100 Happy Days - Day 2: Creative parenting

Today just turned out to be a difficult day. At one point I nearly ended up in tears of disappointment and frustration. One of the contributing factors, besides only having slept for 4 hours, was that by lunchtime Arnan had not had any food except his "hot choccie" - a bottle of warm milk - and some biscuits he found on the dining room table... And he was whining and tantruming for another bottle of milk, discounting all offers for alternative nutrition. There are days that I let it slide, but for some reason today was not one of those days.

Thankfully Arnan finally gave in to my offer to watch some Daniel Tiger (the birthday episode, since it is Arnan's birthday tomorrow), just as I was about to go make the bottle. On his way to the couch he grabbed an empty egg carton and some cherry tomatoes and started munching. I saw the window of opportunity and surreptitiously filled the remaining egg cups with an assortment of cherry tomatoes, blocks of Gouda and fresh cherries. He also devoured the greater portion of a papaya (the sweetest papaya I have ever tasted! Thank you Woolworths :) ). Arnan was munching something, I received an encouraging response to my message of distress from my supportive husband and just like that my day was happy once more.

christmas 2008

this year has been amazing, hectic, life-changing, whirlwind crazy, upside-down, and incredibly blessed. i can't believe 2008 is almost over.

nico & i boldly went where we had never been before... we hosted our first christmas lunch this year. rather exciting, but a lot of hard work even though we only had 4 guests! the menu was made up of a few of our favourite dishes and, to our surprise, all the items worked out very well together.

the decorating also came together nicely, i chose a blue and white theme to go with our new patio chair cushions, which gave a fresh and cool twist to the traditional theming. although i was really tempted to go all out with the decorations (think fairy lights, candles, and other frills galore) i managed to control my imagination to our newly-wed budget. along with a neutral tablecloth and bright place mats we had fresh basil plants on the tables, which are renowned for deterring flies, or so they say... it didn't seem to do anything for those pesky pests buzzing around our tables though.

nico even designed a beautiful menu for this special occasion on my new macbook. we decided on a bible verse (Isaiah 42:6,9,10) for the inside facing page of the menu, what was wonderful is that this fitted in with the word my father shared with us later.

whilst it was lovely to spend the day with family, and they are set on making a tradition of having christmas at our place, i will be happy to share the duties from now on with the knowledge of all it takes to make a success of one of the biggest days of the year... after all, the day is about celebrating the coming of our saviour jesus with loved ones.