and finally! the birthday party!!

Took us long enough to get there, lol!!!

I just have to tell you about buying the ingredients for this ever so important birthday cake. You'd think that you can walk into a big supermarket and there would be a place where they group all the baking goodies together? Hmmm, not so much. They do have the flour and icing sugar together with the baking soda and cake-in-a-box mixes, however, no goodies to decorate the cake with. The candles, oh yes, upstairs with all the party paraphernalia (ok, that makes a little bit of sense). The multi-coloured sprinkle thingy's that you'd put on the icing ... no, they don't have those. The silver ball thingy's that you'd put on the icing to decorate with .... nope. Liquorice sticks, ah yes, with the sweeties and you can only get the rolled-up ones. Oh, and coconut flakes, ah yes but off course you'd think to go look for it where the breadcrumbs are, makes total sense.  This little exercise took me about an hour!

We were going to have the party last weekend, then the K-man got sick and I decided nope, not a good idea so we postponed to this weekend. Which turned out to be just fine, with my mom here it was so special to share his party with her!

Then I came down with a n-a-s-t-y tummy bug on Thursday arvie, but hey, I was a real trooper and managed to mix and bake the cupcakes for the birthday cake, then managed to mix the carrot cake for the grown-ups and just when that was in the oven, realised I wasn't gonna make it and asked my mom to please keep an eye on it for me. That was me, in bed and I didn't move until 11:00 on Friday morning! Gids very sweetly took Kaydin with to the desert and I got to sleep in and feel marginally better. The people came at about 15:00 and we had a blast. Gids and I both got all teary-eyed when we sang "happy birthday", I tried to hide behind my camera ... The K-man didn't quite know what to do with the cake and candle at first, but later on he realised that he can actually get himself all sticky and dirty and man was that fun.

 

ok, that's us for now

much love to all

it's raining, it's pouring!!!

For the last few days it's been raining on and off, so totally lovely! And such a big deal that it's making the headlines!! LOL! you KNOW you live in the desert when 16mm makes it to the headlines

http://www.gulfnews.com/nation/Environment/10182101.html

And here are some pics from last night, when it started to come down again:

and this morning:

Totally lekker!!

And in other news, the K-man's not been very well, all snotty and coughing, the poor guy slept most of yesterday but awoke to his old self this morning with his usual "wa-wa" sound and having serious discussions with the toys in his cot.

My mom's arriving for a visit tonight and the house is off course looking, well let's just say it's less than tidy. Thank goodness for the last minute as nothing would get done in this house if it wasn't for the last minute! Gids will therefore sort out my mom's room tonight when he's home from work and I'll be fetching her from the airport, now that's teamwork for you hey?

No other news, just wanted to share the rain thing.

much love to all

Happy birthday Kaydin!!!!

And off course I can't help to be just a little overwhelmed! I keep on thinking back to last year and keep on looking at the clock.

I'm quite in awe with just how far we've come. I'm so relieved that the year went by mostly without any hitches. I'm eternally grateful that we have such an easy going boy. I am totally humbled and immeasurably thankful for all the support and love everybody has shown us.

I'm actually just gob-smacked, mostly because I was convinced that I would have broken him by now.

So here's to you, our little fighter and companion, may the years ahead be more than you ever dreamed, we can't wait to share the rest of your life with you.

Once more for old times sake, Kaydin at birth:

and now:

much love to all, from all of us

we still do it ...

Get up at stupid-O'clock that is, and drive to parts unknown. This time we went to Fujeirah and more specifically Snoopy Island. We were going to go just for the day and at about 15:00 decided to see if they have rooms available, turns out they did, so we stayed over.

And herewith the whole story in pictures:

a map to show where we went:

Sunrise at stupid-O'clock:

Carpet shops on the side of the road, just before entering Fujeirah.

and here's Moi, a rare shot of me behind the camera

The nursery on the other side of the road:

And just to prove that Kaydin really does wake up with a smile:

Just before the resort you'll find Bidiya mosque. It's the UAE’s oldest place of worship and is known as the “Ottoman Mosque”. It is unique in design with four small domes held up by a massive central pillar. We drove past too quickly though and I didn't really get a nice shot and on our way back we were way too tired to stop. Will do next time though.

And now for the fun part, at the beach, off course we had to get the boy into the sea as fast as possible. He was totally adorable, not scared at all and seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. The only concern Kaydin had was that daddy just wouldn't let him crawl right into the sea! Dad's, such spoil sports sometimes, LOL!!

This would be Snoopy Island, yes it's something to do with the cartoon character and the rock looking like Snoopy lying on his back

A totally lovely day with the other people snorkelling and generally just having a merry good time, especially when we found out that we could in fact have a drink or two on the beach, which off course also greatly influenced the decision on staying over LOL!!

The view from our room's balcony and in the second picture a rare shot of some locals also enjoying the beach.

And because I'm such a curios person and because I didn't want to miss out on anything, I decided to try my hand at this snorkel-thing too. And because we all looked so cute in our wet suites, I asked for a family portrait, Gideon Schoeman obliged, thanks dude!

 

And that was it, now I'm hooked and Gids will in the very near future have to take me shopping, for gear off course. What an experience!! It felt like I was watching a National Geographic show, only I was IN it, totally awesomely brilliant experience! And with Gids & Chantel's help, I think I did ok for a rookie. A truly awesome moment was when I wanted to get slightly panicky, 'cause I didn't know where we were going, I reached out to Gideon's side and there he was, ready with a guiding hand, holding on to me, until I was ready to let go. It helps to do these things with someone you share a brain cell with LOL!!

And just to show, the village helping to raise Kaydin, Gideon & Chantel Schoeman our housemates and very dear friends:

here's to the new year

May it be blessed and exceed all our expectations. We had a rather quiet braai with friends on new years eve.

New years day brought with it some awesome weather and I hauled out the K-man's new water toy, he had fun the thing that kept him amused no end was the little fountain, he kept on pushing his face into it, too funny.

We subsequently had the best impromptu weekend away. More later, I'm still processing the pictures