I wonder if Adam would like a sip of my milkshake...

Thank you, Hamilton Hunters!

Hamilton Gardens

We had a fantastic weekend down at Hamilton with Robert, Chern and Torin. We spent some time playing in the Gardens and watching a mother duck with her 12 fluffy ducklings. The girls loved the riverside stage and put on an impromptu show.

Zoo babies

On Friday we went to the zoo and had a great time. There were babies every where - we loved seeing the meerkat, baboon and wallaby babies most. We also loved following the map to different animals and all the treats that mum brought along to ensure it was a smooth afternoon.

Family Photos

I am constantly on a quest to get a decent photo of all 5 children together. By decent, I don't even require all of them to be looking at the camera and smiling. All I need is eyes open and a neutral/normal expression. Here is a recent attempt. Sometimes I despair.

Sky Tower

Rich took a day of annual leave on Friday and led an expedition to the Sky Tower. In doing so, he allowed Grace to tick off three things on her "Things to do in the holidays" list. These included a visit to the sky tower, a ride on a boat and a long walk. Only five items left! All very achievable, thankfully.

Kids for Kids Choir

Grace performed again this year in the World Vision Kids for Kids Choir. Jane and Laura went to watch, and it was absolutely brilliant. There were 500 children in the choir and they sang a lot of old favourites. Amazing!

On a quiet afternoon

Book Week

During book week the girls had to go to school as a character from a favourite book. Grace went as Eddie, a girl from the series The Boys start the War, Jane went as Annie McCray, from Hip, Hip Hooray for Annie McCray, and Josephine went as the youngest princess from The Twelve Dancing Princesses, ie the only one with any sort of conscience or moral fibre.

Pampering

The girls do love a good session at the spa.

Dusk

J and J watching the sun go down.

Happy Birthday, Grace!

Well, hard to believe that our sunny little baby has turned into a beautiful 9 year old! She had a movie party, in which she and her friends created a movie together (yes, mum, I will get it to you!). It really was the best party we have ever hosted. Organised. Structured. Timed perfectly. Oh yeah, and Fun! As you may see, the tightly controlled aspect of the whole thing was particularly pleasing to us. This may be because it was not long after Jane's movie party, in which we invited all her friends over for a pajama party with a movie and popcorn. 40 minutes into the movie we had a horde of little people jumping on the top bunk, saying gleefully, "Let's play zombies in the dark!" Things have changed forever around here!

Drama!

Josephine has been loving going to her drama class. One of her friends has an amazingly talented mum who teaches drama and runs a class after school once a week for 6 year 1 students. Each week she gets some "homework" like learning a joke or describing a feeling or something similar. One day she came home and told us that she needed to practise miming feeding the dog. She was very adamant that she must follow the Four Rules of Mime. Only problem being she could only remember two of them. Somewhat baffled, we brainstormed as many rules of mime as we could. It was an exercise that stretched all of our capabilities. I believe her mime was considered adequate the following week. This photo was taken after the end of term clown party.

Kiwi Collage

Jane was very happy to have her collage of a Kiwi displayed with other art from local primary schools at the Albany shopping mall.

Netball

Grace had a great netball season. The Magic were a solid team and all of them played hard. Grace even scored her first goal! So exciting.

Walking and Talking

Adam is walking and running (only when going downhill so far) with great enjoyment and confidence now. He is like a little wind-up toy in that as soon as you set him down he is in motion. He has also learnt his first word: Yeah. He says it often and with much conviction and lots of nodding. Adam, are you hungry? Yeah. Adam, do you want to go outside? Yeah. Adam, would you like a bath? Yeah. Adam, do you love me? Yeah! Such an agreeable soul. We love him!

Lazy

Well, that is my only excuse for not posting anything here since July! Terrible. And so much has happened. We've had Grace's birthday and Rich's birthday, Adam has started walking, we went and stayed with Robert and Chern in Hamilton for a great weekend, all sorts of school events and Adam has started talking! Well, he says one word. But that is big news, and I have been very remiss in not recording it all here for the Grandparents. Will fix things now with the photos I have and get some more from Rich as soon as I can.

Cousins

It has been fantastic having Robert, Chern and Torin stay with us this week!

Jane

Grace at Pumphouse Theatre