fancy place and you don’t fit in.  Very excited to be there, but desperate to look cool and like you spend a lot of time in similar places. 

Until the girls ate pieces of Styrofoam out of various appliances and I was running after them, trying to stick my fingers in their mouths to scoop the stuff out.  And then I had to mop Daniel’s drool off the carpet where he was looking at the TV displays.  Quick payment and exit after that.  I think the staff are still laughing.

I made a monumental faux pas at Daniel’s school today.  I opened my big fat mouth and spoke completely out of turn and am so embarrassed.  I called and apologised, but still feel really bad about it.  I hope his teacher forgives me 🙁

I have had to bite my tongue about so much lately, I don’t know what happened.  I need to start addressing the things that are bugging me!

Hectic weekend ahead, may everyone have a wonderful weekend, will catch up later!

Have you ever tried to buy an appliance on-line?  I tried buying a washing machine today.  Unsuccessfully so.  Because we have 3 children and only so many clothes and washing needs to be done often.

I shopped around for the best price last night and found that Game had the one I want on special.  Makro and Hi-Fi Corporation have the easiest sites to navigate (for people like me), Trade Centre’s leaves a lot to be desired and House and Home, well, the less said the better.  Did I miss any major retailers? 

Couldn’t find anything on the PnP Hypermarket site and after calling them and holding for 15 minutes they did have the one I wanted for R100 more, but wouldn’t match the cheaper price. I then called their Head Office, was kept holding for another 20 minutes and eventually gave up.  I then tried to get their attention on twitter, also no response.

I need to do this TODAY as we have been quoted R1000 to fix our washing machine and for that price I’d rather buy a new one.  (Depending on the price of course)

So, armed with my price, I call Game Tygervalley.  Yes, the washing machine is on special, I can come and pay and then they can deliver (maybe) on Monday or I can collect at their warehouse in Airport Industria.  I am welcome to pay on-line, but it would take 2 (2!!!) working days to process.  HE?  Oh, and delivery charge is R150.  So, I have to DRIVE to a Game store, get out and pay for an appliance.  Then DRIVE to the warehouse and collect.  Am I just spoilt or is that a bit nuts?

Does nobody want me to spend my measly R 1 399 with them today??

Edit to add:  Thanks to Inspiration who reminded me about Tafelberg Furnishers and they matched my price and we are sorted!

Working from home today as I have to take our washing to my Mom’s house seeing as how ‘we’ are waiting for the washing machine to be fixed. 

So far I have managed to finish the Pick and Pay shopping, a pack of Lay’s lightly salted, a pack of Jelly Tots, 3 cups of coffee, eff up the 15 minute chocolate cake and a lot of tweets.  And only now leaving to go and do washing and have to be at the homeopath with Daniel at 15h00 with hectic exzema acting up.  But I’ll turn off the fun before I leave 🙂

Going well hey?

I decided to attempt bobotie tonight.  As part of my cooking turn.  I should have known it could go pearshaped when hubby had to remind me to do rice.  And a side dish.  I was so focused on doing the bobotie I completely forgot about the rest.

Oh, and I offered to make some for my friend Sue who has just come out of hospital.

My biggest problem is that I think I’m a much better cook than I really am.  Which is proven over and over again by the trail of failed banana loaves and cakes I have donated to unsuspecting domestic helpers and our Labby.

Hubby gave me the recipe he uses, which I of course promptly forgot at home this morning.  Never fear, I found another recipe on Food24, so off I went to the shops.  But forgot the new recipe in the car and was in a rush.  I only forgot extra rice and onions, so we only had 1 onion at home.  Oh well.

I collected the children, sat in traffic and arrived home late, armed with my shopping.

Set out the 2 recipes and got going.  Chopped onions, vaguely remembered something about eggs and cream, mixed that, chucked spices in with onions and then the meat.  Oops, forgot the bread and milk. Oh well, mixed that in and chucked it in the oven.  Only to realise that it was meant to get more eggs/milk mixture halfway through.  And the one recipe calls for cooking the meat beforehand with the onions and the other doesn’t.  My best part was sticking the bay leaves on the top, even though I was convinced the one stem was a worm.  Close call!

Notes to self:

1.  try working from only 1 recipe at a time.

2.  try reading the recipe you decide to stick to before starting the proceedings.

It actually turned out quite well, even if the children only ate dry rice for supper..

ps: please don’t tell Sue that I effed up her bobotie?  Thanks!

I’m going to add PA to my bio.

Our washing machine has been acting up lately.  It’s one of those Samsung top-loader jobbies we got as a wedding gift from my In-laws (who incidentally celebrated their 52nd wedding anniversary yesterday!).

I love my washing machine.  If it’s possible to love an appliance.  It’s not fancy or anything, it’s just always worked really well and is easy to operate.  And it has survived several sets of domestic helpers (not something I can say for the 4 vacuum cleaners we’ve had in the last few years)

For the last few weeks we have noticed that the 21 minute Economy cycle has taken closer to 60.  And have preferred to dig our heads in the sand and try to ignore.  The last thing we can afford right now is a broken anything in our house.  Until the spin cycle got a little unspun on Monday.

DH and I then had The Talk.

Me: The washing machine is broken

DH:  Yes

Me: Should we call someone (read: who are you going to call?)

DH: Yes, we should really call someone (read: who are you going to call?)

So, I left it last night and we tried to do a quick load this morning, same result, same conversation.

So I called the place I called last time to come and fix the oven and they came this avie.  I would have let them in the garage door, but it wouldn’t open because “we” need to get new remotes as the current ones are really cheap and falling to pieces.

Oh, and “we” need to replace the second gas bottle, otherwise “we” won’t be able to cook.

He truly has many, many redeeming factors, so I’ll just have a quiet little whine. Shh, just between us ok?

  

I have been meaning to ask for a while now, what is everyone’s preferred multivites and immune boosters for the children, especially now in winter and with all the bugs arriving with the Soccer World Cup?

Here is our list.  Don’t laugh.  It’s long.

Solgar Kiddy Vites

Solgar Kiddy Vitamin C

Respitron Syrup 

Echinaforce

We have also invested in great homeopathic cold medicines and cough mixture as well as a big bottle of Colloidal silver.  I accept that my kids will get sick this winter and during the change of seasons, but if I can keep them off anti-biotics I would be very happy!

Then, just a quick update on the hair!

When I arrived at D’s school this morning I warned the teachers about the hair and gave them permission to snip away if they find stray hairs.  They thought it was very funny and I was joking.  I wasn’t.

Here is he this avie when I collected him from school:

We had a lovely weekend with the kids, but at the same time I feel like we achieved nothing.  Maybe because I didn’t spend my day in the shops on Saturday?

I took D to a birthday party in the morning and in the afternoon we went to friends in Stellenbosch to watch the rugby.  Read: men watch rugby and women run after children.  Still fun though, even if our children were climbing over their Dad for most of the game 🙂

I decided this afternoon that I couldn’t bear looking at Daniel’s hair any longer, he really, really needed a haircut.  For those of you familiar with me, you know that cutting hair is not considered one of my talents.  But at 5pm on a Sunday with a hectic week ahead I felt I had no choice.  So, I said he could watch any movie he wanted and I stuck him on a kitchen chair.  Only to have the girls each drag their own chair close so they could also watch TV from the slightly weird angle.  Either side of their brother.  So, after some chair shuffling, I managed to get him ready to start cutting. 

He kept on pulling his neck in like a tortoise when I would try to get to his neck hair with the clippers.  And the hair on top was SO long, I ended up cutting the sides really short, front bit not so short and by the time I got to the top and back it was chaos.  I thought I had done a good (ish) job, but after washing his hair the top back bits were still so long it didn’t even look like a bad mohawk.  So there I was, running after him with a pair of scissors, trying to get it sorted.  Shit.  I’ll see what it looks like in the morning and then I might stay in denial or (make hubby) take him to have it fixed..

Here is he, clutching his little Alladin man, fast asleep. Ok, I seriously effed up his hair or maybe it’s just the angle?  Did I mention I also tried to fix the girls’ fringes again tonight?  No?  Well.  They are probably also due for a trip to the hairdresser soon..

Will take another pic in the morning. Maybe.  Depending on how bad it is..

Have I mentioned that I’m really happy it is weekend?  In the last 5 minutes or so?

One of those weird days full of happy and not so happy moments. 

A child at Daniel’s school has the measles.  Am I freaked out?  Not yet.  (remember, I’m only a closet hypochondriac!)  The child is in Daniel’s class and he has a younger sister with the girls.  Lots of exposure there.

Every Friday the kids have cake raffle at school.  They each give R2.00 and if you win the cake you have to bring one the next Friday. 

I collected the kids today and they are in 2 different places, but part of the same school.  So, when I collect the girls they are very excited because Mignon won the cake today.  I was really happy for her, but also had that slight panic attack about forgetting the friggin cake for next week.

Off we go to the farm to collect Daniel.  As we leave the teacher says AH! forgot to tell you, Daniel won the cake today!

May everyone have a lovely weekend, please hold thumbs for the Stormers tomorrow!