365 Week 50

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365 Week 49

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Peek-a-boo!

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365 week 48- (Catching up again)

 

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Cool Dude

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Flora on Friday

 

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Four out of Six ain't bad

But it could have been five.... Merenia!!!

 

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My Word 2012

I did have a word for the year this year but I never got around to blogging it- which is about the same for how I lived it too.... but I have valid reasons- hard to have habits when everything is changing! My new word is everything I need right now and every thing our family needs to I think....

Simple

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The last of the post-it's

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Lucky Tama

We are very lucky to have such great friends and family- here are some of the cool gifts Tama got when he was born. We are very grateful to the following people: Raewyn who got the above, Carolann for the scrapping goodness and Miss Wendy for the yummy bikkies (perfect for new mum energy) both delivered directly bedside (hence no photo), My parents, Nana, and grandma for the cash which will go into T's account (when we get around to that), the Carrington-Hogg family for the Giraffe, and The Casbolt-Brinkmans for the baby sized rugby ball and...

The Brinkmans

The Harrisons

The Dawsons

My lovely (Auckland) neighbour Sharon.

The Corsans

 

Rach and Freddy

 

The S&S section at Whenuapai.

Hopefully I didn't miss anyone!

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He's Four- more details coming soon-

 

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My Happy Place

I don't currently have a friends place (or a Starbucks) that I can take off to if I am over hanging out at home- (or over hanging out with the people at home). So I was glad to find this place which is calm and tranquil but also very interesting and just lovely for a little break. And the locals are very colourful. 

 

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Watching

One of T's favourite things to do is watch out the windows- the ones in our bedroom go down to the floor and he has a view through the plants to our road which has enough people and car action especially around 3pm to make it quite interesting. So we sit and he watches. And I watch him and he's absolutely gorgeous.

 

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Jealous, me?

Hello??

Check out the background of the photos of the (beautiful) artwork in this post on the One Lucky Day Blog- how super seriously cool is that?

She has a collection of 'Gypsy' books!! And she makes cool art- totally beside the point though- Gypsy books!!!!!

Gypsy goes away to seriously consider if she wants to add to her life stash (and book stash) my own collection of Gypsy books.... hmmmmmm?

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The week where I fell off the face of the earth.

It's not like me to just not blog- and for a whole week no less. But I did and there you have it. It's not been any more or less busy than usual. I have my husband back from the land of the bonnie wee scotts laddies. My children are home for the holidays, and my baby has slept well enough. My Christmas and birthday shopping is under control. I have a list and I've checked it more than twice. I've even checked things off of it! But it's just been a week where everything that's been brewing with the whole have a baby, move countries thing has totally and utterly caught up with me, Les and the big kids. That's not to say we are regretting the move or the baby, just that both have brought their challenges and for this week the complexity of issues we faced in NZ and new issues that come with change have all piled up on us like snow in a northern Christmas- gently and quietly, floating snowflake by snowflake. First it doesn't settle and then little by little it does just in little drifts in corners and crevices and it builds so slowly you don't see it until there is a mountain of snow and it seems all too hard to shovel a way through. But shovel we will and I'm sure we'll make it through. It's just overwhelming at the moment.

I read tonight of a Ali Edwards impending divorce, she wrote with such grace and asked knowing there would be a huge out pouring of comments from her adoring fans that their words be positive. I wrote...


What an incredible life you've had.
What an incredible life you have.
What an incredible life you'll have.
There is no doubt.

And it's true for us all. Sometimes it's incredibly hard- but it's still incredible.

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Flora on Friday

 

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Flora on Friday

 

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The Volcano Park

Just before Les went to Aberdeen Will, Tama and I met up with him so we could go check out a butcher and then after went and ate our lunch in the 'Volcano Park' which is really close to Les' work. It is a pretty cool playground and has some amazing gardens around it as well. We call it the Volcano Park as it has a big Volcano in the middle that the kids can climb all over. The day we visited the mister machine was being serviced so no 'steam' coming from the Volcano- but most days it does.

 

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Teacher's Day and the Dept. of Ed.

 

I am in two minds about this little thing above.

1. Woo hoo! Great teachers are valuable and important and amazing and don't get nearly enough thanks and appreciation.

2. Seriously? I know we haven't been tax payers in Australia for a while but if our education tax dollars are going on posting out a full colour card and the full colour A4 letter that came with it I'm not sure that's wise use of money which I'm sure schools could happily spend in other areas. 

And it's not just this all the receipts for payments I make and a lot of notices (especially from the high school) are posted to me- I mean could they not just give them to the kids to bring home saving an envelope and a stamp. I know some kids aren't terribly responsible and some things might take a while to get into parents hands if they come via that route-but I don't think that bypassing them completely is going to help improve the situation at all. I get a lot of mail from the WA Dept. of Ed- and I think it's all just a big fat waste of money that could be better spent on kids and their education! And that's just the start of my issues with the department of Ed. Let's not get started on the fact that Merenia's school does not have a dedicated full time secretary- but a number of floaters the main one that I have encountered generally doesn't seem to have a clue what she's doing. I miss Mrs Crawford- grumpy though she may have been on occasion- she knew what she was doing and got stuff done.

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Moment

It was the sound of the car that woke me. I rolled over and the bright red of the clock told me it was 1:50am almost simultaneously I heard the click of the hallway door and the soft padding of almost four year old feet on the wooden floor. He paused in the hallway murmuring with fright no doubt at the shadowy figure that was looming in the long opaque glass panels of the front door. He stood rooted to the spot. I delicately as possible leapt from the bed so as not to wake the baby and whispered into the night "It's alright buddy". Then the front door opened and the feeling of relief was as audible as his words; "Oh, yes". And at the moment all was right with the world because after three long, tiring, aching weeks, daddy was finally home.

Finally we are all three tucked into our respective beds, after welcome cuddles, cool drinks and murmured stories. The baby is having a drink of his own between us as we lay in the heat on the sheets. The padding came again and the door cricked open and the voice brightly chirped into the wee hours of the morning: "I am the champion of Tennis Dad!" Just one more story that needed to be told before morning. The tucking in is repeated and it's quiet again. Till morning.

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