Stem Cell Transplant

About 2 or 3 months ago Daddy Joe got a call to say he was a bone marrow match for someone and would he be willing to donate. We didn't really know what it involved but after hearing how it could save someones life with little or no impact on Daddy Joe we decided for him to go ahead with it. Apparently the recipient is of polynesian decent and living in France.

So he had quite a lot of appointments to get ready for it. Lots of blood tests and an exray. 

Eventually it seemed that everything was ready to go ahead. He'd inject himself morning and night for 4 days before the procedure (to boost his stem cells). We had to travel with our little medicine box full of ice and cold gel bags, which was a little tricky, but worked out fine.

I hope everything goes well for the man who needed the transplant!!!!

On the day he was hooked up to the machines for about 5 hours and we caught the last 1/2 hour to take some pics.

This arrived by courier one afternoon and had to go straight into the fridge (full of injections for 4 days)

I offered to help with this when I saw him doing the first one but I was secretly hoping he'd do it himself (and he did thank goodness)

Set up for 5 hours like this. They gave him a portable DVD player and brought him snacks so he was sweet

Making themselves at home in the cafe area. The grumpy volunteer lady was not impressed at all how they were opening the container and taking out bikkies.

His little Filipino nurse was too cute. He gets lots of chances to use his tagalog, and it always seems to be in hospital type places. I always feel like I'm in good hands when I'm with a Pinoy cause they're so kind and gentle and well qualified (Aunty Beezy some of the phlebotomists were Drs in the Philippines!!!)

Faith thinks this pic of Seffy's eyes is hilarious. She loves to mimic it.

Our neighbours brought over a crayfish and kina last sunday night. Scary!

Jess gave us some favourites chocolates for christmas and they said 'to the world's best neighbours from the world's second best neighbours. My goodness she totally got it around the wrong way. They are so amazing. Whenever they go fishing they bring some over. And we're getting our paint and DIY supplies at about 1/2 the price they would otherwise cost cause Matt works at Carters. What a blessing. Their generosity is amazing. I wonder if Matt's regretting telling us that cause I swear every second day it seems Daddy Joe's gone in to get something new from him!

Tree top playground

We've just found a new park not far from where we live. It's called Tui Glen Park and in the last 6 days we've been 4 times.

On wednesday last week we went after Kindy which finished at midday. I took along some lunch and the girls played and played together. Ella screamed out 'hi hi hi hi hi hi' and so on to every person we saw. If they didn't reply she wasn't impressed and would call out to me 'Mum they not saying hi to me' :)

She made a little mate who we later found out was called Jed. As I pushed them on the swing together I heard Ella telling him all about how he could come to her birthday party and she'd give him chewing gum, cake and a present. She must have told him the same thing at least 3 or 4 times.

I have a feeling we'll be frequenting this park over the coming months, as long as the weather obliges.

And this had to be added also. 

Ella loves to dress herself and often says afterwards 'do my hair like a princess Mum'. I usually say ok and then do it in a ponytail which keeps her happy

Then half the time lately she's been asking for makeup (especially lipstick), so here's a pic of her latest combo.

Funny dress aye. I made this about 2 years ago with scrap fabric. It was hillarious then and it still is now. Actually Dad said it would be child abuse to make a child wear it. And so I've never really put it on the girls apart from to have a quick laugh. This week Ella saw it in her drawers and has decided that it's the coolest thing she owns.  And once she decides she likes something there's no rationalising with her (which could be a problem if she wants to wear it in public!)

Nanny Mamae's Unveiling in Te Haroto

Gosh, what a weekend!!! As I type this, Seth's asleep (going on 3 hours now), the girls are both asleep on the couch (for over an hour), and Daddy Joe's crashed out on Faith's bed (for about 2 hours). Wonderful, cause I've been able to put the house back together after our weekend away, hang out washing, make dinner, do the dishes and do some web-based research as well!

On Friday morning we headed down to Hamilton on our way to Nanny Mamae's unveiling in Te Haroto. We were all excited to go cause it was going to be a special family weekend, seeing everyone, meeting our newest nephew and seeing Grandma and Grandad who'd just arrived earlier that morning from Alice Springs for a month...cool!!!

When we arrived at Fend Street we were greeted by Uncle Mahonri which was a neat surprise. Man is he tall and all grown up now, amazing what a difference 10 or so months makes. We had a good little catch up there and then headed off to have huggles with Baby Tanner. Aunty Bex must have been exhausted cause we snuck into her beautiful room at RiverRidge and she didn't even wake up. So knowing she needed rest, we took a sneaky pic with her and baby and then left her in peace. Will have to wait a little longer for the huggles (as Ella calls hugs/cuddles)

Next stop, a special and unexpected visit to meet Tiger Lilly, our newest niece. She's gorgeous and so are her sisters. I'm sure she'll melt her Daddy's heart when he meets her.

By this time, Seth was tired and the girls were ready for a sleep so we hit the road for Taupo. The rest of our Heke family was coming, but not quite ready so we just had to go for it without them. Dinner in Taupo didn't disappoint, I don't think McDs ever does!

And then onto the last leg of our journey, another hour to Te Haroto. I think we got there about 8:30pm and we got straight into unloading our car packed full with clothes, towels, portacot, blankets, etc. What a job that was! The girls immediately got out of the car and made  friends/cousins with other kids and we hardly saw them till we left.  Joe got stuck into dinner round 2 and was loving it.

Marae's are pretty ideal for a fun family 'holiday'. The facilities are great, mattresses all over the marae, bikes to ride around the grounds, kai hall with chairs and tables everywhere, a kitchen stocked with everything, bathrooms with hot showers, electricity.

Grandad Sonny and Grandma Yvonne arrived at about 11ish I think and a big catch up began. I snuck off to bed at 12:30 with Seffy and I think the others snuggled in next to me about 2am. There was a team of people getting up at 3am to start making the breakfast and Daddy Joe had said he would help. At 6:15 I woke up and he was still fast asleep next to me. Oh well. We quickly got ready and headed over the road to the unveiling ceremony at 7am. It was a really nice meeting, beautiful singing and the headstone they've designed is really beautiful. I'm sure Nanny Mamae felt so loved with what has been done for her.

And the breakfast back at the Marae was fit for Kings and Queens. I'd seen the menu stuck on the kitchen wall the night before so I knew it would be good, and my goodness was it good or what!

Spaghetti, Eggs, Toast, Bacon, Sausages, Potatoes, Rewana Bread, Pork, Smoked Eel, Museli, Cereal, Fruit, Chocolate Eclairs, Cheesecake, Shortbread, Lamingtons, Apple Pies, Steamed Pudding, Chocolate Mud Cake. MEAN!

Once we packed up and headed out, we gapped it for as far as we could get without the kids going mental, that was about Cambridge. Seffy lost it at that point but because we only had about 15 minutes to go, we kept going and he screamed for the whole 15 minutes of it until he got picked up out of his carseat at Fend Street.

Then I did a fun visit over to Grandma Roses and Lesley's place. Cool catch up there with Grandma, Lesley, Neil and Kawai.

We were going to stay Sunday night at Fend Street but after 2 days of travelling and a very very late night, Daddy Joe said it was best to come home and re-set so we could have a more settled Sabbath Day.

We had such a wonderful time with everyone. It was so cool to see Tanner and TJay and Te Whatanui. They all make Seffy look massive with his chubby legs and 3 teeth. The 4 of them (or 5 with Sonny) are going to be best of mates I'm sure. Now we're excited to see everyone again, maybe for 3 baby blessings in a couple of weeks, and then we get Grandma and Grandad and Uncle Mahonri coming up to our place for a few days before they fly out as well. Yay!

K, this was obviously written last week but I've just gotten round to adding the pics now....

Dad sang us a funny tagalog kids song over and over again...something about a delicious crab

Dinner round 2

After a McDs MacAttack and then boil up he was full to the brim

Our little corner of the marae

Ella was quite taken with this puppy and didn't want to let him curl up for a sleep in his basket. Poor thing, I'm sure he was happy to see the back of us!

Me with my little puppy dog. Boy did I get lots of snuggly cuddles from Te Korowai....and I loved every second of it :)

Daddy Joe and 'mini me'

Set up for breakfast feast

Loads of yum food and she chose cereal and a piece of toast. Don't think she ate any of it either!

Faith chose a sausage and also didn't eat it....too busy playing

Dessert table...Yum!

Someone had made lots and lots of chocolate eclairs and shortbread with chocolate on them. Heaven!

Dance Class

A couple of weeks ago the girls went to their first ever dance class. I could have put Faith in beginners ballet, and Ella in pre-school but I decided to keep them both together in pre-school since they wouldn't get out of the car when we got there. They were all shy and being a bit clingy so I figured they might like to at least be in the same room as eachother.

I needn't have worried about them clinging on for long because as soon as we actually got in the door they got massive grins on their faces and scooted over to the other girls.

It was so cute to watch them hop around like bunnies, shake pompoms, do leg extensions and toe pointing at the bar, and finish off with skipping and a pirouette.

They both tried their best and stayed focused for most of the half hour lesson which was a little surprising for their short attention spans. Ella did a little swinging on the bar which was a big no-no. Faith got a bit shy on her solo skip from one corner of the room to the other so she sprinted and almost fell over at the end :(

Today was our second lesson, and Ella had to go on her own which didn't bother her in the slightest. Apart from her elbowing another girl to get out of her way in the line it was another good session.

Snaps below....

 

 

My Valentine's Date

About 3 or 4 days before Valentine's Day I said to my fairly unromantic husband 'honey it's valentine's day on Thursday'. His reply 'k'. Then a few minutes later he called out 'do we do valentine's day?' I didn't hold out much hope of anything special happening.

But to my pleasant surprise, he sneakily left a lovey dovey card for me on the table when I got home from Kindy drop offs. It was such a nice start to my day :)

Before we left for Kindy, we had Mac and Spence's special love box to open. The girls went hysterical when they saw their lollie bags. Faith was a bit stuck on finding her one cause it didn't say Faith, but Pod. She'll have to learn that I think cause I have a feeling she'll always be Pod to the Leones....and that's cool! When we read through all the love hearts which had things they love about us, it made us all smile and chuckle. We were tickled pink with their love for us!!!! And I told Aunty Nae on the phone later on in the day that she always has to do something special on Valentine's Day and that can be a cool tradition for everyone to look forward to. 

Hmmm? There's none with my name on it. This is the only one that doesn't belong to anyone but I don't know what it says....POD

In the afternoon Aunty Beezus blessed us with her special aunty skills and looked after my '3 heke critters' as she called them. Faith usually always (usually or always....always!) screams on the driveway when someone leaves our home. But not when it's  Mum and Dad leaving and she's got special time with Aunty Beezy. She did her customary walk to the end of the driveway, waved us off with a big grin on her face and lapped up the afternoon watching Grease. Seffy slept until Ella's kindy pick up and then the kids had some noodles for dinner. Thanks for giving us an opportunity to go out together without kids doll. So so so good.

We went to Burger Fuel to re-live our first date which was almost 6 years ago now. I think that'll always be a winner for me.

Then I suggested we wander around Briscoes and Spotlight to do a bit of hunting for blinds and curtains. We ended up getting our first quote for blinds and buying all the curtains for the lounge, hallway and office. Now we just need to paint those areas so we can actually hang them all. Painting....she's a big job! (especially with my husband and his impeccable eye for detail, not complaining though cause he's doing an amazingly good quality job on our old home). We stayed up till 1:30am that night trying to get some done and all we did was the window and door frames in the kitchen. It was the first time in his fortnight of painting that he's let me pick up a brush. About 5 minutes in he looked over at me and said 'do a good job or I'll fire you, no offense' and then he added 'I'm not kidding'. After about 1/2 and hour I kind of thought 'go ahead, fire me, this is a dumb job anyway!'

So I've never heard of curtain shopping as a valentine's date idea, but it was exciting and fun for us. Might do something like that next year too.