Christmas @ our place

Christmas has come and gone way too fast! This year we spent Christmas at home with no other family or friends around - just Leon, me and the three kids. We had so much fun and really spent a lot of quality time together.

This is my Goofy Teenage Santa:
And these are his little helpers:



On Christmas eve, the kids and I decided to do a nativity puppet show. Leon was the only human in the audience. Celine decided that all her stuffed animals had to come watch the show as well. I was the director. Michael was the narrator and Céline and Marco the puppet masters.

The narrator:

The cast:

The props and cast back stage (behind the bar counter):

The audience:

After the show we had Céline's favourite food - lasagna - for dinner. After dinner I took the kids out for ice cream and a drive around town to watch all the Christmas lights that the people have up in the gardens.

When we got back home it was time for Santa's little helpers to hand out the gifts.

I usually have sweets and an extra little surprise for the kids in their Christmas stockings on Christmas morning. This year I had an extra surprise waiting for them - a Christmas treasure hunt. I hid 17 different clues around the garden which they had to search for before they found their "treasures".

Céline got a new cellphone while the boys got a Wii. They had so much fun doing the treasure hunt and were over the moon about their extra gifts.

I feel so relaxed! Last night I even had time for a little scrapping. I finished this page that I started with a while ago at scrapclub.
Today I plan to do a little re-organisation in my scraproom and hopefully get a little more scrapping done too. I also want to pay a visit to as many of my bloggy friends blogs as possible.

I hope that all of you had an equally great Christmas with your families.

Catch up

I'm so not a good blogger! I don't even know where to start catching up. These past few weeks have been a big rush. Barely touching ground and feeling overwhelmed and stressed most of the time. Lots of good times in between as well, which kept me going though.

We had my moms 80th b-day party on 28 November. This is what the table looked like - we only had one loooong table, so all the guests could sit together.
It was a really special day for my mom and she loved seeing all her friends and family that she haven't seen in years.


This is me and the boys with the birthday girl.

As a birthday gift to her, I made her an album with photos of her with each of the guests as well as a handwritten message from each and everybody there. I did 24 pages. for the album. Unfortunately I never had time to take photos of the album before I gave it to her. Will do so later.


Then on 7 December, my god daughter Annalize's little baby girl Leeloo was born! I looked forward to this day sooooo much and despite everything on my plate, I just had to go and meet this little angel as soon as they got out of hospital.

Leon's birthday was on 13 December, and I wanted to make something special for him. I decided to make a painting of his idol - Mark Knopfler. I wanted to make it large, and ended up with a huge 1.5m x 1.1m canvas. If it wasn't for my art teacher's confidence in me, I never would have even attempted something as big as this. Unfortunately, even after I took an entire day's leave from work to work on the painting, I couldn't finish it in time for his birthday and only finished it yesterday. This is what it looks like:

He is very chuffed with his work of art in his bar.

This is the birthday boy on his b-day last week.

Since I finished the painting and wrapped most of my Christmas gifts yesterday, I feel much more relaxed. I even had time to make this wrath and Christmas tree that I wanted to make last year already.

And this is our Christmas tree .

Two weeks ago, we had friends over for Sunday lunch. Leon cooked some excellent food and I had a ball decorating the table. I found these old silver wine glasses in one of the antique shops in Parys a while back and since then I wanted to use them as individual flower vases.

For desert Leon made this absolutely gorgeous Amarula Cheesecake. I only helped a little with the decorating.

Unfortunately I'm one of the "skeletons" at work and business isn't as slow as we expected. I have to run around between three desks trying to keep everybody happy.


So there it is - what kept me occupied for the past couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to a peaceful Christmas with my family now.

I hope that each and every person who reads this post will have a wonderful Christmas filled with love, peace and hope for the future. Keep the real reason for this day in your heart and it will be filled with His love for you! :)

Sunny Sunday! :)

The weather has been really miserable all week. Today the sun is shining - yay!



We had the students exhibition at the gallery this weekend. Feels kind of weird to have your paintings out there for the whole world to see. I guess it's been "out there" on my blog for a while too, but somehow this was different.

Went to another art exhibition with a friend - saw beautiful paintings and felt really humbled by the work of great artists.

I've finished the placecards and menus for my moms birthday party. I made little name cards with a thank you note on the back and attached it to a little bag filled with sweets for each of the guests. Will take pictures later. Only one week to go before the party.

My weekend

I've been busy this weekend. Not scrapping, not painting, not even going away. I was at home (or at least in my hometown) all the time busy, busy busy!

I made place cards for my moms 80th birthday party coming up in 2 weeks time. I have it all printed now but still have to make it up together with the little gift bags that will go with it. Will post pictures later as soon as I have them finished. I still have to do the menus and table seating.

I went furniture shopping for something to put in my front passage. As you all probably know by now - I love antique furniture. I found a nice sideboard ... as well as something else I didn't bargain on buying but just couldn't resist!

This is the sideboard:

When I saw this quint little church bench I just had to have it for my front porch!

I bought this little handmade clock about a year ago but still had it packed because I wanted to keep it until I had the sideboard to put it on. At last this little work of art could see daylight again! Just look at the protruding arms! Love it! I also bought this painting that I've been eyeing for ages today: It's by a local Parys artist - Annette Dannhauzer. I love her work. It's filled with religious symbolism. The name of this specific one is "Mi Casa Su Casa".

Next weekend we're having a student exhibition at the gallery where I take art class. I still have a painting to finish. I wanted to do that today but just didn't get to it. I guess 3 paintings of mine will have to be enough. I had one of the paintings that I finished a while ago framed. This is what is looks like framed.

I also finished this one about a month ago. The one that I'm busy with is also a rose, but from another angle to go with this one. Will show you pictures of it once it's done.

This afternoon I went to pick lavenders to put in a vase. I found a whole bunch of honey bees and dragon flies having a party in the lavender bush! I quickly went to fetch my camera and switched the lenses. I took these pics using my macro lens.

In between everything else I packed a a little thank you gift with goodies for Julie - to say thanks for her trouble forwarding the packages from Amazon to us.

I also made up this package with books and a little added surprise for my namesake - Michelle McGee.

Will get both of these out on their journey to the USA tomorow.

Hope all of you also had a great weekend! Will read all about it tomorrow. Now I'm wasted and just want to crawl into bed - but not before I spoil myself with a warm bubble bath!

Happy b-day Céline!!!! (edited)

Looks like blogger is acting up or something. Most people could not see the picture the I added in this post. I could see it and some other people could also see it but not everybody?! Weird! Seems like Blogger also had some trouble with spacing. Anyway - all seems better now! :)

Today is Céline's 10th b-day! Can't believe another year has come and gone. She's growing up way too fast now! She had her party on Saturday, so tonight we'll treat her to dinner anywhere she pick.

She used to have a fairy themed bedroom - all pink and lilac and girly. Recently she decided that it was time to change her room and the theme that she picked was horses - since she is crazy about horses and horse riding. I started looking for something pretty and appropriate for her age but after months of searching locally as well as in Johannesburg and Pretoria, I just couldn't find anything that she liked. I turned to my old Google buddy and reliable as it always is, it turned up with the most beautiful horse themed bedding. I got Céline to sit with me and choose something that she liked. The set that she chose was on the Amazon site. I proceeded to place the order but before I could finish, I got the message that they couldn't ship bedding to South Africa because of some manufacturers warrantee issue. Both Céline and I was so disappointed. Then I had this bright idea! I asked my bloggy and scrappy friend, Julie, if I could use her address to order the stuff. She was sooooo generous to agree to let them ship it off to her and then forwarded it on to me!!!

We got the packages in the mail a while ago and couldn't wait to replace the old bedding. Everything is up and it looks so pretty. We even got a new light fitting for her. We still need to paint the walls, get new curtains as well as a dressing table for the little cowgirl, so I don't want to take a picture of the unfinished room. I'll do so once the room is done. In the meantime, here's some pictures of the bedding that we ordered:

It looks even better i.r.l.

Once again - Thank you soooooooooooooo much Julie!!! We really appreciate it.

I picked up a tag from Lynette's blog to answer this list in one word. Tricky, but here it goes:

1. Where is your cell phone? desk

2. Your hair? dyed
3. Your mother? eighty
4. Your father? dead
5. Your favourite food? desert
6. Your dream last night? diaper
7. Your dream/goal? photographer
8. Your favourite drink? milkshake
9. What room are you in? office

10. Your hobby? scrapping
11. Your fear? disability
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? home
13. Where were you last night? home
14. Something that you aren't? false
15. Muffins? blueberry
16. Wish list item? trip
17. Where did you grow up? Vereeniging
18. Last thing you did? work

19. What are you wearing? clothes

20.Your TV? off
21. Your Pets? Daisy
22. Friends? few
23. Your life? happy
24. Your mood? happy

25. Missing Someone? yes
26. Vehicle? Mazda
27. Something you're not wearing? socks
28. Your favourite store? Thrupps
29. Your favourite colour? pink
30. When was the last time you laughed? today
31. Last time you cried? yesterday
32. Your best friend? Tanya
33. One place that I go to over and over? Namibia
34. Facebook? seldom
35. Favourite place to eat? Hoi Poloi

Let me know if you decided to pick up this tag! :)

My desktop

Lynette posted her desktop (such a cute picture) and I thought it was a great idea to see what all the girls have on their desktops - so join in and let me know if you've posted yours.

Here's mine:

It's a painting by one of my favourite artists - Anne Julie

My Son

I finished a lo that I started over the weekend of my eldest son - Michael. He's 14 now and rapidly (way too fast!) turning into a man! He's such a sweet sweet thing! I love him to pieces. Sometimes I wish I could hold his small boy body in my arms just one more time.

He had a couple of "girlfriends" in primary school but I think he's really in love for the first time now. Look what he did on Saturday when the girlfriend came to visit. After he poured cold drinks for them - he replaced the empty soda bottle in the fridge! :)

See - I'm a much better blogger this week! So far so good! ;o)

I managed to get a little scrapping done this weekend. Not a lot though - and had to sneek in a little time here and there but I finished a lo that's been on my table for a while, plus do another one. The other one I did a week or so ago when I joined the local scrap club ladies.

At least I feel like I can still call myself a scrapper! :)