Making Fun While the Sun Shines

Last week we had some horrible stormy days with some thunder, lightning and hail so on Thursday when some sun shone through the clouds we got on the phone and organised a trip to the park with Jenny & Patrick. The boys had a great time on the playground and running around with the ball, although at one point we had to chase them down as they had taken off to the otherside of the field out of sight!! It was good to get out of the house!

We had some nice weather on the weekend too, so Saturday the whanau went to Mission Bay for a walk and a play in the sand.

Sunday Dean and Troy took Nathan and Ayla up to Omaha with them where they trialled to new Torpedo fish catcher. No Fish though. Later that afternoon we had Nana Dulcie over who had not yet met her new great grand daughter.

The boys playing at Moire Park

Snack Break

Friday it was still sunny and although a bit windy we still ventured out. We went to Pt Chev to have some lunch and a play

Hmm which do I eat first, lollipop or sandwich. Guess which one won!

Exploring the rocks

Finish off the day at the playground

Maia meets her Great Grandmother Dulcie

Flying to Ayla's House

Our Week Away

We had a nice week away last week. We spent most of it in the Mount, with a night visiting my Grandparents in Taupo. We also had a visit from Mary and her cute grand daughter Ivy. I caught up with my friend Kylee and her 5week old daughter Shayla. So there was a lot of visiting and it was nice to catch up with everyone. The weather was mostly nice although still a bit cold. Bring on summer!! Nathan had a good time but really missed his dad on this trip so he was happy to get home.

Funny Things

My boy comes out with some funny things sometimes. I love watching him play by himself and seeing his imagination fly. He chats away to himself and comes up with the funniest things. He also takes certain things and puts his own childlike spin on it, they just think so differently :)
Two funny examples are:

The other day he got his chair and put it by the pantry to see what goodies he could find in there. Something he does often!! Anyway this particular day he grabbed out the 6 pack of eggs and 'accidently?' dropped them on the ground, one fell out and broke in two. I kicked him out of the kitchen to clean it up and gave him a bit of a growling. While he was standing there ever so serious looking at the cracked egg on the floor he said "It's Humpty Dumpty". I couldn't help but crack up laughing.

Today at my grandparents house he saw the toast pop out of the toaster and giggled away and said "The toast has got the hiccups"

Playing Orf Orf With Dad

Nathan loves playing Orf Orf with Dad, that's his version of boxing/wrestling basically playing rough with his dad. Here is the boxing version, gloves and all :)

Rainy day and no car

It was a yucky day today and the car was in the panel beaters, so definately a stay home day. Nathan had a morning with no nappy, just track pants on which he loved, but at this stage has either no ability or no desire to let me know when somethings coming, so two pairs of trackies down we were back to a nappy. I think we'll save the no nappy time for when it's a bit warmer and he can cruise around with nothing. We haven't been too worried about full on potty training as we think he'll get there eventually. We just keep asking if he wants to sit on it and mostly he responds with a NO. He's starting to a bit more but just for short bursts with no real result. He can't stay in nappies forever :)
We got creative in the afternoon making butterflies and colouring in. Maia had a bit of a mixed up day with her sleeps and feeds, maybe she's having a growth spurt as she seemed a lot hungrier today. She is getting her six week immunisations tomorrow, hope she goes alright.

Luca's first birthday

On the weekend we went to the Mount for Luca's first birthday. We had a yummy hangi feed and a good catch up with all the Mounties.

Off in the car

Maia hates getting into her carseat, but once underway she drifts off to sleep no worries. We've been on a few long trips and everytime she's travelled so well.

Wally the Wombat

Uncle Pete from Brissie was over for work and brought the kiddies some cool aussie gifts. A very lifelike and cool stuffed toy wombat for Maia and an Adelaide Crows footy for Nathan. It has been hard to try and get him to understand it's not a rugby ball though. Dean and Pete have a deal going where Dean will support the Crows in the AFL if Pete will support the Warriors in the ARL. Unfortunately the Warriors choked, boo hoo :(
Here's Maia with her wombat which turned a few heads when it was in the pram, people thinking there was some kinda pet or possum in there :)

New Eyes

On Thursday we went to Hamilton so Dean could have Laser Eye Surgery. This means he doesn't have to wear his glasses any more, YAY! It's quite amazing really. We stayed with my Aunty Connie in Cambridge and she braved having both kids while I drove Dean to have the surgery, we were gone about 3 hours all up and she did a great job babysitting :)
On Friday mum came over from the Mount and we went to the Hamilton Zoo. It's a neat zoo and because we go to the Auckland Zoo so much it was cool to see they had a lot of different animals and quite a different and more natural set up.
As we were packing the kids back into the car ready to head back to Auckland, Dean suggested we head over to the Mount instead. Mum was stoked, so off we went for the weekend.
Saturday the whanau went for a long walk around the Mount with a couple of stops along the way for Nathan to play on the rocks and paddle in some rock pools. And then had a nice lunch at one of the cafes at Main Beach.
On Sunday I made a big brunch for the Dads (Dean and Dunk) and then the boys headed to the driving range. Then it was back to the big smoke.

2nd Born

I've often heard about how you don't get time to photograph your second born as much as the first, it was true in our family, finding baby photos of my younger brother is a bit harder than finding ones of me. So he made me promise to take lots of this bub so she's not behind in the photo department. It will be hard to keep up with the hundreds we have of Nathan, but I love photos and love whipping out the camera any opportunity so am doing ok so far.
The other day while i was taking lots of pics of Maia, Nathan jumped in front of the camera to remind me just how cute my first born is too.

The Weekend Wrap

Our local paper advertised that one of the local primary schools was having a fundraiser, with kapahaka and a hangi. Well it sounded pretty good to me so I suggested to Dean we check it out. What the paper failed to tell us was that the hangi tickets were pre-sold and we didn't find out until we got there. So all geared up to head out for a feed we thought we'd go somewhere for tea. We decided on Breakers as we hadn't been before and it looked like a child friendly place. This it was with the cool Kombi van booths to sit in and the colouring in sets for kids. But man the food was pretty average and was enough to make us think we probably wouldn't go back. Nathan had fun though so that was good :)
Sunday the whanau watched the Warriors win and then we had a visit from Nanny and Poppy who had been looking after Kael and Lisa who came to pick him up.