The last day of FIVE and a photowalk

"how old are you, Babies?"

Do you have a favourite?

The kids' 6th science-y birthday party

I feel like I have to write some of this down before I forget it all.

Invites
After agonising about who to invite, we settled on a set number of kids for K, C and me :) The school invites were completely out of my hands but I basically invited kids my children had spent time with over the last year, minus the ones from the pre-school that they no longer see.



RSVPs
I say this every year but I honest-to-goodness want to throttle people for not just saying YES or NO. Why is this so hard? Check your schedule, speak to your spouse and say yes or no.

We had the worst number of RSVPs ever....even after I reprinted the invites and popped in the bags again after the RSVP by date.

My friends at least RSVPd quickly :)

One parent RSVPd on the Monday before the party, about 10 days later....

Anyway, on the bright side (and Lord knows we need to look for a bright side), all those who RSVPd actually pitched.



The venue
From the time we first went to Sci-Bono at the beginning of last year, I've wanted to have a party there. It is fabulous inside. If you haven't been, go!

The reason I needed the numbers confirmed was because the venue allowed only a certain number of people. Of course, such a small number of people pitched that we had no problems in the end.

I actually considered either having a science party at home, or just paying for each family to enter the venue, but in the end I just sucked up the "wasted" cost and paid the party price.

The party price included entrance to the museum, a guided tour, science demonstration and gifts for each birthday child.



Food
I know from previous years that people just don't eat much early in the morning so we didn't have a lot of food. Good thing because of the transporting food to a venue story. I sent all the chips and juices to school when schools reopened for their Friday snack.

The cakes were made by Pick and Pay, as they usually are, and were delicious.



My attitude
I honestly would rather have had the holiday instead of a party (used the party money to stay a day or two longer!) but of course, I was outvoted by D and the kids. And so I was freaked out before we went on holiday due to these RSVPs, mainly because I wanted my kids to have a nice party and it seemed like there would be only 6 kids total.

I really wanted to cancel at one point but D said it didn't matter if there were 6 kids or 16; our kids would still have a nice time. I wasn't convinced but I knew I was stressed with work and not thinking clearly so I just left it.

Once we went on holiday and I paid for the party, I relaxed into that state of not giving a toss anymore. Can I blame it on the beach?


The day of
People pitched, the venue was ready, the co-ordinators were friendly and good with kids and it was lovely. Honestly.

I got a few good pics but not as great as I'd have got outside. Then again, I have winter babies so basically it's inside parties forever.

I'd encouraged the guests to go explore and play in the museum afterwards so once the party ended, that's what we all did.

We overstayed our welcome by far - the party was 10 - 12, we were there from 9:30 - 16:20. We even heard the "the museum will be closing in 20 minutes" announcement.

I had a BALL!

We had once "incident" but that's a story for another day. Maybe.



Presents
This was the best part of the small party - only 5 presents :)



Thank-you notes
This year we recorded individual voicemail messages for each of those 5 families and we sent them by text.

They are VERY cute - I still have them. If I knew how to embed them here, I'd attach one.

And seems like the recipients enjoyed those thank-yous too.



Next time
I've already told all 3 of them that things will be Very Different next year:

1. no parties during school holidays
2. we are going on holidays without worrying about this party business
3. we're having two small parties on the same day at home!

On another note
I've been keeping records and I told D we've only been to 4 parties this year - 3 kids of friends (Robyn's two kids!) and 1 school friend.
D said, "no wonder it feels like we have a life again" :)

So, what do you think?
Is this school holiday non-RSVP thing a thing?

And then, proof that I was there :)
 

{Friendship Friday} Tuesday friends

I read a blog post by Emily Freeman today that really spoke to me.

Here you go - have a read - I'll wait.

You see, I've been thinking about that kind of friendship for awhile.

Someone very close to a friend of mine is going through a situation that is quite awful. A close family member was diagnosed with the C-disease.

Amidst all the sadness, this person's friends have really rallied around and "stepped up". When I hear of the rosters to sort out kids and suppers and such, I am in awe of it all.

It's heartwarming to see love in action like that.

And in the same breath, it's a little bit scary.

Okay, a lot.

Because of two things - 1) I know I have far more acquaintance friends than Tuesday friends and 2) I have to ask myself, "am I a Tuesday friend to enough people?"

Acts of service is my primary love language and I am always willing to physically help out BUT I don't do death well.



A mom at the kids' pre-school wrote something on FB about her other child being in hospital so I sent her a message saying shall I fetch the other child and keep her here? It wasn't necessary because of grandparents but she knew I'd step in and bring food/ whatever/ keep the other one/ whatever was needed.

However, if it were a death, I'd be a little more reserved because death scares me and I'm afraid I'll say the wrong thing!

It's also hard knowing what the person needs if they're not a blabbermouth like I tend to be...

So let's talk about it.

Are you a good Tuesday friend?
What tangible acts do you do that we can all learn from?

While we're on the topic of friends, I'm thrilled that I got to meet Pamela when I was in PE nearly a month ago.

We met at the beachfront and had some tea/ coffee while chatting up a storm.

She is just as lovely as she appears online so the time of connection was really lovely!

The big tree

We went for a walk about a month ago and Connor wanted to go down a street they used to walk down before (they used to walk home from school that way last year), so we went.

So glad we did because... AMAZING tree, LEAVES, abundance!

We took an iphone photo which I loved but everything is better with the Big Camera, right?

The kids and I went back two days later to play in the leaves and have a "proper" photo shoot.

"don't you want to lie down in the leaves?" (Lie is correct; I checked :))

Magnificent!!!

and then we went to gym with my bag of tricks

Which is your favourite photo?

5 things I want more of now I'm 41 :)

I made my lovely things list last night but instead of sharing a more linear format, I thought I'd spice it up.

I want more of these things during this next year of my life :)

 
Holidayzzzzzzz
I know I go on a lot of holidays but really, that's the point, isn't it? I'm really happy spending money on holidays :)



Sleep
I've been very intentional this year about sleeping longer, and I really want to carry this forward. These are my average hours for the month. I do great on the weekends and not-so-great during the week.

Jan	06:38
Feb	06:40
Mar	06:58
Apr	07:09
May	07:04
Jun	07:22
Jul	07:13

Reading

I was doing so very well on Sunday afternoons. Straight after lunch I'd collapse in the sunroom with a stripey mug of tea and read for 3 hours while kids and husband did their own thing.

I don't know what happened but I want it back.



Photos

Not necessarily more photos, but more fun projects or challenges. Of course, I intend to finish 52walksin2015 and the52project first.

Terisha/ Louisa - do you recognise where this one is from?

God
Amazing how God can speak to you through reading a children's Bible!

The more he listened to Jesus and knew Jesus' heart, the more he loved Him.

Ahem!

I want to know His heart more and that comes from reading the Word. Daily!



What do you want more of for the last 5 months of the year?

So I'm a year older

Gosh, it's only been 4 days since I last wrote but it  feels like forever.

I intended to write last night but my ISP told me I was out of bandwidth - impossible since I should have had about 12 GB left.

All manner of troubleshooting didn't fix it so eventually I went to bed. I was quite calm about the whole thing. I think it's loadshedding that's made me a bit blase about stuff working...

Anyway, back to the birthday.

I worked from home on the actual day - Thursday - which was fabulous. Best decision ever (if you can't go to the beach!). I could fetch the kids from school and go for a walk with them and do a bit of decluttering/ organising in my "tea" breaks.

I had lovely phone calls, messages, and such, which is always very, very nice.

Went to Spanish in the evening and home to takeaway pasta. So a lovely day all in all.

At my work, people are not really "into birthdays" so nothing ever happens unless it's instigated by someone like me. We've had one colleague with a birthday (and another ex-colleague) since I started, and I bought a present and card for both people without anyone else expressing interest. No-one else really cares.

So obviously no fuss was made of mine but I didn't expect anything so I was still happy (my key to happiness is to have low expectations!). I brought in cakes and chips and sausage rolls and festive party plates, etc. which was looked at with .... incredulity :)

Anyway, that is ME! And my rule is to be ME at all costs.

Right?

Temp tattoo - the only kind of tattoo I am ever going to have, so I took a picture.

And then yesterday I had a lunch for a few friends.

Last year I invited a ton of people and ended up with 18 guests. This year there was a third of that. Very different but very nice.

I hesitated for sweet forever about whether to have a lunch or not and I only finally decided 10 days before Saturday. It felt VERY last-minute to me but this is what most people do and things end up fine :)

And so ends my birthday week :( And my family's birthday month!!!

an old photo but I love it! taken during Superhero Photo --->>

I didn't get any fiction this year so I've earmarked a few on Amazon to buy for myself :)

I want to write a post about the kids' birthday party, about things I've learnt over this last year, and other such navel-gazing posts, but it's late and my bed is calling!

How's your weekend going?
Do you buy yourself birthday gifts?

PS Two people asked me if we'd redone our kitchen. HA! (no way do I have patience for such an endeavour) Maybe the light looked different or it was cleaner?

July book report, and my holiday reads

Usually I take everything with me on holiday - laptop, Kindle, iPad and iphone.

This time I thought there was no point in taking the iPad and my Kindle, and now I know that was a mistake. I don't enjoy the experience of reading on my iPad so I took ages with book 1.

I much prefer reading on my old-school Kindle precisely because there is nothing else to do with the Kindle but read. So it is exactly like an old-fashioned paper book.

I only took one "paper book" with me to the beach, Me Project, and that was really so that I'd have something to read on the actual beach where there is... sand!

That turned out to be an excellent idea and I flew through the book.

So, onto the reviews:

4 books got 4* and 2 books got 3*.

From the right:

1. The blue bistro - Elin Hilderbrand
This is the 2nd one by this author and while I love all the talk of the beach and Nantucket (on my wish list!), I never fall madly in love with the characters.

Still, nice enough story and I always enjoy peeks at the behind-the-scenes of restaurants.

2. The Cry - Helen Fitzgerald
I'm almost 100% sure Helene (with the 2 sets of twins) recommended this to me yearrrrs ago. Anyway, I bought it and I was just never in the mood for thriller-type books.

But it was on my ipad and I needed something to read fast after my slow reading of book 1 above.

Well, I FLEW through this book. I was completely hooked from the get-go and read it in about 4 hours tops. Loved it.

Favourite quote - "happiness cannot be built on the pain of others"

3. The Me Project - Kathi Lipp
I bought 2 of these types of books years ago - this one and The Marriage Project. I'm a sucker for a ___ days to ________ situation. I have even written two exactly like this :)

This one has a little project for 21 days to walk you back to finding your purpose God's given you despite being in the throes of child-rearing and such.

It was lovely, easy reading and such good action steps. Once this study is back in order (I'm having my desk painted BRIGHT yellow), I want to start working through it again, maybe with my Bible buddies.

Loved it!!!

4. The Husband's Secret - Liane Moriarty

Gee whiz - is there anything this woman writes that's not good? This book is amazing - I super duper loved it! Just get it!

And if you haven't read it yet, does Cecilia remind you of anyone?

5. After the wedding - Roisin Meaney

I've read 6 of her books now and loved each and every one of them. They're all set in Ireland (which has my heart!) and are simply delightful and charming.

This one can be read on its own but if you're going to read all her books as you should, then make sure you read One Summer before this one as the cast of characters is the same.

6. Make it happen - Lara Casey

Otherwise known as The book I read when my flight home was cancelled

I adore Lara's blog and Instagram, but I didn't LOVE this book. It was good enough but there are other books in this genre I'd recommend over this one.

Also, I knew the story from listening to the Jess Lively podcast.

My books for July - a really good reading month even though it was off to a slow start.

What did you read in July? Have you read any of these books? What did you think?
PS Is anyone local interested in joining a Book Club with me?

PPS those are affiliate links. At no extra cost to you, if you shop through those links, I'll get about 20c (for real - why do I bother?!)/ R2 :)

Birthday week

So friends, this is my Birthday Week.

I've been taking it seriously so far and have had treats every day since Saturday :)


A work friend (from old company) and I have birthdays in this week so we met for a birthday brunch on Saturday. We are the same personality profile (ESTJ) and it was freaky to realise just how alike we are, especially since we don't see each other as often as we used to.

Yesterday was my official family birthday lunch. We were going to go to Perron (Mexican) but Sunday afternoon in Illovo feels far too trendy for a family, so I googled and Mama Mexicana came up. I was thrilled because I've wanted to go there for a long time. I think I even mentioned it on the blog.



The city is one of my happy places. We just started driving onto Fox Street and already I was beaming from ear to ear. I feel like I got a 2 for the price of 1 deal because we got to walk around Arts on Main for a bit too (while we waited for a table to clear) and then had a very delicious Mexican meal. I'm definitely going back.

The whole area was buzzing and there's not a lot of official parking, of course, but PLENTY of car guards who watch your car very nicely for R10.

3 of the 4 of us loved our meals; K burst out crying after trying about 3 bites. It's useless talking to her when she's so upset so tonight I asked her more about it and she said "the food was too messy". We decided that WHEN we go back, I'll feed her something at home first.

The light inside Mama Mexicana was amazing...... seriously...I do believe anything can look good in the right light. Exhibit A...

And then today, I went to have a medi-heel treatment.

I don't like pedicures because I don't like to have people touching my feet BUT I've discovered I don't mind firm touches to my feet. I've been for 3 treatments at Camelot so far and I LOVE my smooth heels (and feet) afterwards. Seriously, if you even have a bit of dry feet/ heels, go get one done. Only R70!



I have nothing planned for tomorrow or Wednesday, but let's see :)

How was the start of August for you?

PS Louisa, are you enjoying sleeping in? It's Birthday Week for Louisa and Marleen too!