Month: March 2012

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A switch was flicked…

… and Faith suddenly learnt a whole lot of new skills.

  • Turning around onto her tummy to climb off the couch or to go down stairs.
  • Climbing onto the couch.
  • Climbing up the slide part of the jungle gym, then lying down and sliding.
  • Climbing onto things designed to give me even more grey hairs, like chairs and climbing frames at Aarons school.
  • Drinking from a cup instead of a squeeze bottle without spilling.
  • Nodding ‘yes’ in context.
  • Doing all the actions to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, even trying to make a diamond like mommy does!

I really have to stop calling her ‘the baby’, she is a real little toddler now!

P.s. She still doesnt really say mommy talk… what she does say is ‘eho’ = hello, ‘oof’ = dog/woof and now we can add a very distinct and clear UP 🙂

 

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Children. Or are they?

Sometimes I think my dogs are more childish than my actual children.

For example…

Stuart sleeps on my bed, at the bottom on my feet on top of my duvet but underneath his own blanket.  Bandit and Salami sleep under a duvet on two huge doggy pillows on the floor at the foot of our bed.  (Yes, I know, you want to be a dog in my house!)

So, pretty much every night, I have to lift the duvet for Bandit to crawl into bed.  And pretty much every night, I have to pick Stuart up off Bandits bed and put him onto my bed, so that Bandit can get into his bed.  Stuart NEVER sleeps on the floor.  Ever.  He always sleeps on my bed.  He sits on Bandits bed just to piss him off.  The damn dog does it on purpose.  And Bandit always comes running to tattle instead of just growling or forcing Stuart off his bed.

I mean really! Children much!?

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Skin – Day 17

Day: 17

Dosage: 20mg per day

Skin issues: Redness on the sides of my nose, small (almost gone) cyst on upper lip

Side effects: My skin is slightly dryer than normal but winter is on its way and Im not sure if its weather or meds causing the dryness.  My lips are dry as well, but again, they get like this when winter approaches.  Im using Lansinoh nipple stuff on my lips, best stuff ever!!

Improvement: Far fewer cysts.

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Talking about toilet training

Is 15 months too early to start training Faith?

The thing is, I think she understands where wee comes from.

When I go to the loo I tell her that mommy is making a wee, then she will clutch at her nappy and now she has started squatting and when I am finished she stands up and starts clapping.

Is it too early?  Should I wait? How would I start training a girl?  Aaron was easy, we made him wee in the garden, no mess, no fuss…

 

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Proud mommy!

This weekend Aaron decided to do #2’s on the toilet.  No fuss, no arguments.

It may or may not have something to do with the fact that we told him that when we stop buying nappies for him we will get an iPad.

This weekend Aaron decided to not have a bottle at bed time and to sleep without a nappy AND he woke up dry.

It may or may not have something to do with the fact that we told him that when we stop buying nappies for him we will get an iPad.

All I know is he has finally decided that he is ready and that makes me so happy and so proud!

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Who needs eggs?

Aaron loves baking, he loves biscuits, we had no eggs…

I turned to Google and found a few recipes that looked easy enough so I kind of threw them all together and made up my own recipe 🙂

They turned out well, so well that they were all gone before I got a picture of them.  Guess I will have to make them again, just so I can show you what they look like!

Ingredients

  • 1 ½ cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 cup melted marge or butter
  • 1 cup icing sugar
  • cinnamon or other flavouring (smarties, cocoa, ginger, choc chips etc…)

Method

  • Preheat your oven to 180°C.
  • Mix all ingredients in a medium bowl until they form a dough.
  • Form small balls of dough and place on a greased baking sheet.
  • These biscuits spread quite a bit so leave a lot of space between biscuits.
  • Bake for between 7 and 10 min (depends on your oven) or until golden brown.
  • Once cooled place on paper towels to absorb excess butter.

Enjoy with tea or a glass of cold milk!

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Card Security Week 2012

FNB and VISA invited me to a presentation for Card Security Week and what an eye opener it was.

Dudes! These thieves are super super smart and super super quick and super super ruthless!

From tiny hand held card scanners/skimmers to hi-tech scanners and cameras fitted onto ATM machines (fitted in under 8 seconds!) to key stroke loggers to devious phishing emails, these guys know what they are doing!

According to a new consumer survey* by Visa, it has been revealed that there is a sound awareness of fraud amongst the banked population of South Africa. According to the research, ATM fraud, identity theft and point of sale fraud were identified as the most common types of fraud consumers were aware of.

Some rules for keeping your card (and your hard earned money) safe:

  • Treat your card like cash!
  • Dont let your card out of your sight. Get your retailer, waitron, petrol attendant to bring the card machine to you or go with them to the desk.
  • At an ATM, dont let anyone distract you or try to ‘help’ you in any way.
  • If you struggle to get your card into the ATM slot, dont use that machine.
  • If the ATM swallows your card, cancel it straight away.
  • Whatever you do, do NOT update your details via an email from your bank, NO bank will ever ask you to update details in an email!
  • When in doubt call your bank.  Rather safe than sorry!!

 

 

*The study was conducted by Ask Afrika and involved 350 participants all of whom are banked

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Skin – Day 6

So, as many of you know, I have started taking Roaccutane.

I have decided to keep a skin journal and every week or so I will post an update on whats happening, improvements, side effects, even a photo or two…

Day 6

Day: 6

Dosage: 20mg per day

Skin issues: Cysts on either side of my nose (greatly reduced in the last two days), skin under my mouth is ok, small cyst in my right eyebrow, small cyst in my groin.

Side effects: So far the only side effect is that my skin got ‘worse’ on about day 4 (I wish I had thought to take a photo of day 4, you would not believe the difference between then and now!), I developed three cysts, one on the left of my nose and two on the right side of my nose.  Bloody painful but they didnt last as long as usual.  They developed heads within two days (usually takes up to a week) and drained yesterday evening.  Im still red and sore but not as swollen.  P.s. Getting ‘worse’ is par for the course with Roaccutane, they say it takes up to two weeks for the ‘worse’ part to subside…

Improvement: Only that the cysts cleared faster than normal.

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Hamantaschen

Its Purim!

My favourite part of Purim is eating hamantaschen with mon (poppy seeds) but since not everyone likes poppy seeds I decided to try my hand at making a Nutella hamantaschen.

Ingredients

  • 3 cups flour
  • 3 teaspoons baking powder
  • ½ cup sugar
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • 3 eggs
  • 3/4 cup butter or margerine
  • Your choice of filling (you can use a poppy seed mixture, chocolate spread, jam or nuts)

 

Method

  • Sift together flour, baking powder, sugar and salt.
  • Mix in eggs and butter (I melted the butter slightly in the microwave).
  • Mix until a dough forms.
  • Roll out the dough and cut out large rounds.
  • Transfer the rounds to a greased baking tray and place a teaspoon of your filling in the middle.
  • Fold  your circle on three ‘sides’ and pinch together to create a triangular parcel, leaving the  middle open so you can see the filling.
  • Bake for 15 – 20min or until golden brown in a 180°C oven.

 

Enjoy!

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My Pretty!

Welcome to my new theme!

Thank you so very very much to the super talented Tanya who put up with a lot of requests for changes (non of which were for light black or dark white!).

Im going to be working on a little bit of formatting over the next few days, please let me know if anything looks odd or stops working 🙂