Turning 50

Today is my 50th birthday. It's been a wonderful day filled with love and celebration. I have been truly blessed by all my family and friends with birthday messages, gifts and more.

My day started with Keith and Aaron spoiling me at breakfast with cards and gift vouchers plus a new book to read. Aaron also made my first cup of coffee for me in my new mug which he said I could only use today as it says "fantastic 50 today" on it. So I have had cup after cup of coffee today in this mug only! (Thank you to Ilse for this wonderful gift)

My day progressed to spending the morning at work. I got choccies from Moira and then later the company spoilt me with more chocolate plus coffee and a hug balloon.

After work I picked up Mom and then we went to collect Aaron from school before heading to Wimpy for milkshakes. Mom and I both had the berry shake... Delicious!

The final celebration today was my brother Gavin and nephew Justin coming for supper. But not just a typical family supper.... No! In fact, Gavin cooked! He was my own personal chef for the evening. Yes we just had a simple meal... Sticky sesame chicken with noodles... But I didn't have to think it, shop it, or buy it... Nor wash up afterwards either... Delegated that to Keith & Aaron.

I am so blessed to have such a loving family and so many caring friends. A huge thank you to everyone who has made my day special.

Just remembered some anecdotes from my day too that I don't want to forget:
1. Aaron telling me that he can't believe that I am now 1 Decade old .... Hehe nope says I, that's 5 Decades! He nearly said 1 Century.... Yikes!
2. Opening the curtains at 6am and finding my car still parked outside.... I obviously forget to put it in the garage on Monday afternoon in my hurry to get baking. Left the keys in the ignition and the window open. Ended up with a little puddle on the door from the early morning drizzle.
3. Very thankful for the cooler temperature and drizzle on and off through the day.... A big relief from the intense heat of the last week.

And lastly: Words can't express my gratefulness to each and every one of my friends and family who helped me celebrate my 50th. ..... From all the little messages, whatsapps, phonecalls and facebook or instagram "likes", to being with me at my party or spending time with me yesterday..... THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart and big hugs to each of you. 😘😘😘

#mybirthday #nowIam50

My 50th birthday celebration

As I am turning the big 50 in a few weeks time, I decided to throw myself a birthday party and spoil myself a little with having my friends all together in one spot.

I know I've mentioned in a few blog posts the past few weeks about making all sorts of stuff for this day and stressing.... well I can now report that it all got done and my party was a great success. This is how I decorated for my party on a very slim budget... recycling scrapbooking leftovers into wonderful decor items.

I made these flowers and put them in painted tins as the table centres. Each friend was given a flower (or three) as a thank you for coming.

I scrounged through all the photo albums and found pictures of me as close to my birthday each year (there were some that were harder to find than others).... These then I labeled with my age and printed onto copy paper. Once cut out I stuck each one onto a piece of card and then sewed them all onto ribbon. (This was inspired by an idea on pinterest)

Below the photo banner I had some tins with the words Happy Birthday and a few extra flowers.

Here is the full refreshment table to show how it looked. I also printed the poster on the right and displayed that in an old frame.

My very yummy cake... I've been wanting a chocolate overloaded cake for a few years and this year I made it happen! My Mom baked me a Coffee & Walnut cake and iced it with coffee icing. I then applied a chocolate ganache to the top and added loads more choccies on top... was very very yummy.

This backdrop is made up of lots and lots of punched and diecut circles sewn together on my machine and then pinned to a photography backdrop. They gave us a bit of grief getting them all untangled when we started putting them up.

And now on to the photos of my very special family and friends who came to join the celebration.

I was rather exhausted after all the tidying up and the light wasn't very good for taking pics whilst opening pressies last night, so Aaron took this one of me with all my stash in one shot... I got thoroughly spoilt:

Now I'm going to make a cuppa coffee and relax for the rest of the day.

Scrapbook Challenges - Flashback Friday Sketch #225

Wow what a weekend...started with my birthday on Friday... had an awesome day with our work year end function at Madam Zingara. Yesterday we went to the Joburg Theatre for the pantomime of Sleeping Beauty... what a great show. Today we all went out for lunch to celebrate both mine and Aaron's birthdays. Truly a packed weekend. So needless to say I never got around to posting my layout for Friday's reveal, so here it is now.

I really had fun creating this page. I used a page from the Couture Creations collection that I won a few months back for my background. Firstly I made an autumn coloured piece of paper with a variety of inks from which I diecut a few trees. I then used the negative of this to shadow ink the tree in green along the bottom of my page, before pasting the diecuts over this. Was actually quite chuffed with the end result.

There are once again more pages to see on the blog, so go check it out.

Celebrating My Birthday

Today is my birthday.... and a rather fun date too.... captured this screen at 20:11 on 20/11/2011

Yesterday I had a tea party with my friends to help me celebrate.  I had spent the week baking (in between lots of studying with Aaron for his exams).  So here is the table just for you to drool over...

With most everything containing chocolate (my fav food) this chocolate tart was definitely the highlight for everyone.

Aaron took this photo to help me remember my day... the best of the three he took but still a bit blurry!

I got spoilt with vouchers (to spend on scrapping goodies), a new devotions book, a lovely plant and also a bag full of choccies.

This morning I had planned to sleep in but ended up waking just after 7 anyway.  So after a quick cuddle with Aaron I had my bath and then it was present opening time - Aaron wanted me to open my present as soon as my eyes were open but I quickly put a stop to that one!  Keith bought me new dinnerware as ours is on it's way out (after more then 20 years!)

Between Aaron and I, we made flapjacks for breakfast this morning, served on my new plates (which Aaron had first washed too!).  After breakfast, we went to church and the congregation sang Happy Birthday to me... though most of them didn't know my name so there was a bit of a flat moment at that point in the song... hehe. Afterwards we went through to my folks for lunch... my mom served a great cold lunch of chicken, beef and salads, with jelly, fruit salad and ice cream for pudding.  She also made me a birthday cake.

My present from Mom & Dad was this delightful wind-chime that is now hanging outside my kitchen window waiting for a breeze to make it tinkle.

Now off to have the last slice of chocolate tart before bed... yummy!  Will be celebrating a bit more tomorrow at work with leftovers from yesterday.

Happy Birthday

TO ME!!!!!

Today is my day.... yippee.  I was sooooooo hoping to sleep in but noooooooooo..... Aaron woke me with the sweetest "Happy birthday my 42 year old Mommy" at 6:15 this morning.  After a snuggle or two he decided to make me breakfast in bed.... toast and coffee.... he did admit to burning the first slice of toast so had to do it over.... even put bovril on it for me... mmm yum.

This afternoon my Mom is taking Aaron and myself to see The Nutcraker ballet.... going to be such fun.

In the last week...

it's been sooooooooooooo hectic that I have (truthfully!) been avoiding my blog.  I've got soooooooooooo much to post about but couldn't really face posting... okay couldn't really face editing photos to post.  Oh and it's not only my blog that I've had to update but Aaron's school blog too.... now that most of that one is done I thought I'd tackle this one with a quick update.  So here is some of what we did over the past week....

Last Friday was my birthday... sorry no photos to show!  The whole family was sick last week and with the constant rain we all felt yuck!  Hubby had a work lunch at Monte Casino so after I helped to set up for our Ladies Tea during the afternoon Aaron & I went there to fetch Keith and stay for supper... ended up with just me eating as Aaron was really under the weather with an awful temperature.  Aaron had mentioned though to our waiter that it was my birthday so I ended up getting a free icecream with sparkler and all the singing that went with it... the only words I made out were "someone's mommy is getting older"!!! hehehe.

Saturday was our Ladies Tea at church... what a great morning.  Our speaker was Agnes who is the principal of Barnato High School in Hillbrow... they do the most amazing work with kids who otherwise wouldn't have a safe place to stay, education and for some even a meal.  Four of the boys came and played for us... a marimba band... wow!

After the week of soaking rain I did lots of praying for good weather and on Sunday morning we woke to the most glorious sunny day... perfect for a pirate birthday party.

Aaron and six friends all had fun... made hats, telescopes, parrots, swords and did a treasure hunt, played musical islands and pass the booty... lots and lots of laughs.  Then just before they were all scheduled to go home they walked the plank (down the slip 'n slide).

On Monday, Aaron's actual 8th birthday he got his presents from Mommy & Daddy... some paints, lego and a new bike.

We all went to KFC for birthday supper...mmmm finger licking good!

Tuesday Aaron tried out his bike...

Thursday was Aaron's school's prizegiving.  Each learner gets to go up on stage, shake the principal's hand and get a certificate.  Aaron's one was for excellence in literacy and musical ability (ie he reads lots and plays the piano!)... well done my boy, you make me very proud.

Phew... I'm exhausted just typing all this.  Now we still have more busyness ahead of us.... This weekend Keith is in Cape Town visiting his sister, so it's just Mommy & Son together.

I'm taking Aaron to Boksburg this afternoon to go to Papa & Granny's church to see their "Follow the Star" nativity display... if you're in the area, please visit them.... Boksburg Methodist Church... from 3 to 8pm today and tomorrow.

Saturday Aaron has rehearsal and then on Sunday it is his Sunday School concert... he is playing Joseph.  We are both very excited for this.

Oh and in between everything we are both still practising for our piano concert next Saturday... I think I need a holiday now!

Birthday wishes

Happy birthday to an awesome blog friend... Desire. Hope you have a STUNNING day today... thanks for all the comments you leave each and every time... thanks to for your lovely blog... the cards you make are awesome. Enjoy your day immensely!

Promised photos

These are photos from the end of March....

We have barbets that come visit and sing around our house. Last year it looked like they were nesting in our garden... and this year I got to catch them on camera. The family of three black collared barbets in the tree, as well as showing you the nest (bottom left corner)

The Wednesday before Aaron's school closed we went to Allie's ice skating party.... her birthday was actually in January and this was technically her b rother's birthday party, but her mom decided that she could have some friend too.... so here's pics of Aaron skating as well as Aaron and Allie playing on a cell phone (one of the dad's)

On Saturday 28th March it was Sebastian's birthday. Aaron and Sebastian went to Play Group together when they were 2... so this is a long standing yearly arrangement now that they are at different schools. Anyway, Sebastian's birthday was a "camp out" theme. A guy came and did all sorts of camping activities with the boys.

Build a tent and not get wet when a bucket of water is thrown over.

Make a water filter and see which team's one works the best

Make a fire using a flint ... a bit easier than on Survivor, but still a lot of hard work.... a fire was eventualy made!

Then the boys got to do a typical boy thing.... water fights! They filled syringes with water and squirted each other.... some kids got VERY soaked.

Then as a special treat the guy brought out the paintball gun and each boy got a turn to shoot the target before Sebastian got to empty the barrel.... he ended up demolishing the target!

After a quick swim, some hotdogs for lunch it was on to birthday cake, a welltimed visit by a passing icecream truck got each kid an icecream, then it was present time.

And as a special treat, Sebastian's dad loaded all the children into the back of his bakkie for a trip to the river just behind their house.... the boys loved playing in the river and causing havoc before going home.

Aaron didn't want to leave and so we ended up staying till nearly 6 o'clock. On the way home from the party there was the most awesome sunset.

I think that is all the promised photos... next post will be about our Cape Town trip.