Jury duty, Kung Fu, Teddy Bears...

Well the week started with a beautiful day, and unfortunately I spent half the day inside seeing if I was going to get picked for a jury. My name got pulled out of the ballot box, so I got to go through the process right up to going into the court room and hearing the charges etc. I then had to go through the funny process of walking towards the jury box where on the walk up you may be challenged by either the prosecution or defense lawyers. Being that it was a sexual violation charge, I knew most of the women would be challenged, so on my way up to the jury box I walked very slow so they could check me out as I knew I would be challenged. I have to say I was very glad that I was as I don't think I could sit through a couple of days hearing the details of such a horrible thing.

The rest of the week was a bit miserable weather wise and with Maia still teething and with a chesty cough, she was very grizzly. My mum had come up to watch the kids in case I had got picked for jury, so I had the chance to take Nathan out and about on his own which is nice. On Monday afternoon after Jury duty I took him out to the park for a ride on his bike and on Wednesday I took him to the movies to see Kung Fu Panda, which is a bit stink really. Thursday mum went home and the kids and I chilled at home.

On Friday we had to get out of the house, although both kids were a bit sniffly we couldn't miss Teddy Bears Day Out at Mainly Music. After that we went to Toy Library and scored some cool toys. While we were out and about we went and checked out a house. Our house hunting is still going, we are sussing out what we like, don't like, prices etc etc.

Here's our pics from Friday...

Maia with Jonty who was born two days after her

Maia and Liam who were born on the same day in the same hospital

Nathan and his buddies

Bounce, Bounce, Bounce

Look at me practising standing up

Week of Wicked Weather

It's been a pretty horrible week weather wise. On Monday the kids and I found a gap in the rain and braved the supermarket. I told Nathan we'd go to Chipmunks afterwards for a play but when we got there we found out they're closed on Mondays, so as a backup plan we cruised 100m up the road to Mc Donalds where I used my freebe coffee voucher and Nathan had a long play.

Tuesday Ayla came over while Lisa had to organise a passport for Kael. It hailed four times in as many hours. Ayla thought it was pretty exciting as we would quickly open the door and grab some hail stones and then let them melt in her hand. Wednesday there was a break in the weather as Maia and I ventured out to have a look at a house before picking Nathan up from Preschool, but on our way home it went black and rainy again.

Thursday and Today have been home days as Maia is not her happy self, she has a cough and is teething in a major way. It's so unusual to have her so grizzly and following me around the house wanting to be picked up all the time, poor lil princess. There is thunder and heavy rain as I type. All in all we haven't gone too crazy with the weather and have managed to keep ourselves busy around the house.

Ayla being a cat

Nathan and Dean checking out more hail stones this morning, just as Dean was ready to leave for work

Yelling at the Cat

Maia is so funny with our cat Moses. She is usually quite placid, very cruisy by nature, but man she can also be quite loud. When our cat comes into sight she revs up and yells at him, she doesn't seem scared of him as she smiles at him but at the same time doesn't really try to pat him or anything, so maybe she is a little wary. Anyway it's quite funny.

Thursday/Friday

On Thursday we ventured to Mitre 10 to look at a few things. We couldn't go past the playground without having a little play...

They were pretty knackered when we got home so I put Maia down for a nap and gave Nathan a rest on the couch watching a Loonytoons DVD, he didn't last long before he was out

On Friday we bumped into my friend Michelle and her two boys Samual and Nathan at the Toy Library. As I was helping her manouvre the big slide she had booked out into her boot we decided we'd get together to give the boys a play. They came around later that afternoon and here they are enjoying my Nathans race track.

Open Homes

The last two weekends we've being doing a bit of an open home round in Te Atatu. We're thinking it would be good to move there sometime down the track as we like the area a bit better than where we are. Dean grew up there and Nathan goes to preschool there so it would be good for him to go to school there also. It's been an interesting exercise checking out houses in this 'slump market', seeing what you can get for your dollar. Because we want to keep our house and rent it out it may be a little while before we actually get to move, but it's still good to get out and check out what's going on.

Nathan said on Saturday morning "Are we going to look at other peoples houses again today" he doesn't mind it too much because the houses where they have kids he loves to check out all their toys, although he probably is over it because he is not allowed to play with them.

Anyway we had an hour to kill in between open homes so took our picnic to the park and had a play.

What's in the tree kids?

Hmm I think I'll have this leaf for lunch

Mmmm it's tasty

I'll finish off with one of Daddy's hot chippies

Kid Pics

Some Pics of the kids lately...

A picture we took to put on Ayla's birthday card that we made
Maia giving Nathan a double on the bike - or Nathan holding Maia onto the bike?

On Toy Library duty means playing with all the cool toys!

We had a visit last week from Erin, Lani and Luca

Nice and clean after our bath!

Bike Ride

I wanted to take Nathan back to a park we went to a while back with his trike as it's got a good flat wide path he can have a good ride on. First stop was to feed the ducks, which either got too close and freaked Maia out or while my back was turned nipped her toe thinking it was bread as she let out a bit loud cry. It all went well until Nathan wanted to go one way and I wanted to go the other, so a battle of wills ensued and he stayed put for quite some time before another little boy came along on his bike and got him moving with a little race challenge. I'd like to think I would have won in the end had we not been rescued by the lil racer boy.

Queens Birthday Weekend

Well I'm having to catch up on my posts as I haven't checked in for over a week now. For Queens birthday weekend the kids and I headed back down to Taupo to my Nana's house for a family meeting that had been organised. As Dean had to work over the weekend we were able to leave on the Friday and cruise our way down. We did a big trek, saving our stop for Tokoroa which is nearly a 3 hour run, the kids were great though. We stopped at McDonalds as although Nathan had his lunch in the car he was able to have a play on their playground and I ate his happy meal while he enjoyed the toy. We met up with my good friend Kylee and her youngest daughter Shayla who is the same age as Maia, and they crawled around the place while we had a quick catch up.

Before heading on to Taupo I had to do a quick tour of the town I was born and lived the first 13 years of my life in. I haven't done so in a long while. I drove through town, past the two shops that we owned, the first one a hardware store and the second a sports shop, of course they are something else now. I drove past my old schools and then did a driveby past the house we lived in. I have heaps of cool memories growing up in Tok and am still in contact with many good friends from there. It was an awesome place to to grow up in.

Anyway we arrived in Taupo in the afternoon and from there most of the other family members trickled in. Saturday we had our family meeting in regards to some work my Grandfather and others have done in tracing our Whakapapa (lineage, family tree) to the Ngati Tuwharetoa (Taupo) and Ngai Tahu (South Island) area's. As well as those tribes, on my Grandmothers side we Whakapapa back to Whakatohea and Te Whanau-A-Apanui on the East Coast of the North Island. So for a white girl I've got some strong Maori links going on :) Anyways, we got to know my Pa's brothers families a bit better and enjoyed a big feed together later that day.

The house I grew up in. The Green was originally a nice mustardy colour and then later in life my Dad painted it a real nice darky pinky, purply colour, lovely.

Meeting in full swing

These modern day kids entertaining themselves

My Cuzzie's Matiu with Jamie and Tane in the background

Me and my beautiful Cuz, Dani

The boys were about to go on a mission in the freezing cold to get some fresh watercress from some creek somewhere but were rescued just in time by Jamie's mate who dropped some off

Enjoying a beautiful Watercress and Pork Bone boil up and some roast chooks

Nathan Happy as, Maia not so??

Looking after Monty

Today we went to chipmunks for Ayla's birthday. Nathan took Monty as well (see Rat that features in the pictures). He was given the responsibility of looking after Monty for a few days by his Pre-School. The first night he took Monty to his Nana's house. They watched a DVD while Nana cooked Nathans dinner. Nana wanted to put Monty in the bath as he looked like he could do with a bit of a wash after going home to the different kids houses :) but Nathan said he would get too cold. The next day while Nathan went to Pre-School he gave Monty to Ayla to look after. She took Monty to Gymnastics with her. Man Monty gets around alright. So yep he got to go to Chipmunks and we took a few pics of him to put in the book that chronicles his adventures at the kids houses.

I guess giving him to the kids to take home is suppose to nuture responsibility and empathy etc etc. Don't tell his Pre-School but truth be told, I don't think Nathan was too overly fussed about ol Monty, he left him in some random places at Chipmunks and when I told him maybe he should let Monty sit on the couch instead of the floor he said 'nah'. When we got home he said Monty could just stay in his bag instead of coming out to watch a bit of T.V. I'm not sure if I need to be worried that he wasn't too fussed about taking special care of Monty, I wonder if he thought he is just a stuffed animal and why should he get any special treatment over all the other ones we have in the house???? I guess I could have made a bit more of a lesson out of the exercise about taking extra care of certain things.

Anyway here are some pics from Ayla's birthday at Chipmunks

Ayla opening her presents, Monty looking on
Lucas, Nathan, Ayla and Monty

I raced Monty over to the Merry go Round to get a photo with Nathan to put into the 'What did Monty get up to?' book

Ayla's birthday cake

Look out Robbers!

Maia had fun too :)

Chipmunks trip 1

Yesterday we met up with Talei, Cadence and Rico at Chipmunks. The boys had a great time racing around the place and the the little girls hung out together while we big girls had a good catch up. Keep an eye out for more Chipmunk fun, we're going again on Thursday for Ayla's birthday, Yay :)

Maia and Rico, they'll be racing round like the boys soon enough

Nathan and Cadence having fun

What to do with ourselves??

We had arranged for the kids to stay at their Nana and Poppy's house for the weekend as we thought we were going back to Taupo to do some work around my Nana's house. But as we are going down there next weekend also my Nana cancelled the trip as petrol had hit $2 a litre and she didn't want all the cousins to have to travel two weekends in a row.
Miriam offered to have the kids anyway so Dean and I thought we better make the most of it. So Friday night we went and had dinner with Carsten and Michelle before they headed back to Brisbane. We chatted till late and got home around 1.30am which is very late for me :)
Saturday I slept in until 10.30am which is an absolute record for me, well it hasn't been done in a looong time! Later that afternoon Dean and I went into the city and did some shopping, some looking around and then we went to the IMAX theatre to watch U2 in 3D. Neither of us are major U2 fans, we do like most of their music I guess, but it was just cool seeing the whole thing in 3D - pretty amazing. We were pretty full on popcorn, Ice Cream and Coke but went and got some dinner anyway.
Sunday morning we had another little sleep in before zooming over to see the kids that we had actually really missed.

Scott Dickson look out
The best thing about 3D is the groovy glasses you get to wear!

Seeing the City Lights