Friday, August 31, 2007

Labor Day Weekend ... Friday

Jade is excited for the parade tomorrow, this evening we are going out for dinner, so I dressed her to get into the holiday spirit ... you only get to use these dresses a couple of times a year so why not right !!!

I am sure I will post more pics tomorrow, hopefully I remember to take the camera this time. The parade is at 10am but we have to get there early to get a decent seat so Jade can see and hear everything, it's great fun for the kids and for us newbie 'Americans' it's fun too :-) One of these years we can actually say ... true Americans, about another 3 years I think, man it's been a long process but oh so worth it !!!

Hold onto your seats ... tomorrow Dave is going to start mountain biking, golly my brother is going to be impressed :-) Him and a couple of buddies from work, the 'fat club' if you can believe Dave would join a club like that, well they are going to try and get into a weekly routine of biking at the park close to us. Close enough for Dave to cycle to and get going although I am not sure that is a good idea to start off with but anyway. I told him he couldn't buy a bike of his own until he was into a decent routine and I could see he was serious about this, I have the off road bike in the garage to explain why I have said that but anyway thankfully he has a work buddy with two bikes. I am excited for him to start this and hope it pans out !!!

I will update you again later this weekend with more news. Have a good one !!!













Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Back To Gymnastics Classes We Go ...

Wow, I cannot believe that more than a week and a half have already passed that Jade went back to school, this year, what can I say ... has just flown by !!! Jade settled back into school like I knew she would, we have really been blessed with an easy child, only the Lord above knows what he has in store for teenagehood, oh my golly !!! Some days I feel like I am already living with that teenager with what comes out of her mouth, I think she is most definitely going to give her dad and I a run for our money, so we will enjoy this easy time while it lasts :-)

The rest of the kids in the road went back to school Monday this week so now we are getting woken up especially early in the mornings since they have to catch the bus around 6h45 and have to pass our house to get to the bus stop and my golly do they make a noise and obviously wake Jade up. Well only one more year and she will be one of those early birds too so I may as well get used to it.

So yesterday, Tuesday, she started her gymnastics again, this year she will be in the girls novice class, it looks like, from what I saw yesterday, the class is going to be a good challenge for her which is great, I know daddy thinks that is better since he is then getting his money's worth :-) Either way, she has a ball there so that's the most important thing. Below are some of the pictures that I took before we went off to gymnastics, I am messing with a new program that Dave put on my machine so sorry the quality is not as good as I would have liked them to be but hopefully in time practise will make perfect :-)

This weekend is the Labor Day long weekend, yipeeeeeeeee !!! We plan to have a pretty relaxing one, I would like to take Jade to the Matthews Alive Festival on Saturday morning, they will be doing their usual parade, floats and all which she totally loves so we will probably do that Saturday. Hopefully the rest of the weekend we can spend a good amount of time at the pool since it won't be long before the pool closes for another year :-(

Next week I have another plan for Daves 40th birthday ... yeah my man is almost over the hill :-) But more on that later, enjoy these pics in the meantime.

















Monday, August 20, 2007

First Day Of School

I am getting in here bright and early this morning ... today is Jades first day of school, Pre-K, one more year and then Kindergarten !!! One more year of sleeping in, it seemed way too early to get up this morning but it is nothing compared to what time we are going to have to get up when she has to catch the bus to school !!! The kids in the road have one more week before they go to school, Jades school always breaks up one to two weeks early and goes back earlier as well, thankfully she doesn't realize that or that would be something else we would have to deal with ...

This morning she got up no problem considering the late night she had on Friday, she must have caught up on her sleep, thank heavens because she is like me, not a morning person if she is woken up :-) but if she wakes up on her own, the first thing she does is sing, it's too cute, definitely doesn't take after me on that one !!!

Anyway Jade got to chose the clothing she wanted to wear on her first day, it seems to be what is done here, thankfully she is still big into the Hello Kitty stuff so when we were out last week buying a shirt for her High School Musical party, she saw this one, we had bought the bookbag a while back before they all got sold out thank Heavens and this little shirt matched it perfectly. Now skirts are not something Jade is in a lot just because of how rough she is and all, but this one has the built in shorts which helps, now once that skirt and those new tennis shoes go through today, they will never be that pink again LOL but what the heck, it's what she wanted right and they only have this first day once a year right ?

Shame, the bookbag looks huge on her, it's not heavy, oh golly I just remembered she wanted me to take a picture of her Hello Kitty lunch box too but I forgot, anyway all that's in there is a change of clothing, you know just in case ... her big lunch box and her folder that stays in there for communication between the teachers and I. So that's Jade all ready for her first day !!!

Thank you to those that called yesterday and this morning to wish her good luck, she thought she was very special getting all these calls :-)















Sunday, August 19, 2007

Jades Room ... At Last !!!

It just dawned on me from a comment that Jen posted (thanks Jen) that I haven't ever posted pictures of Jades room, it's been a work in progress but for the most part it is done now, so let me tell you how it all came about ...

Firstly we were given the dresser by a friend of mine, someone I met through the Moms Club and have been friends with since Jade was a baby, her name is Jen too, she had no use for the dresser so asked me if I wanted it and of course, she didn't have to ask me twice :-) We looked forever for a headboard to match and eventually bought a cheap one which we have now trashed because two years down the road, Jen moved houses and now didn't have a use for matching headboard, can you believe that, what a wonderful gift that was from her to Jade :-)

Ok so all we knew is that Jade wanted pink and purple in her room so that was the starting point, I went out looking for a bedroom set, a comforter set ... well that was a tough one, I had millions of comforters to chose from but no cute ones because I was putting my toddler into a queen size bed which most people don't do, anyway eventually I found this one, it's a Lizzie Maguire set which she knows nothing about right now but I am sure in time will grow into ... but for now it worked color wise.

Then I went looking for a border for her walls and was totally blown away when I found this one, they just matched so well, then it was a matter of matching the border up with the paint and this is what it ended up looking like :-)

I had bought a while back the little handles for her dresser, I thought that was a nice touch, the original handles are just wooden ones. The curtains were the old ones that were in her room, they don't match too well but I have been lazy to change them so for now those will have to do. The little hearts above her headboard were a Dollar Store fine (hehehe) but thought they looked good there ... then I filled a few picture frames with family and friends pics, added her bedtime prayer to a frame, hung her JADE name cap or coat rack and added a few goodies to her dresser that kind of matched and we were done.

Last but not least, the last thing we added in the corner above her bed, I have always liked angels and fairies but they don't really fit her room too well but while on our last trip to SA, Nana bought her this long hanging goodie with feathers and shiney goodies and well that started me on the feathered fairy decorations, I bought another 3 while in Hermanus one weekend and we just hung them all today. I told Jade every time I got to SA, I am going to buy a few on these so that eventually her roof will be full on them, I thought that would look really pretty, only by the time I get all that done, she will probably be too old for them ... but a mom can dream right ???

The only thing you can't see is in all these pics is the detail on some of the goodies on her dresser and her night light plugged in below her photo's on the wall, it matches the border, I think it all came together well, don't you ... ok come on, at least TRY and post a comment !!!











I wanted to add just one thing to this update, Friday night Jade had a High School Musical party / sleepover / campout at my neighbor Tina's house, this is the same house she had the Cheetah Girls party last year. It's the fun house in the road :-) Anyway, Dave and I took advantage of the free time and went shopping for his birthday gift on Friday evening, we went for a nice dinner and went to see a late movie which brought us home around 12h30. I walked down to see if it was all quiet in Tina's back yard only to find Tina and another neighbor Shawn chatting away while the kids, all in their tents, (three tents divided age wise) still messing around. I went to first talk to Jade and told her to go to sleep, at close to 1h30 I went to threaten her that if she didn't fall asleep in the next 5 minutes, she was coming home with me to sleep at home, so that put her to sleep pretty quickly. I left around 2am which is a late night for me but apparently the older kids only got to sleep after 4am.

At 10am the next morning I went to go get Jade, she had apparently woken up at 7am and was one of the first (hehehe), she had a ball !!! We had a very slow day yesterday because we were all tired, I did a bit of cleaning since I have my renewal show here on Tuesday but that was about it. Jade was in bed by 7h30 and asleep by 8pm. She slept till after 9am this morning which was a treat for Dave and I.

Later this afternoon we will go to the pool for a bit but then it will be an early night tonight because tomorrow is Jades first day of school so I will probably update again ... so until then :-)

Monday, August 13, 2007

Monday Morning

Just got Jade dressed and as usual when I dress her in a dress or skirt, she turned on her 'model' mode and I figured I would take advantage while she is in the mode, since as she gets older the mood comes up less often :-) I take so many pics when she gets into these moods but would hate to bore you with them all, so here is just a few :-)

Ok, let's see, what's on the cards this week, Jades last week of vacation before she goes back to school ... Today as soon as I can get done on here, I am going to rush off to run some errands before I get online with my mom for our usual Monday chat. Then this evening our friends Tina and Lewis are coming over with their three kids for pizza and fun at our pool, so Jade is looking forward to that :-)

Tomorrow we are suppose to be having a play date with Jade little school friend Evelyn but we have not finalized arrangements so only time will tell, they are lucky enough to have a really nice pool in their back yard so we might go over there to swim.

Wednesday Jade has an afternoon playdate with Ryan, one of her friends in our neighborhood, it's late afternoon so I may take her to the YMCA pool in the morning, it's so very hot here that being at the pool at some stage in the day is a must !!!

Thursday I don't have anything planned yet and then Friday Jade has her open day at school, so we will be meeting her teacher Ms Cindy that morning, I love Ms Cindy so I hope Jade does too, I am sure she will.

Friday night is great excitement for Jade. Last year during Summer, some of you will remember she had a sleepover / camp out in one of my neighbors back yards, it was the release of the Cheetah Girls movie, all the girls in the road went over to Tina's to watch the movie, have fun and then to sleepover in a tent in the back yard, Jade had a ball so ... this year the big Summer movie is High School Musical 2 which gets released this weekend so Tina is doing the same as last year, another camp out, it's so hot, good luck to her :-) She really has the fun house around here :-) Dave and I are going to take total advantage of the time out and go out for dinner with friends and then a possible movie ... now I am excited :-)

Then Saturday is our pool Olympics which I had hoped would be a really good one for Jade this year being the little fish that she is but after her late night at Tina on Friday and probably very little decent sleep, I don't know, we will have to see, maybe we will just give it a skip, again only time will tell.

My other friend Tina, since you guys are probably confused, I have a Tina as a neighbor and then a different Tina as my best friend, well Tina, my best friend she and her hubby are taking her two boys to see Monster Trucks on Saturday evening so I am going to babysit little Layla, she's too cute so it should be fun, it's been a while that I have babysat a child that small so hold thumbs it goes off well.

Sunday will hopefully be a relaxing day to get Jade ready for school on Monday, I might update later the week if she does the pool Olympics otherwise my update will probably only be on Monday. Until then, have a good week :-)









Friday, August 10, 2007

More Exciting News

Hi There

I have more exciting news ... I signed my second jewelery yesterday. She is a SA'n friend that actually did one of my first parties and said she would do a second one when the new catalogue came out, well it just did so I contacted her and couldn't believe she was interested in coming into the business. I went over there yesterday and did all the paperwork so I am very excited, I now have two new babies in my Premier family :-)

Other that that exciting news, I wanted to add these two quick videos they are of Jade swimming at our community pool. The first one she is actually swimming the width of the pool, unfortunately she had been swimming for almost 2 hours already when I had her do this for the video so she is a little worn out but still, she did pretty well considering the distance and of course I have to keep reminding myself she is only 4 !!!

The last one is her doing her gymnastics in the pool, she is so amazing, I am so thankful that she has taken to water so well and almost does better under water than on top, it's been a great Summer, she and I have had so much fun !!!

I cannot believe, one more week and then she is back to school, she will have Ms Cindy this year and she is really nice so I am thrilled about that. Next Friday is her open day at school and then she starts Monday, she and I are both excited about that but I guess for different reasons (hehehe).

Have a great weekend everyone.



Friday, August 3, 2007

Just Dressing Up And Messing Around

I have a show tonight and should really be getting ready for it but Jade and I have had a hectic week so today we were taking it easy and playing dress up and she was modelling everything, the little show off that she is :-)

Anyway she loves dresses but is such a rough little girl that she doesn't really ever wear them out, so she has a bunch like this one in her dress up drawer and every now and again she plays princess and dresses up and has a ball doing so. Today was one of those days :-)

Other than my show tonight tomorrow we are going to again try and have a relaxing day, then Sunday she has a party to go to, a Monkey Joes party which is one of those fun inflatable places, so no dresses there (hehehe).

Below are a few of the pics I took of her in the one dress, her hair has gone very light from the pool, we have no doubt she won't stay fair forever but for right now it's pretty cute :-)

Have a great weekend y'all.