HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY (Brad)

Riley's brilliantly decorated cake.........


On Wednesday it was Brad's birthday so we decided that it would be a nice family tradition to celebrate with dinner and cake on the person's actual birthday (even though it was a school night). The night before Brad chose the meal that he would like for dinner, Great Grandma Kilah skeddies (a bit of a family favourite - even Emily loves it). I baked a cake and iced it and when Riley came home from school he set about decorating it. Riley then set the table with some leftover party things from his birthday last year (this might explain the spiderman themed tableware haha). When Brad got home from work we had the table set up with a little bit of party food as a treat before dinner. So we all had some treats (very quickly as it was fast approaching dinner time) and then had our yummy skeddies. Emily was getting very tired very fast and so we did the presents, both kids sat with Daddy and 'helped' him to open his gifts. It was soon time for cake but sadly the little miss had to go to bed first as she would not make it through cake (which is a shame as I would have liked to get some pics of her sharing some birthday cake but I guess I can hold out another 8 weeks until her 1st birthday..........crikey when I put it like that it seems much closer than it should....). Overall I think we all had a fun time and Riley has already put in his order for his birthday dinner, Chicken Fried Steak (he has never had such a thing but someone on Hannah Montana did so it obviously MUST be good..........we'll see).

Riley hard at work decorating Daddy's cake, I have no idea how that icing made it's way to the corners of his mouth................hmmmmm

The family enjoying some treats....

THE BIRTHDAY BOY!!!

Helping Daddy with his pressies.

My two boys blowing out the candles together.

Riley sang a special version of Happy Birthday for Daddy and it went something like this.....

Happy Birthday to you, You were born in a zoo, You look like a monkey and you smell like one too!! The evening then digressed all through cake eating time to all of us making up our own versions of the Happy Birthday song. One that comes to mind is: Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, You look like a Crosby and you SNORE like one too!! (ok so that was mine to both my boys hahahahaha)

Famous Riley

Friday night we got a parcel from home from Nana. There was a magazine in the envelope (to fill it I thought) and a note to say that we should read the article on page 24. We opened up the mag and saw the most handsome boy ever..............RILEY!! As soon as we showed Riley he screamed and jumped up and down shouting "I can't believe it I am in an actual magazine, I am famous!!" It was very cute. So this week Riley took the mag into school and lapped up all the attention that he got from the kids and teachers alike. He version of the girl's reactions was that they screamed too and all wanted to be his girlfriend because he is now famous.

10 Months Old Today!!

Emily just loves playing with Annabelle and Riley.

Can you believe our baby girl is 10 months old already? Crikey where has the time gone? She is growing so fast. I know that I say this every month and that is because it is true. Lately she has a new trick and that is to see how fast she can slip away from my view and race up the stairs to my bedroom. There are approximately 20 steps and she can quite easily navigate all of them. She is very confident at it also and has yet to have a fall or slip to give her a bit of a reality check, mind you we are never too far behind her and the security gate that was once at the top of the steps is now at the bottom - much to her dislike. She loves reading her 'Peekaboo' books, they are touch and feel and have little flaps that you have to lift to find the baby or the animal etc. She loves lifting the flaps herself. She really enjoys going to school with me to drop Riley off and pick him up again. In the mornings we will usually take a little bit of time and watch some of the animals, she particularly likes the geese and ducks and tries to imitate the sounds that they make. She also likes watching the rabbits hop around their pen and the roosters chasing each other and crowing. She can now point out her head when asked as well as her ears and her tummy. She thinks she is so clever (and we do too) so she claps for herself when she gets it right. This past week she started to pick up my mobile and put it to her ear and say "Hello" (very cute). My friend Shelley thought that this was cute at dinner the other night and whilst Emily was eating a piece of pizza she asked her who was on the phone and so the pizza was swiftly slapped against the side of Emily's head and she said very sweetly "Hello", pizza was stuck in her ear and hair after that - nice one Shell thanks! (actually I think Shelley got a pic of it on her camera).

I'm not sure this is what the books quite meant about 'self feeding'...............

This is Emily enjoying some pasta and pureed sweet potato for lunch today.

My little angel enjoying her lunch - she really loves the idea of sitting at the table with the rest of us and feeding herself.

My gorgeous kids!!

MY BEAUTIFUL BLUE EYED FAMILY!!

Riley and Emily are having so much fun together these days. Almost anything Riley does is amusing to Emily and she has the sweetest giggles for him. Riley has been helping me out a lot lately by 'babysitting' for me when I am busy doing something like making dinner. Riley will play with Emily in the lounge room whilst I am busy in the kitchen. He has earned himself R17 so far and is pretty chuffed with himself too. When he gets enough coins up Brad has been swapping his coins for notes too which has Riley very impressed.

Doing my own dirty work again....

Well it seems that although we live in a country where it is not only acceptable to have domestic help but even expected that you have at least one domestic employee, I cannot hold on to one. I suspected our first maid, Macy, was going through my personal items. I never noticed anything missing but I did not feel comfortable with her here and also her attitude was a bit of a problem, so a friend fired her for me one day (I was heavily pregnant and was busy in the bathroom with Riley vomiting when the time arrived to do the deed). On a side note I found out a few weeks ago that Macy died recently of AIDS. Holy Crap I thought! So then we hired Motshabi who seemed really lovely at the beginning. She had never done domestic work before and so required a lot of instruction at first. This level of requiring instruction didn't seem to fade, I thought at first that she was just a slow learner but soon came to realise that she was just very lazy and had a zero care factor. As soon as we found out we were moving to Canada I gave her notice and then we ended up asking her to leave early as she just got lazier and lazier once notice had been served. Side note, her room was so disgusting that it is now apparent to me just why she did not do such a good job inside our home and that is becuase she just had no standards at all! So I decided to get myself a temporary part time maid (which and here is another side note, are actually called Chars here). I went to an agency called Marvellous Maids and spoke with the owner Graham and he assigned Victoria to help us out 2 days a week. Victoria was lovely and Riley took to her right away. On her first morning here, Riley talked the poor woman's ear off before I took him to school and gave her some peace and quiet. In his conversation with her he asked Victoria if she has a passport, to which she replied that she did and so he promptly invited her to move to Canada with us! Things were going really nicely with Victoria until last Friday when I took Riley to school I accidentally left my wallet behind and when I returned to get it, just 30mins later, I found R200 missing. I had been out the night before and so contacted all of my friends to ask them if I had done something with the money, they all replied no. I called Brad and asked if he had taken any money from my wallet before he had left for work that morning to which he replied no. So my only other solution was that Victoria took it. I did not want to believe this. I called Graham at Marvellous Maids and he also did not want to believe this. Graham and I decided to set up a sting (all very exciting). So long story short (or shorter at least) on Tuesday when Victoria arrived I again went out and left my wallet behind with money in it. I marked the notes and recorded the serial numbers. When I returned again R200 was missing. I called Graham and he came down and after a very uncomfortable discussion with her, in which she deinied taking the money and then we pulled it out of her apron pocket, Graham took her away. Sadly Victoria is Zimbabwean and so if we were to press charges (which we have decided not to) she would be deported. Graham has told me today that she is being fired and she will be blacklisted at all agencies which means that she will not be able to work here anymore and will most likely have to return to Zimbabwe anyway.

So now that I am doing my own dirty work again we are all going to have to pitch in, noone is safe!! Here are a couple of pics of the kids getting aquainted with the laundry appliances.

SO I PUT THE WASHING IN HERE????

RILEY INSPECTING THE WASHING MACHINE WHILST EMILY CHECKS ON THE CLOTHES IN THE DRYER.

EMILY TRYING TO SQUASH RILEY INTO THE WASHING MACHINE

BETTER GET A JUMP ON THAT FOLDING EM.........

NOT MUCH OF A POSER HEY! SEE EMILY CLAPPING AND SMILING UP AT HIM - THEY ARE SO SWEET TOGETHER THESE DAYS....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHELLEY!!

Today was the lovely Shelley's birthday (22nd I think....hahaha). So to treat her we (Shelley, Lucy and I) went out for a good old fashioned High Tea. We found a lovely little place tucked away above a nice shop in the Design Quarter. There are only a few tables so even if all tables are full it is still never too busy and the service is very personal. We started off with a nice spread of savoury snacks and a pot of tea and then moved on to champagne and a spread of sweets. After the sweets they bought out the giant lamington cake that I had made. I figured seeing as how Shelley has a bit of a weak spot for lamingtons then what better birthday cake than a giant lamington (it has nothing to do with the fact that icing a giant lamington is about the limit of my talents when it comes to cake decorating). We had a very lovely relaxed morning and even managed to finish our sentences and complete conversations - a rare treat for all 3 of us. We were so impressed that,before we left, we booked another morning for next month when Michelle is back! All diets are left at the door when doing High Tea!!

CHEERS GIRLS!!

SHELLEY AND LUCY WITH THE SAVOURY SPREAD.

BLOW OUT YOUR CANDLES BIRTHDAY GIRL!

9 Months Old!!

YO YO YO MAMMA..... (note the bruised left cheek)

Gosh it has been so long since my last blog. Emily has grown so much and has now hit the 9 Month milestone. 9 Months sees her crawling properly now on hands and knees (and quite fast too I might add) she is also pulling herself up on anything and everything that she can and she is starting to try her hand at cruising as well. I think she has her brother's adventurous spirit and no fear attitude which means that mixed with all this increased mobility means that we have a lot more bumped heads, bruises and tears too. Although Emily is in no way the talker that Riley was at the same age she sure can put her point across. She has a few words in her repertoire including, Bub, Dad, Ri Ri (for Riley), Hello, Bye and I am quite sure that Riley and I heard her say Bec the other day. Still waiting for Mum of course which is an endless source of amusement for my two boys. She is waving hello and good bye, clapping and this past few days when you ask her where her head is she touches her head with both her hands and she can do the same when you ask where her ears are too, we are working on eyes, nose and mouth. She is slowly getting her appetite back after being sick with an ear infection and she is now cutting 3 teeth (to add to the 3 that she already has) she is enjoying a much wider range of food now too, in particular she is loving rice cakes, cauliflower, banana, cucumber and pasta and as always her vegemite sangas of course. She has also started to have some diluted apple juice and i think has yet to spill a drop, water on the other hand..........I have had to buy her a bib that wears pretty much like a dress to cover as much of her as I can in an effort to preserve her clothes and keep her clean whilst still allowing her to exoplore different foods and work out how to feed herself. Fun times. Lately she has been enjoying watching herself on webcam too I think she gets a kick out of seeing herself on the screen and as most of you already know she loves the winks on the chat window too. She really is a bundle of fun and personality and we are all really enjoying the joy that she brings to our family.

Chilling out watching some Hi-5 with big bro.

Going for a ride on the vaccum cleaner.

YUP sure is Daddy's girl hey....

Enjoying a slide with big bro - he really does look after Em so well.