Dollar shop bargains

I love dollar shops, can't imagine life without them to be honest. Although some of them aren't limited to items being $2 like they used to be and that's annoying. Nevertheless, I still love browsing around them, especially when I find a good one (they're definitely not all created equal!)

Last week I found one of the best ones ever! It was so good that I even took some photos of it.
I totally loved the massive party section, the wide isles and just how plain big it was!!! Oh, and it wasn't a rip off dollar shop either, most things 2 or 3 dollars.

At St Lukes by the Kmart entrance

Who's party is coming up? I'm gonna be stocking up here for sure

Just this week I had a little splurge at 3 of the 7 or so dollar shops at West City buying supplies for my nursery class. I'm so excited to see them play with stampers, felts, kids scissors, and crafty things like pipecleaners, pompoms, popsicle sticks. It only occurred to me this week that they might be sick of the same basket of crappy, broken crayons every week. Plus I'm going to make them each a scrapbook to glue in their lesson sheets every week. Not sure if the kids will appreciate them but it's so up my alley!

Athletics starts again

Athletics has started again for the summer....yay. We loved it last year and the girls were buzzing to be back there again. So pleased we did it last year when Ella was only 2 cause now that she's 3 she knows exactly what to do and my goodness she's fast.

Now that Faith's 5, she has to wear the club uniform and the races are twice the distance.....60, 80 and 100m....that's quite a way for her 5 year old legs, but she did so well!

Heke Money Earning Plan?

Over the past week or so Aunty Nae has said that they're thinking of how to implement a money earning scheme for the boys (probably just Mac at this point), and it's got us thinking on how we'll do it for the girls. We've talked about it and I've read some of the finer details about a money plan on a blog that I follow (71 toes)

Tonight as Daddy Joe got ready to go out with the missionaries I called the girls into the lounge and made an executive decision about how we'll dish out money. I have no idea how well or badly this will work but we'll just have to wait and see.

Basically, the girls could potentially earn their age in money (Faith $5 and Ella $3) per week. We'll have a discussion on Sunday evenings about who gets what and that will be based on

1. Overall behaviour & obedience
2. Having their 'zone' organized by inspection time at 7pm every evening

This week Faith is on 'outside zone' which means she needs to tidy up chairs and stuff on the deck, put all bikes, scooters, balls by the garage and clear shoes away from the front door.

This week Ella is on 'inside zone' which means tidying away the toys and books from the lounge, making sure all clothes are put in the washing basket and the bookshelf in the hallway is tidy and organised.

 It's going to be a stretch for Ella to understand the whole concept of earning money, but I'm hoping Faith will catch it and be motivated to earn her full amount. Then maybe when Ella sees Faith getting to spend some money she'll follow suit.

If tonight's anything to go by, the zones will be spick and span by 7 for sure....they were so excited to get started on tidying as soon as I told them about their responsibilities and they're already talking about how they can't wait to have swapsies on Sunday when they swap zones for next week.

Will post about this whole concept after a few weeks and update how it's going

Oh, the Heke family bank will have a compulsory tithing and savings scheme as well!!!! 
And their spending money is not ever allowed to be used on lollies!!!

Primary Presentation Day

Finally, the day we've been waiting for since last year's primary presentation day was here......this year's primary presentaiton!

Faith had quite a difficult part this year and when she first got the slip of paper to pracitse I had major doubts that she'd ever get it.....oh me of little Faith!!!!! She did it perfectly!!!!! Despite getting stuck on 2 words for the last week, a $1 mix bag of lollies did the trick and she got those crinkles ironed out so it was word perfect. Proud Mummy Moment!!!!!

Tomorrow we've got to go and buy her goggles to keep up our end of the bargain, and we might even use our Parakai tickets seeing as it's labour day.

She'd told me she needed to wear a white top so she had a white top on and bright pink skirt, but as soon as we got to the practise this morning I realised EVERY girl had on a beautiful white dress. Thankfully I'd taken the baptism dress along for my nursery lesson so we whipped that on her and she looked so cool!!!! And another little girl had on her Mum's baptism dress that looked quite similar (with exactly the same lace!)

Just after we got set up for Nursery morning tea (marmite sandwiches, my homemade choccie chippie bikkies and apples) the primary leaders came in with these treat bags for all the kids, followed by lemonade iceblocks...What a score!

This was our activity in nursery last week, and it kept Ella occupied for ages. She loved pretending to check if the washing was dry and ready to put back in the basket

And then we come home from church, have lunch and then 'shut up the shop' (which means close the curtains and have a rest)

Love our sunday afternoon routine cause Daddy Joe goes back to Ward council or visiting, I get a roast ready and the kids rest (which is the next best thing to me getting a rest!)


And next year the primary presentation will be even better cause Ella will be part of it as well....once again, I can't wait!

Reception class finished up today :(

 My little Faithy had her last day in the reception class today. Now she's off to her class for the rest of the year.....Room 19 in the Anawhata Pod (dark blue t-shirts). She's excited and a little bit nervous but I know she'll do fine and fit in like nothing, just like she has for the past 5 weeks in Room 4.

Yesterday afternoon I said we'd go and buy her teachers a present at the mall and she insisted on choosing some special treats for them at the supermarket. They ended up with a big juice, kingsize chocolate bar, strawberries, grapes, and chips!

On Wednesday afternoon this week I had a little parent interview with her teacher to get her first school report and everything was positive....almost.....everything except the snails pace at which she writes!!!!! Now she gets told by me every morning 'stay focused when you're doing your story and don't daydream and look at what everyone else is doing ok!!!!' I know exactly what the teacher means....reading she's keen on and adding numbers is fun. When it comes to writing, it's like getting water from a stone.

And to top off her brilliant start to school and before her move to a new pod, this afternoon was the annual junior school 'Spring Fling' aka Folk Dancing Extravaganza. About 200 kids did folk dances for half an hour or so, and there was probably about the same amount of parents crowded around the side of the courts with cameras flashing. Faithy was the leader a couple of times with a big smile spread across her face......made even bigger when she saw her Dad had made it home from work early to come and watch.

Have I mentioned before how much of a blessing it is to be working at Summerland?.....I can't even believe it. For the money yes, but also for being able to be a part of the school and develop a connection with the teachers and see my baby girl so often (morning, morning tea, lunch, and 15 seconds after the 3 o'clock bell!!!)

So far....soooooo good!

Spring Fling bracelet

Seffy Sunny Man

Wearing a cap for the first time ever and checkn' himself out in the mirror

Seth is almost 16 months and he is developing such a little character.

Here's some things he does these days

1. Bedtime is still 6 o'clock, even though it's light and even though the house is usually still full of hustle and bustle. He goes in there and we don't hear from him again until about 7am. Is he a dream baby or what?!?!?!?!

2. He tries to join in with his bedtime song 'I am a child of God' by rambling on....daba daba daba

 

3. If I get his shoes and socks he knows to sit down and put his feet up for me

4. He loves to go swimming, especially lie down on his tummy in shallow water and kick his feet up, like what he's doing in the bath below (but at the pools he's got his cute little butt covered!!!)

 5. He knows when it's bedtime and I come towards with his milk bottle so he runs away from me laughing and completely cracks up when I catch him, at which point he grabs the bottle and slides back into my arm to start drinking.

6. If someone has something he wants (eg. lollypop or ball) he'll squeal and throw a tanty, sometimes  dropping on the floor and rolling back and forth until he gets what he wants. Stink thing for him is that we think it's funny so we laugh at his performance before doing anything about it

Somehow yesterday he managed to get himself up onto the girls drawers while no one was with him

Excuse the mess in the room, this was before the bedroom makeover that took us all about an hour to do.....why on earth was there so much stuff under their bunks?!?!?!

7. Seth loves to have someone in the room with him. If I'm putting away washing, he'll follow me to each room, start playing while I put things in drawers and then as soon as I walk out he follows me to the next one. Cute to have a little shadow, but sometimes I'd love him to just settle into playing and forget about needing someone else there

Testing out the ride-ons at the new Mitre 10 in New Lynn where Dad did a couple of days work for our old neighbour

8. We often communicate to eachother by squeezing our eyes closed. He watches me do it, then I watch him do it and we keep going back and forth.

9. Seth loves to play with eye brows. He points his little finger and zeros in on eyebrows all the time. Or is it just mine that he finds fascinating?

10. His new (and annoying) favourite thing to do is climb on one of the chairs at the table, get on the table and then climb into his highchair. I haven't figured out how to stop him from doing it yet. Even though he fell off once (badly) in that process a few night ago, it hasn't deterred him.

Seffy Son, you're a pretty fun dude to be around.....99% of the time. I could trade you in about 10 minutes before dinner is ready though cause you get pretty wild when you've got a hungry puku and you're wanting me to put you in the highchair for food!!!!!

Ella's new 'do'

Yesterday when Ella had her bath, I caught her cutting her hair. Thankfully I got to her quickly and grabbed the scissors off her before too much damage was done. She cried when I took them off her and said she wanted hair like Aunty Beezy!!!! We talked to Aunty Beezy on skype a little while later and had a good laugh about it and I thought that was the end of it.


Fast forward a few hours later, and when we thought the girls had been asleep for an hour or so, Daddy Joe walked down the hallway, gasped and called me to come quickly.

What did I see?

A big pile of hair on the carpet, and more strewn across the bathroom floor.

I quickly but also hesitantly walked down the hallway to see the damage. As soon as she rolled over and sleepily looked at us, I broke down crying!!!!! My daughter had butchered her cute, curly, unruly, baby hair. She looked at me confused about why on earth I'd come into her room, looked at her and cried, then hid under her blankets. When I pulled them off her face, she was crying too. What a moment!!!!! I scooped her out of her bed and cried with her in my arms and then explained why I was so upset.

In the light of day it's now sad and very funny at the same time.

Enjoy the evidence from the day after the night before (oh, and you can see the drawing on her skin that was 'because I want tattoos Mum')

 Trust me, it's funnier in real life. But no one can laugh at her about it cause after crying last night and laughing about it today, she said to me 'Mum, is my hair sad or funny?'

I thought surely tonight she'd go to sleep and do good behaviour, but no. Just before sitting down to type this I found her down the hallway at the bookshelf with my makeup bag applying loads of eye shadow and mascara (on her face and singlet)

Give me strength.....and patience!!!!!!!

Pallet Herb Garden Project

It's that time of the year again when I attempt to establish a good, healthy & most of all 'fruitful' vege garden. Last week I worked fulltime and each afternoon I planned to go straight from school to the plant barn to buy supplies before heading home with my babies. Every afternoon something else came up, so I only managed to do it on Friday. Paperwork that had been sitting around for 2 years needed to be filed, a baby with an upset tummy had to be picked up urgently and we needed groceries much more than I needed to get a start on the garden....unfortunately!

While Faith and I wandered around the potted colour and vege punnets, I had a brilliant idea that would finally utilize the wooden pallet that I made my husband get off the side of the road probably almost a year ago. Man was I chuffed that I had found a use for it.....occasionally he has a dig at me about wanting a pallet and then leaving it leaning up the garage for the better part of a year! I just knew that it would eventually come in handy. Pinterest is fully of recycling pallet ideas.....

Well, now between the 2 of us.....my idea and his handywork, we've got ourselves a recycled wood pallet/herb garden right outside our front door. And oh my goodness is my husband a perfectionist or what. I expected he'd whip it up in half an hour, but not long after we started talking about it I realised it was going to take a whole lot longer. I ended up with a great finished product buy luckily I wasn't in a hurry. It took him abut 4 hours to get the wood done (even though all he had to do was knock off 2 pieces of wood and nail them on in different places), and then another couple of hours to staple in the plastic. Adding the hooks at the top was probably another hour! Then I took over and planted....which took me all of 20 minutes!!! But in all seriousness, he's really slow, but Daddy Joe does a good job in anything he puts his name to.

Now to get the herbs flourishing and it will really have been a success!

This is what Seth gets up to when I say for FHE we're working in the garden

Faith was a brilliant helper, digging me little holes so I could plant our seedlings

I'll take a photo in a month or two and hopefully it'll be a booming herb garden....it's got mint, parsley, coriander, sage, thyme, rosemary, oregano, chives, dill, fennel & basil. My goal is that I won't have to buy herbs anymore. I hate it when I really want to do a recipe and it uses 2 or 3 different herbs and they all cost $3 each for a little cutting.

 And for the rest of the garden I've got loads of tomatoes, eggplant, cucumber, chillis, capsicum, courgette, pumpkin, rhubarb, gherkins. We're going to make a real effort to water them and encourage them to grow with lovey talk (which reminds me of the rice experiment) because I want to have my best vege season ever this year!!!!!

Stuff lately x 2

I accidentally posted this post and then deleted it, so here's a shorter version of what I had...

One day in the holidays I told Faith I would take her and Seth to the pools. I asked her not to tell Ella because she was going to miss out (it was her kindy day). Needless to say, she told Ella and to my surprise, this is how Ella got out of the car at kindy. Really excited for us to go swimming without her....and excited for when it's her turn and Faith's at school

Did this little critter love the pools or what?!?!?!

Straight home from the pools at about midday and straight into the lounge to make a bed on the floor

I scored this dinner highly, but the girls weren't impressed. Pumpkin, spring onions, parmesan cheese and pinenuts are yuck according to both of them

Thankfully this one went down better. A much healthier twist on one of our family favourites....creamy, cheesy fettucine. This was made with chicken (marinated with thyme, rosemary and lemon juice). The sauce was cheese sauce but instead of lots of milk and cheese it was chicken stock and a bit of parmesan. So nice....the kids all loved the cherry tomatoes as usual

Everything Ella started saying was 'big this'  'big that'. She obviously doesn't like small things!

I'm still holding out hope we'll be able to get a trampoline for Christmas, but if that doesn't end up working out, I've got a few ideas from their lists that should see us through. Although I think Faith's going to get goggles next week because I've bribed her with getting them if she does her sacrament talk for the primary presentation. Will blog about that next Sunday night!