FIVETRIBE

The kids were bored a few weeks ago so we decided to do something unusual. The brief? Look at this picture and tell me what you see. Levi was quite challenged but very pleased with his result. Below is the original, unedited result. :-) the water hitting the rocks the moss growing green the trees as high as the sky  the lovly silver water rapids as fast as a cheetah all green as far as the eye can see  green green as you can see as the vines hang down the leafs on the trees as bright green as you no this place is very remote leafes floating on the water moving and moving around in a circle like a miracle in the water  some grow some die some turn green some don't turn green the wind blowing the trees

Today was the very first day of homeschool for Levi. In a sense it felt like the first day for all of us. The girls have come full circle in their reaction to having the hooligan join us at home - from abject horror to wistful acceptance. The day was pretty much all over the place. This has more to do with it being the first day of term than the fact that Hooligan is with us. I have to say all felt right in the world when I saw them all getting geared up to take our dogs for a walk. Something really cool about this series of photos. Happy Monday all!

The day began with a cancelled 8am tap class. Hallelujah - the kids and I stayed in bed and thanked our lucky stars there was no rushing about today. Somewhere along the line Faith wandered downstairs and made tea for me and 'frothy hot choc' for herself and sibs. We stayed put in my bed and and watched 2 episodes of Celebrity Wife Swap! The dog trainer arrived mid morning to take Charly off for some bootcamp at her place. For this I am eternally grateful. One less sentient being to discipline. I am in dire need of coffee. It is 1240pm and I havent had one cup yet….I really need to incorporate 'brewing the perfect java' into the homeschool curriculum. Kids are downstairs playing International Business (think Monopoly New Millennium) while I am upstairs supposedly finalizing our schedule for the new school term… I did wander over to Pinterest and have found some great additions to their work schedule for next term including starting a small garden and some cl...

I really don't quite know where to begin. Each day that passes I sit, pause and think I should just try capture some of the magic. Even on really cruddy days there is always something blog-worthy and yet I haven't quite managed to get it down here. Let us start with the visit from Russ' sister, who lives in Atlanta so we see them every 2-3 years. I think photos will be the easiest way to share this very special visit. They bought the same dress….unwittingly! Bronwyn is the queen hairstylist and did amazing things with Faith lockes. Just before our big mall excursion.  Two peas in a pod, these 2 loud extroverts….and they bought the same pants from Cotton-On.  There were many late nights, card games and band looming. And plenty of wii action too! We even squeezed in a last minute photo shoot for the cousins on Noordhoek beach. Dancing queens! A visit to the Valyland nursery to see the piglets and the bunnies…and the chicks…an...

Monday morning hasn't looked this good for some weeks. Firstly, no school and secondly, Russell is home this whole week! Awesome. I left the crew to shower and ready themselves for the day - trust me - with this many girls in the house showering, doing the hair and getting dressed is an event of epic proportions. I truly was grateful to have a reason to exit the house. I popped over to Constantia to meet Raine for coffee and a catch up. Plenty of time but somehow never long enough to really be able to relax and get caught up PROPERLY. Sped home to fetch 4 eager mall-crawlers. I forgot to mention I had called T earlier and asked if she could please send her boys over to hang with Levi as I am concerned that he may not survive the estrogen overload this week! Thankfully he could stay home with the Dreyer boys and do boy-stuff. I spent 2 hours doing this. Thankfully Faith had dance rehearsal otherwise I suspect we may have been there way longer. The upside is that ...

Saturday mornings….. park run. Faith was the only sprog to join us. It was not a good day for her - she had a really bad run and for the first time she could relate to my grumpiness after a crappy run. ;-) Thankfully it was an exquisite day so we simply walked/ran in the sun filled, crisp autumn morning - the dogs came along and were only to happy to explore and mingle with all the other runners and dogs. The jeep track to nowhere Later that morning I stole some time to go to the new Meeting Place in Kommetjie with my folks. The coffee was horrendous but hopefully that will be remedied very soon …. Baseline's details have been made available to the owner and he was very keen.  A quick walk on the beach rounded out our morning. my lovely mom on long beach That afternoon we shot through to town to drop Levi off for his birthday sleepover with D & S - much excitement at the thought of all-night movies and all your can eat pizza and all you can drink creme s...

This last week has been spent focussing on refining the Ted talk delivery and finalising the visual presentations. Matt is Rachel's age and he was also at school with her last year. They share many common  friends and experiences from their school going days and seem to really enjoy working together. He is a great kid and I must add that Levi LOVES having him around as a soccer buddy! doing kahn on their iPads  each in their own space as sometimes distraction is too great! TED talk rehearsals at my place on Tuesday The girls both presented their Ted talks today and did a brilliant job. It could not have gone off any better, their delivery was smooth and their visuals went off seamlessly. I was very proud of them as it was not an easy task. I was, in fact, blown away by all the kids doing talks today. Many of them had to push through significant fears to get up there and speak. All of them delivered thoughtful, provocative talks that left the adults, on...