Holiday Fun: The Ice-Rink!

On a random morning during the holidays my friend Barbara invited us to join her and Ella for a Snowman building competition at the ice-rink... what a brilliant outing! With another friend Angela and her kiddies we {read Barbara} built the snowman... the kids loved it! with a visit from the Easter Bunny and a Mime, Christopher was adamant on returning as soon as possible to get back on the ice.

 

 

 

After the snowman building competition (which we didn't win), the kids had a quick "spin" on the baby ice-rink.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christopher's Creepy Crawly Critters Celebration

During the months of January and February this year we attended a marathon of 8 kids parties over 7 weekends, ending off with Christopher's 4th Birthday Party.


Long overdue, here are some pics of the days events:


This was my second attempt at baking a birthday cake (the other times I outsourced this task), with the help of my brother, I think it turned out quite OK!

Dad:"The wind keeps on blowing out the candles".  Christopher:"Naughty wind! It's not the wind's Birthday!"

Me and my crazy boy!

 

To Christopher's and many of the other kiddies delight, Grandpa Kenny managed to find three chameleon's in the southern suburbs and brought them with for the kids to see... we let them go in our garden, and they are living happily in the trees (hopefully munching away at all the flies!)

 

 

Sticking to the theme of the party, I whipped up some goodies for the kids to enjoy:
Dirt 'n Slugs (Layered green jelly, chocolate mousse, crushed biscuits & worm sweets)
Caterpillar Treats (grapes on a stick)
Roasted Snails (flings)
Sausage & worms (Vienna sausages with spaghetti)
Ants-on-a-log (banana with peanut butter and raisins)
PopRoach (popcorn with pecan nuts)
Fly Juice (energade cool-drink with raisins)
and a special THANK YOU to my brother Stephan, for making the cupcakes and helping with the cake!

Bradley also organised some "suckers" (ice lollies) for the kids and we got the mandatory water-slide!

 

Another successful party done and dusted! Thank you to all the family and Christopher's friends for joining in on the celebrations and for giving him such lovely gifts! We are spoilt to have such wonderful people in our lives xx

Me and my Camera

So it's out there now.  In cyberspace, somewhere in the universe... my new photography business.

Holding my breathe to see what happens, wondering if it's good enough, if I could do more, if I could do better, if I've ticked all the boxes... waiting... and then... I got it!

Fan-mail.

 Seriously. I couldn't believe it, I'm awed and humbled by the amount of people that have taken time out of their day to actually write an email/comment/text about my renewed venture into the world of photography, just to say what they think of my website, my entrepreneurship, my courage and of course my photos.  Words of encouragement, praise and loads of luck.

And boy do I feel lucky...

...to have such awesome friends, family and random strangers in my life ;)

Thank you to everyone that's cheering for me and referring(!) my business.  I'll continue to blog in my personal capacity on this site, but for most of my photographic endeavours please see the new website (that has its own separate blog as well): 

www.joannejohansen.weebly.com

It's all still really a work in progress, so look out for updates!

Wishing everyone a happy weekend,

Taryn's Babyshower

Last November we hosted Taryn's Babyshower... what a great day it turned out to be!  Unlike the weather that created much frustration on Sophia's Birthday Party the previous weekend; Taryn's day turned out to be beautiful.

So much preparation and energy went into the creation of this little Soiree, especially by her mother Sally and cousin Janine.  Not knowing what she was expecting, they decided to go with a Green and Purple "about to POP" theme.  

With catered food and Janine's baked goodies, we couldn't wait to start tasting all the yummy treats... between that, the great Décor, and fun games, it was an all-round successful and happy day!

Seeing Taryn all excited about the gifts for little babba was so special, and admittedly, made me feel a bit nostalgic about my own pregnancies and all the feelings that went with it.

Since then, on 19 December she gave birth to a healthy, happy beautiful little girl: 

Sarah-Jane Harris

Spending time with her makes me go all sappy and sentimental about how quickly my kids are growing up!

Princess Butterfly's Party!

Sophia's Birthday 2nd Party last year started out to be somewhat disastrous.  Maybe not a full blown cataclysmic catastrophe, but more of a ill-fated unfortunate sequence of events.


The perfectionist in me, should have karate kicked the procrastinator in me to get my ducks in a row and plan the party better... instead my nonchalant alter-ego just thought to hell with it all, so the party didn't quite turn out as I'd imagined.


Both kids were sick; Sophia had a tummy bug the night before which made her edgy and moody the whole day, Christopher was on his way to full blown tonsillitis, and the weather I'd ordered didn't pitch up... instead it was overcast, raining & cool and then it suddenly turned hot and humid!


Luckily, Sophia's friends stared arriving bringing some sunshine and smiles with them, and my mates cheered me up and kept pouring the bubbly, so I soon stopped stressing that half the decorations weren't up and Sophia's carefully planned butterfly princess outfit wasn't on her because a.) she refused to wear it and b.) the weather was crap.  Or that I didn't take nearly enough photo's AND the settings were all wrong so the pics didn't come out right.


What started out as a tiny tragedy turned into a triumphant morning thanks to awesome friends and company, and the worlds best husband that continuously made more "gourmet" picnic baguettes and understood the importance of wrapping them in wax paper tied with a string... 


Below is a collage of moments captured throughout the day!

Happy Monday!

Halloween Party!

My friend, Nicola, decided to throw a little Halloween Party for our little people, so on a sunny Saturday morning, sitting in the garden with a glass of bubbly and good company... we celebrated the good life!  Again ;) 

The kids had a great time too, they got to dress up and ran around screaming and shouting... although this is something that they tend to do a lot of lately, with or without the scary outfits.

These kiddo's have been friends for most of their lives!

Nicola, Melissa, Jane and Hot-stuff-Sophia

Everybody: JUMP!

Thanks so much Nix for another great day with great friends; the décor, treats and cake were all awesome xxx

In Good Company

Sometimes when you least expect it, you have the best of times... during the last school holidays, we went to the Company Gardens in town. 

Filled with a sense of nostalgia from when I was a kid I walked through the gardens with some serious deja-vu. The restaurant hasn't changed its décor since the 80's, the aviary's still the same and the statues are all there... the grass is greener than ever, the flora is beautifully maintained and the local wildlife are still nuts about the nuts.  We loved it! 

Good friends enjoying a morning in town, feeding squirrels & running through the sprinklers...what more could we ask for!

I realise that this may be photo-overload, but I couldn't decide which pics to leave out and there were so many more I wanted to include.

I wonder if there are some photos in a box somewhere of me running around Company Gardens, and if there are... I'm sure they'd look a lot like this!

Ring-a-roses

Chasing birds

how big are you?

following the baby chicks...

bench time

a few ducks in a row

imitating old Cecil

I'm pretty sure I may have climbed that same tree at the restaurant

friends having fun

moms and babes

I'm also pretty sure I sat in this tree when I was a kid

ROAR!

in deep conversation

sprinkler fun!

the long goodbye...

my boy and me x

What a great way to spend the morning with the kids... a real walk in the park!