Daddy Daycare

When I work and my husband is home, it's a roll of the dice whether or not any housework gets done. The kids are always well looked after so that's wonderful, but usually my house suffers on those days. Tuesday last week was one of those days. I rushed in at lunchtime to enjoy a little bit of time with Ella and Daddy Joe. When I opened the door I wished I hadn't bothered to be honest. The doorstep was cluttered with shoes, bowls, a half eaten apple, the sink was FULL of breakfast dishes with new lunch ones piled on top. 

The curtains were closed, with my husband and Ella set up on the couch watching Man of Steel while sitting with a pot of chicken and rice on their knees (literally, in the pot). There were blocks and movies and books all over the floor and 2 baskets of washing (clean at least) emptied all over one of the couches.

I quickly ate my lunch, did the dishes and gapped it......hoping that between then and 4:30 when I got home that everything would have been fixed up. 

To my dismay when I walked in the door with hands full of grocery bags from the supermarket, my home was exactly as I'd seen it at lunch time, but now with a dirty nappy in the lounge and a few more clothes added to the floor.....oh man!!!

When kids walk to school they get a sticker when they get in the gate. Faith had been getting us to drop her off with about 500m to go so she could walk the last bit on her own. On this morning, she twisted her Dad's arm to walk the whole way there with Ella and Seth too.

Daddy make special smoothies with banana, yoghurt, milk and ice

It was after one of the daddy daycare days that we had a FHE about sharing and being happy to play with eachother. I think after a few days of being with the kids so much he realised there's a lot of bickering and 'I don't want to play with you anymore' So that's a positive that's come out of having Dad on baby duties while I do a few days at work.

The frustrating thing with the whole house situation is that I know he can mind the kids and do the housework because on some occasions he's done both really well. It's just not his preference. He'd rather play and relax than do washing, vacuum, make dinner etc as well as.......welcome to my life!

Family Trip to the Mount

Did we just have an awesome weekend or what?!?!?! YES!!!!

The pics won't do it justice, who wants to get a camera/phone out when you're having a great time? I did my best though

Special Adults dinner on the night we arrived. The kids got KFC in Waihi, and we held out to have a late night dinner together after the babies were all fast asleep. Definitely worth the wait

On our first morning Daddy Joe took the kids to the park for a while (3 hours!) while I cleaned up and went to the shops for a bit. By the time they got back the Leones were in the pool and of course the Hekes just had to jump in right there and then

I took Seth back up to the room for a sleep and Daddy Joe kept the girls in the pools....for another 3 hours!!!

Loving the cuzzy time

Fancy dinner at an Italian Restaurant at the Mt. thanks to Aunty Natty

Our apartment was great....on the fifth floor which was a little scary with the kids (and the deck!), but definitely somewhere we'd stay again for a grabone special

Thank goodness the kids all slept well each night, Seth was great in his portacot and once the girls finally petered out, we didn't hear from them until about 7:30am each morning...at which point they bounced out of bed excited for what the day would bring

After church (Otumoetai Ward) we headed down to Memorial Park (Humpty Dumpty Park) for sammies before we started the long haul home

Where Grandma Ormsby used to live!

Oh, and of course we had to stop in at the cemetery to visit Grandad Wattie. It was the first time the children have been there so they were excited to walk around and sing our special 'families' song

Definitely going to try and make it an annual holiday spot for us. We could have done with 4 or 5 nights to be honest.....3 was good, but we just loved it so much we could have easily spent more time holidaying at Grandies old 'stomping ground'

There's nothing like sunny days, pools, shared dinners, evenings at the park with family!!!! What a wonderful memory, and hopefully yearly tradition for our family

Nursery update

Lately I've been feeling a little down about how I haven't been putting enough effort into my calling. I go every sunday and I'm there for the children, but I didn't do any prep so it was just a sunday thing....I think that's what felt weird, because usually with callings you have to do a few things to prepare for sundays. With my lessons being so basic, and just having to take a bit of morning tea for the children, I was able to do nothing to prepare, and leave it at the chapel on my way out the door.

It sounds a little funny as I'm writing that I purposely looked for ways to make my calling more time consuming, I think in the past I've wished that I could get stuff done faster and have it over with.

Anyways, to the point of this post, I've decided to do a few things to make Swanson Ward Nursery better!!!

-A little monthly newsletter for the parents of my children

-Each child now has a folder that I glue their activity sheets into

-Lessons are more prepared with visual aids and more than just a colour in sheet afterwards

-Each sunday there's going to be a new activity to do (moon sand, playdough, car race track, baking, collage, facepaint?)

-I've bought singing time mats so each child has a mat to sit on when we do singing time and there's a shaker, triangle or tambourine for each child. I find this is the rowdiest time for us, so the mats are intended to keep children in one place rather than wandering around

-I've considered doing a 'nursery blog' but I think at this point I won't bite off more than I can chew

 And maybe most exciting of all, I spent a couple of hours at the chapel this week organising the nursery cupboard. I should have taken a before and after shot, but trust me, it's so much better!

And next week I'm going to trial separating the room so they eat on one side, then go to the other side to play, then come back to the first side for their lesson and finish up on the second side for singing time. A bit confusing, but worth trying in case it helps with reverence and order. Will just have to wait and see on that one.

K, this post has been so slow in coming that I have trialed the separated room and I loved it.

I'm trying to be at church at 8:30 with my little helpers to get the room ready. Not sure if they're much of a help though. This morning they each got a piece of coloured paper and cut them into a million pieces!

Lovely Ella!

 

Our special time with Spency

This is how excited I was to have Spency come over to our house while his Mum, Dad and Mac were at Uncle Heng's wedding a couple of days ago!!!

My goodness he came back to this plate for dinner about 10 times, not sure if that's cause he really liked it or cause after about 5 times I said there was no cake like he wanted, and so he'd have to have more dinner if he was still hungry

He loved Athletics and even ran in the last race for the 2 year old boys. I wish I'd put him in the first 2 though cause then he could have got better each time

Precious little Faith bumped her head on the playground after race one, then finally got off me and hurt her leg almost immediately. End of racing for her:(

Late night little bowl of BBQ shapes kept everyone quiet for all of 3 minutes. Spence wolfed his down first and then hopped off and walked between the girls stealing one at a time from their bowls

This pic makes him look really grumpy but it was just because the flash was hurting his eyes. He curled up here for a while and then scooted back down to the blocks (while yawning his tired little head off!)

We loved having you Spency. Talk about cute and easy!!!! And we loved your running commentaries on everything you were doing and thinking. Funny boy!!!!