Bullet point Wednesday

I don't have a particular post in mind so this will mostly be a rambling sort of post.

• Today is a beautiful day.  Just in time for the official start of summer tomorrow.  The 1st of December.  Unreal!  Can't believe it.  It has come around so quick.  

• Am busy making little green boxes for the kids' advent calendars, but am a bit behind so tonight will officially be known as the night of the green box.

• Am really excited about another project I'm working on which will be ready in the next week or so.  I just hope it works out the way I'm hoping!

• From this weekend things are becoming quite a bit busier for us (sigh!).  What is your schedule like at the moment?

• There is only about 2 weeks left of school for this year.  Then Bianca will be completely done with Year 3.  Somehow this year seems to have gone too fast! 

• Did I say what a beautiful day today was?  After all the rainy and grey days we've had the last little bit, the sun and blue skies are really a welcome sight!

• Next week I need to start Christmas shopping.  Have you done yours already?

So what's happening in your life???

Bullies!

So in the news this morning I read about a mum who got involved when her daughter was bullied and assaulted by a group of other girls.  (Read here).

I'll never forget once we went to a particular indoor play area and as soon as we walked in, this one little boy walked up to Caitlyn and pinched her.  And of course she cried her little eyes out.  We sort of left it at that, comforted Caitlyn and went to let the kids play.  Now usually these areas are safe and secure enough that we can sit one side while they run around and have fun.  Except on this day.  On this day, this little boy and about 3 or 4 other kids from the same group for some reason targeted Bianca and Caitlyn.  They kept following them around, pushing into them, if they built something with blocks, they'd run and push it over, shouted at our kids when they were playing with something.  It was terrible!  And the stupid parents were just sitting there watching it all happen offering the kids ice blocks every so often and refusing to do something about it.  It got so bad that Terence and I had to physically follow our girls around to make sure they won't be hurt.  And then at one point this one little boy did it again - ran right into Caitlyn and at that point Terence lost his cool and told the little boy off for his behaviour.  Oh my goodness, that was the fastest the dad jumped up and told Terence off for telling off the little boy!  Well at that point we had enough, loudly told the girl behind the counter and the group of parents that we were leaving because we refuse to let our kids be tormented by these bullies any further.

I have to be honest that reading about some of the bullying behaviour out there makes me feel a bit anxious.  While it seems easy to protect our kids when they are little, when they are older and more independent, it won't always be possible to protect our kids from things like this.  I wonder just how effective anti-bullying programmes at school really is?  And whose problem does it become when these things happen after school?  What is really the answer to solve these kind of problems?  It seems to have become much more severe and vicious than I remember from my school days.

Finally I am able to say

For a more than a week now I've been wanting to share something with you.  But I couldn't because the time was not right!  But finally I can share it with all of you today!

My mum's birthday is tomorrow on the 29th.  So yesterday my brother and his wife and their beautiful little girl Febe celebrated with my mum seeing as it was the weekend and during the week my mum often works really late.  Because my mum lives in South Africa, we could not be there, but we were definitely there in spirit!  Very much so.  So much so that we made her cry.  At her birthday celebration!

In 2010 we started the process to sponsor my mum to move here to New Zealand.  Since 2004 we've only ever seen her maybe for a total of 9 weeks.  Earlier this year we received a letter from Immigration where we needed to supply more information and more documents and it took me about 65 days just to get everything together.  It was incredibly stressful and I spent hours on the phone, email, Facebook tracking people down, asking for info and getting ready.  And amazing people came on our way.  People I've never met before, but who were absolutely amazing in supplying what we needed.

So finally I submitted this big stack of documents.  And then we waited and prayed and waited some more.

And last week I finally received the letter we've been waiting for.  That my mum's permanent residency is approved and that we now need to send in her passport and the migrant levy.  What a big relief!  An absolute answer to our prayers. 

And so I sent a copy of the letter which my sister in law carefully inserted in my mum's birthday card as a nice birthday surprise from us.  Sorry mum for making you cry!

And next Christmas we'll spend it together!  No more sending parcels that never arrive (on the 1st of November 2010 I sent a parcel to my mum and my brother and it has never arrived!).

We were incredibly blessed throughout the process.  So many who did so much to help us!  And we had the most amazing and most helpful immigration case officer working with us.  We'll be eternally grateful!

So mum, time to start planning your big adventure!

Happy birthday mum, next year we're spending it together!

Nothing much happened today

And so this post won't be very significant or necessarily interesting.  Apologies!  Sometimes we are really boring people...

I've learned something - there is such a thing as planting too much lettuce.  When I planted mine I had no idea just how much we'll end up with.  I don't think we'll ever use it all - even if we had salad for breakfast, lunch and supper (and then some more in between...).  Anybody wanting some lettuce leaves?

Saw the cutest little kittens yesterday.  I used to volunteer at the SPCA with the lady 2 houses away from us.  She sometimes fosters kittens and keeps them at her mother-in-law's house next to our house and so when she saw me at swimming on Friday she invited us to come and have a look.  Oh my goodness!  So cute!  There is a mother cat and her 4 kittens who are only about 2 weeks old now.  In about a week we'll go visit again to see how they are doing.

And now I'll leave you with this photo and message I saw on Facebook - how true!

Source

"As long as we have memories, yesterday remains; as long as we have hope, tomorrow awaits, and as long as we have friendship, each day is never a waste." -Heart Matters

A special something, an award, 7 things about me and what we got up to...

Firstly I'm very excited to share something very special with you.

For a while now I've been wanting to do another Youtube video.  The last one we did for Bianca was 1 year after her leukemia diagnosis, but she was still on treatment at the time and I wanted an updated one on where she is now.  I guess it is also really appropriate because even though Thanksgiving is mostly a celebration you find in the US, it seems a time to be thankful for all the blessings we have.   We are certainly so incredibly blessed that Bianca is doing so well!  I've been searching for the right music to go with my video clip for a while now and just recently Paul gave me the perfect music to use.  I absolutely love the music that Paul did (and even Bianca said it is one of her favourite songs!)  And so today I share with you Bianca's new Youtube video! (Click here).

Blackhuff nominated me for an award!  Thank you!  How it works is to share 7 things about yourself and then nominate 15 bloggers.

1. I don't have any middle names.
2. I hate clothes and shoe shopping.
3. I am not a coffee drinker (sorry LatteJunkie).
4. When I was at school I played netball.  I wasn't very good, but I enjoyed it.
5. I am fluent in 2 languages and can say a few words in another.
6. When I was about 10 (I think) I wrote to the then State President of South Africa asking him how I could become a State President when I was all grown up.  I even got a reply back from his office.  Obviously I never became a State President... 
7. I like to try and come up with unique presents for people when I feel I know them well enough.  Presents that I feel would be meaningful to the other person.  And then I get all excited and can't wait to give it to the person.  And yes, sometimes (okay a lot of the time) I come up with the ideas at the last minute leaving me very little time to get it ready.  But hey, if it wasn't for the last minute nothing would ever get done!

I now nominate (in no particular order):

• 123 Blog
• Living the Good Life
• Latte Junkie
• Unwritten
• Juggling Act of Life
• A pinch of this and a pinch of that
• I believe in miracles (Sharon van Wyk)
• Maas Life Journal
• Everything in between
• Buttons Thoughts
• Linni at home
• Communique

Okay so not quite 10 blogs...

Today has been an amazingly beautiful day!  All sunny and blue skies.  And so this morning we had to go to Coastlands Mall in Paraparaumu and decided to go to one of the little cafes in Raumati Beach not too far from Coastlands.  I've seen it in passing and it looked really nice.

The red lines above Caitlyn's eyes and yellow cheeks are her attempts to put on kiddie make-up...

See, beautiful blue skies!

After that we set off for the mall.  Terence wanted to go and have a look at something we are considering for the girls for Christmas so the girls and I walked around The Warehouse.  Caitlyn bought herself a puzzle (or rather a set of 3 puzzles) with some of her pocket money and Bianca couldn't really find anything she wanted to buy.

On the way back home stopped off to cast our vote.  Yes, it is election time!  It took all of maybe 20 minutes and we were done.  So different to what we remember from our South African days where you'd stand in a long queue for hours on end.  As we were there waiting for our turn I noticed around the hall there were some of the main political party representatives.  Not quite sure what the purpose was to be honest, but there they sat - the National Party representatives in their blue shirts and the Labour party representatives in their red.  Suddenly I heard a noise and when I looked it was the one National party representative falling off his chair.  I felt sorry that he could have gotten hurt but I couldn't help thinking "oh dear, there the National party comes toppling down...".  Of course I have no idea what the outcome of the elections will be.

Hmmm, decisions, decisions...

All done!

Okay, I'll stop talking now.  I think this is a long enough update.  Make sure you go see my Youtube video.  Don't you just love the song?  I think it is perfect!