Goodbye Cape Town

I've enjoyed my time here in Cape Town very much.  Some things were tough with school classmate issues, but it will all work out I'm sure in the end.  I often wish people didn't have to behave so 'human'. Human behavior can often hurt people's feelings, or in particular, mine.  

But the school leg of this journey is over. I get to go enjoy time with friends in Joburg tomorrow and then off to Paris and France with my DH and Phoebe.  We are hitting so many life list items it's amazing! It is really making me feel that if you put your life list in writing, many more amazing things will happen then you ever thought possible.

It's All Good

I bought this book as a present to me this week.  Not sure if I'll have too much time to do a lot of recipes from it before my trip, but I did look it over and I really like it.  I'm not sure what the deal is with people not liking Gwyneth.  I personally do like her, but maybe it's because we resemble each other, although my butt does not look as good as her's right now.  The boys did notice she looks like me.  When I opened the Amazon box, Liam was so excited to see "Mommy's present" and he looked at the front of this book and said, "It's Mommy!"  LOL.

Another fun thing I found recently is the blog What Would Gwyenth Do?  It's a really good blog I found on a day that I really decided to ask Google that question when I was having a bad day.

So, don't be a hater or as LMFAO would say, "Stop! Hating is bad."

So Overwhelmed

I haven't lost my password to this blog, but sometimes I feel I've lost my mind.  I'm currently finishing up my second term for my EMBA program at Villanova, just went through the third re-organization at work in the last 9 months and am now leading a team of 14 employees in IT, and of course gearing up to travel on May 3rd to South Africa!!!  The good thing to say is that I have amazing opportunities everywhere I turn.  The tough thing is there is lots of work to get done and I'm a bit overwhelmed and stressed.  I guess one could say I'm on opportunity overload!!!

The other side of the coin is the family is doing well, DH is completely stressed with work and traveling a lot.  His sister, Niki, is still with us and helping me get everyone out of the house for school and work everyday.  Phoebe is doing very well.  She's almost taller than me at the age of 12 and looks like she's about to go through another growth spurt, eating and sleeping constantly.  She got her braces off before Easter and has top and bottom retainers.  She's already broken the top retainer and another one is on order!  The boys are doing very well.  Tommy got glasses for seeing close up about two months ago and he's doing very well with wearing those.  Liam has an ear check up before I leave for SA and I'm sure that will go well.  Both boys are eating and growing a lot!!!

Here's the boys getting ready for an Easter Egg Hunt

Tommy found two eggs up the clubhouse for the slide

Liam looking so cute!!!  He found lots of eggs, but when he finds those, he moves fast and can't catch him in photos

Hope everyone is doing well!  I have a ton of assignments to get done for school over the next two weeks before I leave the country as well as getting my team at work to a good place before I leave.  I'm sure it will all get done, but I need to work on reducing my stress while I work like mad on the school and work fronts to get there.

Cleaning out the fridge

Since I started school in August last year, one of the casualties of my studies has been not having time to clean out the fridge properly. I could tell it really needed to be done, as I was noticing a weird odor when I opened it sometimes. Tom went out of town for the week and he left for the airport yesterday afternoon. So as the boys napped yesterday afternoon, I cleaned out the fridge very thoroughly. I found a moldy orange in one of the bottom drawers, so I think that was what was causing the smell. Everything is wiped down and sparkly clean.

Now if you an tell from this picture, I need to go to the grocery store. Mother Hubbard's cupboards are bare. Or at least the fridge is, LOL.

Tommy Has Glasses!

I started noticing in photos thatTommy's left eye seemed to turn in sometimes. Then I started thinking it in person if he was tired. I still wondered if it was an optical illusion. Then I started mentioning it to family and preschool teachers. They all noticed it too, so I made him an appointment with the pediatric Opthomologist they both saw when they were babies. That appointment was Wednesday this week and she confirmed he was farsighted, but his vision far away is great! It's this farsightedness that was causing his one eye to turn in as it got tired during the day. She said it was great we caught it so early so not to permanently affect his vision.

The place she sent us to order the glasses had a quick 24 hour turn around and this picture was taken Thursday night. So far so good!

I did give myself a pat on the back for being a good mom!

Word for the Year 2013

I will leave you in suspense no longer.  The word for 2013 is "Smart."  This is so perfect on so many levels.  Last year's word was "Action" and boy, did I ever take action.  I was so action-y, I haven't had time to blog or read my favorite blogs.  So sad, but true.  But amazing things have happened in 2012.  We paid of our credit card debt, I had surgery to get rid of my "twin skin" and have the girls enhanced, I had the varicose veins on my leg fixed.  I started school again for my MBA.  I met Marcia and her husband for a fabulous dinner in NYC.  I can't even begin to go through the list of things that have been accomplished around here.

What I really love about the word "Smart" is it is a joint word for 2013 for both DH and me.  It was his idea.  He loved the word last year and thought this would be good for us for this year.  I love it because I will be in school all year, so I want to be smart there!  Also now that we have our finances more in order, there are other things we want to get done, but we want to be smart about it.  We don't want to jump into anything without researching it and making sure it will be for the best in the long run.  We want to be healthy and take care of ourselves, that's very smart as we're in our 40s and want to stay as young and energetic as possible.  So some exercise and healthy eating will be part of our plan for 2013.

I hope to make time to update on goals and such and read up on my favorite people in blogland.  Hope everyone has a Very Very Happy New Year!!!  Do you have a word of the year?  If so, please share it with me!

Boys Preschool Portraits

The boys portraits at preschool came out really good!  I didn't think they could get Liam to smile as big as they did!  He rarely smiles and "no" is his favorite word.

Hope everyone had a very Happy Christmas and is having a great time getting ready for New Year.