Gospel ABCs for Seth's 2nd birthday

One of the ideas that I had for a gift for my nursery children this year was making their very own personalised Gospel ABC flipbook. Unfortunately as the time neared for our first birthday of the year I hadn't organised  it and had to resort to a little bag of lollies dropped around to their house instead :(

Because it was easier to organise for my own Son than another child, Seth is going to get one in a few months when his birthday rolls around.


Here's some pics of it.

New FHE Plan

A couple of weeks ago when we were at the temple I took the girls to the bookshop under the visitors centre. I can't help but go into there dreaming that it might have magically transformed into a big Deseret Bookstore. Hasn't happened so far, but dreams are free.

(One day I actually emailed someone at Deseret Book to ask if they'd ever consider opening a shop in Auckland.....to my surprise I got a nice response, but unfortunately along the lines of 'due to the worldwide economy these days we don't have any plans to open any stores in NZ'. Was worth a try!)

Anyways, while I was there I bought 2 posters and let the girls choose a little picture card each...

This is the pic Ella chose. I told her it was the Salt Lake Temple at night and she said it's called 'Jack Frost'

Faith stayed with this oldie but very goodie

We've gotten a bit forgetful with our Latter Day Prophets Song so we re-capped this week with our new poster

And this is our new plan for FHE.
We're going to focus on one point each week....and then start all over again probably. This week was 'I will seek good friends and treat others kindly'. Faith told us a cute story about how she looks for people in the friendship garden at school and asks if they'd like to play with her. And Ella said she plays games with people to be friendly and doesn't call them 'ugly'

Positive thinking?!?!?!

Pak n Save has had a promotion going for the month of feb that has got me quite excited and cautiously hopeful.

Write your name and phone number on your receipt and you could win a VW Polo. Drawn on 28th Feb. Wish me luck!!!

There's usually a big line of people writing their details down and standing around the box so I've saved mine up and put in my 6 'chances' today.

My 2 Tuesday shopping helpers. I switched about a month ago from having just Faith on wednesday afternoons to taking these 2 little critters on a Tuesday morning cause they really enjoy it.

Stuff Lately x 3

I love my days with Sethy by himself, not that I don't like having the girls around as well, but it's cool just chillin' out with this little man. He's a pretty fun sidekick for me, especially now that he can understand some basic things like 'go and get a book', 'put it in the rubbish', 'Sethy done a poo?' (if he has he nods his had and swishes his hand in front of his face or pats his bottom and says 'poo')

He almost never goes to the mall, so one morning when we went to buy new socks for everyone, he was looking around like he was in a new world

Faith on her last sleepover at Grandie's house. Gosh she makes herself at home in Grandma's chair....so cute to hear her chatting away to Grandie in the seat next to her!

Not a great picture but a couple of weeks ago I got Seth out of his cot in the morning looking like this.....big nose picking session??!?!


We had our February Date night last night and we used it to go to a friend's 30th Birthday. The kids were well looked after by Ella's sunbeam's teacher and we had a great night with friends, mocktails, moes and dancing.

The party set up was so cool, a dance floor, bar with someone especially making mocktails, and even a photobooth in their spare room......

 This morning was our helping hands project for the Stake. We all met at the chapel and each ward was assigned a different park to go to and paint over graffiti. It was a cool project to make a difference in our local community, but the weather didn't cooperate at all. Hot as can be and a little bit rainy (as you can probably tell from the girl's hair!)

The guy to the right of this shot with a white t-shirt is one of the Elder's in our ward who lives around the corner from us. He reminds me of Uncle Pete probably cause he's tall and slim and Australian, and he's a 'no worries' kind of guy. Will be sad when he gets transferred away for that reason:(

 About 250 people were behind us being briefed on our project and look at the 3 kids who mucked around in front of everyone the whole time!

Father and son off to start using their helping hands

Special Monday Night

Last night we had the pleasure of having special guests in our home....Grandad Sonny, Grandma Yvonne, Uncle Jonathon, Reegan, Aunty Sarah, Tyrael and Tjay.

The girls knew a few days beforehand that they were coming up and to say they were excited would be a huge understatement. Living in a different town to all of the Hekes, it's a big deal when they come up to our home. On sunday night the girls were put in their room for bed at 7pm. At 10:30 when I went to bed Faith still wasn't asleep. She came in to me and whispered 'I can't go to sleep because I keep thinking that Grandad might be able to pick me up from school tomorrow'. I told her that would be really cool but he might not make it up to Auckland in time. She looked really sad and said 'I know he'll turn up Mum'

I didn't want to pressure them to be here by 3pm when I knew they had a few odds and ends to tie up in Hamilton so I didn't call them about her special request. But what do you know, they pulled up to the school carpark behind me and Grandad Sonny got to pick up Faithy from school just as she'd desperately wanted!!!!! Wish I'd got my phone out to take a picture of her big smile!

The 2 3 year old twinnies going for a quick trip to the supermarket. Actually it wasn't quick at all, I'm sure they were gone for a couple of hours! Faith said to me this morning 'I like going to the supermarket with Grandad cause he lets me chose some things I want'

I think Daddy Joe's salmon sushi and seafood chowder was ready to eat just before 10pm....5 hours after our children are used to having dinner! I think we've outgrown this 'baby' table well and truly now

Faithy petered out at about 10:30pm

Ella kept going a bit longer, perhaps due to licking quite a few juice sachets

And big boy Tjay had a kip on our new beanbag. He must have been exhausted :)

........Until next February!!!!

Actually we'd love to have visits more often from anyone who's willing and able to make the drive, for the day or a stay...either way we'd love it.

Nursery Update

Here's some updates of what we've got up to in nursery lately...

Ironically on the day we had a lesson about keeping the sabbath day holy, the kids got soaking wet playing with the baby bath....my bad!

With this afternoon church thing the girls are both pretty sleepy during sacrament. Out of 4 sundays, they've both fully fallen asleep once each. I was a bit worried they'd wake up really grumpy but thank goodness it was the total opposite for both of them

Love this pinterest idea and so did the kids

Little sleeping beauties again. I was in between them with both of them resting on my legs and once they'd both nodded off I slipped out and enjoyed sacrament in peace and quiet. When they woke up they'd missed sharing time and went straight to their primary classes.

One of our activities today was to sort coloured rods, beads and cubes.

And our much funner and yummier activity was to make shortbread stars for their Valentines goody bags (along a few lollies and chocolates)

Totally unrelated, but these were also on my phone

Mummy Mel at 32 weeks pregnant with Dallin or Joseph (Faith took this pic while we were having dinner with the Elders on the deck last night)

This is so embarrassing but I've just got to put it on here for recording purposes.  My bed hair....shame! (after going to bed with wet/washed hair). I came out of the room with straightener in hand to fix the wavy problem and as soon as the girls saw me they both go 'Wow Mum, your hair's so beautiful!!!!!' Cracked me up that they thought I'd especially done my hair like this for church when in reality that's the natural hair and I spend half an hour with the straightener making sure that no one ever sees it!!!! But thanks girls. I love your bed hair too!