You Know It's Time For New Shoes When.....

.....You tackle poor 14yo boys in the supermarket, lol!

I was thinking about this little incident today and having a little chuckle to myself! I was in New World in Otaki with my Nana and young Britts and I was wearing these high-heeled cloggy things that I'm far too clumsy to ever have bought in the first place ;o)

Nana and I were at the checkout when we realised we'd lost Brittany and had to backtrack and find her. I'm waltzing down the aisles far too confidently when I slip on the floor and loose my footing. Feeling myself heading towards an ungraceful end, I reach out at the first thing I can grab - which happens to be the poor lad re-stocking the shelves! I engulf the poor creature in a rugby-tackle-cum-bear-hug and he kindly cushions my fall as we slide along the shiny floor!

The bonus was that with my new vantage point of underneath the shelves, I see Britts' shoes in the next aisle over and I am able to apologise profusely to said 14yo and pop round the corner to reclaim my lost wee cousin.

The poor 14yo continues stocking the shelves, trying quietly but desperately to block the last five minutes out of his mind completely ;o)

New Years Resolution Suggestion: "Only Buy Shoes That Suit Me - REGARDLESS Of The Price" ;o)

The Morning After.....

Well, the last time I told the girls to turn their torches off and go to sleep was at 1.30am, and then they started filtering inside at 5am, so while the morning was fun - they packed up somewhat in the afternoon/early evening.

We had the neighbours up for a visit, and Darren et al were still here, which - along with the party girls and the rest of the family - made for some fun in the sun this morning. There was the obligatory game of croquet, along with a table tennis challenge (Uncle Darren reckoned he only had room in the car to pack his B game, but he still managed to whip me - grrrrrr!).


There was four square and bike races and hoop shooting:


And a bit of mischef with the hose:


No place for jandals when there's serious Olympics going on on the front lawn!:


A11 took this cool photo of Jasmine from over the road munching on a slab of watermelon:


Sue having a coffee:


Here some of us are before we set off across the road to see and pat and feed the sheep, horses, cows, fish, dogs and cats:


Some last photos before they disappeared back to Auckland:

Visitors From Afar.....

Uncle Dazza brought his Malaysian houseguests for a visit last night. Dorothy's family are - surprise, surprise - as gorgeous and lovely as she is:




And try as we might to get a halfway decent photo of Big D, these were as close as we got, ;o) (apparently it's Beardember now that Movember has finished?):



Speaking of photo's of Uncle Darren, seeing as how this was our first meeting with Lynette and Jacque, we felt we should remove the photo we have hanging in the dining room of Uncle Darren 'riding Nana's sheep, you know the one where his pants fell down?":

Happy Birthday H8.....

Yep, it's the sleepover party with the traditional trillion guests we get traipsing through at this time of year, nearly every year! What's the use of having a party dress if you don't wear it to your party?:



Hannah made up her own cake this year - a chocolate cake, hollowed out and filled with jelly and lollies:




What sleepover would be complete without the presence of Soph?:


What birthday would be complete without the presence of Megan?:


What kid's party would be complete without the adults having a cuppa inside to get away from the rabble outside?:


From what we can gather, Trampy is approximately the same age as H8, so he had to have a wee pressie too:


A wee game of croquet (hard to believe, I know!):



Some hoops being shot:


A surprise visit from Uncle Paul and Penny, which meant our softball teams were even(ish) - 7 boys against 8 girls. Girls won. Of course:


Getting their beds, etc. organised out in the tent:

Pilot Bay.....

"We're going to Pilot Bay, keen?"

What kind of a question is that? We have the car, our morning visitors have left, and it's been such a long time, it seems, since we've been to the beach.

A Paddling They Will Go.....

The Lad and A11 took off this morning for a paddle across the harbour. They left from Welcome Bay and went out to Motuopuhi Island and back.

I bet A11 was pleased he had the camera and *had* to take the photos, because it looks like The Lad was doing most of the work, lol!:

Biting Off More Than They Can Chew.....

Just hanging today and happened to walk past a rather odd-looking, guilty-faced little boy in his room:


Mostly because the rule is "No eating in the bedrooms", but I was kinda curious about the novel way he had chosen to wear his pyjama top?

Wandering further down the hall I come across this scene:


I'm not sure what the buzz here is, but it's stifling hot and both L5 and L9 got changed *out* of their pyjamas this morning, and now L5 is semi-back in his, and L9 has her winter robe on on top of her clothes, just doing a spot of quilling at the dining room table.

Book Title For The Day: "Say Goodbye to Whining, Complaining, and Bad Attitudes... in you and your kids!" by Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller.

Not that I've *actually* read it, understand. I gave it to my friend Janie to turn into an audio book for me - I'm so lazy when it comes to reading books. But I sort of feel a bit compelled to do something other than let this one collect dust, because it has had so much world money spent on it. I couldn't source it here so I bought it through Amazon for $US8.50 and was too cheap to pay the $US40 freight so I got it shipped to Bazza in the Big Apple, my Bride'sMate (that's what we called him when I made him go on my side in our Bridal Party, lol! "Alright" he said, "But I'm NOT wearing pink, and I'm NOT wearing a dress". Roger That).

I told him to put the book on a slow boat via Guatemala, I didn't care, as long as it got to me before I turned 40, and it didn't cost me the earth.

He must have more money than sense, because I got a FedEx parcel from Mr Vasalini, our fabulous Italian mailman, that cost him $US135 to get to me!!!!! Needless to say, I haven't reimbursed you yet, have I darling? Never mind, if we do decide to come and visit you in the next few months, I might shout you a coffee for your efforts ;o)

Boxing Day Visitors.....

Lucky for us we had visitors today, I never got round to getting dressed the entire time they were, but that didn't scare them off any ;o)

Cathy playing table tennis with A11:



Solomon and Matt hanging out:

Our Bubba Again.....

Some more photos from Nana of when James was visiting them in Gizzy over Christmas:

Christmas Day 2008.....

Well, again this year, this day seemed to take such a long time to arrive. We knew it had when at 5.30am we started hearing excited little whispers from the bedrooms and timid little footsteps creeping into the lounge. The whispers growing louder, until they were little squeals of delight and anticipation - first the two girls, then L5, and finally A11 gathering to see what treasures awaited them under the tree.

"Can we open some now, Dad, pleeeease?". And so, with eyes not quite ready to be awake, and a stomach not quite ready for marshmallow (but those cherries looked delicious), the present unwrapping began. It was all very ordered chaos, and children certainly seem to have an innate knowledge of how to make lasting Christmas morning memories. Everyone was very happy with their gifts, everyone getting a few things from their 'Most Wanted' list.

Hannah got a few new Schleich animals to add to her collection:


A11 got some new shoes and a softball:



The Lad started round with the rubbish sack whilst I started preparing our little Christmas Breakfast tradition of fresh fruit and berries with chantilly cream and yoghurt, with strawberries floating in sparkling grape juice for toast and good wishes.


After talking with the rellies (I was surprisingly composed, as I'm not really good on Christmas with just The Lad and The Kids), and cleaning up after breakfast, the games began. Now some families spent the day counting their blessings and being thankful that they were blessed with the whanau they have, but not us, not this year.

We had a SIX-tathlon(? couldn't find any reference to any six event multi-sport title), and a fiercely competitive one at that! There were a few rounds with H7's new croquet set, with The Lad taking the title there. We had a round robin marathon with L9's new table tennis set, and I took out Champion of The World in that. There was softball - boys against girls - with A11's new bat and ball, and L5's new baseball and catchers' mitt. Two games, both tied at the bottom of the last.

We also had a few new card games to learn and beat people at - there was L5's new SkipBo and H7's new Phase Ten (I'm sure I won them two), and we also had L9's new Pass the Buck.

I tell you, there were tears, and tantrums, and victory laps, and more tears, and much ribbing, and an awesome day all round. It reminded me of Christmas at The Park, where the majority of my maternal extended whanau usually gather at Queen Elizabeth Park in Paekakariki and we feast and swim and have matches to the death in volleyball, badminton, cricket, touch, soccer, softball, and anything else anyone thinks up or brings equipment for.

Tramp had the right idea, though, The Lad and I were well jealous of him, getting to curl up and sleep because he was tired:



Merry Christmas, everyone xoxoxo

'Twas The Night Before Christmas.....

It's all just too exciting, the pressies we have lovingly made are wrapped and waiting to be gifted to their intended recipients:


And the sacks are placed strategically and expectantly under the tree:


The Nativity Scene is out, complete with Baby Jesus:


The orange juice is waiting:


The energy snacks for Man and Beast are prepared:


So there's nothing left to do but wait. And get to sleep. The trouble is, I don't know if I can ;o)

Passing Through.....

Our baby called in on his way down to Nana and Grandad's for his first ever Christmas:

Let The Credits Roll.....

Because we've been so busy hanging with all our visitors, I've been flat tack drinking coffee, playing croquet, eating *everything*, and talking a load of *nothing* that I haven't taken any photos of all our visitors (of which we've had HEAPS!).

Purely for posterity, to remind us of this long, fine Summer of Visitors, I'll try and remember some of our peeps who blessed us with their presence - thanks to Darren and Dorothy C, et al; Stephen and Tracey L, et al; Caroline A, et al; Pam and Gary H, et al; Lisa O, et al; Sharon O, et al; Louise M, et al; Jen M, et al; Nana and Poppa; Paul and Penny, et al; Sue and Greg P, et al; Graeme and Sokchea, et al; Tony and Donna, et al; Colleen B, et al; Jane and Daniel M; Cathy and Matt R, et al; Colin M; Steve and Sienna R; Cameron and Thomas F.

I tell you, we're blessed xoxoxo

Our First Ever Garlic Harvest.....

Yep, I don't know how we managed it, but we actually got edible, tasty, juicy, fresh garlic this year. We've been spoiled forever now, because shop-bought will never measure up when we've eaten our way through these:



Album(s) for the Day: The Lazy Sunday Box, a 6CD boxed set I bought from the library for $2 ;o) The Lad was stoked - Not! - it contains such gems as "April in Paris" by Charlie Parker, "As Time Goes By" by Dooley Wilson, "At Sundown" by the Oscar Peterson Trio and "Autumn in New York" by Frank Sinatra.

Chill, baby.....

Handmade Gifts 2008.....

The girls were delivered back today by Nana and Poppa, and while they were away they finished off handpainting the nameplates we had decided to make for our littlest cousins this year. We wrapped them and put them under the tree:


We went on the Christmas Light Trail when it was sufficiently dark enough to appreciate them in all their glory.

Nana and Grandad and the rest of our Gizzy whanau and friends suffered a massive earthquake tonight, luckily Nana managed to get a text out to tell us that they were all fine in their house, just a few smashed things and not bodies.

Fresh Picked Strawberries.....

We got our first strawberries from our garden today, that is - the first ones we got to before the birds did!:

It's Getting Closer.....

Only one more week to go:

Christmas Wreath.....

We trudged off down to the very end of the road to get armloads of fragrant conifer branches to weave together into a wreath. That was the plan, but we were slightly adventurous in our craftiness and it turned out HUGE and HEAVY. We sorta tried to do a bit of a funky twist on it and make it a heart shape (you can see the remnants of it on the upper right hand side if you look hard enough), but it was so heavy that it didn't hang properly in the shape, so a wonky circle it was:

Soap.....

We handmade soap this year for our special grown-up friends and family. Here's part of the blurb we enclosed when we wrapped them:

"Hand made with love for you by us, your very own REAL cold-process 100% certified organic bar of Luxurious Lavender relaxing everyday soap, and a bar of Zesty Citrus uplifting and reviving everyday soap.

These luscious soaps contains only certified organic and top-quality coconut oil, palm shortening and NZ extra virgin olive oil with certified organic 100% pure lavender or litsea cubeba essential oils, so you can have the satisfaction and security of knowing what ingredients you are using on your skin. The cold-process method of soap-making takes around 3½ weeks to complete.":

Snail Mail In Abundance.....

I love getting snail mail, the real live wait for the mailman kind, and this time of year we are blessed to get loads:

The Christmas Photo.....

Still no camera - aaarrrggghhh!!! So we took advantage of the use of Grandad's camera (and his garden) to take this year's Christmas Card Photo:


The thing about the digital camera is that now everybody gets the same photo. In days gone by (I've sent one out every year bar one since A11 was A4months), I took a 36-exposure roll of film and got it printed 4 times, and people who knew each other used to compare who got what photo (I know - imagine that! A WHOLE ROLL! And 36!! exposures, no less! In "those days", that was a lot of photo's for 1 sitting. These days, that's nothing in this house of 2,000 photos a month. Anyway, here are some of the culled shots from this year:




We live in a 250 acre pine forest and again this year we paid $50 for a pine tree! We spent ages at the Xmas Tree Farm picking out one with a nice full shape, making sure it was a tall one because we have high ceilings, stuffed it in the car with the kids either side of it, because it took up the entire length of the van, grabbed some rocks from the retaining wall down the road (we'll put them back when we're finished), dragged the thing inside and put it in the bucket of water straight away, complete with a couple of disprin just like the lady told us to, decorated it, taped strings of lights round the lounge and the tree, sat round and admired it all before we went to bed, all glassy eyed and filled with the good feelings of Christmas - then got woken up with a hell of a shock at 1am when the bloody thing fell over, smashing the new decorations, ripping the lights off the wall, soaking the presents under the tree as the 20 litres of water spilled everywhere and made a great hua of a mess! The tree is back up, the lights are re-taped, and the presents have been dried off but we didn't have the same enthusiasm second time round, so it's a bit slap happy:


Happy Birthday Poppa xoxoxo

Decorating The House.....

Today we got stuck into getting the Christmas decorations sorted, and made a start on getting them up:



We live in a 250 acre pine forest and again this year we paid $50 for a pine tree! We spent ages at the Xmas Tree Farm picking out one with a nice full shape, making sure it was a tall one because we have high ceilings, stuffed it in the car with the kids either side of it, because it took up the entire length of the van, grabbed some rocks from the retaining wall down the road (we'll put them back when we're finished), dragged the thing inside and put it in the bucket of water straight away, complete with a couple of disprin just like the lady told us to, decorated it, taped strings of lights round the lounge and
the tree, sat round and admired it all before we went to bed, all glassy eyed and filled with the good feelings of Christmas - then got woken up with a hell of a shock at 1am when the bloody thing fell over, smashing the new decorations, ripping the lights off the wall, soaking the presents under the tree as the 20 litres of water spilled everywhere and made a great hua of a mess! The tree is back up, the lights are re-taped, and the presents have been dried off but we didn't have the same enthusiasm second time round, so it's a bit slap happy!:


But it does look pretty at night:

Aw, Thanks.....

At bowling today Cheryl gave me a lovely card with beautiful words, a gorgeous bunch of flowers and some yummy choccies because we pick her boy up on the way past and give him a ride to bowling. It was a lovely surprise and I was very touched (and we ate the choccies before I took the photo):

Hey, Dude.....

You're such a poser, L5! I sent you in to get your jamies on because it was time for bed, and you came out angling for a goodnight kiss looking like this:

Out and About.....

Today we made some Christmas chocolates to give to some of our friends, we made dark, white and milk varieties, and we set them in Christmas themed moulds.

Then we cooled off at the Polytech pools with Caroline, Bobby and Delilah. They use the pool for dive training, and so they have a really deep (4m) dive well at one end that's really scary, and yet quite exhilarating, to swim out over.

Then we rushed home to entertain Sharon and Querae from across the road, who were gracing us with their presence for dinner. Roast pork with crackling, garden salad and crispy roast potatoes, kumara and pumpkin with tiramisu for dessert.

Me Too.....

L5 spent a while observing The Lad giving himself a haircut before declaring he thought he might like one, too:

Singing Up A Storm.....

The three older kiddos have been participating for the last couple of terms in a singing group, and this morning they performed at two old folks homes. It was a really great morning, I kept getting gooseys as the whole group sang their hearts out, all in tune, all with the right words, and all very clearly enunciating - just as they had been taught. Thanks Tracey and Trish for the photos:



You'll just have to tilt your head to the side, because I can't figure out how to rotate this photo!:

It's Like A Beach In Our Backyard, Mum.....

LOL! It's obviously been so long since we had actual sand in our sandpit that L5 can't even remember it, because that's what he said to me, with great amazement and pleasure, when we'd finished:

Da Drama Production.....

First off, the star of the show was wee Kinsee, I love this photo of her and her Mummy and her Aunty Katie:


Then we toddled inside to marvel at the Drama Queens our kids are, lol! This year A11 swapped roles with his mate Zac because Zackie didn't like his.


Of course, today was the first day of "My Weeks Without A Camera", as someone had jammed the memory card back in the slot incorrectly and bent all the pins, so reluctantly I took it into the shop to be repaired (that and the bent lens from the day L9 climbed up on to a high stool, that was balancing on on little table, to take a photo. "If you drop that, you better run" says The Lad in reference to the camera precariously balanced without the strap round her neck. Of course, L9 promptly dropped the camera, and boy did she RUN!!! She's still alive and the lens sort of worked if you wiggled it the right way.....) and Nush sent me some photos she had taken:

End of Year Concert.....

We were treated to a Five Course Caberet Dinner put on by A11's Scout patrol tonight. They organised the night,decorated the hall and tables, prepared the menu and food, and all the entertainment. The invited guests were treated to a lettuce and tomato salad, then sausages in bread (with tomato sauce - of course!), fruit salad and ice-cream, selection of cheese and crackers, and then a hot drink and cake and biscuits to end the night. Luckily this was as enjoyable as it was, because we're going to miss the end of year break-up at the Sanctuary Point Hot Pools next week ;o(

The Quote of The Night would have to go to Ben, who had a magnificent strap-on, 7-ft wide, beautifully painted, plywood bi-plane he flew around the hall wearing in his dramatisation of Snoopy's Christmas. His Mum relayed that she had been asking him all the previous week whether he needed anything for the night - "No, all set" was his reply every time. She then tells of how she dropped him off at school this morning, and as he was giving her a kiss goodbye he says:

"Oh yeah, I need a bi-plane for tonight"

Jump Jam.....

L5:

Open Home and Offer.....

We had an Open Home today, and had a few people round to look at it. The third lot of people seemed really keen and were under the house and up in the roof and down in the forest. Then they rang us tonight and we did a bit of haggling over the phone and we came to a price we both agreed on, and it's now off to our respective solicitors for the legal bits. Yeehah!

Movember, Again.....

How proud do you reckon my mother is to have her first born get this kind of trophy, lol!:


Just between you and me, I thought it *was* a pretty impressive effort ;o)