This and that.. and a busy book page

Hi from a very wet and cold Highveld. It has been raining on and off for days now and both little ones have summer colds. Not a very happy scenario, especially as they love being outdoors. Playing in the rain puddles at granny's house did not help either.It it the first time that our youngest child has seen hail and she was absolutely fascinated.She kept on running out and collecting hailstones to show us ( after it had stopped hailing).

We have really enjoyed the few hot days that have come our way. We went swimming, visited a play park, ate ice creams and set up a tent for the children in the back yard. 
The children spent ages playing in the tent and bringing their toys out to play " house". With a tight budget, keeping two very busy little bodies occupied has required some creative thinking. The internet is a great source of ideas and inspiration. I will be sharing ideas and links to websites as I find them, as I am sure that I am the only mom on a budget.

It has been back to work for all again and the December holidays seem very far away. We have a Christmas market coming up and I am frantically trying to complete a LARGE number of stuffed animals to sell, in between the usual chaos of our lives. This has been very challenging.

We are also facing two life changing happenings in the very near future, both of which leave me with butterflies and sleepless nights ( more on this to follow).

A busy book page in progress

I would love to share with you my completed ( yes , completed) holiday project. I found the pattern for this beautiful  busy book page at Imagine our life and am really quite proud of the final result. These pages are quite addictive, much like my crochet work. I have started on  a second page, the Castle Puppet Theater, although now that we are all back at work and the Christmas Market is looming, I think this will have to wait until December
 I will also be posting new Busy Book pages as I finish them.

I am going to start remodelling our garden, so keep watching this space as I post photo's and share the progress with you. Budget gardening is going to be challenging but fun. If you have any great idea, here would be a good place to post them.

My finished Sandcastle page

That's it for now. Have a great week.See you again in a few days time

We're all going on a (short) summer holiday...



What a busy week. My husband was away at a week long conference,so I was left with the littlies. I promptly moved in with my folks for the week ( yes I am a coward) and it was lovely.It was also our last school holiday before the December break , so I decided to make it as fun as possible for all of us.On the Saturday before my husband left, we took the children to C'est la Vie play park in Centurion. We had a lot of fun on the go-carts, scooters and play  equipment.    This was rounded off by a yummy lunch involving lots of "mato sauce" at their coffee shop , by which time both children were drooping very visibly.



Natural History Museum



 While dad was away we visited the Natural History Museum, which was great fun, for about the first half hour. The children are still a bit small to really enjoy it but they were most impressed by the stuffed elephant and rhino and enjoyed the birds as well.

C'est la Vie play area

 We also visited a farm zoo, which was a total disaster, as the animals mobbed us for food and both children were fairly hysterical.

The kids spent hours in the blow -up pool at granny's house, racing down the driveway on their scooters and some serious bonding time with Buzz,Woody,Shrek and Barbie ( no , this is not a folk music band).  We also visited our favourite second hand book shop, Rutlands, where I came away with three of my favourite authors ( Debbie Crombie, Kathy Reichs and Sue Grafton ) and I found a very sweet book for the children called Russel the Sheep by Rob Scotton. If you have little ones, this is really a must buy. Russel cannot sleep and tries everything in his power to fall asleep. Nothing works until ( yes, you guessed it) Russel starts counting sheep. I managed to read FIVE books in my holiday, finish crocheting three birds for our Christmas market - see previous post-as well as complete my first "quiet book" page ( more on this later).

Another great entertainment for the kids was ( who knew?) a box of koki pens, some paper and a pair of scissors. This kept them busy for quite a long time, with one child drawing lovely colourful scribbles and the other reducing any piece of paper he could get hold of to confetti.We have had a very busy holiday but it helped keep our minds of the fact that my husband was away. This week it is back to work and school, with the December holidays seeming a long way away.

Have a great week