Mac Moments

First swimming session at school today and Jess and I watched at least 50 little boys swimming across the pool! Quite daunting, but fun... A very hard day of homework and begging for homework to be done. Sean probably took about 2 1/2 hours to finish off his 1 page of spelling, 1 reader of about 6 pages and 2 lines per page, his bonds of 11 and a maths problem. This should normally take 1/2 hour, I really felt like running back to the corporate world today. My Dad said to me during the holidays: "You and Steven must have been really bad in your previous life to get 2 such difficult children..." and sometimes I wish that they were easier or that at least one of them had been easy. Jessica with her PRS (Cleft pallate) and Sean with his ADD has been bloody hard to deal with. Once Jess got to a stage where life was easier with her, Sean seemed to take off and fly on the difficult side. Don't get me wrong, I love them both so much and the best thing in the world is to have the...

Happy Birthday my gorgeous husband Steven!!! The absolute love of my life and my soul mate. He was woken up very uncermoniously in the morning by the kids who could not wait to give him his presents and help him open them!!! Very exciting..... He had a lovely relaxing day yesterday with gym in the morning followed by lunch and then a back massage (not by me!!), then we finished the evening off (get your minds out of the gutter) with dinner with friends Sean and Belinda (who shares the same birthday - just 10 years younger - as Steven), and her brother Lance. This has become quite a tradition over the years and is great fun. So here's to another wonderful year....44 can you believe it!

Happy Birthday to my big sister Shirley! We wish her an Irish happy happy and lots of Guinness! We are all very excited as she is going to be joining us in SA for a few weeks! It is going to be loads of fun....

Sean played in his first Cricket Match and Won, it was amazing to watch. Jess also went to Swimming and managed to stay under water for 5 seconds and come up on her own.....major break through!! Feeling sick, bronchitis on the way so need to fight this! goodnight all....

Sundays are the coolest day of the week, I love that you can just lie in and chill out all day if you want to. We did get up (well I did eventually) and went shopping for birthday presents, which was fun too! The kids swam, we watched the tennis (brilliant) and did a bit of work later on.

My day was spent with Lesley (my sister) and Joanne (my friend from school), at Jo's house looking at these fabulous files you can get to put all your kiddie stuff into. It is called My Life About Me - for all those people that like to keep their kids stuff, this is for you! Take a look at http://www.myfileaboutme.co.za/ When I got home, the kids and Steven had washed my car and polished it..... you could see reflections in it! Wow!!!

First day of cricket practice. This was very cute, we had a good couple of laughs as the boys figured out how to actually play the game. Firstly the boys had to figure out how to bowl properly which invariably had the ball been thrown all over the field. Secondly they had to learn how to bat, which had balls whizzing past them or landing at their feet, and they would be looking to see where it had gone (not at their feet of course, how did it land up there!) Lastly, the wicket keeper thought it would be a good idea to move the wicket to wherever the ball was been thrown, which resulted in the ball hitting the wicket whenever it didn't hit the bat and of course the batter would be out!!! Try sort out that fight and logic to 7 year olds. Isn't it great to watch kids play as well, just play a game together of imagination. They go from throwing imaginery blankets for themselves to fly on, to being Darth Vader or Luke Skywaker and the best is "You do this and I'll do that,...

Photo: In amongst the Electicity Load shedding happening in South Africa, the kids catch a bit of TV while it is up. Although we have been lucky, it is usually off between 1pm - 4pm everyday. Whereas other areas have blackouts 2 - 3 times a day for 2 hours at a time.

I have realised that my entire life revolves around my children, not a bad thing at all. So herewith my next photo for a day in the life!

First Gymnastics session Kids really enjoyed this!

Jessica went to school today for 2008 and was very excited about it. They had a busy day of school, swimming and gym.

First time ski So cool, we went out to the dam and had a wonderful weekend of skiing and relaxing with friends. Between waterskiing, tubing, canoeing...... loads of fun! It also rained up to 30cm overnight, unbelievable amount of water, the dam rose so quickly and a tree was completely pulled out from the ground, roots and all.....

Strange as it may seem, this kitty cat got into the plastic bag and stayed in there. She was rather chuffed with herself.

Went to Wanderers to watch SA vs West Indies photo to come!

This is my life at the moment and what I look at all day..... so that is my photo a bloody pc On the bright side of life, I have completed all the cities which need to be included into our website, which means I can start marketing!!! Yay..... Sean is in love with his teacher - the best teacher I have ever had Mom! And Jess can't wait to get back to school now, the holidays have been very long.

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So today started a lot better, up we got at 5:45am to start a new year of school. Sean was ever so excited and was up, dressed, breakfast'ed, teeth brushed, face washed, you get the picture and ready to go by 6:15am.....never in the history of school going so far has he been so keen, oh make the rest of the year so easy please! Jess was ready to go to gym with me and off to school we went. Sean was delighted to see his Grade 1 teacher from last year and all his friends, but a little apprehensive as to where he needed to go and where to put his bag, etc. When I fetched him from school in the afternoon, he was a happy little fellow. He loves his new Grade 2 teacher, his best friend is in his class this year (yay) and overall he is just happy. We stopped in at Jessica's school and she was so happy to see her teacher and school. I think she is missing it all and cannot wait to go back on Monday. So today was spent just enjoying being back at school for Sean, listening to his stori...

I wonder sometimes how people after knowing each other for so many years can still not really know each other OR if people just dance around each other and tread lightly so as not to disturb the equilibrium, equilibrium of what??? I am still trying to figure that one out. Is it of your own happiness, that of others, or of the universe. I am saying all of this as I have this unbelievably complicated family who all believe their point of views are correct...a bit like Brothers and Sisters....but with an ongoing feeling that a happy equilibrium will never be met. Maybe it is enough to say, we are siblings and if you need us we are there for you, but you know what we don't have to be best friends because we are just too different. I feel like I am babbling, but it feels like a never ending noose around ones neck and if you give too much of yourself the noose gets tighter and if you don't it gets even more, so where is the medium and the equilibrium that you need to reach in life. I...

Two little boys tranfixed with the TV, full bellies and a day at the swimming pool. Could life get any better?

Jessica - 5 yrs = Dad, Mom, Jess & Sean Sean - 7 yrs = SAA Photos: Our little artists - the interesting thing about these photos are: Jessica's Sean is the little person on the bottom right of the picture (she perceives him as being drawn as little because he was still a baby in the picture, but she is bigger than him.....) Sean's is completely from memory and he got the flag right.... The kids braved the swimming pool and we put up some things around the house today and tidied up a lot of junk, we both worked on the website and Steve also worked on consulting work...so a bit of a busy day for us!

Two of my favourite pictures today, jumping on the trampoline with the kids. Steve took these and it looks like Sean and I are hanging in mid air. It was so much fun and it looks like we may have a sunny day tomorrow....yay.... pool weather. I was forwarded the most amazing saying the other day and have adjusted it a bit, but I like the philosophy of it. So here is a bit of a piece of the sky for us all to dance to: COULD'VE WOULD'VE SHOULD'VE Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because they haven't thought about it, don't have it on their schedule, didn't know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine. Life has a way of accelerating as we get older. When anyone calls my 'seize the moment' friend, she is open to adventure and available for trips. She keeps an open mind on new ideas. Her enthusiasm for life is contagious. You talk with her for five minutes, and you're ready to trade your bad feet for a pair of...

Still *%$#ing down in Joburg, it is like constant Cape Town / London weather and cold as well. Give us some sun please before school starts up again. Can't wait for a chilled out dinner with friends tonight, party on Fridays! Photo for today is the kids playing Star Wars, who would know that Star Wars would be so popular with kids after 20 years!! Go Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker!!!

Getting ready for school is so much fun. New school clothes, new shoes and takkies (try find white takkies anywhere 1 week before school starts) and just fun stuff. Remember all that cool stuff we used to buy just before school started.....? OK, then the book wrapping also needs to be done. And best of all the excitement about seeing all the school mates again. Photo: Getting ready to start getting up at 6am again. Oh yes, that bit comes with going back to school as well....yuck, then we start looking forward to the next holiday.

We woke up to an overcast and beautifully rainy day. It was misty and rather romantic. It was quite interesting to see how the children finally landed up entertaining themselves. Usually we take the decoder card with us to the dam in case of days like this, however we decided not to this time and it was very interesting to see how the children landed up entertaining themselves. At first they needed us to find the entertainment and play games with them, but then we needed to work so eventually they were playing in the rain, fishing and annoying each other. It was great......

Today I feel this huge need to discuss how I cannot do without technology. I cannot go through a day without using some form of it, be it to email, sms, facebook or now to blog.....is everyone like me or are we just a strange little group of geeky geeks!! Although I suppose our business is technology based so I usually am on the computer whether I like it or not. However, I know people who just screw up their faces and never use any technology (ok maybe their cell phones) but that is about as far as it goes and then I know 70 years olds who use it every day, and cannot go without it either. It is like a drug, a big joint that you cannot help taking a drag of and feel fantastic afterwards. Strange yes, a drug definitely, live without it.....never! On to the photo, both our kids water ski'ed today, Sean has before, but he hasn't for a while, so it was great to see him up again and Jess went on the ski's for the very first time today. We are both so proud of her, at 5 the dam ...

So roll on the last of the school holidays. As much as we love them, believe me there comes a time when the holidays are just too long and you vaguely remember the days when you could just do whatever the hell you wanted to without having to think about the children all the time. Don't get me wrong, we love them dearly and could possibly never contemplate life without children, but I do think that some miserable person somewhere with no children decided just how long to make the school holidays to make parents more gray and more senile......just so that parentless people could appear more sane than those with children!!! OK, now that the darlings are almost asleep, after coming through a couple of times to complain about the sibling irritating them or about still being hungry....we can now have a bit of peace, be it short. Photos So today we went about 1 1/2 hours out of Johannesburg to a dam called Buffelspoort to spend the last couple of days water skiing and just relaxing. Steve...

Last night we had the most amazing electric storm with the longest rolling thunder I have heard in a long time. My night remained sleepless when the kids decided to sleep downstairs, I spent most of the night with my ears twitching to make sure they were ok and not calling for us. They were fab, and slept through to sunrise and then some!!! Sunday's should always be like today, ok minus the housework...role on tomorrow when Betty comes home. Our day started with a run in the morning and Steve took Sean for a cycle in the park, we then spent the day with the kids swimming and lazing in the sun. During the afternoon we had another afternoon storm and the Sean decided to dress up as Harry Potter to bide away the time. He was really sweet finding school clothes, a black cape and one of my paint brushes as his wand oh and don't forget the tie!! Only his glasses were missing. He does look rather sweet though. Right now I am exhausted and my eyes are about to fall out!

Today was spent cleaning cleaning cleaning after being away for so long....god I hate housework and washing..... and this is just part time for the moment thank goodness..... So off to our first party for the year! One of our friends sons' had his 2nd birthday party. Ryan was soooo good and sweet and what a gorgeous little boy he is. And so tall already. All the kids had a ball and enjoyed all the activities and fun. And fun for the adults to, where we got to catch up with everyone, from holidays to new year resolutions. We ended up having a couple of drinks and dinner with Craige and Col after everyone had gone. A good start to a new year.

Still cleaning up and Steve is still sick. It is like treble amount of work when there is only one of you trying to do it and a sick body trying to help. Poor Steve though is trying so hard to get better, it is such a bugger on your body when you get gastro and this one is like every nerve in your body is sick, even your fingertips are sore. Steve had to relate his version of getting sick on the trip home, as in when we stopped for lunch and just how bad his "chucking" was at the pit stop!!! Ok, so I won't go into detail as it is too revolting.... So what is the pic on the side about. Jess found goggles and flippers in one of the plastic containers we store things in, but they were Sean's. So as a treat we decided to go and find a set for her.... Eventually after doing the monthly shopping and sorting out Birthday presents for the flock of people who are born in January (why oh why can people not time having kids at a better time of year is beyond me)!! We found Jess ...

3 January was a 12 hour trip from Jeffries Bay in SA to Johannesburg. With Steven getting sick on the way, gastro is not fun on the road. But coming home is always wonderful. sick or not, we still had a couple of laughs on the way back. Our favourite being the terminology that South Africans use, one of them being the word "hey" at the end of sentences and "for real" in sentences.... Our best was when Jessica was listening to a very African song that has a Hadeda (a SA bird) in it and she said: "This is ha-de-da song!!! My favourite song!!! For real Mom!".... Yay we are home!

We went for the most amazing cycle on the beach, the path next to the ocean was far too soft, so we scooted across to the lagoon and it was such a different experience. On our first cycle we saw dolphins and whales, but next to the lagoon, we saw loads of birdlife and did a quick run up the dunes which gave us wonderful views of the beach and estuary. The rest of our day was spent packing for our long trip home.

What a year this is going to be, I have decided to blog this year with a chronology of photos, one for every day of the year. So what is the story attached to the photo. Well on 30 December my husband, Steven, decided to go for a swim in the ocean at Jeffries Bay with his car keys. In doing so, the keys would not work. Being a merc, the only way to get a new set of keys would be to get another set imported in from Germany or fly home to Johannesburg to collect the spare set which was locked away. On 31 December we realised that the keys would not work and set out to book ourselves a flight back to Joburg to collect the spare keys. What a comedy of errors, first we had to find a flight at a decent price and eventually managed to book through SAA Voyager (At least saving a bit of cost), then we had to find a lift to the airport in Port Elizabeth (no taxis available and my parents cars were blocked inside the garage by Steven's car), eventually we figured a way of moving the car to ge...