Candy Baby!

Today is a sad day for Olivia…her sisters went back to school! This it seems, is highly inconvenient for my little mite and she has been trawling the house calling for her sisters {insert broken heart here*} all morning!

The benefits for a third child is that there are always playmates close at hand – this school thing really does put a spanner in the works though, but I’m sure come pick up time and when her sisters burst through the front door, Livie is going to be the happiest little camper again to have her rowdy sisters back to entertain/ annoy / cuddle and control her!

Anyway – I thought I’d share one of our holiday activities with you today…we made Rock candy!

Kayla has been rather obsessed with a crystal making set she got for her birthday, but it is all very complicated and seldom the outcome she was hoping for results! So to restore her confidence in science (whatever) I decided to teach her and Iz how to make rock candy and it was surprisingly easy and yummy!

We googled it of course , took all the advice given and this is what worked best for us!

You will need:
Sugar (loads of sugar, we had to go and buy another bag!)
Water
Food Colouring gel (I used the Woolworth’s natural ones)
Wooden Skewers
Jars or Glass Cups (tall and thin)
Clothespegs

Step one:
Trim down your skewers to a reasonable size to fit in whatever glass that you will be using also remove the pointed tips. Dip them in water, and then roll in sugar. Set them aside to dry completely and continue with the sugar mixture. This gives the sugar a base, something to adhere to when it starts to crystallize.

Step two:

Mix equal parts of water and sugar in a pot on med-high heat on the stove until dissolved. Then continue to add sugar until you have a 3:1 ratio. It will get to a point where it won't dissolve anymore. To check that your sugar is dissolving, coat the back of a metal spoon with the syrup and make sure that it is smooth with no grains.. We used 6cups of water and 18 cups of sugar and it made 6 glasses of syrup, but you can definitely half the recipe if you like. We wanted a lot of colours though so stuck with these quantities.  The idea is to make nice, sticky, syrup. Mix until mixture starts to simmer. Easy peasy!




Step three:
Remove the mixture from the stove and allow your syrup to cool for 10 -15 minutes or so and ladle into your glasses. It is still pretty hot at this point so take care. Using the the tips that we trimmed off of our skewers we dipped them into concentrated food colouring gel, then swirled the skewer into our hot syrup mixture. You can use liquid food colouring, but I like the gel better.

Step four:
Attach two clothes pegs to each skewer (the ones you dipped in sugar and let dry) and balance in the middle of the glass. Make sure the skewer isn't touching the bottom or sides of glass. They need room to grow. Since our glasses were narrow, we only used one skewer but I’m sure in a wider glass you could add more!?

Step Five:
Place your glasses in a warm location with lots of natural light. Here they are on day one (above pic)...you can see that there is a bit of sugar build up from when we dipped them in water and then let them dry in sugar as well as a bit on the bottom of the glass. Another tip is to pop something over the top so nothing falls into the mixture to taint it. (I used coffee filters). The pictures below were taken on day 5...the girls were tempted to call it a day here, but we persisted...or rather I insisted we persisted;)

Step six:
Wait and watch them grow for about 7 days and Voila! How pretty are these??? Remember that the actual crystals will be much lighter in colour than the syrup which suits me fine...pretty pastel crystals result!

 We had a great time watching them grow and sampling the finished product. I think to the kids it seemed like a month not just 7 days but they managed and trying them out was worth the wait!

*There will be crystallized sugar in the bottom of your glasses. Just run them in hot water and chip it out with a butter knife. It comes out pretty easily.*

So that’s that - Rock Candy Tutorial = such fun and great to teach the kids a bit of science AND patience it seemed! ;)

Let me know how yours turns out?

A time to celebrate...

The past few weeks have been crazy hectic, I was under the wildly hopeful impression that since the kids were going on school holidays that I’d get plenty of time to catch up all the bits and bobs on my never-ending “to do” lists, but with today marking the last day of the school holidays I am even more behind!

Hence the lack of posts, and soooo much has been happening in our little family!

{Olivia celebrated her First birthday party, loads of fun and play dates occurred during the school holidays with my busy brood, and we also celebrated Olivia’s baptism… a truly special affair.}

I won’t cover all of that in this post but pop on over and I’ll cover it over the next week… complete with pretty pictures too!

I had a wonderful time preparing for and baking all sorts of yummy bits for the party, only for my husband to comment that he couldn’t understand what all the stress and bother {not in my eyes} was about as it was clearly for my own gain and not our daughters as she would be happy with a cardboard box at this stage!
And he is perfectly on the money too, BUT what he is not taking into account is that as much as I enjoyed taking care of all the finer details, those details were carefully thought out in honour of my baby girl and if per chance I am unable to do in in later years – she will be reminded by the pictures I have taken how much effort I put into her party too to make it pretty and perfect just like her! For me the little things are important – going the extra mile for those you love is what it’s all about whether they realise it or not.
Livie just loved her party and had a fantastic time. It certainly did bring out the social butterfly in her and I was amused to note how different my three girls are. Olivia was happiest in the thick of all the action and lapped up all the attention!

It was so much fun watching the three of them interacting during the day – Kayla so wild and loud – organising everyone, Izzy so quiet and quaint interacting so freely but always gently and Livie taking in everything with cheeky smiles and full of gusto! Have I mentioned lately just how much I love these little things… so very blessed!

Wishing you joy this week,

Happy Birthday Olivia Faith...

Phew…what a busy, happy, emotional day!

Olivia turned one today… a whole year has passed since that early morning in that cold sterile theatre as the slow steady rhythm of the beeping machines in the background lulled me to sleep.

Beep, beep, beep … as I think back I can still smell the disinfectant in the room  and feel the Goosebumps prickle my skin under the warm blanket on that hard operating table.  I gulped back my fear, said a final pleading prayer and held on tight to Shane’s hand and then there was nothing…

Today those early days of anxiety mixed with excitement, and pure relief every time we got an update on Olivia’s progress seem light years away – did it really happen to us?

I watch Olivia play on the mat in the early morning sunshine, and I marvel at the miracle in front of me… to think, had I not the faith and the stubborn belief that we could make it, had I listened to the Doctors early warnings of deformity, mortality and more, had I made the choice to terminate this little mite, I would not be sitting here today watching a dinky, strong, feisty, loving little girl busily moving around the floor, playing with this and that, jabbering quietly and coming over every now and then to give her mum a cuddle and show me the toy she just picked out…

And then I am thankful, so very thankful that I was brought up in a Christian home, that I have the mother I do and the family that jumped to my support. Without my faith and special people this miracle girl would not be here, and were it not for one very dedicated and supportive Dr Coetsee, we would not have completed our family and we would have missed out on so, so much joy!

The world is a better place with Olivia in it and I thank heaven above for my daughter and my life.

Happy Birthday special girl, you have so much ahead of you and I would do it all again in a heartbeat, just to be able to see your silly smile and tickle those tiny feet.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl, Mama loves you lots and lots more than jelly tots…

PS: To all our special people; family, friends, doctors, nurses and even strangers…thank you from the bottom of my heart for standing with me through this last year and while I waited. Your prayers and encouragement kept me going and made today possible. While Olivia and my journey is far from over, I have been overwhelmed by your kindness and compassion and feel truly blessed for knowing you xxx

Note to self...

Funny thing life is, I am amazed at how awful it can feel one day and a few days later I feel just peachy again!  When I re-read  my last blog post I completely cringed…I so mustn’t blog when I’m down!  So I officially apologise for sounding so “all doom and gloomy”.

I think it is just taking me time to get my head around the fact that life as I knew it is no more, but I am sure that that is not the end of the world…I am just going to have to go through an adjustment period and learn to get over the frustration that I sometimes feel, and get used to my new normal.

My very wise mom always taught us that “you can do anything you put your mind to”, so clearly I just need to put my mind to this! It’s always worked in the past and is probably a contributing factor as to why Livie and I are here today!
So instead of longing for what was, I will have to redirect myself to focus on the little things that make my heart melt, make me laugh till I cry and just plain make me thankful to be alive…

For example;  Ballet watching day for parents at Izzy’s school, being able to be there and help for Kayla’s Zulu Day at school, watching Livie cuddle the baby bunnies with absolute glee, celebrating Father’s day with my long suffering husband (and reading the special cards our girls drew and wrote in for him). Being tickled by my nephew Tyler, the tickle monster and enjoying his subsequent waterfall of giggles! Laughing at my husband’s silly jokes, spending time with special friends, baking pretty things for my girls and the list could go on forever….

So in essence it always comes down to the little things and finding joy in them, and for that I will count my blessings daily!

Happy Father's Day!

These are my precious Girls as they are right now… we had so much fun taking these surprise pics for Shane for Father’s Day and I thought I’d share.

So enjoying my photography, and so enjoying my girls…

Very blessed.

Hospital Blues...

It’s been a tough two weeks for me, first Olivia had her next set of vaccinations on Tuesday. Three jabs, one in the leg and one in each arm…I thought by the third child I was pretty tough and could do this thing, but I had not banked on my littlest’s response! After distracting Livie after the first Jab, the clinic sister routinely swabbed Olivia’s arm for Jab #2 but my tiny girl knew exactly what that meant and starting shaking her head vehemently saying “ no, no, no”…my heart broke there and then…I felt like the meanest mom ever while trying to console her as she sobbed uncontrolably in my arms. Being a mom isn’t for sissy’s…

Then on Thursday Olivia had her one year ( insert EEEK here)check-up at the paed, which I was kinda dreading as I knew she had not grown like we had hoped. And sure enough, although her milestones are ahead of a full term 12 month baby {Go Livie}, her size and weight is still just dinky! At 11 ½ months she weighs just 7.02Kg’s and is still very comfortable in 3-6 month clothes. {So in essence she looks like a seriously advanced  5 month old  baby.}

The Paed ordered a full blood work up to see if we can find any contributing factors or problems…

Now that is where my tough week got worse, my little mite’s veins are just as tiny as her so you think the nurses at the pathology lab could find a vein!? I very dilligently an hour prior to going applied emla patches in all the relevant places to numb her so as to minimise any pain. What a joke!

After trying with no success while holding down my screaming baby, it was concluded that the standard technique was not going to work, and we’d have to revert to the “messy way” {insert cringe here} this meant inserting a tiny needle into her vein on the top of her little hand (which by the way, was bent backwards in a way that shouldn’t be possible) and over the course of the next hour I proceeded to hold her down while the nurses dripped her blood into the seven vials needed for testing! I don’t know who it was more traumatic for; Olivia, the nurses or me…

Fast forward to Monday morning 2am…I awoke, as I do now and then, wanting to crawl the walls in pain. I dragged myself up, careful not to wake anyone, took my painkillers and warmed my trusty bean bag in the microwave, crawled back into bed and braced myself.

A few hours later, the alarm went, Shane got up dressed for work, brought Livie to me for her feed and left, as he does at 6am…usually by then I have managed to get ontop of it and can get up, get the kids ready for school and take on the day. Not this morning… Kayla came through complaining of not feeling well and Izzy had been up a few times the night before with what I thought was a bladder infection. So I decided to just let them stay at home, as the thought of trying to get up was intimidating to say the least.  By 9am I called Shane at work as I could no longer handle the pain and he rushed home to help and took me straight to the nearest hospital.

There I proceeded to update the General Surgeon on Duty in Casualty as to my condition…here I received the normal expressions such as “you are one lucky lady to be alive!”…But I’ve got to say not feeling so lucky now!!!

Anyway after much discussion, Xrays and failed anti-inflammatories, it was decided to just take a 20mg shot of Cyclomorph (morphine mixed with an antiemetic to stop nausea) intravenously. This eventually numbed the pain and it was agreed that Shane could take me home and if I needed another dose or started vomitting (a sign of a full intestinal obstruction) I would just come back.

Sigh…Today the pain is a bit better and I can function again, but I must say this really is starting to get me down. I know that I should feel lucky to be alive, with all the good things in my life, but…being told that this is it, there is no more that they can do for me for now, that the adhesions are the result of saving my life and that until it is a matter of life and death they will not operate (not that I want another op anyway), and that who I was and what I was capable of is no more – well that just totally sux!

So today I have the blues…but not to worry tomorrow I will put on my big girl panties again and I will be better.

I haven’t scrapped for 2 years!

Right…my technological disaster is behind me now, although I am still in mourning for the loss of a few years’ worth of photographs, I have upgraded my computer, replaced all hard drives and set up an overkill backup system so that this NEVER happens again!

And so now I’m back to blogging and telling you all about the joy I find in the little things!

One of those “little things” is my scrapbooking… after the surprise birth of our first litter of bunnies; Kayla was desperate to take the bunnies to school for Show and tell. Clearly I refused due to a number of reasons and the negotiation was that if I took nice photo’s and did a scrapbook page, she could take that instead. *{all her idea}

Hence I was sentenced to a week or two of incessant nagging as to whether I had done “it” yet! Finally I pulled myself towards myself and voilà…

 Needless to say through the process I was reminded why I was so addicted to this hobby…it is sooo rewarding and I just love the feeling of achievement that I experience upon completing a layout. And the adoration of my biggest fans {Kayla & Izzy and Livie too} just completes the whole feel good process!

Being able to create just so feeds my soul! {Although Pinterest  has kept me going in the meantime} But the point is that I realised that I had not created a complete scrapbook layout in almost TWO YEARS!!! What was I thinking!?

So I’m going to attempt to do a layout a week {give or take} and here is my next one…

  The first layout of my beautiful baby girl – I just love it!

Well – watch this space as this afternoon if the weather holds, I’m going to attempt an autumn shoot with my Gorjus Girls xxx

Have a very happy weekend everyone - I plan to ;)