137 days...

Yes, I am already counting down to Imke's 4th birthday! I love, love, love planning her parties - and I am a tad OCD, so I like to start early with the planning ;-)

Last year I made so much of the decor, costumes and food myself, that if I did not start early I would have not completed half of what I wanted.

This year, Imke has said that she would like a 'Pink Pirate Princess Party' - the 4 P's that most 4 year olds adore it seems!

I will start looking at some ideas soon, but will keep asking her if she is sure about her theme before I start the proper planning.

But... I have been pinning like a mad woman - check out all these awesome ideas! I *puffy heart* Pinterest!

(it seems I might be building a boat.... How fabulous is this??)

 

http://media-cache-ec2.pinterest.com/upload/109001253451364866_pwqxCZz4.jpg

Blogging, bloggers and time wastage..

Saying that I love to blog hop and dicover new crazy, happy places to waste time is an understatement... (although if you are having fun while wasting time it doesn't count as wasted, right? RIGHT?) Thought I would do a quick list of my bests for 2012 (and I am sure these will stay on my list for 2013,)

One place where I can get lost for hours (literally!) is Vanessa Raphealy's site Hurricane Vanessa. I follow on twitter and once I have opened a link then I seem to enter another dimension where time just seems to disappear lol! I find myself with at least 20 tabs open and me still clicking on more links. It is addictive...

I discovered the Pintester last year, and was hooked immediately by her tagline - Fucking up Pinterest pins so you don't have to. She makes me laugh and I have several snorts-coffee-through-nose stains on my laptop to prove it..

As I am a huge Pinterest addict, and I have found some awesome stuff, but sometimes I think people are smoking pot and then pinning the most outrageous things they can find.. At Pinfuriating and WTF, Pinterest, they surely feel the same way I do - I love seeing some of the more absurd pins highligted here. And on WTF, Pinterest, reading some of the comments people make on other's pins and the nastiness has made my jaw drop to the floor. This one had me in stitches (and has made me want to use the term Old Naggy Vaginas randomly!)

Cakewrecks is in one word, hilarious! I head over there when I need reassurance that my baking is not as bad as I think... (dream on Cyndi)

Maybe I should send this Pinterest pinned cake (by the fabulous Raspberri Cupcakes Sydney Baking Blog) I attempted to bake to Craftfail, or ask the Pintester if she could do better, or just send it to Cakewrecks and admit my baking skills are not on par with my building stuff skills ;-)

 Even though it looks DISGUSTING, my pajama party girlfriends agreed it still tasted divine. And oh how I love them for being brave enough to taste it!

Happy blog-hopping xxx

PS, if you are on Twitter, brag about your blog using #bloggerrollcall - you might find some new blogs to waste time on, um, I mean have fun with.







 

Treasure Hunt!

Imke's school holidays started on the 4th of Dec and she only goes back on the 21st of Jan - that is 7 weeks of holiday *gasp* Luckily, J has had leave from the 24th and he only goes back on the 14th. And he is such an awesome daddy; he gets down on the floor to play and he indulges all Imke's imaginary play (he has been a fairy, a princess, the Gruffalo, Goldilocks, Dory, Woody, and many more already this holiday!).

And we rae off to the coast this weekend for a little break, so at least that makes the school holiday not feel SO long ;-) I am a stay at home mom, and Imke goes to playschool 4 mornings a week, from 9 to 12:30. Those 3 hours that she is at school during the day gives me just (barely) enough time to do all the projects and things I need and want to do. Needless to say, I have not tackled any projects the last 3 weeks lol!

Anyway, the other day she was hanging around, saying she wants to watch TV (which equates to us saying 'we are bored!' when we were kids). So I quickly drew up a little treasure hunt for her - and she loved it and had so much fun!

I tagged aalong behind her, taking pics of her while she was taking pictures of the items she had to find. And I couldn't resist editing the images side by side, so you can see what I saw and what she saw through the viewfinder.

 

Brown leaf

Yellow Leaf

Green Leaf

Pink Flower

Blue Flower

Yellow Flower

Pine Cone

Feather

Tree & Clouds

Attempting to get a pic of butterflies - but they don't sit still

A stick

A Tomato

One of the woofies

I made another hunt for objects inside the house

For these she did not want me to follow her around ;-)

 Fun!!

xxx

Christmas at the JHB VdB's

On Christmas Eve, when all the family was here, we made delicious snacks and a cheese board with fig preserve and onion marmalade and all the other fab cheese accompaniments. The grown-ups played Pictionary, and we had so many laughs. Interesting to see how people think and reason ;-)

Imke and her Oma & Opa van den Broek played up a storm - I SO love how they just go for it and always play with her and have fun together. Memories are made of this!

Just before dinner everyone went to freshen up, and the ladies donned their bit of bling ;-)

Imke chose this silver dress, and the shoes - and felt so beautiful! (the pic on right is her making a model pout lol!)

At about 7pm we all sat down for dinner (which was delicious and WAY too much, as always!). Then we handed out our Secret Santa prezzies. And we had a little gift for each of our guests, to say thank you for their presence at this special time.

I got Jeroen series 1 - 4 of The Big Bang Theory - we love that show so much! And thanks to Chicara from the fab Lipgloss Kisses who blogged about these notebooks which look like VHS tapes from Big Blue, I got it for my BIL who is a film editor, and he adored it! (by the way, Lipgloss Kisses is an awesome blog for those looking for beauty and prettiness inspiration - head over there; promise you won't be disappointed!) We got my mom and my sister some pretties from Carol Boyes (and I also got spoiled with some from my husby!)

I made Imke a mattrass, fitted sheet, duvet and pillow for her dolly's crib

 

Silliness always ensues when the whole family is together - I love love love when everyone relaxes and gets silly!

After we put Imke in bed, I got down to business - Mission from Santa Clause MAGIC business :-)

I traced one of J's shoes, used it as a stencil and sprinkled cornflower and glitter to make Santa's snowy footprints coming out of the fireplace. 

 Then I munched half a carrot, got Jeroen to nibble half a biscuit and swirled a bit of milk around a glass. All ready for Santa and the reindeer's visit! We also put a ribbon around her prezzie from Santa, and laid it out all the way to her bedroom; for her to follow in the morning.

  

In the morning, Imke followed the ribbon with a bit of hesitation, then she inspected the footprints with awe, and then giggled when she saw the remnants of Santa's snack. And when she saw her prezzie and the note from Santa (which Christmas Elf delivered), she was ecstatic!

She had asked Santa for a pink foot scooter - and he didn't disappoint!!

 After everyone was up and dressed, we made a big brunch and had a swim and relaxed.

And after everyone went home, a huge rain storm started and we cuddled inside building and playing with Imke's new Lego! So much fun!

We had a magical Christmas - thank you to our families for joining in the magic and for all the love. We adore you all, and the memories made this Christmas season will last a lifetime. Mwah xxx

Oh Christmas Time, oh Christmas Time!

I hope you had a very merry Christmas and Festive Season with your loved ones! And a very Happy New Year to you and your family!

I just adore this time of year, and with a little girl who is starting to really get the magical Christmas feeling, it makes me even more giddy.

J and I hosted our families at our house this year, for Christmas Eve dinner, and Christmas morning brunch. Except for my sister and her husband, everyone stayed over for the night and we had so much fun!

Imke loved having everyone over, and she loved getting dressed in her new sparkly dress for dinner, and she got to stay up a bit later than normal, and eventually fell asleep in my arms while we all sat around chatting - melted my heart holding my baby girl in my arms while she slips into sleep surrounded by family who just adores her <3

My theme for this Christmas was Gold & Silver - I wanted a bit of glam and glitter :-)
I made a silver tablecloth, and a gold runner, threaded some pearly beads through the chandelier over the table, made gold and silver tissue paper pom pom flowers that I hung from the ceiling, and J put the little battery operated fairy lights all around the room. It felt and looked magical!! And I appreciated it so much that all the ladies got a bit dressed up for dinner - thank you!

Here are some pics:

I will post the rest of our Christmas pics later on this week.

Happy 2013 xxx