Can you smell it?? It's almost Christmas!!

I am SO looking forward to Christmas this year! Everytime I think about the whole family together and my little girlie’s excitement, the rush of joy and happiness makes me grin form ear to ear.

This will be Imke’s 4^th Christmas, and every year she understands more and this year her excitement is palpable. She has asked me to write to Oupa Christmas (she has called Santa ‘grandfather Christmas since she saw her first santa clause at our Moms & Babes Christmas party in 2010), and has requested a scooter, a pink ball and the ‘Pirates, band of misifts’ movie.

She has also been cast as Mary in her school concert, and her best best friend, Thomas, is Joseph. I can NOT wait to watch them! Imke has been taking her role super serious, and has asked us to call her Mary lol!

Last year Imke, J and I made all our decorations for the tree ourselves, and I want to do the same this year. My friend Jess (who has an awesome blog you can check out here), has shared this recipe for a clay you can make at home and then paint etc – will be perfect for this years’ tree.

Here is the recipe:

Salt Dough Recipe

Ingredients

1 cup salt

2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup luke warm water

Directions

1. In a large bowl mix salt and flour.

2. Gradually stir in water. Mix well until it forms a doughy consistency.

3. With your hands form a ball with your dough and kneed it for at least 5 minutes. The longer you kneed your dough the smoother it will be.

Store your salt dough in a air tight container and you will be able to use it for days.

You can use cookie cutters to cut out shapes and stamps to imprint into the clay once they have been rolled out. Experiment with pressure to find the perfect amount you need. Paint your creations with acrylic paints and seal with varnish or polyurethane spray.

You can let your salt dough creations air dry, however salt dough can also be dried in the oven. Bake at 200 F until your creation is dry. The amount of time needed to bake your creations depends on size and thickness; thin flat ornaments may only take 45-60 minutes, thicker creations can take 2-3 hours or more. You can increase your oven temperature to 350 F, your dough will dry faster but it may also brown, which won't matter if you are painting your entire creation (you can also cover your dough in the oven before it turns brown).

There are a few options to color your salt dough: 1. Add powdered tempera paint to your flour, 2. add food coloring or paint to the water before you mix it with the salt/flour, or 3. add natural coloring like instant coffee, cocoa, or curry powder.

Here are the decorations we made last year

I am putting a countdown to Christmas ticker on the blog – just to get my even more excited! ;-p

xxx

Oh, the beauty of this little voice!

Whilst going through my huge collection of Imke videos on my phone, I came across this one, and just had to share :-)

 

 

School Photos

Every year at Imke's school they get photographer Jill Hugo to take photos at school for a whole week - she gets the kiddos doing their usual things at school, so very few posy photos. I always look forward to her pics of Imke, and this year is no exception. Thanks Jill, Love them!

 

xxx

Projects 2012 - Part 1

When we moved into the new house in January, it gave me the opportunity to tackle some DIY projects that I have been wanting to do for ages.

First thing I did was upcycle a old dartboard to a key cupbaord - just love this aqua blue in our entrance area. I added the little compartments in the front, and sprayed the inside doors with black board paint. (I don't have a before pic as I was too excited to get started!)

 

(The walls still need some colour, but we will get to that once I have done all my little projects.)

Next I tackled my first ever upholstering job, and it was super easy and fun! I am actually very proud of the outcome. And it is comfortable lol! 

I did a huge big headboard, which I covered in white faux leather with some sparkly crystal buttons.

yip, that is J's feet in the front of the shot!

The finished product

A close-up

Our bed before the headboard, redone mirrors and painted lampshades

WIth the new headboard and painted mirrors and lampshades

Front View

Again, our walls still need some colour and art, but I will get to that ;-)

Next post I will show what I've done in Imke's room!


Mwah
xxx

An update on all the VDB's

We are all doing so well - this year has been good to us. We are loving our new home, and have settled in so nicely. Feels like we have been here ages, and it is deffies our forever home. We have done lots of work on it, and it is becoming more us every day, which makes me happy :-) I have loads of projects still planned, but time being such a commodity, some of them will have to wait for next year.

J is busy busy at work - poor man just works too much :-( But he loves his job, and as much I would love him to take it easier, he thrives when he is challenged and busy. When we do get time to spend together, I always marvel at how much I just adore this man. He is so kind, loving, generous, sincere and fabulous, I thank the Lord every day for bringing us together. I love watching him with Immie - he is the best daddy a girl could ever wish for, He is patient and funny, not against playing on the floor with her or being a silly bugger to make her laugh <3

Jeroen & Immie playing giddy-up

I am busy too, but with all the little things that make a house a home, and loving the chance to tackle all kinds of new projects. Busy with Imke's playroom - want to make it all pretty and organized and fun. I am building storage shelves and a bookshelve and a little kitchen for her, and making new curtain in pink and orange (her chosen colours for her playroom!). Also busy with loads of invite designs etc for people, and have been roped in as 'school mom', which means I am busy sewing concert costumes and gluing cotton wool etc etc lol!

And, I have been making time for me, which is so nice :-) going to dinner with my girlies, or playing scrabble with maatjies, or just taking a long bath and doing a face mask. Nice to make time for myself amidst the mothering and wife-ing ;-)

Playing 50's pin-up at a friends party

And my sweetest baby girl - what an absolute pleasure she is to us! LOVE all her new sayings every day. She is learning so much at school (gave me a lesson the other day about how the earth turns around the sun and the moon turns around the earth.. she's 3 and a half and knows more than me!)
She has been cast as Mary in the school Nativity play, and we are so excited to see it! She has a BEST friend who she just loves to bits, Thomas, and he is Joseph. Can't wait!



She is growing up so fast, and she is such a caring little girl, When she sees someone crying or sad, she will run to them and hug them and ask 'shampies, what's wrong?? you OK?' Bless! She is still an absolute bookworm, and is loving playing dress-up - she can be a fairy princess, pirate and a doctor in one afternoon lol!

Surgeon

Pirate - har har me mateys!

Princess

Busy Bee

Fairy

Playing super model for the camera - pouty lips are a must!

I feel so blessed. Life has been good to us, and I feel so happy and content. We have so much to be thankful for, and I love every second of this special privilege to be Jeroen's wife and Imke's mommy.

If you got this fa, you deserve a slice of cake lol! Thanks for reading - I will try to be more active on the blog in the New Year

mwah
xxx

Imke's 3 Year Interview

Photo by Karin Meiring Photography http://www.karinmeiring.blogspot.com/ 
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Karin-Meiring-Photography/174922729219963?sk=info

And then she turned 3!

Our sweet little fairy girl turned 3 on Saturday. I can hardly believe how the time just sped by between last year's birthday and this one.

We've had an eventful year: a pregnancy, a miscarriage, house sold, new house bought, big move, all while attempting to make the changes as easy as possible on Imke.

And here we are; our little baby is not a baby anymore. She is now a real little lady, talking up a storm, making her needs known and making us laugh and giggle and causing lots of frustration in almost equal measures (but the giggles and laughs still outnumber the frustrations!).

She is such a caring little girl; she gets super upset if there is a baby crying anywhere. She tells me "don't worry, all is OK" everytime I look slightly worried, and she takes such good care of her dolly babies.

Imke is still the biggest bookworm - the best gift you can ever give her is a new story book! She reads no less than 10 books a day, first thing in the morning, at school, at lunch time, rest-time and before bed she twists our arms for "just one last more story, pwetty pwease?" :-)

She is never scared to try to pronounce new words, even big ones that might be intimidating to one so young! She does insist on a translation into Afrikaans when she learns a new English word, and vice versa. Still mixes her Afrikaans and English a lot in her sentences, but I am not too concerned as I am sure she will start to seperate the two soon.

Her imagination is quite active, which means she loves pretend play with her toys, but also means she has lots of vivid dreams and gets scared of 'monsters' quite easily. I guess with all the books we read, she sees and hears of many different things that might be scary - she calls everything that is scary "The Gruffalo".

This little girlie makes me so happy. She fills my heart with joy and wonder every day. I love every arms-tight-around-my-neck hug, every feather soft kiss, every "I love you so much mommy!", every cuddle, every "hold me tight mommy". I thank the Lord for giving Jeroen and I this little baby girl to raise and love - we are loving every moment and are so thankful and blessed to call her our daughter.

Nr 2 not to be..

So after many months of agonising over this decision and all the impact it would have, be decided to try for another baby. If you don't know how much this decision took out of me, see this post.

We got pregnant in October 2011 on the first attempt - very lucky indeed. And we were thrilled! The minute those 2 lines on the HPT came up, this little being buried deep into my heart and our planning for him/her started. And the future with another little van den Broek baby looked awesome and we couldn't wait for July 2012 to meet him/her.

And then at the end of November I started feeling bad - lots of pain which did not seem normal. Then the bleeding started. Gynea confrimed my suspicions of a ectopic pregnancy and rushedme to theatre. It happened so quickly that I could hardly wrap my head around the fact that our new litte baby is already gone.

The gynea did a laparoscopy, in through my belly button and a little cut on my previous c-section scar. After I woke up, he said that it was not an ectopic pregnancy, but that it was a miscarriage which started to bleed upwards into the tube as result of blockage. So my tube was fine and I was fine - but of course, no more baby..

My  heart broke. Even though this pregnancy terminated so very early (at almost 8 weeks), this baby was already part of our family. I had already seen Imke holding and loving her new tiny sibling. I had already envisioned the four of us playing board games and rolling down the incline in the garden. My heart had already expanded to hold love for one more person.

We are coming up to what would have been the birth date - and my heart feels like imploding. In my logical mind, I know it is silly and we can try again (but not too sure of this.. too damn scared) and that the baby wasn't even formed yet, and and and.. But my heart doesn't seem to care.

The Universe knows what is in store for us, whether we will be blessed with another little life to hold and mold, or whether Imke is our one BIG blessing. Either way I know we will always be blessed and happy, as we have support, encouragement and above all love galore.

The best paid job in the world?

I have heard many mommies say that they would not be able to be stay-at-home moms because they need the stimulation of a working environment and the adult conversation. I am not one of those mommies lol! I just LOVE being able to be there for all of Imke's milestones, to be the first to see her crawl and walk and jump. I love knowing that when she needs me, I am right there. I adore the special moments we get to share every single day - hugs and kisses, silly giggles and precious smiles.

Sometimes the nursery rhymes and repeated readings of the same stories does get to me, I won't lie ;-) But I always just think that this stage of Imke's life just lasts a moment - before we know it she will be a teenager and won't have time for her mommy's cuddles anymore *sob*.

So whenever I feel it getting to much, I just close my eyes and remind myself that in a blink of an eye she will be all grown up, and these few precious moments need to be savoured.

As for grown up conversations, these days with cellphones, WhatsApp, Internet etc, there is no feeling of being isolated. I have contact with many dear friends during the day, and we have play dates with friends often. And although we tend to chat mostly about our kids, it is what is most important in my life at the moment, so I don't feel I am missing out.

I take my hat off to moms who balance work and home; it can't be easy. But at the same time I praise moms who stay at home and give their all to their little beings - you are giving your child the very thing she needs most: your love and cuddles, hugs and attention. We are blessed to be able to be there and be their teachers!!