First Day Back

P8 is having two days at her old school, before we cross our fingers, hope we buy a house, and start at the new school. It's all a bit odd and unnerving, but she totally took it in her stride. 

Zen

I lost my zen a bit today. This is me trying to recover it. Pretty things I like to look at in my house:

I'm not going to whinge about all the small frustrations, but after a trying morning L&P and I did spend a long afternoon at the beach, getting a good dose of sunshine, sand and salty water. They had such a lovely time and I don't think I've ever seen them play together quite as closely as they did today. I wished I had taken a camera. Their giggles really helped.

Happy Birthday!

Lovely Mutti. We adore ya! Mwuh. 

Blogging The Good Bits

Beach rehearsals!

Buskers' Festival

We went into town with the whanau and saw some buskers. Most amazing show ever from this guy:



Oh my lord I still feel ill from witnessing the swallowed sword backflip IRL, and his contortion was just horrific. Ewwww.

Love the facial expression in the background :) 

Still, his contact juggling was very pretty. Hooray for being old enough to remember David Bowie in labyrinth. 

Three Things You Can Still Play Without Messing Up Your House For Open Homes

1. Pushing your sibling around on a wheely chair. He was pointing and making her follow the finger, but when I aimed the camera at him, it turned to a cheesy wave. I asked him to point like he was for the pic, but he said "No way, I'd look bossy." Gotta watch your online image I guess.

2. Arranging real estate agents' cards. Both children can tell you in great detail the different card styles we have collected. P8 has now alphabetized them for a bit of fun.

3. Running away to the beach to be crashed and bashed by enormously strong waves. Clearly, this one would have been the best photo op today, but I'm afraid I was too busy being crashed and bashed by waves to wield a camera.

Badminton

Silver award! Very proud of my boy. 

Showing his dad.

Poetry

I challenged each of my kids to learn a poem the other night. Okay, I offered them a buck when they could say one through. That was bedtime. Next morning, they both were a dollar richer.


L10 learnt Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, but no way would a self-respecting ten-year-old boy agree to be videoed by his mum reciting it.

Fruits Of All Our Painting And Tidying

Now we've got the house ready to market, it looks so nice I want to keep it.

Ha, as if the laundry was ever really that tidy!

Summer Holiday

Winter weather. Boo hiss.

We made a stop motion movie, while a gaggle of real estate agents trawled through our home.

Friends

The friends who went to live overseas a year ago came by to visit today. As requested I did face painting for the girls, which I remembered to take a pic of:

and gory wounds, bruises and much blood for the boys, which I didn't.

Cuteness

actually, cleverness! I'm a bit remiss on the old blog at the mo, but had to preserve this gorgeous writing on P8's birthday card from cousin S4 - clever boy!

Stardome

We had a great evening at the Stardome Observatory. 

Can you spot something very odd in P8's photo?

She tried to give her astronaut self photo bunny ears.  LOL.

Looming

P8 has joined the looming craze. It's possible I ask for more turns than she gets.

Trees

Even trees weren't enough to soothe frayed tempers today (and I'm talking mostly mine).

Stonkingly big trees.

 It was worth a shot though.

Photo Shoot

An interesting new experience - we had the photoshoot for the Resene Colour Your Home competition. It was all good, until the portrait part. Eeeek. Luckily the photographer was completely sweet and wonderful, so it could turn out okay. She was so clever setting up the stair shots, and P8 got to model too, which was lovely. 

Hmmm, I'm about the sell this house though if things work out. Eeeek again. 

Eight!!!

 It was a difficult birthday with Dad back at work and me off at rehearsal for the evening and all kinds of other stuff going on besides, but I hope you had a goodie, sweet P8.

The countdown is getting pretty long now. . .

 7

6

5

4

3

2

1

0

Late And Early Birthday

A day late for one cuzzie, a day early for the other - we had a couple of birthdays to celebrate with some outdoorsy stuff.

 Showing my completely terrible stance compared with small boys.

 So impressed with Grandad R for getting up that wall.

 Friend J shows superhuman strength on the free climb. He's not jumping here, just pulling with sheer brute force.

 Spider cuzzies.

 P7 wanted a pavlova, but at the last minute changed her mind to a meringue tower. No pressure mum.