Feed the birds…

This morning I felt like taking the kids out to feed the ducks. I’d planned originally on one particular park, but when B3 asked me where we were going, I found myself saying “the Botanical gardens“. Do you ever do that? Anyway…I was glad for the change of plans because it was a lovely day for the gardens (actually a bit too hot!).

When we got there I realised we’d left E5’s hat at home, and B3 had lost his, so we were down to two hats for four people. R’s stroller has a sunshade although rather pathetic, so he went without. I went without because I am the Mother. E5 wore R’s baby hat, (which used to be hers) and B3 wore my hat. It’s a wonder he saw anything really and which may have contributed to the scraped knees you’ll see further down in the pics. (Awwww….poor thing)

There were gazillions of ducks. And we were the only ones feeding them so we were their favourite people and they all flocked to us. This photo only shows about half of them.

This was popular:

How cool is this snail! You may not be able to see in the photo, but there are words cut out all around this sculpture. Don’t ask me what it says, I didn’t get a chance to read it. I was too busy spinning the kids round and round in it. Yes, it spins. Like I said, It’s cool.

This is a sculpture of a kereru (native wood pigeon) egg and is part of the Potter Childrens Garden.

And where was R10months during all this you may ask? He was with us of course, but spent nearly the entire visit in his stroller. He started the day looking like this:

And ended up looking like this:

I reminded E5 today that we had been to the Botanical Gardens with Nan and Grandad back in March 2005. *Hello Nan and Grandad!* Remember this?

 

 

Baby Boom

Four of my friends are pregnant right now (Three here and one in Australia – Hi LK…*waving*). Amongst my acquaintances there are another three. Here’s a little gift I made for one of them who is having a baby shower on Friday.

I made something pink for the little Princess over the Tasman but it’s already been posted. Hopefully it will arrive in time for her baby shower on Saturday.

The Good Stuff

One of my three readers (tee hee….love that)  commented once that she has a wee rule to only blog the good stuff and I adopted that idea. After all, no one really wants to hear me whinge and whine and complain. And besides I keep a personal handwritten journal that I save for soul searching and heart work and secret stuff, and those pages record a fair amount of grumbling.

So why no entries lately? Well, it’s not that there’s been nothing good to note. Life is good! Just nothing blog worthy I guess. But another regular bloggy read of mine has started a gratitude journal of 1000 gifts. She’s up to the 80’s now and going strong. I can count three without even thinking.

E5 is The Most Beautiful Girl in the World. She’s quite keen to start ‘school‘ and we’ll officially start (home schooling) on the 11th Feb.She is desperately looking forward to her ballet classes which start that same week.

B3 is The Bestest Boy in the World. He’s not too sure about this whole growing up thing. Some days he says “I’m so big ’cause I eating all my dinner” or “I’m bigger than Daddy now” but other days laments “I don’t want to be big because I’m still little”. I don’t blame him…I’m still not so sure about growing up either.

R10 months is The Cutest-Cuddliest Baby on the Face Of The Planet. He is very affectionate, loves to give kisses and still has that goofy smile. Whenever we say “Good Boy!” he grins and claps his hands looking very pleased with himself.

(Here’s some not very interesting pics of recent days. A beach day with just the four of us. No mean feat for me I might add, trying to supervise two in the water and one on land. I did chuckle at myself when leaving the house for the beach that day as I grabbed my book and stuffed it into the beach bag. I blinked, shook my head and promptly removed it again.)

 

 

(After so many attempts I settled for one that has both of us in the photo even if he had given up on looking at the camera. Self portrait….Pfffft!)

Snug as a Bug in a Rug?

I was so glad to see this post over on Owlhaven and wanted to link here for anyone else who wanted to support this little mission. How terrible it would be to have nothing in which to wrap your little newborn baby. Please also read here for an update on the logistics of this.

We went in a Carry-Van!

Another new family tradition I hope, we set off on New Years day in a borrowed-from-friends Carry Van (thanks B3…a term that will stick with me forever I think… seems so appropriate!). In the past 8 years all of D’s annual leave has been taken up with births (3), weddings (3) funerals (1) conferences (5) and overseas family visits (3). We had become very tired this year and desperately needed a break from the too busy, too stressful place we had got ourselves in.

So we set off for a shortish drive from Auckland to a beach near Miranda and just parked up on the edge of the beach and did nothing. This is what we saw to the left:

 

and to the right:

It was simple living…no electricity or facilities…we had a portaloo on board and a large drum or water, and an esky full of food and we were set. I loved the simplicity of having so few possessions. It left plenty of time for these kinds of activities:

On the second day E5 made friends with another little boy called and his little brother. They were 6 and 4, so got along well with our two. They walked together the full length of the beach and played in the sand, at the end of the day arranging to meet the following day. Sweet kids and we were so glad they found friends to play with.

R9months didn’t get outside very much because it was searing hot and somtimes windy, but he had such fun too and enjoyed standing on the benches or beds and looking out the windows at his siblings play.

And my favouritest part of all was swimming with E5 and B3. They had such fun, cuddled up and clung to me shivering when they got cold and despite being blue and goose bumpy and trembling with cold, simply refused to get out. A simply delicious moment in time that I never want to forget so I asked D to take this photo.

Aren’t the ordinary things in life simply the best! I loved searching for treasures in the millions of shells on the beach, making sand castles, watching the waves and daydreaming out to sea.

One morning R9months and I were up early and so as to not wake the others we snuck outside to eat breakfast on a blanket. The sea was like glass, the air still and fresh and it felt like someone had pressed pause and that time was standing still. We watched some fishermen check their net and apart from a few early walkers we were alone together. R9months ate sand and tasted the shells and then we walked together. His fat little hand on my shoulder as I carried him along.  Later D joined us and we all walked together until R fell asleep in his Daddy’s arms. Sigh… oh, for everyday to be like that one.