Day 12......

Just got beaten in a round of Trivial Pursuits!!! We played the original version while we were at the beach, so wanted to buy one of our own, but decided to go for the Pop Culture one, which is far more entertaining, (especially 'cause I suck at geography and history), and there are even some questions the kids can answer. Lots of family fun, we team up, one adult with one kid, makes it lots of laughs, and we are very competitive!

Day 11

Yes, it's been a busy few days, and I'm feeling very tired at the moment, but I think there is more to it than school. I'm going to stop drinking Coke Zero, and see if that will have any effect, as I heard aspartame can do it to you, so will try that for a bit and see if it helps.

Speaking of school, the kids have gone back, they seem to be happy with their class/teacher. Braden would be happy whoever he got, he is such a happy go lucky kid, I'm thankful, because Cameron can certainly make up for it. He does seem happy with his class, and I'm quite happy with his teacher. I've already been to speak to her, and she seemed genuinely interested, asked questions, and was very approachable, so that's a great start.

I've had a couple of questions about the frames I used in a couple of my photos. I refused to pay all that money for Photoshop, just 'cause I wanted some cool edges, so I found this program, "Professor franklin's instant photo effects", it's pretty basic, but that's all I wanted. I think you will be able to download it here

So, to finish........ meet Arthur. Arthur is the culmination of weekly magazines, Funny Bones. We are now receiving the skin to put on, but I really want to sit down with the kids and look at the insides first, as it's quite difficult to put together, and once I do the skin we won't be pulling it apart all the time.

Day 10..........

A favourite.

Sorry, too tired to blog properly, will get back to it once this school stuff is settled.

Day 9 ........

Yay, I finally caught up.... day 9 posted on DAY 9.

Bowling, a favourite past time of ours.

Except today. Our first lane broke down so we got moved, then our second lane played up a bit.

Day 8....

Homemade spaghetti...... mmmm

Day 7.......

Yay, all done. I actually had twice as many as this, and ran out of time before school started to get them all finished, so sent Cameron's off to school with him, just so that he was sorted, otherwise he gets flustered, and Braden bought his home for me to do.

Day 6......

(Day 7 will come soon, promise)

We only just got our PS this Christmas, so we are only just discovering all these cool things that everyone is familiar with already, Buzz being one of them. We borrowed this, but will have to see what happens for birthdays coming up. The best part, once the kids are in bed, it's all on! Jon and I are very competitive, so we have great fun with it too!

... Day 5

I don't seem to have much of a green thumb, but am impressed at the pots of colour on my back doorstep, I guess because they are right there I am reminded to water them.

Day 2,3,.....&4

Flat out couple of days, nothing exciting, .....

Went to our local crop on Saturday... did absolutely nothing, as usual. Well, thats not true, 2 almost finished pages, but in 10 hours!?!?!?

Umm, that's about it. Oh, yesterday, spur of the moment we went to Baywave in Tauranga, and had fish and chips at the park.

Today I caught up with a couple of jobs at school before I officially start back on Thursday, which I'm not looking forward too. Well, I am looking forward to going back, but number 1 son is adamant he is not going back to school..... we'll deal with that one on Thursday.

29 photos

I've looked several times at doing the 365 photo a day challenge, and knew I could never do it, but I think I can do 29, as challenged over at Janine's blog.

So here's #1.

We've been eating heaps off the BBQ lately. Now, we've owned our BBQ for about 5 years, but only ever used it when we had heaps of people, but since we've been to the beach, and used it there every night, we've been using it at home, and trying different things.

Sketches

Haven't been too inspired to scrap at the moment, so am enjoying the sketches that are being thrown around the place, here, here, and here.

I've also been eyeing up the sketches and great work done over at the Fiskars blog, so have added their blinkie to my sidebar.

This is a layout I did, based on a sketch from here, very plain, miscalculated the space I had left, to add something along the bottom of the journalling, but then again, I'm not fussed, it's done and I'm happy.

No kids =

An afternoon of Everybody Loves Raymond on DVD

Trying to scrap

And later tonight.......

Saw II &

Saw III

(a year ago that last part would have never happened, but we watched Saw, almost accidentally, and now want to see the rest)

Matarangi.......

........A review in photos

A great place to stay, 5 bedrooms, (but only 1 toilet!)

Lots of room for friends to visit

Water fights with the kids across the road

Toasting marshmallows

Sandcastles

'Real fish' and chips

Banana boat

Board games

Learning to play poker

Iceblocks

Time to read and do puzzles

Driving Creek Railway

Cold drinks on hot days

BBQ at the back door

Waiau Water park

Sleeping in......


......... and unfortunately, unpacking when you get home!

Finally.......

......... one of the reasons I've been reading lots of books, like the one in the previous post, is we have been working towards something for the last year, and wonder how our eldest will cope/behave when we go to .........

........ Australia in April!!!!!!

Yay!

We booked our tickets online tonight, eeeeek, talk about a harrowing ordeal, especially having to log out, go fix something with our Airpoints, log back in, and re enter all the info...... and then have to do it again, aaaargh. Anyway, it's done, just to book accomodation tomorrow with Travel Agent SIL, and then wait.

It was supposed to be Jon and I, going to Fiji, for our 10th Wedding Anniversary, (which incidentally was April last year, not this year) which I am still sad about missing, but am also looking forward to a great family trip.

We were very fortunate to have accumulated enough airpoints to pay for our flights, so that was a huge saving to start with, just have to really restrict what we spend our money on in the next few months.

I'm so excited!!!!!!!!

A book recommendation

I really recommend this book for anyone. I've read quite a few recently, in an effort to gain some understanding, but this one really tops them all. Now, don't be mislead, this book is just not for families with difficulties, I think every single family would get something from this book.

What I've found with lots of books is they waffle on about this study and that study, and this result and.......... and you get to the end of the book, and think hmmmm what DID I get from that. This book is full of practical suggestions, ideas, theories, that are very relevant. It is Australian, so it is very similar to our lifestyle, as I often find American or British books seem 'distant'(for want of a better word).

And, the best part, it's very readable, very enjoyable.

Please, if you do read come back and tell me what you thought, and what ideas you have implemented after reading it.

Annual Auckland Zoo Trip

Every year we go to the Auckland Zoo, between Christmas and New Year. It was a tradition we started way back when, and it's been good, but we thought we might vary it each year. The only problem is I have a set of photo frames, and each year we take a photo of the boys on the concrete elephant, and I still need a couple of slots filled, so until next year at least, we will go again.



































Camerons Birthday fell on the Sunday we were away, so we took a 'mini party' with us. He got up and got excited when he saw the cake and balloons, but hadn't realised that under the paper was a present. He had been eyeing up the Mars Mission Set in the lead up to Christmas, so he was pretty pleased to get it.


















































I happened to be surfing the Trade Me message boards one night last week, and came upon a thread titled "Free tickets to Alvin and the Chipmunks". I clicked it expecting it to be filled with replies, but no, no one had replied, so I jumped in, and then thought it through. We had been talking about staying in Auckland for a night to do a couple of things, so we decided to do it that weekend. We thought we'd do the zoo, and pick up the tickets from the lady (who had won them on the radio station, and didn't have kids) on the Saturday, as we had to be at the theatre at 11am, so there was no way we could have driven from home, over to the North Shore and be at the theatre by then.

We didn't tell the kids what we were doing, just that it was a surprise that we had organised for Camerons birthday. On the way over we saw a billboard and the kids said 'we want to see that", and we replied, 'well, it doesn't come out until Jan 1st, so we'll have to see'. Right up until we were seated, and even when the film started they hadn't realised what they were going to see. Because the freebies were supplied by More FM they were in the theatre, with giveaways. The chick said, 'my birthday is on Christmas Day, and it stinks I have to share presents, does anyone else have a birthday around Christmas Day,' so I jumped up and pointed to Cameron. He got a little pack of goodies, t-shirt, watch, keychain, stickers, so he was pleased, but wouldn't get a photo with the characters.



















While looking for something different to do we came across the Amazing Maize Maze, so decided we would do that on our way home on Sunday. It was great fun, although we were probably a bit analytical about it, and came out quite quick. We didn't need help to get out, nor did we need to open our map. We also didn't get to go over the bridge, so Braden and I went back in to go to the bridge, but it was pretty hot by then so we were just happy to get into the shade after that.

Christmas Day (before the year ends)

Christmas Day was quite casual for us, we spent the day with MIL, and 2 x SIL's, at MIL place. We did presents, we kept this one (PS2) till last, as we knew everything else would be forgotten. MIL had done everything for lunch, which was turkey, ham, hot vege, etc, then trifle, cheesecake and fruit salad. Just enough. Then we did the traditional crackers, Braden got a $20 win, so he's excited. Unfortunately the weather turned ick, and we couldn't go try out the cricket set at the school, so we just settled in for the afternoon, had a snooze, played with the toys, and wandered home around 8pm.









Boxing Day, my family came to our place. It was nice that all the siblings could be here, not all the partners, as they were working, but it was a nice casual, just sitting around, BBQ lunch, chilling out.

After lunch, I introduced a new toy. Wow, we had so much fun with this, not only the kids, hubby did too, and all only $2. It was a mega slingshot, really needing 3 people to operate it, (although Jon decided if you were tall enough you could do it yourself) We originally started using it horizontally, but not wanting to break any windows, we decided it was more fun to watch the balloons go up and come down.

As you will see in the photos, this is what the kids were up to in my previous post.

A bit of fun

Before I share more photos and fun from Christmas Day and Boxing I have a small RAK to someone who can guess what has just happened in this photo.

Questions? Ask away?

Well, here we are......... 2 sleeps till Christmas Day. I'm not feeling terribly inspired this year, not sure what it is...... I haven't even done any baking to speak of, Braden asked if we could make cookies tomorrow, so might have to do that to bring out some Christmas cheer. We are off to spend Christmas Day with Jon's family, just us, his mother and 2 sisters so a reasonably quiet day, with no preparations needed from my as she likes to do it all her way!

Ooops, I tell a lie, we, being the kids and I, made 100 or so little Christmas puds, out of the Mallowpuffs (we've all seen them by now), and gave them out to their class, (and I gave them to the class I have worked with mostly this year), so that was a marathon effort, but the kids did a good job.

Being Jon's first day of holiday, we had a sleep in, and after brunch we spent the afternoon in Hamilton, just a family day out, and doing a few bits and pieces. We caught up with GMIL (Grandmother in law) who we will not see on Christmas Day, and got a couple of things that couldn't be found in town here.

We then went to the movies, saw Fred Claus, it was OK, not hilarious, but the kids loved it. We then had some dinner and wandered out to The Base, had a wander around the Warehouse, Briscoes, and unfortunately just missed Mitre 10 Mega.

When we got home it was the night for us to drive around and look at the lights in town, mostly the same ones as last year....... a couple of new ones..... one cul-de-sac had a Santa giving out lollipops, and even his dog had lights on him. We've done our house up this year, so got a few ideas of what else/different we could do next year. Then tomorrow night we will walk the streets nearby, before heading off to bed in anticipation!

Jon is test driving the kids Playstation, "just to make sure it works", LOL, and I'm about to wrap the last couple of presents. Tomorrow will be a little bit of housework, and mow the lawns, (as my family will come to us on Boxing Day) and then we will do child swapping with a friend so she can get a few last minute groceries, and then just relax.

Hope this finds you all happy and healthy, and we'll see you in the New Year.

How can you not smile and feel happy watching this?