Peaceful life!

What a day! It was a SUPER early one for me with Max surfacing with the fowls......I was not impressed and refrained from reading him the Riot Act....which took enormous amounts of self control believe me. Yes you might have guessed I am still having trouble sleeping at night & this is with the replacement mattress. I gave them 3 days to come and fetch it & replace it with a Simmons OR ELSE!!! {shhh! I don't know what the "or else" is just yet but I am working on it}.

My child was very excited when I eventually succumbed to his polite harassment & dragged my pathetic carcass off the mattress on the floor {we put the mattress off the spare bed, on the floor, in our room last night, in an attempt to get some semblance of sleep} & shuffled to the kitchen. It took 3 rounds of Leap-pad ABC , the shlurping "G" gorilla page more specifically, to clear the fog & I realised where I was. I made SUPER strong coffee & put the sprinkler on the newly mown lawn. Now bearing in mind it was 6.40am by this time........
Max saw the sprinkler & in a twinkling of an eye was starkers & streaking across the lawn through the sprinkler. Yowzer.....the water must have been freezing....it comes from the mountain straight out of our well point. Oh the joy of childhood!

STREAKER!!!

We have a new addition to the ever growing collection of boy paraphernalia that litters our house..... a blue big boy bike! It was a happy day on Saturday morning when we hit Sportsmans Warehouse for the long awaited bike. It has no peddles but once Maxi gets his balance they can be attached. Yay! no training wheels to deal with.

He got the hang of it straight away! On one of our walks Maxi looked up at us and said:

"Mum & Dad, I LOVE this bike!" "I am SO excited!" "I have my excited face on because I am SO happy!"

The joy on his face, was enough to quench the sting of the price of this little baby. Nothing but the best for our kids, hey??

Earlier I mentioned "fowls".....well on that subject, I saw something quiet amazing this weekend. We took Maxi up the road to the Barnyard {a restaurant/petting farm} where I saw this amazing sight. A mama hen with her babies......but they weren't chickies, they were ducklings. She was scratching in the soil like a chicken does, then the ducklings would come forward to peck like a chickie. Fine for them on solid ground but what when they hit the water for a dip????? Water wings for the mama???? Nature's amazing isn't it?
(this is the biggest I can get this pic to load....why I have no idea...but you get the gist}


On the scrapping front...I finished a cute one of Cas yesterday, no scan as yet tho' & I have another one that I am struggling with.....a double page...sort of digi vibe but my biggest problem is that I just can't seem to find any decent boy embellishments that aren't the predictable. I wish we had better online stores in this country, with more current stock. Oh well even more reason for me to get my act together before we go to Canada. I must buy online and have it sent to Toronto for me to bring back with me. Hmmmmm! that means the world is literally my oyster....oh credit card where are you dear????
Unless some avid scrapper out there has a well kept local secret shop that I need to know about. I need ideas girls!

Well I'm off to Pick 'n Pay yet again.....I could have shares in that place I am there so often.
Have a lovely day. Chat soon.
XX

Published!

My friend Martha very kindly scanned & posted my L.O published in the Dec CK, on the CK forum. Half of the States has already gotten their mags....;o( and we haven't even gotten our Oct & Nov ones yet, how that works I have no idea. Anyhow I had 2 minutes, so I thought I'd quickly post a copy of it, cos it looks so darn cute....in the actual mag!

It is on page 63 in the Becky Higgins sketch section:

Snapshots!

Will hopefully get a gap to post again a bit later.
Chaio!

X

Beaut. day!

Geepers it is the most UNBELIEVABLE day.....there is no wind and it is at least 30 degrees C outside. Definitely going to be an evening for the beach, once Tersh has finished in the office. Nice thing about having your own business from home, is that you can knock off a bit earlier on the odd occasion without having a grumpy boss breathing down your neck. Yesterday was a gem of an arvi too, we went to the play park down the road where Maxi & Tersh had a ball on the new blue jungle-gym they have just put in. The game was steered by Maxi....he was Kipper the dog & T was Tiger {his Scottish terrier friend}....& they were hiding in their igloo from the snow storm outside. The joy of the imaginative mind at work, with a bit of help from Hollyweird. Snow in Africa....go figure?


The moon rise was out of this world....I managed to capture it on film....even if a bit far away {I only had my small Sony point and shoot with me}. The colours were straight out of God's paint box. Maxi was standing at the top of the tall slide when be noticed it on the horizon.

"Mum & Dad....look at the beautiful moon! {his favourite adjective at the moment} . It is all white & blue.....and a circle"...... definitely a mini Einstein in the making. {Every mothers wishful thinking I think LOL! }

Fresh air on the lungs & a romp in the park does wonders for the cabin fever for the big people & helps get the child really pooped, resulting in little or no guilt pangs being felt by the parents for the pronto-to-bed routine, as soon as we got home. I mean what is a date night with your bloke without another couple of episodes of LOST! Thank the Lord for Vee's videos.....series 3 has just arrived. We are on disc no. 2 & will have no. 3 under our belts before mid-night tonight.

DARMA we'd be LOST without you!!!

Have a good weekend everyone. "May the force be with you!"

XXXXX

7 random facts~ well some of the wierder ones anyhow

Here's the deal: Link to the person who tagged you; Share 7 random facts about yourself; Tag 7 other people and leave them a comment to let them know that you have tagged them and then post these rules on your blog!

I have been tagged by Joscie & Martha

Some facts about myself~ no laughing!!

1) I have sung in my church band for the last 10 years. If my life had turned out differently I
would have loved to have sung professionally.
2) I danced my way through childhood {15 years) from when I was 6. I loved tap dancing the
best, then Spanish Flamenco & lastly modern/contemporary.
3) I am a diet pepsi {with a dash of lemon} lover.
4) I am not partial to dogs but wouldn't mind getting a cat one day........in the far distant future.
5) I am nuts about modern abstract art in acrylics or oils.
6) I have watched every Star Trek & Star Wars movie ever made, actually I love any type of
intelligent Sci-fi movie. HATE, HATE horror or gore, that & MOB movies! yuk!
7) Have been a Fashion designer for 18years. As of May this year I have been a sort of SHAM
{I have found it a hard adjustment tho'}. I had to close my factory down due to all the cheap
imports flooding the market. Sad day for me ;o(

(OK, I know I said 7 but I am on a roll)

8) I am a family girl BUT most of my extended family live abroad & I hardly ever see them.
I wish we all lived close by.........maybe one day?
9) My favourite food is Mexican. The texture, flavours & variety make for seriously interesting
eating. If you want to see me at my worst....feed me fish or shell fish. Ugh!
10) I am a big ninny then it comes to anything extreme.....sky diving, bungy jumping, shark
diving.....I just can't get my head around volunteering to be scared out of my wits. The
adrenalin makes me feel physically sick.
11) I hate fishing worms....actually if you ever want to see me do the high jump, show me a
fishing worm up close. This has made my love of bass fishing challenging at times until I was introduced to "Bass candy" by Rapala. No more real worms yaaay!

OK, I'll stop now..... this was actually fun.

I am tagging:

Mel
Joscie
Martha
Jo
Steph
Liz
Corry
Renee

Come on gals post some random stuff about yourselves that we don't already know.
Have a FAB day everyone.

KJ
X

L.O's as promised!

Hello guys! Hope you are all having a super day? My day is going just fine in case you were interested. I am enjoying our very unusual Spring showers, good for the lawn, the "garden maintenance guy" says. I don't know much about such things.....hence we pay a garden guy to do his magic, otherwise my yard would look like desert.

As promised I did manage to scan my spontaneous scrapbooking marathon I had on Saturday. OK don't get too excited it was only x3 L.O's but x3 in one day is unheard of from the likes of me. A very sweet friend once told me I was a tad anal about my scrapping & that I needed lighten up. Dieting didn't help...hahaha! {my scrapping or my figure}
These pages were strongly influenced by some lovely L.O's I saw on Jamie Waters website, gr8 free, loose L.O's. The nice thing about scrapping for 'me' is the freedom to use someone else's work as inspiration, without the fear of crossing copy righting lines, so I did just that....Jamie's scrapping style is quick,uncomplicated & she uses what is at hand....not really planning anything. It is a FAB way to use up scraps of everything, that I find clutter up my scrap stash.

*Random pic's of US {2005}*

As you can see lots of Autumn leaves product used here. If you live here in SA and are interested in stocking Autumn leaves product. Go to this link and drop Joanne a line. She is a wonderful lady & always has stock.....you won't regret it ;o)

*Trim*

Again Autumn leaves papers {well mostly}, stamps & rub-ons. The 'box' holding a lock of Max's hair is the discarded packaging from some Queen & Co. brads {clever hey?}. These photographs were taken using my cell phone but because I kept the size around 9cmx9cm, with a bit of Photoshop tweaking, they were totally scrap-able.

*All mine*

The beauty of this L.O, is that I used x3 'happy snaps' that were lying around. They were taken by my sister-in-law with a point and shoot 35mm camera, so the colours aren't quite right, the composition not perfect but it doesn't matter, they were moments captured spontaneously & help me remember what we were up to at the time. Again I used whatever I had lying around, I even managed to use up some of the 'girlie' Basic Grey papers that I have NO idea what to do with ;o)

Well I hope you enjoyed looking @ them as much as I enjoyed putting them together? I think as a matter of course, I MUST try and scrap like this at least once a week. The freedom of just scrapping, as opposed to hours of planning, makes for FUN, which is why we do this, isn't it?

Have a super day & be blessed by where ever you find yourself. Remember it is better to look outwards for a change, than focusing too hard on our own stuff. Kindness to someone else is how God shows Himself to this planet. {I am speaking to myself here!!}

XXXXX

Lazy days!

This is a wonderful gift I received in the mail from my blog buddy, Martha, who lives in Ohio, USA. She very thoughtfully chose and sent me this wonderful Pampered chef recipe book. The recipes are really simple BUT incredibly interesting. I can't wait to experiment.

Thank~you so much my friend. I LOVE it! (I can't believe how fast it got to me ;o)

This weekend was certainly full of those.....we did nothing really except potter around the house & the garden, doing stuff you never really get around to ordinarily.

Tersh washed the cars.......a momentous occasion in our household!!!! The car wash down the road normally does the job in about three minutes flat & you leave wondering if the car actually ever gets clean. So to get the personal touch from T, is indeed a great thing ;o) We have a cul-de-sac @ the garage side of our house & T had set himself up with the hose (attached to the well point), bucket, soap, brush etc. & Maxi was zooting around on his motor bike just enjoying 'being with' his Dad. At one point T looked up & noticed Max was not with him any longer, only to see him emerge from the garage with his large leather gardening gloves on each hand, buck naked, screaming :"Watch me DAD! I'm a racing driver!!" as he scooted into the road.



The rest of the weekend was spent lazing @ home or walking around our neighborhood or visiting our local play park. It was SUPER relaxing & fun to spend time with my boys.

I love our home here in Cape town & on those rare gem's of a day, when the wind doesn't blow, it is truly a slice of heaven. We have a natural river that runs through the public land that is at the end of our road & even now that it is so unkempt due to lack of council resources, it is still beautiful. Overlooking the mountain behind our home makes for unbelievable sunsets....... & we get to see them now because the sun only sets at about 7.30pm. Yaaay! for summer!. More scrapping amo for the Mammaratzzi! not that I need any more amo at the moment. I am on a scrapping serious roll!!! I took some advice from my good friend Mel.....she said that I should maybe try and do some spontaneous L.O's for a change, instead of every L.O being a planned work of art. I did just that and managed to finish x3 L.O's in one day. Yeeehah! that is a MAJOR feat for moi! I haven't scanned them yet, but as soon as I do I will post them.




Anyhow folks.....I hope you all have a blessed week & thanks again to all those who take the time to leave me a message I LOVE seeing who have popped in for a visit.

KJ
XX X

Early start.

My day started REAL early this am. Maxi was up @6.15am {I was shattered to say the least!} Why you ask, if I got to bed at a decent hour???? Me... bed at a decent hour NEVER!!! & the fact that I am still fighting with my darn mattress, yip my new one :o( I didn't get much in the way of sleep.....the up side is that I did get to see the world just after dawn.....I was pleasantly surprised, it was lovely so took some pic's from my studio.

This is where I spend my pre-scrapping hours.....sorting, photoshop-ing & printing photographs.


The next pic is a picture from the top looking down into my husbands office space...{he runs his design shop from home}.


This is the view of the mountain behind our house.....well across the road anyhow.....


And the last one I am embarrassed to say, is one of my scrap space.....mid L.O. I have a policy when I scrap......Mess like mad while busy but once finished, clean up COMPLETELY! then soon afterwards, I start the whole process all over again.

I have finally finished a double L.O that I have been pushing around for days.....I had the idea in my head but just couldn't get the execution right. I am pleased to say that a couple of Jennifer Pebbles digi printables did the job & I am thrilled with the result. I wish I could post it here but I need to get it through to Jana Lilly @ CK first.....sorry guys! Soon I will be able to post some of my new L.O's, I promise.

Well, I gotta run & do some errands. Have a super duper day & I will try & post again tomorrow.
Love
KJ
XX

Disappointed!

I woke up early, got myself psyched for the Dept. of Home affairs, left with x2 cups of coffee charging thro' my veins......prepared to get Max's passport done and dusted, so I can get the Canadian visa's organised. Hmmmmf! my mission was short lived. I queued only to be told that both parents need to complete & sign the form. I went back to the counter to 're-look' my form & signed Tersh's signature for him {I do this all the time for the non-important stuff of daily life-Oh, in hind sight I suppose I shouldn't stay stuff like that on my blog hahaha!} I then reluctantly dragged myself into the nasty queue once again, which by this time had doubled in length. I was about half way to the front of the line when that familiar little voice of reason, started shouting in my head. Do you guys hear that voice too??? Well, I had a HUGE episode of conscience & decided against putting my artistic-signature-signing talent to the test. I had visions of getting the most conscientious government official handling my forms. Someone who was secretly renowned for his expert handwriting analyis skills......that & the unpleasant thought of trying to explain myself to a large irritated South African policeman.

I left the queue & came home.

I am so grateful in times like these for the voice of the Lord, kicking me in the head for being DUMB!!

Tomorrow I try again, armed with Tersh's real signature.


I did however make the most of my shortened to do list this morning and picked up the Canadian visa forms for completion. On a whim, I inquired as to how much the visa's would cost us, thinking in the region of a couple of hundred bucks. When the agent told me, it took me a good minute or two to retrieve my jaw off the ground. It is going to cost us nearly R3000 {$500} for the x3 visas, which will only be valid for the duration of the trip. HECK!

The one thing this trip has been very instrumental in doing, is revealing just how much the process of possible immigration is going to cost us. Oh well....it will be worth it in the long run I suppose. I must get my head around it & get reacquainted with my cheque book.

Well lovely people I must get cracking with a whole lot of photo's I want to get printed for a L.O I am trying to get finished ASAP. I hope you too are getting a free moment here & there to scrap???
Chat soon
XXXXXX X

Not much.

Not much happened this weekend. I am still trying to recover from this nasty viral thing I have had, so I kept a low profile this weekend & tried to do not much of anything.

I haven't scrapped much but did pop on to the CK message boards..........oh! what a surprise I got... have I been out of the loop!!!!! Howz the DRAMA with the one of the HOF finalists?? Apparently she {KC} broke one of the HOF rules by using photographs in some of her L.O's, taken by someone other than herself. Oooh! boy I am shocked at how aggressive some of the scrappers out there have gotten about the way the CK powers that be, are handling things. If the subject is Google'd.......there are some well known scrapping blogs that are screaming their opinions from the rooftops. Woweee! I am very glad I don't mix in those sorts of circles, cos right about now someone is bound to get a black eye with the amount of punching & back stabbing that is going on. I will watch the course of events with interest.

Anyhow....I am amazed to say that in the last 3 days I have taken all but 10 photographs. 8 of those were an attempt to get the perfect pic of Max for his passport renewal form. Boy I never knew how hard it would be to get him to stand still......haha! I am glad I was able to do the pic's myself.


The other pic being a funny one of Cas, horsing around in the bath. She was with us for the weekend & spent 80% of the time in the pool with some of her friends from around the neighborhood. Bearing in mind that is still just Spring here with the temps around 21 degrees and the water...even with solar panels.....is bloomin' cold. I must be getting old because to my big toe the water felt like is was 10 degrees. Brrrrrrrr!


Well thats all folks...I have got a ton of mails to catch up with & my gap is small while Max is @ 'school'. So enjoy your day & I post again soon.

KJ
XXXX

Living up to the mark!

Sorry for the silence guys! I have been man down with some weird viral thing.....and have been coughing & spluttering for days. x3 days of little or no sleep makes for a very grumpy Mama & rest of family too I might add. So much so that this morning after a rough night & then to be woken up @ 5.40am by an energetic little boy, I was not my best. Maxi decided he must pray for me {in our home we pray often out loud for various things through out the day, so he is used to 'talking' to Jesus}

The prayer went like this:

Dear Jesus Please can you take my Mamas sickness away. Make her all better. Cos then she won't be grumpy in the morning & she can play cars with me .......& that would be very good!!!! Amen

It really tickled me but made me feel guilty for my yuk! attitude, so I played cars with him & felt forgiven. At least until the next time I am woken up at some silly hour again & faced with some more of my yuk! attitude for being dog tired. Flip, I wish sometimes I could be like those amazing women who's blogs you read from time to time. Where their lives seem ridiculously perfect, every hair seems in place, the photographs of her children look as if they had just scrubbed clean moments before. Where the dog never gets sick, the garage door never gets stuck & PTA meeting are fun, fun, fun. Maybe it's just me but if thats the measure of great motherhood & wife is all about, I'm getting about a 2 out of 10 this week.

**FREEDOM**

As I say this I am reminded tho' that we live purely by the phenomenon of GRACE, for which I am so, so grateful. An unfathomable gift given to us for free, by a God so Big, He cannot be measured or contained......yet He chose to live inside little, insignificant us. All I can do is try to remember that I wasn't made perfect but I serve a God who is and He walks beside me waiting for me to ask for His help each and every day. {Especially when I am feeling dog tired and grumpy as all heck!!!}
Life with our Saviour isn't half bad, is it??? We must keep reminding ourselves constantly that our home lies elsewhere & we are only visitors here on this planet. So 'vas-buit' as they say {the english translation means 'hang in there'.}

Have a super & hopefully encouraged day.
XXX

We are going!!!

This will be us in a month or two!!

I confirmed the tickets today....YIPEE!!!! I am still pinching myself that it is real. Wow! I can't wait to see my family again......I get so lonely for them, now all we need is a bit of snow for Maxi's first white Christmas. Please can you pray people that if this is indeed what God wants for Tersh & our family, that He will open the right doors for him to find the job of his dreams.

Best I get onto the internet & do a bit of stash shopping........'cos postage to Toronto is certainly cheaper than Cape Town.

Before I go I must tell you about a nugget that is definitely amo' for my next scrap page. To set the scene.....were driving home from church on Sunday along the coast. The road we took overlooks the ocean, so one can see for miles around False Bay....when a voice pipes up from the back:

Max: Oh look there guys {Max's new word}.
{Suitably distracted not to take much notice}Mama: ...oh WOW! babes.
Max: Mama, you are not looking!
{so much for that trick} Mama: Oh sorry, Moeks, what must I look at??
Max: The oil rig, over there.
Mama: Huh? oil rig???
Max: Yes mama, it is sucking oil out the ground.
{Double huh??????}Mama: Wow! thats amazing boy!!! Do you know what we need oil for???
{Matter of factly}Max: Of course mama, cars need oil & fuel to go!
{Now speechless} Mama: You are right about that honey, where did you learn that love?
Max: You told me Mama!!
Mama: Oh! did I....I forgot?

The moral of this story is that they are ALWAYS listening, learning, absorbing, sponging, so don't underestimate the effect your constant chatter has on their developing minds. They HEAR everything......GOOD & BAD, so be ever careful about what leaves your mouth, less you want to hear it coming out of theirs.

Have a fab. day....chat soon.
Luv
KJ
XXXXX X

Oh joy!!!

Joy comes in many forms......we had plenty of them this weekend.
We decided on Friday, that this weekend would be a 'holiday' weekend. Our original plan was to find a little B&B to stay in for two nights but short notice threw the plans out and we were unable to find anywhere that had space available. But we made the most of it anyway and had a fine time!!!

Our FIRST JOY was in the form of a leisurely brekkie under the trees at our fav coffee shoppe, with French toast,bacon & unbelievable coffee. The highlight was Maxi asking the waitress if he could have : " Biscotti, please!" .....excuse et moi!




Our SECOND JOY was being able to visit a Farmers Market nearby. Not only were we able to sample delicious home bakes from various stalls but we were able to buy and sample fresh organic vegetables grown by the lovely people we met at the market. We were blown away by a group of African ladies who create art from other peoples garbage. It was the most beautiful thing to see up close, the colours were brilliant and the design incredibly ingenious. Max was fascinated by the color Tree, he found tucked inside an inner courtyard. Wow! He also got an opportunity to visit with a real live brass band. They were the live music for the affair and were so supportive of Maxi's love of the saxophones. They put him on stage with them & surprisingly enough Max was overcome by shyness. He did this little 'finger-in-the-cheek' thing for all the photographs. Sweet hey?


The view from the farm across the valley is nothing short of amazing!! The weather was questionable, cold & yet so full of contrast that it was impossible not to be in awe of God's creativity & to think he did all of this that we might find JOY in it.



We had an unbelievable relaxing, family time that we needed so badly!!! Tersh is working ridiculous hours & I am struggling to adjust to my new life. Our need for 'us' time is paramount for our sanity but in the busy-ness of life, it is easier said than done. So this weekend was long overdue!

Our THIRD JOY came in the form of a Fun Fair organised at one of the Primary Schools in a neighboring suburb. It was FREEZING and we were horribly under dressed but for the sake of a little boy completely overjoyed to see so many rides to go on.....it was worth the hypothermia.
He was like a Eveready battery bunny.....bouncing & dashing to & fro, trying to decide which ride to go on next. The elation on his face when he got onto those carousel horses is something I will never forget. Oh to be young enough again, not to be affected by the external things which can so easily trap......he never saw the chipped paint, the rusty wheels, the missing ears, the awful tinny music, the taped up gates. Years of wear & tear from 1000's of tiny bottoms eager & bursting with the joy of childhood experience. He just saw it for what it was.....his first Fun Fair & it was Fun personified!!!! Flip!!! I am loving being this child's Mama. As hard as it can be, moments like these are the fuel my soul needs to get through the next batch of challenges I am sure I will experience as a first time Mama.

Thanks for stopping in to read my blog guys and double thanks to all those who had the kindness of heart to leave me a comment. I love knowing who stopped in.
Chat again soon
Luv
KJ
XXXX

The tickets are almost booked!!!!

Just a quick update for all those interested, that it looks as if we are almost there in terms of finalizing the tickets to Canada in Dec. I am sooooo looking forward to seeing family I haven't seen in ages and getting a chance to have a good look around the city which might end up becoming our home in the next year or so. This is what we have to look forward to......with a few meters of snow or ice included......brrrrr!



See they have beaches too!!!!! Surf too, apparently ;o)



Well I'd better get onto the travel agent and confirm things.......hopefully on Monday I will have our tickets in my hand. Yipppeeeee!!

Will keep you posted!!
X

Wind is back!

Oh yeah! it is definitely back! And I thought we still had a couple of those beautiful windless spring evenings ahead of us.......I was wrong. Summer is obviously itching to get here, although the temperature sure isn't saying that.

We braved the chilly wind {50knots in places} and headed to Muizenberg beach, to allow Maxi let of steam and get rid of any last bit of energy he had in his "batteries" by riding his motorbike, before we headed home to start the bedtime 'run'. The thought was that we could have a leisurely stroll, while he zoomed around. Ha! the little guy had other plans....he found any available ramp he could, to ride down at @ least 100 km/h and the closer he got to our legs the better......BOYS!!! {too darn cute but damage is guaranteed I think thats what the instructions said}. So, so much for leisurely.

There was this one ramp that was at least 6m long, leading up to the second story of the pavilion......@ first Max was a bit nervous to come down too fast & used his feet as brakes to slow his descent but by try no.3 he was using his legs to scoot even faster than just free wheeling. The mama standing at the bottom, watching this lot happen before my eyes, felt moved to opt for the shut eye approach & I went into the La-la Land of denial that I was even standing where I was! I was trying very hard to picture myself lying on a tranquil beach somewhere sipping pineapple juice. It was the vivid visions of having to donate skin to replace the skin he would lose if he came off that made it very hard to get the denial thing to work properly. Relax Grams, Tersh was about 2 paces behind me ready to jump to the rescue if need be. It was then, I realised just how brave Max is..........definitely T's genes in there {here is an example of ones of Maxi's Dad's experiments. Tersh stood on the roof of his car, on top of his surf board, holding the leash, while the car was being driven by one of his friends, with the lights off.........oh did I forget to mention, it was @ 8pm @ night, on a road with no street lamps.} need I say more????

I would have gotten a photograph of Max in action but the camera battery died~thankfully!. All I managed was these serene photographs of Maxi exploring one of the safe ramps when we first got there, this was before the "Super Cool Ramp" was discovered.

UP....................................................& DOWN!!!!~ perfect for the Mama's nerves

What I did do was ask Max how he felt racing down the high ramp.
The conversation went something like this:

Me: Maxi how does it feel to race so fast down the ramp?
Max: It was SO fast, mama!!!
Me: Really Poeks??
Max: Yes, it was like the dogs were running after me!!
Mama: Wow! that must have been scary????
Max: You are right about that {I must say this often haha!}, it was sooooooo scary BUT SO COOL mama!
Mama: Goodness babes, that's amazing!!
Max: It was like cars & bugs & stuff!!! {I dunno, maybe these are things that he associates with scary}, WATCH ME DO IT AGAIN!!!
Mama: {under the breath.....} Freak, not again!
Max: Wheeeeeeeeee!!

So yet another lesson in restraint.....for me. It is so easy to get over cautious & try and protect our kids from all the stuff that could be potentially harmful. In a lucid moment free from the maternal hormone that rages through my veins, especially when I watch Max doing typical boy stuff, that teeters on the edge of life threatening {in my opinion anyway}. I do know & realise that it is a vital part of life. That it is these experiences that will in some way determine his loves & passions, they will help him discover who he is & help him be comfy in his own skin but most of all help him learn the defining skills that will teach him the necessity of judgment.
My biggest lesson is something I will have to practice over & over, to step back and allow him to just be.

It is flippin' hard I must say!!!! but I take one day at a time & PRAY for strength to do this right.

XXX