Carols, the sky and something to bounce on

Another concert... this time Carols by candlelight.

Another trip to Kirstenbosch, another picnic.

No wonder the belt gets a bit tightr at this time of year.

Good crowd for carols, which doubled as a kind of farewell to Carly, who was off to Namibia for a year.

... although it was only Rory, Ian and the 3 Valkenburgs who hung around for the actual singing part.

Emma was buggered. Eventually rocked her to sleep in our arms, taking turns to hold the massive 14kg wriggler.

As usual, it was beautiful, these pics with the candles show a bit of the magic.

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Cycled home and turned into our road and saw these clouds... had to grab a piccie.

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A few days before Christmas, a Heany granny arrived with a massive box that needed about a dozen men to carry it. What was in it, we wondered?

Emma liked it already, and she didn't know what it was yet.

Is this a happy face or what?

What are all these for mom?



Dad's doing something with the springy things in this box. I'll pass them to him.



Dad works his ass off.

Emm tries out the present. Is it an outdoor bed?

Hey! This thing is bouncy!

And fun! I love it.

You can't see it here, but it came with a safety net that surrounds the whole thing too. Which is quite cool.

Now, whenever Emma feels like a bounce she just says "Ba. Ba. Ba!" and runs towards it.

A Bon Voyage, a concert and a baby

Dave's leaving. How very sad.
The big oke is heading off to Scotland, Crieff, to follow in his big sis's footsteps and work in the major hotel they have there.

A few of us saw him off at the airport.

Final handshakes and hugs.

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Every year our group of girls who studied together at Stellenbosch get together for a rather low-key Christams party and this year it was suggested that we head to Kirstenbosch for a picnic and that we take in one of the summer concerts that they have... we opted to watch the group Freshlyground.

You may have heard of them. That South American chick... whatchamacallit...Shakira... was lucky enough to be given the chance to sing with them.

And the lead singer is AWESOME.

Little Emma and cath had a good laugh.

Saw a Tim Hughes strumming away at his daughter like a guitar.

Crowd diggin it.

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Ladies and gentlemen... put your hands together.....

Introducing....

Sarah Borwick.

Welcome to the world little one.

Your big buddy Emma is already eager for you to get a bit bigger.

Emma loves babies. She just wants to touch em and hold em.

The moment we told her we were going to the hospital to see the baby, she walked around saying "baba, baba, baba..." for about 20 minutes.

Just like she rests her head on the cat and dogs, so she does with babies...

Methinks someone wants a baby brother or sister....

Emma's Christmas concert

The crowds were packed in tightly for Emma's Christmas concert - hundreds of parents came to watch Emma make her stage debut - oh and maybe watch their own kids too.

We thought it was gonna be a nativity-type play, but it wasn't at all. Instead it had a 60s theme.

There were various classes... all dressed up in 60s gear.



These uber-cool biker dudes took the cake.

And these dancing girls had a mean 'tude.

Of course, every class had at least two bawlers. Ï want my mommy!"

More dancers




Surfin Safari. Ag cute, man.



And even more dancers! There are a lot of classes at Emma's school.



And the final bow. I don't have any photos of lil Emma dancing in the show cos I had my camera on movie mode then. But these are from when the entire show came to take their bow and encore.

Here's the little one in centre of her shot. Her class all wore these dyed T-shirts. Very cute.

I don't know if you can see unless you click on a photo here, biut lil Emma was completely non-fussed by the 200 faces in front of her. She just stood there watching the action, soaking it up.

Soaking it all up - the REAL star of the show.

That's my girl!