It was four years ago today that I wrote my first blog post… six months after the father person bought me my first macbook and I had spent hours and hours reading blogs and following them… I eventually stepped off the ledge and never looked back!!! I would hate to count how many hours I have spent blogging, reading blogs, thinking of blog posts… creating blog posts and posting blog posts!!! Gotta say I totally love it!!! Still do… still after four years of blogging, have heaps and heaps to say and write about. My notebook is jammed with ideas… the only thing between us and more blog posts is that illusive little thing called time…

This blog is a blog about our lives and times… It isn’t a diary, though if you follow us you will get a feel for our daily lives… Our days are filled with crafts and books, food – with thirty meals a day food is paramount!!! With eight kids we are naturally thrifty… and to get things done we are all about organizing and decluttering.

The thing we like best about blogging is the connections we have made around the world… so many wonderful friends through our blog!!! The most important people in our blog lives are definitely our readers. And we totally love our loyal readers, we have worked hard to draw you here and we would love to hang on to you all!!! So we will not ever compromise our readers with strange requests and odd posts promoting products we don’t use!!! So here is a list of things we definitely don’t blog about:
- We don’t do pets: And so it is unlikely that we would ever blog about the wonders of dog food… though we have been asked too!!! We do love bugs and beasts and have our fare share of snakes, baboons and porcupines in our garden… not to mention penguins as neighbors. We are all about the natural environment and if we personally could save the rhino’s we would.
- We never intended to be green: But it turns out that we do enjoy natural parenting and growing our own veggies, recycling and conservation – not only because we should but because we enjoy it!!! So we are unlikely to promote products that are environmentally unfriendly. Being green is important to us, we want to leave a clean environment and a healthy world for our kids and their kids.
- We are all about kids: Love and adore our kids and know that many kids read our blog, we will never post anything to offend the young eyes that read our blog.
- We eat a lot of real food: Thirty meals a day at least and that is before the copious number of guests that pop around at mealtimes. Real food cooked from scratch. Food is definitely a family affair, we like to prepare our meals together and we love browsing through cook books and choosing new recipes to try. We don’t actually eat instant meals and we don’t generally eat meals that are pre-packaged or pre-prepared!!!
- We love creating posts: So much so that we don’t actually accept blog posts written by other authors for our website. Occasionally we do have guest posts written by personal friends. We want our readers to know that when they visit our website they are hearing our voice and our opinions. So if we don’t know someone at all and we haven’t personally invited them over as a guest then we won’t unfortunately be publishing a post by them. Sorry, we are just too busy posting our own blog posts on this site.
- We love eating out: We love adventures and outings and traveling in general. But we are a little discerning, we don’t eat out at fast food restaurants or obviously “kid-restaurants.” We love to visit restaurants and we do blog about them… Plenty of family friendly restaurants… but if they are offering a plastic toy to my kids so that they eat a plate of fries – then you probably won’t see us there.
- With eight kids we obviously love and adore babies: We are all about holistic parenting, and holding our kids close to our hearts… Firmly believing that our kids don’t need more stuff or possessions to grow up to be secure and confident adults. We can’t promote childcare products that we would never dream of using for our children and since we never even owned a stroller it is unlikely that we would ever promote heaps of baby gear for any mother especially a new mom, who needs to hear that she is doing a great job rather than that she needs another product to parent.
- We love a good cause: We do have a few that we actively support… and especially causes that my children have discovered and can support on their own. But we can’t support every cause!!! Our favorite causes right now Free Rice and of course We Give Books.







And the se7en + 1th:
So that’s what we don’t blog about!!! Meanwhile I have some lovely GiveAways, to celebrate our blogaversary… look out for them this weekend it is going to be fabulous!!!
Hey – happy blogaversary! Love this glimpse into your gorgeous family and nice to see bloggers stating clearly what they do and don’t write about – PRs take heed 🙂
…and we wouldn’t want you guys to change! Happy blogaversary to one and all!
Hi Jeanne, Thank you so much!!! I am so thrilled you stopped by… this post may well have been a direct result of your talk at The Food and Wine Bloggers Indaba… I knew for quite a while, after turning away a number of “opportunities” that I needed to mention exactly how we felt about a couple of things – but I needed to think about it and share it in a positive light!!! Thanks for the inspiration!!!
Thank you Cheryl!!! I so value your loyal commenting!!! And reading… did you see that your bookshop got a big thumbs up. I am yearning for a trip to the UK, just to do a tour of beautiful book spots!!! Have a great day!!!
And that is why we love your blog! Four years huh, feels just like yesterday. I love the comparison photo of your kids…priceless!
…ok, I need to get off the laptop, I am supposed to be packing the car for our trip, but I got a bit sidetracked!!!! xo
Mika of Juggling Motherhood!!! You just made my day!!! It has been a while, I loved getting your email and you are so very welcome!!! Hope you have a fabulous road trip… lots of love from a sunny and cold Cape Town!!!
Well done on 4 excellent years, and hope for many more!
WOW!! Four years!! Happy Bloggy Birthday!!
You have something very special here and something you can be proud of (the good kind of proud :)) I think you are so unique – do stay that way! Here’s to many many more 🙂
Georgia
These are the things that make your blog so special. I look forward to the posts. Happy anniversary!
congratulations! and here’s to hoping there will be lots more to come xx
ps – I am secretly glad you don’t post about cats :o)
Thank you Aunty Muffin, and thank you for all the fabulous support!!! Hope you all have a fun weekend together!!!
Thank you Love-and-Lollipops, I know I can’t believe it has been four years!!! That just seems incredible, like wasn’t it just last week that we began!!! Time obviously flies when you are having a heap of fun!!!
Thank you Sarahelisabeth, I so appreciate your loyal commenting…. thank you for coming back to visit us again and again!!! Hope you have a fun week with your little ones!!!
Hay Jojoebi… Thank you so much… and no we don’t do pets at all so no cat posts… except once or twice we have posted about tigers… the wild kind, the one who lost his smile kind!!! Hope you have a wonderful weekend!!!
Many congratulations Se7en! Long may your blogging continue 🙂
Thank you Zoe, You know we love blogging… so hopefully many more years of blog posts up our sleeves!!! Lots of love!!!
Congratulations on four wonderful years! I can’t imagine the internet without you! Your posts are always a bright spot in my day 🙂
Thank you Cassi, Your comment just totally made my Monday morning!!! Thank you so much!!! Hope you are having a fun summer… we sure are having a wet, wet winter!!!… Wetter than that!!! Lots of love!!!
I LOVE the way you did this post. I need to do a similar one – I keep getting requests for online gambling and I write back and say nicely, “that is not what this blog is about…. and we will never be that!”
Oh Marcia, I think we all need a list of things that we absolutely don’t ever blog about… it is sometimes strange and bizarre what marketers think we blog about!!! Hope you are recovering from your celebrations!!!