Our new gate

When we moved in to Robertson Road the first thing we wanted to do was put a gate on the driveway. It's such a cool space for the kids to play, but so dangerous with them being able to wander away (especially with the train station so close).

Well so much for 'first thing'. We didn't actually get it done until August. Better late than never though.

Daddy Joe used his DIY skills and put it all up himself and after that day I felt so much better knowing when the girls went outside they couldn't get off our property....or so I thought.

Ella quickly realised she could pull down on one of the sides and make it open....great! Daddy Joe had thought of how to fix it but hadn't gotten around to doing it when Faith walked in earlier this week saying 'Mum, Ella broke the gate'. I thought she must have meant she opened it so I went out to check. Somehow my 2 year old daughter had in fact broken the gate. One side of it was completely off it's hinges, and was kindly leaned it up against the fence. Thanks!

I think it will always remain a mystery how on earth she managed to do it because she can't explain herself and nothing was actually broken.

It ended up taking about 4 hours and some kiwi ingenuity to put back on. Hopefully it's now Ella proof!

Ella looks happy, Dad doesn't...uh oh

Bubba Jordy's 3rd birthday

Last weekend we went up to Kerikeri for Jordy's 3rd birthday party. Seems like just yesterday that sleepy, white little bundle arrived in this world. He's still a sleepy little white boy, just a bit bigger, very cute and quietly talkative (if that makes sense). We were so excited to go up and see him and his cool family. Unfortunately Daddy Joe had double booked himself so it was my first big trip with my 3 babies on my own.....and boy did they do well. Especially my little man. My goodness, he won the prize for best behaved baby. Yeeyah Seffy!!!!

We had a typical family meal on Friday when we got there.....McDs. Then straight back to the Willoughby's for party prep. Man that's a laborious job. We got it all done though and we did a very good job if I say so myself. Aunty Natty had thought of everything and as usual for an Ormsby party, the food did not disappoint.

The plunket rooms once again were a winner, and the weather came along to the party in a big way. Pirate and princess ponies were a real hit with all (most) of the kids....I think all except my little tough, rough, not scared of anything  Ella. She was pretty distraught at the sight of them. Despite my best efforts to get her on for a ride I couldn't manage it. Her behaviour around Ninja the puppy lead me to believe she's got a weak spot....animals. Luckily she doesn't know that Ninja climbed on her 3 times on saturday night while she was asleep!

On saturday afternoon after a little down time (water fight on the driveway) after the party, we headed over for a 'mosie' around Paihia. Is that a real word? Anyways.....we walked around Waitangi and then drove through the township. After that, back to Butler Ave to wind down.

It was so nice to be able to go to church with Aunty Natty and the boys at their little branch in Okaihau. Pretty laid back (kinda pre-historic with only 1 toy in nursery between 8 kids, seriously, 1 toy!) Aunty Natty's sacrament talk was really really good and I was so proud of her. She was so well prepared she presented it really nicely......and hearing her testimony......brilliant! Was the best timing for us to be up there for that.

Once church was over (almost) we hit the road and began our mission to get back to Daddy Joe in
Raa-noo-ee. Once again Seffy behaved amazingly well. The girls lasted pretty good until Wellsford and then completely broke down, screaming like mad things for about half an hour. I'm not kidding, it was pretty intense. Luckily I had my long-time mate Lionel Richie to keep me calm. I only had to pull over once and threaten to call the police for their bad behaviour.
We made it home just after 4pm and then began the unpacking....

Overall.....fun, cool, great, special family weekend. I thoroughly enjoyed it and can't wait to do it all again. That's what life's about for me, family and funtimes!

Unfortunately I don't have a good camera so I've only got a few pics off my phone but they're better than nothing. Need to save my pennies to invest in a good cammy for all the blogging I'll be doing aye :)

Faith supposed to be going to sleep but enjoying a moment on the ipad......and her cousins next to her had iphones. Techy toddlers!

Bubba Chordy with Seffy at nursery....the ONE toy is scattered beside Jordy

Little Kyky chillin out in nursery with his cuzzies

Seffy with the typical head tilt going on

My sleepy little dog. This shot was taken on sunday morning at 9am. He'd been asleep since 8:30pm the night before with loud as cousins and aunties and uncles and a dog in the house and still he wouldn't wake up...what the?!!
Too bad he hasn't kept it up, last night was waking up every 1.5 hours!

Grandma Ormsby's Passionfruit Cake

Last week it was Mum's birthday and that meant a sad and happy day for me. Sad cause she's not here for her special day, and happy cause we could remember her with the traditional Ormsby 'we love you lots and wish you were here for your birthday' cake.....sponge cake with lashings of whipped cream and a thick covering of passionfruit icing. Mmmmm, my mouth's watering as I think of it. It never gets old or overdone to me, even though we have 5 of them each year. (By the way, last week Natalie said she doesn't like that cake and doesn't want us to do that for her....I love it and I'd be chuffed if my family would make that in my honor if I wasn't around, just so you know!)

Bathing Babies

Most days are long days for me. And I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way....they're just long. By 4pm-ish I feel like I'm on the homeward stretch, and I love that. Since Faith was born I have loved bathtime. To me, bathtime signals that bedtime for the kiddies is near and that means relaxing on the couch is not far away for me!

So last week I decided to take some photos of my babies in the bath. Every adult has some of those shots right? Especially ones where it's not only them in the bath, but at least one or 2 siblings squashed in like lil' sardines. Hopefully these aren't too nudie to be published!

 

  

I suppose the mixed gender baths will have to stop before too long....not quite yet though.

FHE and Scripture Reading

This year I've made a huge effort to have FHEs every week. Monday is a sacred jujitsu night for Joe, so Wednesday night is FHE for us. I must admit, although sometimes it's a last minute thing and more often than not it involves the girls fighting and me yelling 'listen!!!!' or 'be obedient please!!!!', it is a night that I really enjoy. We've had some cool lessons, fun games and yummy treats.


I love that the girls conduct the meeting from in front of the TV every week. They always start with Choose the Right. We've done things like bury our bad words in the garden, learnt about what it means to wear white clothes and be baptised, make cards for family overseas, traced around the girls bodies and labelled body parts. We've also done gardening, learnt about tithing and how to be good friends at kindy and church.

Last week we had the pleasure of having Uncle Pete and Aunty Bz over for dinner and our lesson. We learnt about obedience (by talking about Nephi building a ship and Samuel the Lamanite being obedient and going back to preach repentance on the wall). Cause we did this on monday and Joe was out, we re-did it on wednesday. I said to Joe tonight that the girls are so disobedient that we might re-do that lesson a couple of nights a week for the next few years. Maybe then it will actually sink in!!!!

On a slightly different note, this year I've also been reading the BoM every day. In the past I've been on again off again, but when I had to give a talk on goal setting on New Years day this year in sacrament, I confessed that it's always one of my goals to read my scriptures daily and it's always something I fail at. That turned out to be a good idea, cause I felt accountable to the whole ward by having them know that I was going to try and conquer it this year.

So I'm pleased to say, that up until  now I have read every day this year, even on the night I came home after having Seth, I got out my scriptures and sat up in bed to cuddle my brand new baby and read the Book of Mormon. I've finished it once so far and now I'm 20.2% through it for the second time. Some days when things are really crazy I only read 1/2 a chapter, other nights I do a few in a row. Just depends.

I found a cool app for my phone a few weeks ago called LDS reading chart. So now every day I check off my new chapter and it tells me how much I've read. I really like knowing how far through I am, especially cause I don't see pages numbers now that I read on my phone. And I'm totally loving what I'm learning and the Spirit that I feel as I read that book each and every day. It makes me feel like Mum sometimes cause I often think about how she used to sit in the lounge in the dark (almost) with the sheepskin on her knee in the freezing cold, and read the Book of Mormon. Great example!

I'd like to say I've got it down for life now but we'll see.

And cause we've got the big Family version of the Book of Mormon we're trying to read that every day too. At the moment it's more like 5 days out of the week, which is good but we'll try and get it to 7/7. The girls do one verse each and me and Joe do a couple. Seth does one too (Joe thought it would be funny to talk in a squeaky little voice and say that's Seth....haha). We've done it for almost 3 weeks and I think we're still in chapter 2! I can't imagine going like that the whole way through to the end. The girls will be finished primary school by then surely :)