The biker and the baker

Okay, so we have a little 4 year old, almost 5 year old boy running around the house.  He loves to be a pirate or a super hero, anything really that involves a sword, or a gun, etc.  To indulge him in his passion, we planned a trip to Chavonnes Battery Museum .   Colonist vs Pirate   Until recently I never even knew about this museum. Two reasons for my ignorance would be that it is like the little brother of The Castle of Good Hope, living in it's shadow and another is that it was only excavated in 1999!!  Okay, I know, that is more than 10 years ago, but most of the museums I have been to are at least 100 years old. I was very much surprised at Jethro's endless enthusiasm.  He loved every bit of it and kept on wanting to go back to the cannons.  He loved seeing the cannon balls and the lighting sticks and walking over the old ruins.  Micah was not fazed about the cannons but loved running up and town with Daddy chas...

At this stage of our lives, everything pretty much revolves around a routine and oh boy, do we feel it when this routine is interrupted!   The last couple of weeks or I think months, we've been fighting the routine battle.  Micah, who still had two naps everyday, started refusing to sleep in the afternoon, which deemed a problem, as Jethro was still having his afternoon naps and would only sleep if Micah was not awake.  This threw our nice and snug routine off the map.  Babies giving Dad a cuddle, ready for bed First try in restructuring the order in our house: Logical solution, two sleeps became one and I moved Micah's early morning sleep from 09h30 to 11h00.  Problem:  too early for Jethro to have a sleep and like I said, when Micah wakes up at 13h30, there is no way that Jethro will sleep.  So, for a while we tried this, and Jethro had no sleep and I ended up with a very cranky 4 year old.  So, first try = failure! Then one brig...

On Friday, after doing our weekly Friday lesson on God made the world and me, we decided to make some rainy day biscuits as it was...  a rainy day. We whip out Mrs Lawson and flip through to her rainy day biscuits recipe and start checking our ingredients.  We have to go to the shops for ground almonds and icing sugar.  So, off we go to Spar but hobsmock and gollybonkers, they are out of Icing sugar.  That's a first for me!!  Are we back in the dark ages.  Okay, well off we go to Pick 'n Pay (the BIG one) and guess what??  Yes, no icing sugar!  What is happening?  Anywho, we decided to give the icing sugar hunt a break as a merchandiser told us that it's a supplier problem! So, back home with ground almonds and no icing sugar.  Jethro and myself make cookie dough and we have a jolly good time doing it!  The first time ever that I enjoy, actually have a smile on my face, making some type of dough.  Usually it's such a horrib...

Guess who got another tooth this week?  Micah's 9th tooth made it's appearance and this time it's a big one.  On the left, at the back, not right at the back, but not right next to his 4 teeth in the front.  Tony says it's one of his front molars.  Okay, so his first molar!  The left front molar! Yes, I have another tooth!  What a journey his teething has been!  He feels the pain and we know all about it.  We live on Vidol and red Panado syrup.  He gets super angry and frustrated when in pain.  Last week Sunday, we all got ready for church but I decided to stay at home with him, as he was crying, no, screaming in pain the whole morning (now we know why). Jethro on the other hand was so easy, we did not even know he was teething.  We discovered his first tooth at 6 months, when the teaspoon went clink on something in his mouth and upon closer inspection we discovered a little toothie!  And that's how it went with the rest...

Last week whilst Jethro was busy doing an exercise with his fringe hanging his eyes, I decided that is as much as I can take and the decision was made to cut his hair.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE his long hair but the hair in the eyes just got too much for me and I thought we could make it a yearly tradition, that way his hair could grow long again up until the point where it gets too messy. I initially only wanted to cut a little bit as I'm usually a bit overeager in my hair cutting attempts (Tony and Jethro can both vouch for that :) ).  A fringe was cut and I was careful to try and round it in with the longer hair as I was thinking that a straight cut fringe will be a bit like a girls hair.  It looked very nice and we decided to leave our barbery for the day until Tony gets home to give his opinion. Tony home, likes hair!!  But Jethro wanted his hair shorter "like Grandies"  and then "as short as Daddy's!".  So, on Spring day (Thursday the 1st of Septemb...

So, we all have our bad days in the kitchen or is it only me who have these moments of madness, when afterwards you tell yourself:  But I knew that!! I will share one of these moments with you.  Not because I have to, but to show you my I-am-only-human side :)  Hope you enjoy it!  PS  I wrote this a while back. 24 Feb 2011 Wow, what a day!  Micah very   niggly , c ould hardly do anything without him tied to my hip!  Supper was busy cooking and as I was multi-tasking, I pulled a pot of gem squash off a hot plate, with Micah in my other arm.  I lifted the lid to check on the gem squash and as I lifted the lid...    KEBANG ! !! Gem squash explosion!! My first thoughts were of Micah!  Covering him from any airborne gem squash.  I always wondered what I would do in a situation where both my child and I could get hurt.  I always feared that in the moment I would protect myself and forget about my child!!...

 I love lasagne!  Who doesn't??  My husband loves it!  My kids love it!  And what is not to love about this delectable, mouthwatering, give-me-more dish? I love the way you can adapt this dish.  I usually add some mushed up carrots to my lasagna but the one day I had three measly looking carrots left in the fridge, no transport and a father-in-law on his way for supper!!  What to do?? Frozen peas to the rescue!  Yes, you heard right, I added frozen peas to my lasagna.  Now before I did this, I would have snobbishly looked on at a lasagna with peas in it!  It's like committing the ultimate food no-no!  Peas go with dishes like cottage pie or shepherd's pie but not lasagna.  It's just weird.  But I had no choice, either have a very bland lasagna or add some flair with... peas :)   I waited on edge as everyone took a first mouthful, watching every move of their mouth, ...