Saturday 31 December 2011

What a year it's been

It's New Year's Eve today and it makes you think back over what's happened in the past year.  It's been a pretty eventful one for us!

It started with a crazy mad frenzy of selling up in England to move to NZ, being left to do it by myself because Adam had to go 5 and a half weeks before we could finish up and follow after. It was a highly stressful experience I don't ever wish to repeat.  On the other hand, I was so very grateful that I was surrounded by friends and family who came out in force to help me in all sorts of ways - cooking dinners, taking the kids for me so I could organise things, helping with the garage sale, buying our stuff and a major big clean up on the house to ensure we got our deposit back.  I am so grateful to have such good people in my life.

We have been so blessed to be able to make this big move for our little family and start to settle in the place we feel should be our permanent home.  The kids have made the transition really well, although we all miss our family in England a lot.  Leilani (turned 7 in Aug) settled in really well at school and coped brilliantly with 15 months of school without a summer holiday!  She has really thrived being amongst Kiwi kids who just get on with things in the most part and aren't too self conscious.  She has become much more daring and willing to give things a try.  Zach (turned 4 in Oct) has enjoyed being at Kindy, although I've had to step up with teaching him some basic things at home because they just play at Kindy.  He's done really well with learning his phonetic alphabet and counting.  Leilani has even taught him to do some basic adding and subtracting :) Tilly (turned 2 in March) has had a year of terrible twos.  She's really putting us through our paces and can be a stroppy little madam.  The most stubborn of all our children (and believe me, we're a pretty stubborn family!).  On the plus side she is incredibly cute.  The humidity here has turned her mad hair into lovely ringlets, although I have a constant battle with her to keep anything in her hair to stop it going wild.  She is very affectionate and moulds herself into you when she gives you a cuddle.  If we lay down on the floor or sofa whilst watching tv she'll often come and lie on top of us, fitting herself into our shape.
March 2011 - a mad hair day
We had a long and expensive process to get our residency - 8 months, which actually isn't too bad in terms of what's "normal" and about $3500.  Could have been a lot more if I hadn't done all the paperwork myself and shopped around for good deals on medicals.  We finally got that all finished at the end of October and are now New Zealand residents.  We're free to come and go as we want, and once we've lived here for 2 years the residency will be permanent.  All it means in the meantime is we have to spend more time here than anywhere else in these 2 years, and must be in the country at the time that the 2 years ends.

In July we had a lovely weekend away with Sam in Hahei and got to see the beautiful part of the country called the Coromandel.  Just wish we could go more often.

Cousins in Hahei
Adam and I had our 10 year anniversary on 1st Sep and took an overnight trip to Wellington.  It was lovely to get away, just the two of us and spend that time together.  And I really liked the city itself.  We had great fun walking around in the evening, finding some geocaches and looking at sculptures.  It was like being back in the days before kids :)

Waiting for our flight to Wellington in the Kuru Lounge

Then we had a difficult thing to deal with relating to some close friends of ours.  The details of it are certainly not for me to put in a public post.  It took some prayer and relying on feelings from the spirit to know the right thing to do, but in doing so we also knew there would be some difficult consequences for our friends.  I am grateful that we were able to be put to use to help a friend in his extreme time of need.  I am so proud of the way he has handled himself and the progress he has made.  He is a great person who deserves so much good in his life.  I know that we did the right thing and that it was necessary, but it has resulted in one friend distancing herself.  I hope she knows we are here for her at anytime - you are worth so much more than you are allowing yourself at the moment.  You have friends here waiting to help and be there for you when you are ready - the door will always be open.

And of course I can't forget about the Rugby World Cup.  It really was amazing to be in amongst the atmosphere as New Zealand hosted and then went on to win it.  Although England's performance was pretty terrible!  It was great to be here for the ceremonies, fireworks and general excitement.

Outside the giant rugby ball - unfortunately we were a little too late to go in
We've enjoyed the run up to Christmas, as the weather has warmed up (although it doesn't get very cold in winter like we're used to, the Kiwi's are in denial that they need heating and insulation built into their homes!) there have been some events put on in the area.  We had the Kiwi Day Out in the Auckland domain and various Santa parades in the North Shore.

So we've been here nearly a year now and have loved it.  We're really looking forward to settling in properly, and building up our life here.  We feel very blessed to have had such a good year overall.

Tuesday 27 December 2011

Christmas 2011

I was expecting Christmas to be a little bit flat this year, since it was our first permanent one away from England and the majority of our family that's over there.  But, it was actually really, really good.  

Look what Lani found whilst we were browsing the mall for Christmas presents :)

I'll start out with Christmas Eve. We had a fairly lazy Saturday morning and then went out to Rosedale park for a little bit before hitting the mall for a couple of last minute things.  As you can see, the weather really picked up and was gorgeous all through Christmas Eve to Boxing Day

That evening we went to Sam's where she'd invited us, the Beaumonts and a couple of other friends.  It was a really lovely evening with the kids playing nicely together, some yummy snacks to eat, general chilling out, chatting and singing carols around the fire out on the deck.  We stayed out pretty late and the kids didn't get to bed until just gone 10.  The presents were soon under the tree, but there was a slight delay on the stockings because Lani was too excited to sleep!  I went in to check on them and she sat bolt upright thinking she'd caught Santa :) She finally dropped out around 10.45pm and had a left a note on top of her stocking (will add a picture of it soon!).  It says "To Santa, please can you get my scooter"


Here's our rather sorry looking tree - our decorations are still back in England in Mom's loft :) But at least Santa has been!

On Christmas morning we went to the Taylor's for brunch, which was amazing!  Aaron and Rhona had done croissants with ham, tomato and a creamy sauce inside, then cheese on top and grilled.  They were gorgeous!  And then we had trifle after too.  We had to dash off quickly after that because our ward had church at 10am (they were at 11) just for an hour.  After church we headed home to open the presents - we'd let the kids open one before having to leave fairly early for brunch, so still had all the rest to go.

Adam with his new giant beanbag from Jared, ready to hand out the presents.

Tilly with some special English chocolate from Grandma O'Gram

Another shot of the present opening frenzy :) 
After the presents everyone went for a sleep, which was much needed after getting to bed late and up at 6.10am (although I had to wake Tilly up at 8am so we could get ready to go).  I got the roast potatoes done and then went for a little snooze myself.  We headed to the Beaumonts for dinner, with the same group that had been at Sam's on Christmas Eve.  Again, another lovely afternoon/evening with good people and food and the kids all having fun together.  The dinner was delicious and the kids had a water fight afterwards.



Tilly kept out of the way with the rabbit while the water was being thrown around

New PJs from Great Nan and Grandad - I love Tilly's face in this one!

And Zach's new PJs - although this is not a good photo! 
Tilly making herself comfy on boxing day morning
On Boxing Day we had a nice chilled morning and then went to the beach in the afternoon with the Wells-Lakelands and Garsides (all lovely people!) and then back to the Wells-Lakelands house for a BBQ in the evening.  Another day of good food and good people :)
It's great to have some older ones around who will play with our littlies!



Friday 23 December 2011

Messages from Santa

Here are the kids messages from Santa - sent via the Portable North Pole device ;)

Although, I haven't managed to watch them yet because our internet connection is so slow!


(Click on the name to go to their video)

Thursday 8 December 2011

Diary of a sleep deprived mum

I miss being able to wake up at a time of my own choosing. Even if it was to an alarm clock that I set - at least I decided on the time. Or on Saturdays being able to waste a couple of hours mooching in bed. My normal alarm clock now is the kids fighting at 6 something a.m. When will they be old enough to just get up and go turn the tv on and quietly watch it while they wait for me to get up? (and if your answer is never, I don't want to hear it! Seriously, it's not even funny and may tip me over the edge into complete madness)

And I am so over the fighting. Constant, relentless, arguing and physical fighting. If they're awake and within a 10m radius of each other they can't go more than a couple of minutes without fighting over something. And I know it's normal. I know we all did it. I know I did it (this is probably some kind of karma pay back) but it does my head in! Even short journeys turn into scream-athons (and that's just me haha!). Zach and Tilly sit in the back and are *just* close enough to be able to reach each other to hit and scratch and whatever else. Or fight over whether to have the arm rest in the middle up or down.

Grrr.....

There is beauty all around, when there's no one home....

Wednesday 7 December 2011

Mini Stockings

I have started making these diddy little stockings for hanging on the Christmas tree.  I love them, for a few different reasons.  They're mini and almost everything in miniature is cute :) They're easy and quick and look cool on the tree and I have finally found a good way to crochet a heel (thanks to the lovely t'internet!).  I may be a bit slow with the heel thing, most people start out on things like booties, so learn that crucial skill early on, but I went down the route of finding more unusual and interesting projects.  Maybe I'll start doing funky booties now :)

Sunny Saturday in the bays

Before I start on Saturday, just need to mention our stick insect visitor the day before.  He crawled up onto the passenger wing mirror on our trip back from taking Lani to school.  We went to Castor Bay (where I had a family photo shoot to do) and I thought it had left us there.  Except after school it crawled out from under the bonnet again :)  The kids had fun watching it do a groovy walk where it kind of swings side to side and then had a go at putting their hands out for it to walk on to.  My kids were too scared (it was about as big as Lani's hand) but Lani had a friend over to play who was totally into it and let it crawl on her hand.  Then Lani tried to do it, but as soon as she touched it she freaked and pulled her hand back which then made the stick insect freak.  It was fast! It ran straight up Lani's friend's arm, up the back of her head and onto the top of her head.  She was really good, and just giggled about it, whilst i was trying to figure out how I was going to get it off her without having to touch it myself! I hooked it off with a stick in the end and it scuttled off :)



On Saturday we had a really gorgeous day and headed to the beach in the afternoon.  We were going to try Torbay as we hadn't been there before, but they had a regatta on (plus the beach looked a bit naff once we got there!) so we just carried on up the coast 5 mins to Long Bay - gorgeous!  I got to spend a few blissful minutes lying on the beach while Adam and Zach played with a ball and racket and Tilly and Lani played together in the sand.


Afterwards we headed to Browns Bay for the Santa Parade, which was good fun.  We got ice cream at Penguinos, watched a band and then secured our spot on the roadside to watch the parade.  It was good fun, with cheer leaders, transformers, kung fu panda, sweets being thrown out (I almost typed lollies - argh! Must not lose my Englishness!) and of course Santa.  Except he was on the back of a boat instead of a sleigh haha :D



Tuesday 6 December 2011

Kindy Caterpillars

Zach's kindy has a bush that attracts the Monarch butterfly.  A few weeks ago the caterpillars started coming out and they were all over it!  Zach, Tilly and Lani had a great time find all sizes of caterpillars and letting them crawl onto their fingers.  And over the last few weeks we've kept an eye on them as they go through each phase of growing into butterflies.


This caterpillar we managed to keep an eye on all the way through to it becoming a butterfly.  They attach themselves and hang upside down while they make the chrysalis, which is made like a new skin, and the old one is shed to reveal the chrysalis underneath.  They stay in it for about 2 weeks (we kept checking on ours eagerly every time we went back to kindy!). It's bright green for most of that, but towards the end it begins to darken until you can start to see the wings through it.  Then on the day before they come out it goes almost black and you can see the wings really clearly as the chrysalis is really thin.  Then they work their way out, hang on to the outside while they pump up their wings and let them harden.  Then they flutter them a little and go for little test flights around the bush before trusting them properly.

A teeny one on Lani
...and on Zach...
...and Tilly :)
Our little caterpillar's (which turned out to be female) chrysalis was really dark when we dropped Zach at kindy last Thursday and then by the time we came to collect him she had just come out and was sitting on the bush letting her wings grow harder and stronger.  She had a close call when she took a test flight and ended up on the main path out of kindy.  We got a leaf for her to crawl onto and put her back in the bush out of the way of little trampling feet.
Pretty new and bright green

getting darker
Almost ready...
and she's out!

Albany Mall Christmas Fireworks

Every year Albany mall have a festival at the start of the Christmas season.  We took the kids along and it was really good - definitely something to be made into an annual family tradition :D  We went and got the kids faces painted first (although the queue was the slowest it has ever been!) and they were up to the usual excellent standard (Albany mall always hire the same company and they're fantastic, and usually work a lot faster to get through the kids too...)




Then we went outside where they had a band playing and a fire eater and a girl on stilts with wings lit on fire.

After that we went back to our spot near where we'd parked, ready to watch the fireworks.  It was one of the best fireworks displays we've ever seen, and we've seen some pretty awesome ones!  We had the perfect place to watch them too.  They were set off over the lake and we were on the opposite side to the mall (most people were on the mall side).  On that side it meant that we were a bit closer and the wind was blowing in our direction so it meant that once they were let off they actually went off right over our heads - we had sore necks afterwards!  It was fantastic, and not too hard to get out at the end since we were on the other side to most people - it was really busy and some friends of ours waited 40 minutes trying to get out of the car park.

Definitely one to do as an annual family trip!

Polkadots at Sylvia Park

I took the kids to see the Polkadots do their Christmas thing at Sylvia Park mall one Friday at the end of November.  It was a bit of a last minute decision to take the kids down there, so I told Lani when I picked her up from school and they were all very excited and starting chattering about what they were going to wear.  Lani and Tilly were trying to remember what spotty clothes they had and Zach was getting a bit upset that he didn't have anything with polkadots on.  So we decided to make up a Mr Bop costume and came up with this:



The concert was really good and the kids, of course, totally loved it.  They went round collecting autographs afterwards (funny cos we see them as their "real" selves so often!) and what I thought was a fab little touch is that they all have a pen in their own polkadot colour for signing autographs :D even Mr Bop (a bright blue).

Tilly was actually happy here, it's just that she had gotten lost for about 2 secs just before!