Drum roll, please...

I have been working up a storm behind the scenes here at Joyful Mama's Place, and I am so excited to finally tell you that I have a very special treat to share with you during the month of February.

Oh, it has been so much 

fun

fun

fun

to put together and I just know you are going to love it, too!

So, without further ado,

I am thrilled to announce

 ............DRUM ROLL, PLEASE...........

Yes, from 1 to 29 February I will be sharing a veritable feast of wonderfully fun little projects that were  inspired by my collection of pins on Pinterest! There is absolutely no rhyme or reason behind my choices, other than they were all projects that tickled my fancy and made me smile, so expect the unexpected: from fun recipes to lovely craft ideas, homeschool inspirations to an experiment involving sleeping with one of my husband's socks on my head (I know I have your attention now, don't I???!!!)

I will be posting two to three little projects a week and hope you will be popping in regularly! 

For those of you who have absolutely no idea what I am talking about, here's the scoop:

Pinterest is an online pin board that makes it delightfully easy and fun to collect ideas and inspiration from around the web in one easy-to-organise place. Once you've registered an account (it's free and you can login using your existing Facebook account), you can create unlimited pin boards to which you then virtually 'pin' any image from the web. Once pinned, you can just click on the image to take you back to the original source - so it's pretty much what we used to do with bookmarking 'favourites' - but a gazillion times better and tonnes more fun, because you can then start following the boards of other, like-minded people, and so expand the collection of ideas pinned to your boards. 

If you aren't on Pinterest already, I do hope that you are sufficiently curious by now! Here are three great links that you may find helpful if you'd like to join the craze:

Pinterest: What it is, how to use it, and why you'll be addicted

What is Pinterest? by Tech Talk for Moms

5 Pinterest tips for beginners by Type-a-Parent 

Happy Pinning!!

Sweetpea's Fourth Birthday

Her big day in pictures:

The birthday girl and her Daddy at the breakfast table.

We gave her a spiffy new house for her Sylvanian Families. Here
she is giving her dad directions on how to make the
lights work.

We visited Scratch Patch and they LOVED it!!

 I was planning to treat my flower-loving daughter to a beautiful garden-themed birthday party and have been pinning ideas like crazy (see my Garden Party board on Pinterest - click here!)

BUT

when I sat her down to start planning and making a guest list, she firmly told me that she wanted a 

tea party 

and that she wanted only to invite her two aunts and her grandmother. I was very surprised (and a little disappointed!), but then again, with such lovely, doting aunties and a grandmother who loves her to bits, it really made good sense to me! So I called them up (and snuck in an invitation for grandpa, too!), and we decided that everyone would be wearing a hat to the party. We got a little creative - and a tad silly - but I think our official party photo, taken by my husband, came out very nice indeed!!

The birthday girl was in her element, wearing her favourite hat with a flower pin and the pink ballet outfit that was one of her gifts.

Now, you need to know that her birthday is the day after New Year's and that here in the Western Cape that's a public holiday, and that between Christmas and New Year's it is already nearly impossible to find anything decent in the supermarkets. So the tea-time treats were a limited but lovely array of nibbles we were able to make with what we had in the house.

On the menu:

A pretty pink cake with sprinkles galore,

pearly marshmallows...

and dainty sunflower sandwiches and pink sugar cookies.

And her favourite gift by far? A set of plastic princess accessories!

Please note, though, that she wasn't the only belle of the ball: Look at this little cutie pie admiring her grandmother's pretty 'Fresh-from-the-Garden' hat!!

Happy birthday, Sweetpea!!

Happy to be back!! Let's catch up...

   Hello dear friends!! Yes, if you are still following this blog after my very long absence, I do consider you a  friend indeed!! It has been a crazy few months around here, since we moved to our new home at the beginning of December. But we are in and unpacked and rarely a day goes by in which my husband and I do not praise the Lord for the gift of this place! But I'll let the photos tell the story - here's what we got up to in the past month or so:

The very, very bestest part of the new house is the big garden! With little nooks to explore...

...and new little friends who decided this was a lovely spot for a home!

The bunny above just arrived here one morning, came and went through the garden gate for a few days, and then decided to stay. But he was very lonely, so off to the pet shop they went, and came home with two friends - my children's first pets!

And our little red wagon has been getting a regular workout down the hill!

My darling husband treated me with a dining room table the day after we moved in!! What an absolute blessing to have room to entertain!! Here are just some of the many table settings from the past month or so as we've been having precious friends over for meals.

My mother and two of her sisters and 5 of my cousins with their children came for tea one morning - we were 18 people in total and never felt crowded!

We've been on outings...

and there's been a birthday...

and a certain little pumpkin fritter turned three months old!

And I have many, many lovely photographs of the children enjoying the hot weather by jumping over the sprinkler and rolling in the mud, but I can't find a single one in which they are both decently covered up, so you'll just have to take my word for it!

Ahh, and Christmas too!

We made up some cookie bags for our garbage collectors the week before Christmas...

...and on a hot Monday morning they enjoyed their cookies and cold juice and stopped the garbage lorry long enough for a picture with the children.

After church on Christmas morning we came home to put on a Birthday Party for Jesus!! I had baked a chocolate cake the night before and the children had SO much fun decorating a very special cake for our King!!

Yummy!!

We sang Happy Birthday, Dear Jesus and then enjoyed some lovely family time and delicious cake as we told the story of Jesus's birth.

It feels so good to be writing here again and I am using some stolen moments here and there to work on a few more posts, so stay tuned!