Top Bunk

Rather a shock to me when I walked into M & W's bedroom to find this sight...

Worse yet to be greeted by my smallest monkey clambering to clean up the mess he created...

We do actually (being the cruel and heartless parents we are) have a rule about Merenia NOT having this kind of stuff on her bedside shelf (she's allowed books, ornaments and her lamp) so needless to say she got in some trouble too.

After we cleaned up of course.
Life is nothing if not interesting each and every day.
♥

NInja Graffiti Artist

See if you can guess who snuck into his brothers bedroom found a pen and tagged Kieran's Tennis Book....

I like that big flourish he has with his signature... it suits his personality. :-)
And no I didn't teach my 2 and half year old to write his own name, but he does like to draw and he likes us to write Will and draw smiley faces on the back of his hand. And no it's not a coincidence because he's done it again since with no prompting.
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Why He Loves Op Shopping

Five Dollars buys happiness in this house- sometimes less!

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Photos of Flowers

Probably my all time favourite thing to take pictures of....

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Oh that face

It really is just sweetest.

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Gone to the birds

By a stroke of misfortune gone good- Will and I discovered a great park up the back of Brown's Bay and we have been there to feed the birds a couple of times now. There is a fantastic collection of ducks, pigeons, skuas, gulls, black backed gulls, shags, mynas, and sparrows.

The pigeons are particularly forward, which Will really enjoys.

But not quite as forward as the pigeons at the beach....

Which kind of tests Will's limits.

He's not really scared just cautious- I wouldn't let it happen let alone be taking photos if he was unhappy.

♥

Seeing is believing

One of Wills favourite things to do is to fly planes on the computer with the transmitter. He is very dedicated and watches closely all that is happening on the screen. Unlike the other two kids he has also observed that Les hardly moves the sticks at all when he is flying with his transmitter. And so that's what Will does too.

Sometimes Les opens up videos on you tube of planes and helicopters flying. And Will flies them too-

...or at least they move when he's holding the sticks so he believes it.
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Fizz- a story about me.

So I went to the fruit and vege shop and got the standard supplies including a tray of eggs and a bottle of lemonade. I put the eggs on the front passengers seat and the rest in the foot well. Went around to my seat and jumped in the car.

That's when I heard the noise.

A bubbling, fizzing, plastic cracking type of noise.

I reached down to the bags and scrambled about from my weird leaning vantage point.

Hand we and sticky already I pulled the lemonade bottle upright and tried to stem the flow.

After a quick word Kieran jumped from the back and opened the front door. A steady stream of Lemonade arced across the car park and a puddle started to form two or so metres from the car.

The crack in the exterior of the bottle- just a tiny hole really, was just above the label and while the stream came fast it took a long time for the lemonade level to fall below the hole.

And that is how I came to find myself spread-eagled but balanced sideways, precariously over a tray of eggs holding a lemonade bottle in one hand as it sprayed the sticky sweet liquid goodness into the car park of Hobsonville Gardens Fruit and Vege shop on Hobsonville road from approximately 3:17 pm - 3:21 pm one week day afternoon.

And that folks is the totally weird thing that I call my life.

♥

Muse and Supervisor

Ruby is your typical cat. Aloof, distant, and demanding of her human slaves. She spends the bulk of her days outside and the nights inside in whatever her throne of choice is at the time (currently the coffee table in front of the fire or on the dishwasher if Will starts to lavish her with attention and yells "Will LOVES you Wu-by" in her face).

But sometimes she deigns to give us her attention and grace us with her presence- it's quite rare and so we don't pass up a chance even if it is quite inconvenient- she's fairly astute at picking these times. Like jumping your lap for a cuddle and a sleep five minutes before your bladder declares it's completely and overwhelmingly full. Or on the one night in forever that you have sat down to scrapbook....

Phew, I think she approved.

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Out of the Blue

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Hot Chocolate

There are few things better than a yummy hot chocolate on a cold day especially if it has cream and marshmallows. Will decided that he is partial to the odd hot choc as well- he even drinks the drink as opposed to just eating the yummy stuff off the top.
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The Good Wolf

I read this originally on Katie the Scrapbook Lady's Blog she had linked to it in a recent post about things she wants to remember. I have kept this one open in Firefox for a week or so now and keep coming back to it.

I'm a dweller. I come back to things over and over and without a good outlet to express things or someone with whom I can openly and honestly talk things over with I find it hard to settle and move on after conflict- (especially when I have felt unheard, misunderstood or that there was no resolution and things have been left hanging). I spend a lot of time thinking about what I'd like to say if given the chance, what I wish I'd done and so forth. I know which Wolf I'm feeding- but I'm not sure how to change.

___________________________________

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside all people. He said,

"My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside us all.

One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather:

"Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied,

"The one you feed."

♥

Why they think I'm Crazy at Rugby

After I get to the game on a Saturday morning and I have safely delivered bottles, jerseys and messages to the coaches there is generally at least 45 minutes available to me to do as I please while the team warms up. So I go for a walk. The other week I could be seen lying on the ground a field away and when I got back a couple of people asked me what the heck I was doing so I showed them.....

Walking with the camera is such an awesome way to see stuff you wouldn't normally notice and with rugby every second week we are somewhere new- so there are new things to see. And the changing of the seasons has made for some great pictures at our home ground as well.
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Layers

Layers have been on my mind a lot recently...


1. Panopticon Prison Arnhem, 2. Layer Cake (cáca milis), 3. layers, 4. Vertigo, 5. Apples and Peanut Butter, 6. Free jumbled type texture for layers, 7. Thousand-Layered Dessert, 8. Let There Be Light, 9. Layered Hills, 10. Plastic jellies, 11. Stars and Stripes, 12. Orange Layer Cake with Strawberries & Amaretto Pastry Cream 2, 13. Translucent layers, 14. All the Fun of the Fair, 15. Layers, 16. Layers

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Favourite Photo

I love it when I am editing our photos and come across one like this that is so sweet.
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One Car, Two Car, Old Car- New Car!!

We got a new to us car..... stuff like that is always exciting especially when you are a kid. The big kids got to ride home in it right after Les brought it- woo hoo!

And Will got to help clean it! Yipeeeee!!

♥

Three Children- Three Stories

8:18am 1 July 2010

Kieran has FIF-itis. This condition seems to ebb and flow in it's incidents around the world generally seeming to peak in pandemic type proportions every four years. It's thought that too many 6:30 starts, watching TV 1 and TVNZ 7 are contributors to the condition. This years victims seem to be particularly hard hit and are experiencing a prolonged buzzing noise in their ears for approximately 90 minutes at a time.

**********

Merenia and I had a conversation on the way to Netball on Saturday. We were talking about dangerous jobs. She went through what she thought were dangerous jobs and I added some more and also talked about how the same job can be different depending on what country you are in- like mining in African nations vs. Mining in Australia.

I was telling her about a factory in China which I believe produces components for Apple. I said that the working conditions there were so bad that in the last 6 months approximately 20 people had gone up to the roof and jumped off committing suicide.

She said: "They're gonna regret that"

I said: "No they won't because they're dead."

She said: "Well, yeah, but eventually they're gonna think about it and then they're gonna regret it.

**************

Will joined us at 3:40am the other morning (it happens sometimes) and we all went happily back to sleep.

He woke around 6:30am and said "Dorothy's crying". Hopped out of bed and went back to his bed and apparently fell asleep. He was still asleep at 7:30 when Les went to work- sideways across his bed.

When I got up a little later he had just come out of his room and for some reason was lying in the hall way with Dorothy. From my spot in the toilet I talked to Will (as you do).

Me: Hi buddy. Is Dorothy alright now?
Will: Yeah (He has changed his wistful Yessss to a soft and sad Yee-ah lately)
Me: Do you know what was wrong with her?
Will: No.
Me: Did you ask her why she was crying?
Will: She can't talk Mum.

Um yeah, well- duh.

**********

I had to leave the room while I was writing this apparently Will says:
"huy"

♥

Round-Up~ June

On our bookshelf this month....

Little Treasures Magazine I brought it because it was supposed to be two issues for one but the other issue was their pregnancy and Birth Mag- I read all the birth stories it made me wistful. Creating Keepsakes Magazine- so glad I went with the decision not to re-subscribe! They have now gone to a bi-monthly issue and seemed to think that 5 extra pages of content was enough for them to justify charging their subscribers two issue for one. With Becky Higgins, Ali Edwards and other big names all having left lately and now this a lot of people are unhappy- I think the writing is on the wall.

Any Mommy Out There? Super awesome Mom Blog!

Merenia is reading lots of Saddle Club at the moment and Jacqueline Wilson. And Will is still digging Pamela Allen and Lynley Dodd.

Loving on the box....

Dr Who, Grey's Anatomy, Underbelly- The Golden Mile (Love this!! Can't wait for the shit to hit the fan in the next couple of weeks), The Good Wife, the AB's game and FIFA WC- a few 5:30am starts to watch the NZ games we have recorded before any media contact spoiling the result for us.

We seem to have significantly reduced our telly watching which is great and have managed a couple of nights with no telly at all- yay!

For you...For me?

Flowers and Balloons for Saskia and some stuff from Smiggle and some cash for Sam. Plus a few things have started going in the wardrobe for Christmas and we did the big Toy world Lego Layby for Christmas.

A Finapple and a Framango for Finlay and Fraser.

Germs and bugs and botherations....

We all (except Les I think) got a coldy icky thing mid month and I had a second cold at the end of the month. I have also had a tooth ache on and off. Blah.

Today was good today was fun, tomorrow is another one...

Saskia's birthday was nice we had a good day at Brown's Bay.

Will and I have had a couple of great Wednesday's at Brown's Bay- we discovered a new park where we can feed the ducks- the playground is a little limited for shorties like Will but we still have fun. Will also enjoyed the beach when Merenia was doing her Choir/Uke performance at the local B-Bay rest home- yay for living somewhere where you can paddle in winter.

We went to work the day the Rescue Helicopter came and Les, Will, and Merenia got to go inside and have a turn on the flight sim.

Yum, yum, yum....

Just more of the same really.

'It was on sale'....

Will got a toy vacuum cleaner, kitchen, and some new dress-ups from various sources- how many other two year olds do you know that say "Let's go Op-shopping Mum!" I did a little scrap shopping. :-) And got another set of Grey's Season 4- this one works!

We collected the entire set of McDonald's FIFA Coke glasses. :-) And have quite a few of the new Lego Mini figures. :-)

Our home school money for the first half of the year came and Will finally his Ukulele and we got some play food and a few books. We are saving the rest for some new software for the computer.

Bugger!

The camera is playing up which is driving me a little batty.

Hooray!

The kids had a couple of wins for sport.

Les won the Soarfest.

Will won a little Blue (Blues Clues) toy in a colouring competition.

Etc...

Kieran was in the Year 7 & 8 team for the BP Challenge.

Alyssa had a sleep over.

We went and watched one of Jakes soccer games one Saturday.

Jake stayed over and we watched the AB's game.

Merenia went to Petra's birthday party.

We got a new-to-us car- A silver Toyota Caldina.

Lots of rain and broken pipes has meant lots of floods at the end of our drive and lots of water fun.

This year's Weet Bix All Blacks Promotion has started consumption of weet bix is up 50% in the Stockley house- funny that.

Will enjoyed the Wiggles car at Countdown.

I tidied Merenia's room- phew!

You know who's good idea this was? Katie The Scrapbook Lady. Go check out her list of tasks to do at the end of each month as well.