See you soon Janet & John!

We farewelled the last of the English crew on Monday. It was great having Janet & John staying here - especially for all their home renovation ideas and the way I didn't have to do dishes for a month! It was great to spend time with them and for Em to get to know them properly all over again. Thank you for a lovely time and we'll see you Christmas 2011...London -July 2008 - Em aged 2

Auckland March 2010 - Em aged 4 yrs

Summer Holiday!

Just had a wonderful three weeks with Rob's sister Jo, Pat and their kids Maia & Holly visiting all the way from England. We did a bit of a road trip to Port Waikato, the Mount, Napier and Rotorua. Rob's Mum Janet and partner John are here for another week but travelling this week round the Bay of Islands. It's so hard to reflect after such a great holiday so I'm going to write a list of a few of the special things that I don't want to forget:

*Emma & Maia meeting at the airport - they chatted away like they had never been apart.
* Holly's gorgeous cuddles!
* Fish n Chips on the beach at each destination
* Lots of beach days & swimming pools
* Emma & Maia playing 'Operations'
* The spa pool at the triangle house
* Holly's love of action songs!
* Also Holly starting walking
* Maia teaching Em to wash her hair
* Maia and Em encouraging each other with stuff - Em helping Maia with putting her head under water and Maia helping Em with hydraslides.
* Watching the Black Caps beat Australia* All the gorgeous sunshine
* Grandma Janet & John helping with 'childcare!'
* Having time to read a book!
* Emma & Maia's swapping of clothes and catwalk shows.
* Em & Maia dancing & singing on every stage they could find.
* Hearing Maia's lovely little English accent!

So many other things that I could mention - wonderful time. Received some gorgeous flowers from Jo & Pat today - thanks guys we miss you and we're suffering from post holiday blues!! We'll see you Christmas 2011! Xxx

34th Birthday!

What wonderful friends I have! This morning I had a tea party at home with some friends. And not one but three of my friends brought me sunflowers. So love them for their brightness, cheerfulness and they've been my favourite for years. Isn't it nice to have friends who know you so well! And then all my other pressies were craft related which is so me too! Hubby is buying me a sewing machine can't wait to choose that... I even thought about getting a sunflower tattoo once upon a time but then decided I was too much of a wimp! So loving them ladies - thanks for a fab morning and for the gorgeous flowers and pressies. You're all fabulous and mean a lot to me XX

We're ready for Maia!

The bunk bed in Emma's room is all made up and ready for you Maia! Looking forward to seeing you real soon! (I couldn't take a photo of Holly's bed - cos that isn't made up yet but it will be soon!!)

I'm not the kind of person who can endure parenting books. So often I read them and think what boring common sense they are... Quite often I buy them or borrow them thinking they might blow me away but I am often left disappointed. However two parenting gurus who I would listen to and read until the cows come home are Ian & Mary Grant. Two great kiwis that have opened the Parenting Place as part of Parents Inc - the positivity and advice available through this place is amazing. Emma & I made a trip to the Parenting Place the other day. Great selection of books and wonderful cafe. I've only ever heard Ian & Mary Grant talk once - but one day I hope to go to more seminars on a topic of interest for only $10. Anyway the other day I went with one book in mind 'Cappuccino Moments for Mothers ' - by Mary Grant. A simple little book full of fun creative ideas.

One idea that I had to do for Em straight away was a treasure hunt afternoon tea. It was such fun. I left to pick her up from kindy and at the front door I left two fancy dresses one for her and one for me with the first clue. She was thrilled and quickly got into the spirit of the occasion. And she was delighted when the clues led her to a little tea party round the back of the house. Wonderful way to have some quality time after a day at kindy and so much better than TV! Mental note to self: Do more of this kind of thing with my darling little girl!

Happy Valentines Day too! To all believers in love out there! I treated my two darlings (yep I included Emma this year) with a tin full of favourite candy! And I copied Becky Higgins blog by putting in some note paper to encourage us to write love notes to each other this year!... We'll see....

Christmas Recap - if I can remember!

Some random Christmas memories like promised. Photos to tell the story...

Opening Presents - Em wanted pink balloons from Santa!

Eating way too many of these! Even grew some this year!

'Mummy can I open just one present?'

Fun craft adventures with Em!

Our first attempt at making Gingerbread houses!

Enjoying the sunshine at a park on Christmas day

Stayed at Grandma's for a night - while Rob & I had a great date night! Em enjoyed seeing the Christmas lights with Grandma, Courtney & Laura. We went to Mum's for Christmas dinner.

Trying to get Kaleb to sit still for a photo!

Wonderful famiy time! Santa parades, Christmas in the Park, Christmas services, Christmas shopping... So love this time of year! X

My Movie Girl!

This one is for you Mum after saying it had been ages since I posted the other day! I know I still need to do Christmas too... And I was looking at old posts during a loooong night shift the other night and I noticed I never did get round to posting pictures of our new kitchen which has been finished for ages now - so I'll do that soon too.

But this post is about Emma's love affair with movies. She use to have a very real fear about the trailers/previews - why, not completely sure?? Anyway now she quite likes them and it seems to work in encouraging her to go to more movies.

This holiday season despite it being Summer we've managed to see three movies. Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs - on the last day of kindy. The Princess & the Frog - which she saw with just me - she decided one day that she sees lovely girly movies with Mummy and silly ones with Daddy - suits me!! And then on Saturday she saw Alvin & the Chipmunks her first movie with Grandma.

Since seeing Alvin she has been playing 'Alice in Wonderland' which is a trailer she saw. She loves acting out movies. I saw in a magazine the other day that one of the latest things in a America at the moment is movie-oke (don't know how to spell it..) Basically like karaoke but you act a movie scene on stage instead. The pictures surrounding it had Kate & Leo on the Titanic in that classic I'm flying scene. And they also had the Meg Ryan - Harry met Sally cafe scene! What classic movie scene would you act out? Anyway here's some pictures that I took while leaving the cinema after watching the Princess & the Frog. It started a chain reaction of others taking the same kind of photos!