A lil' more crafting

Here's a few more pics of the crafting I've done over the past couple of weeks.

Our calender for the 12 days of Christmas. Each bag has a small activity in it and will eventually have a lolly for each member of the family as well. In no particular order, the activities are listed below.

Read the nativity from the Bible

Sing 5 Christmas carols

Make and decorate Gingerbread Men

Watch a Christmassy DVD

Read 3 Christmas picture books

Write a letter to Santa

Drop off Christmas treats to 3 families in the ward

Take a Christmas photo of our family

Make an iceblock stick Christmas tree and decorate

Thumbnail rudolph art

Make mallowpuff holly and ivy treats and give to neighbours

Play Christmas games on the driveway and have a picnic for dinner

On sunday evening we heard a huge smash. The noise had come from whatever the girls were doing in our room...uh oh! I ran down to check if they were ok, and thank goodness they were. Faith had knocked off our big wooden framed mirror and it had smashed. When I asked her what happened she said 'anything, I'll go to my room'
Daddy Joe cleaned up all the glass and I made the frame into a notice board/kids art peg board for the office. The fluro post it notes are for Faith's talk in primary opening exercises this week. Exciting!

The chalkboard table that I wrote about a few weeks ago. Cool, but very miniature. Since making it I've realised it's kind of redundant when you can do chalk art on the driveway anyways....duh!

Pinterest Idea. Wrap 25 books (i just did 12) and open one per day for the 12 days of christmas. I'm not sure if the idea was that the books are new and they're like gifts. I just went into the girls rooms and chose 12 books off their shelves.

Cork Christmas tree idea off pinterest. I think this is the one Faith made. The ball and tree cone are creations from my own brain!

One day = 3 firsts

Today was a momentous day for 3 reasons.

1. Seffy rolled over for the first time. And everytime he's been put on his back since, he's rolled straight over to his tummy. He must be pretty pleased with his new trick. Thank goodness he doesn't seem to mind, he just starts sucking his fingers while he waits for someone to flip him back!

This is the first roll.

2. Today Daddy Joe rang me and said the Christys had invited us over for dinner and FHE tonight. I was excited to go around and spend some time with their family, and I knew the girls would love going to the farm too.

I remembered hearing Nathan (Dad Christy) talking to another Dad yesterday at church about how he'd caught a lot of fish up North the day before. The thought occured to me that maybe today was the day for me to try fish. I almost rang Daddy Joe to tell him but decided not to put that pressure on myself, but just play it by ear. When we got there, the boys stood at the barbie talking and Heidi and I chatted inside (typical). We talked about how I don't eat seafood but I'd thought about trying it. She encouraged me to give it a go, so I did! Nathan cut me off a little bit (Kingfish I think) and I braved a bite. I struggled through with a screwed up face while he kept saying 'it's all in  your head, it's all in your head'. And he was totally right. As I was eating it I was thinking, this isn't bad, but I was still cringing. So there you have it, I've now eaten fish and it was 'all goods!!!' I didn't manage trying the prawns too, baby steps...

Just prior to eating the fish

And Number 3. The pictures probably speak for themselves. My lil pony scared girl has now been for her first horsey ride, which probably turned into 10 rides. They didn't come in till it was pretty much pitch black and we could see them in the field anymore. Now when she says 'I like horses', she might actually mean it!

We didn't leave there till nearly 10pm cause the kids were having such a good time and the adults kept chin wagging. We've just got home and given the girls showers and Faith looks like this, a funny bung eye either from being around the horse, or maybe hayfever!?!?

All in all an unexpected, fun and exciting day

Henderson Stake Luau

On Saturday night we had our much anticipated Stake Luau. During the week leading up to it I was organising decorations with another sister in our ward, Heidi Christy. On Tuesday and Thursday we had a Cook Island dance practise (our ward was assigned to do a raro item). And then on Friday we went to Peter and Nancy's wedding/baptism and stayed on to decorate afterwards. It was the never-ending activity, kinda sad it's all over!

The baptism made me really teary. The couple are so excited to become members of the church and they come to everything with their 2 children. It reminded me of the 'on the way home' movie cause that family really knows what they doing, and they want to be baptised. It was really heartwarming to see the smiles on Peter and Nancy's faces  :) And it came about cause their neighbours are members and started taking Peter and Nancy's kids to church a few months ago (with 6 of their own!)

So because there was such a good turn out at the baptism, there was lots of people to decorate....yay! Many hand make light work so they say. We were still there till midnight though!

Luau Set up. After a while, Joe put his iphone on through the speaker system and we listened to his sounds....how many aadijah songs can you listen to in a night? Heaps!!! Everyone was lovn' it :)

Our cool primary president took all the kids into the nursery room and looked after them. They watched movies, made swords, hats and Bishop bought them back some snacks. These are the last 2 playing in the beds as everything got packed away. Well Ella was playing, Ethan had fallen alseep!

Anyone surprised?

Peutiful Mac

My gorgeous lil' Tahitian princess

Seffy came dressed for the party in his lil boardshorts with hibiscus flowers on them.  Thanks Willoughbys :)
And a t-shirt with a surfboard. Thanks Leones :)

Diggin' in to good old ice-cream and fruit salad

Just as Daddy Joe got his two plates full of food he was called into the room to practice for the raro item so his food got put in the car for safekeeping. As soon as it was over I found him outside scoffing down all the leftovers

What the? The Stoners having a good laugh at Pete's lavalava knot. Ask BZ about it

When we got in the car I said I wanted to get a B-U-R-G-E-R. I thought I'd put the kids in bed and go alone to save spending money on buying everyone something. You can't very well take them through the drive thru and say 'no you ate earlier, just watch me get a big mac combo!' But Daddy  Joe said we could all go and they could get a pack of nuggets each. The girls responded with hardout excited shaking and squealing when I said 'Let's go to McDonalds'. I told them to smile for the camera and this is the shot. Faith smiling and Ella hitting her saying 'no you not look at Mum's camera Faify!!!!'

Happy and Sad

Today I had a really happy and sad experience.

I had all the kids in the car after getting Faith from kindy. It was hot, Seth was tired, Ella was crying about wanting chewing gum and Faith was hungry. Let's just say I was tired, frazzled, short tempered and probably speeding!

I needed to shoot into my mate Geoff's (emporium) to get some poster paint and I was wanting to do it as quickly and painlessly as possible, so when I went through the Swanson Road roundabout to head down Universal Drive I wasn't impressed when I had to slow down for the car in front of me.

I quickly realised they'd come to a standstill because there was a man, about 30 years old, dawdling in the middle of the road. He was waving his stick around like blind people do, but he obviously had no idea he wasn't on the footpath but on the road right after a busy roundabout. I was pleased we'd slowed down and the traffic was blocked with us so he wasn't going to get hit.

To my shock, the car in front of me inched right up to him and as soon as he was just over to the side, but still on the road, the car sped past him. What was he thinking? Sweet, I'm outta here, nevermind the blind man in the middle of the road?!?!?!?!

I put my hazard lights on and jumped out to help him. I would have thought any person with half a brain would do the same but obviously not. As I walked behind him and said 'Excuse me' so I wouldn't frighten him by touching his arm, he calmly said 'Yes?' I explained he was on the road, and the poor man looked up at me with cloudy blind eyes and said 'oh am I? I thought I was on the path'. I guided him back to the path and asked if he needed any help or a ride somewhere. He assured me he'd be ok. I watched him walk a little way down the road and cried my eyes out.

This poor man needed help and someone just drove straight past him. As I drove away I notice a bus stop not even 50 metres down the road with about 5 people standing in it and they smiled at me as if to say 'that's nice you helped him'. Why didn't they run down and get him off the road?

So it was a sad experience cause this poor man was let down by more than one person who should/could have helped him. And it was a happy experience cause I did get to help him. The kids got to say a prayer with me for Heavenly Father to help him get safely home and learn to walk better on the path.

Just wanted to share that. From now on I'm going to try and be more aware of how I can help others, whether they be blind people in the street, people needing a hand to carry something, someone needing another dollar to pay for their grocery bill or whatever. I want to be the good samaratin, not the person who ignores and drives on.

A positive change :)

I seem to do better with goals/resolutions when I've put them out there for others to know about. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I feel accountable to others because I told them, or I'm too proud to fail cause other's know about it. I can think of 2 instances at least where this has worked really well. One was when I made my goal to run the Rotorua 10kms in 2009. That was massive for me. I hate running, can't do it, had never done it and knew that it would be really really hard. And it was. But I did it. And it was one of the best feelings of my life to run over that finish line knowing that I had accomplished something that I had previously thought was impossible for me. It was probably at that moment that I realised that even seemingly impossible, hard, difficult, challenging things can be achieved if I practice, try and have a real desire to get there.

Another time that this has worked was when I did a talk in sacrament on goals on January 1st this year. During the talk I confessed that I can never seem to keep my goal of reading the Book of Mormon EVERY day. I had considered not adding it to the goal list this year cause I consistently fail at it, so I figured, just don't even try that one this year. That kind of annoyed me cause I felt that would mean I'd been defeated and was being lazyt. So I explained all that in my talk and admitted that once again it would go on my list, with a renewed determination that this would be the year that I'd conquer this demon, and so far that's exactly what I've done.

So with that background in mind, I'm going to put my new goal 'out there', the one that I put on my 'no empty chair' card to commemorate 6 years since without Mum here :(.

This is it....


'BE MORE POSITIVE ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE, SEE THE GOOD IN THEM, FIND GOOD IN WHAT OTHERS DO AND IN THEIR EFFORTS, LOOKS, SKILLS, PERSONALITIES'. This may seem a little odd, but it bothers me how negative and judgmental I can be about other people. Sometimes I come home from church or kindy or anywhere and start pointing out things that they did that were weird, silly, not how I would do them. Why do I do that? I don't know, but it's got to stop. I'm going to look for the good and if I've got nothing nice to say, I'm going to keep my trap shut!

Please help me out!

Polkadots & Ollies

On Friday night Daddy Joe and I got to go out on a date to Ollies. This was made possible because Uncle Pete and Aunty BZ offered to take the girls to the Polkadots Christmas show at Sylvia Park. An account of that fun-filled trip is on BZ's blog here.

Thanks Stoners for having the kiddies. It was cool for us and them too!

The girls were so so so excited to be going out on a date with their Aunty and Uncle. They paced the driveway for about half an hour asking 'when are they coming?' Reminded me of old days when were waited at the top window at Mum and Dad's for people to come over!

When I got back inside from seeing the girls off my lil' polkadot had crashed out

Then when Daddy Joe got home and showered, we headed into Ollies. For our anniversary (with little to no money to spend) I wrote about 40 date ideas on popsicle sticks. Some are for home, some are out and about, some for just us and some for the whole family. Ollies for a burger and shake was one so it was a good chance to go.

Seffy crashed the date!

A burger joint shot for Pete and BZ. 

The Big Ollie burger. Good but nothing to write home about

Butterscoth Pecan Ripple and Gold rush (i think)

Pineapple Chunk and Mint choc Chip. Yum!

Enjoying ice-cream like his Uncle Seffy

Verdict....lovely evening out, great company but wouldn't go there again!

Afternoon Chalk Art

Some afternoons drag on for us cause the girls want to go for a ride on their bikes to the school and I keep saying 'wait till Dad gets home, we can't go now cause Seffy's in bed' or 'it's too cold to go out today'.

Last week I had told the girls they could go for a ride when Daddy Joe got home, and dinner wouldn't be far away. While we were passing time (probably watching TV!), the girls got out the big pieces of chalk and Faith kept asking me to play hopskotch on the driveway with her. I finally went out and started to draw one for her, but then I realised she actually just wanted to draw pictures and write with the chalk. Turned out to be a fun little activity for us :)

Seffy stayed inside and went cross-eyed over his new bib while we drew on the driveway

Faith was so impressed that I could draw this. She kept going 'Wow Mum, you're doing so good!!! :)

Ella alternated between chalk drawings and coming in the sort, stack, order, throw, count her pile of buttons

Once again, Faith was impressed with her Mum's artistic skills

Ella tried to draw her own hopskotch and then did funny little hops all over the place.

Otara Markets

On Saturday we went for an outing to the Otara Markets. Daddy Joe has been saying it's really cheap for good fruit and veges for a while I decided to venture out there myself to see if what he said was really the case (actually I knew Mama's donuts were being sold there now and I really wanted one....seriously!)

Even if the produce prices weren't great, I would have been happy if I just got my donut. But it turns out that the fruit and veges really are good quality and amazingly good prices. So we got ourselves quite a haul of a mixture of things.

Don't even ask, the answer's NO

Ella was quite taken by an annoying little toy dog that walked around in a circle and 'woofed'  Definitely NO

Yeeyah, drive to Otara worth it!

Looks pretty stink like I bought this for Faith and Ella really wanted it, but that's not the case. Faith chose candy floss and Ella chose a drink. They were both very very happy with their choices

Seffy's usual 'in the capsule' shot.

Not so happy anymore. We walked around for probably an hour and a half & eventually the novelty wore off for Ella 

Happy again now that we're heading home and they've got a whole bag of strawberries (actually grapes) to share between them. They were $1 per bag of top quality, seedless grapes.....score!!! Ella was adamant they were strawberries?!?!?!

This is the haul of produce we got, minus 20kg potatoes and 6 bags of grapes. Mean!

I really like doing fun things like this together on a saturday, especially when Daddy Joe is working every weekday and sundays are out for church. I feel like Mum and Dad how they used to take us to drive around Dairy Flat (as if we might move there one day!!!?!?!), to the domain, fish and chips in Devonport..... I think the Otara Markets vege run might be a trip for us every few weeks or so, one of our regulars. 

It's fun to be together as a family and have outings, especially when the kids see new things they haven't seen before. Their eyes were really big when we got to the markets cause they've never been in that kind of environment before. It was all new and exciting, oh to be a kid again! Ella was quite taken with an uncoordinated, drunk looking guy that was dancing for money. She kept asking to go back and see the 'dancing boy, he's my friend!'

I wonder what we'll think of to do next weekend, apart from our ward Christmas party of course :)

Faith's Tuesdays and Thursdays

On Tuesdays and Thursdays when Ella's at Stars Kindy I get some time alone with Faith. She loves it. Well actually Seffy's with us too but he's still like a lil' silent partner at the moment so it seems like one on one time.
And Ella loves her one on one time when Faith's at Kindy and she's at home (mon, wed, fri mornings).

At kindy this week they're celebrating Diwali. Some kind of Indian thing I think?
Yesterday she got a henna tattoo on her hand and today she got a hindi bindi (that's what I call it, not sure what it really is)

Big sissy and baby bro chillin' out in the bed when she was supposed to be getting ready for Kindy. It was probably about 9am at this point, Kindy started 15 minutes earlier!

Typical afternoon. Curtains closed. Movie on. Phone off the hook. Baby in bed. Watch then sleep for about an hour

Me and Faith keep seeing this car around the neighbourhood and it always makes her giggle cause it's a 'baby' car. Today we saw it when we were walking and she was too shy to stand beside it for a photo until I told her Seffy would do it with her

We've been meaning to get out the lego and play together for a few weeks now (can only be done when Ella's gone) . She loved it....much more than I did!