Festival of Trees

We had a girls day out plus Dique last week. We went to the Festival of Trees. I had never been before. It was amazing. All the trees were beautiful. I spent a lot of the time with tears in my eyes though. A lot of the trees are dedicated to a loved one who has passed on or who is fighting for survival. It makes me hold my kids closer and count blessing as to how lucky I am to have 2 beautiful children who are healthy. While we were there we saw some old friends, the Howdens. It is always a great pleasure to see them.

Flower Hair Clip

I taught myself how to make these kind of flowers for hair clips the other day.

Cyndi loves them.

Siblings Bonding

Cyndi loves to help and play with Damian. Most of the time she is VERY rough with him. But then we get sweet moments like this: she reading to him. She picked a book with lots of pictures of Jesus Christ in it and is showing him the pictures.

Dique loves it when Cyndi laughs.

Granny's Birthday

Granny's birthday is Dec 6, but we celebrated it last Sunday since everyone is going to the Christmas devotional by the First Presidency tonight and Rory's kids were in town last week for Thanksgiving. I made Granny a french vanilla cake with a white chocolate mousse filling. Ben made the clutch out of rice crispy treats. I molded the shoe out of gum paste a few weeks ago, and then Ben went over it to make it smooth and perfect. If you missed it, the cake is a hat box. I sugar dipped the rims of the glasses and Ben and I re did the label on the sparkling cider.

Close up

The label

Blowing out candles

Everyone expect Rory - he was taking the picture. I love this one because Dique is after Granny's hair. Notice Layne is trying to claim the bottle.

Bottoms up!

We love you Granny! We sure are going to miss you next year after you go back to SA.

New Discovery

The other day Dique discovered that he could reach the toys that hung from his rocker. He has spent the last couple of months yelling at them from a far. Now to his joy and delight, he can hold them while yelling at them. It is so cute to watch him learn.

Family Photo

I got my mom to come and take some family pictures of us. It is so hard to get the kids to smile and stay still at the same time. When one smiles, the other moves. GRRR! But in the end we got a few really cute pictures. I love my little family.

Thanksgiving Food

We had Thanksgiving South African style. It was a lot of fun. It made me miss South Africa and the fact that we would have braai's very often. I made most of the desserts and Ouma and Marius took care of the main course.

Fudge - more of a well sort after snack

Main course. There was also a macaroni salad. It was all so delicious!

Banana bread - never made it to the Thanksgiving table, but made the same time.

More pictures to come of the apple pie and milk tart.