A time to tan, a time to welter

Well the walk to Ceramco park went really well. K walked all the way there and we met with Ruth etc. Sadly, he was a bit knackered from the long walk and that, coupled with the heat, did him in. There are lovely big tree trunks in the park from where the council lopped down all the shade!!! You have to wonder what they're thinking. Anyway Ruth popped K into her car and I raced off home with C in the stroller. It was good catching up with Ruth. Also caught up with Darren recently, he came over on Friday as I nursed the wicked sunburn I got from pelting home with C in the noonday sun :( Burn on top of burn... not good! Did the Plunket meeting on thursday - must finish the minutes! The weekend went well however with us scouting west auckland for the cheapest fruit and veges. I did the TCANZ meeting - must finish the minutes! On Monday Chris pranced off to work and his root canal. Lucky Chris!! I mooched about, cooking, cleaning, going to playgrounds and realised that I thoroughly enjoy both my boys :) They were playing together today - eating pikelets and banging toys together. Today is lovely and gorgeous and I am disinclined to work. Not good as I have 2 sets of minutes, some SMNZI stuff and calls to make.... hmmm tomorrow, tomorrow is good! And I will have to do TCANZ tonight. Yes, i'm a slacker!!

8 months old today

I can't believe my tiny baby has turned into such a hefty porker!!! 9kg's! C happily babbles, claps his hands, bangs his toys.... and desperately tries to crawl. The promised tooth is STILL not in evidence but eating is going like gangbusters. Last night he savaged an end of sweetcorn to within an inch of its life. Alas his sleep is appalling... then again, so is ours at the moment due to the horrid sticky weather - 100% humidity!! However last night the poor baggage didn't go to sleep(and stay asleep) until 10pm!! He only awoke once at 2am for a quck snack then slept until 6:40am.... which is when his older brother scuttled silently into the bedroom clutching birthday cars to his chest and snuggled up with me. I left my car on yesterday - boo - so no driving anywhere for me. Will walk up to ceramco park this morning and stop in at the library on the way back. Jen is visiting later this afternoon too. Then Chris will bring trickle charger home and liven the battery. Tomorrow is payday! Wooohooo! At the moment C is ferociously mopping the floor with his bib. I have been so thrilled by the Bumbo - it has worked so well for us!! We also seem to have acquired a new pet - Boldaz. He is a small bird, decked in hues of chocolate and happily struts into the house to partake of meals. Bandit heartily despises Boldaz Brass and does his best to remove him from this existence.

Beach Ahoy!

Monday morning was gloriously sunny. Isabelle suggested a trip to Cornwallis beach and I thought - why not! Summer is waning and I packed snacks, towels, sunblock and toys. Once there K had a blast. He bolted straight into the water - which was very warm! Then balanced on his hands and kicked his way along the beach. He told me he was being a ladybug. There was digging in the sand but pretty much the whole time was spent in the sea. Cameron played under the tree with his toys. But poor me, the person who is not fond of beaches unless they are shady, got sunburnt. I hate being sunburnt. Standing calf deep in water for nigh on an hour all up itn was inevitable :( At 11:30 it began to drizzle and soon began to rain in earnest. It was so warm and humid that it didn't ruin the experience. However, the thought of driving on those windy roads in the rain made me decide to leave. We got home at noon and hopped into the shower to wash off the black sand. I say we but K insisted on a bath. No problem. He then hopped happily into bed and had a lovely long nap. C wouldn't nap in his cot. Having fallen asleep in the car there and back he obviously felt he needed to keep a close eye on me :) Isabelle and co visited in the afternoon and K showed excellent manners and sharing. I was very pleased with him - and told Chris so. He tells me when an urgent nappy change is required these days as he doesn't fancy sitting on a poo apparently.... looks like toilet training is on the horizon :) Today is wet and warm but we have Playcentre tidyup so will see if I can get an inside job to assist with the sunburn.

Happy Birthday to me!!

The sun came out for my birthday - yay!! I was allowed to have a small sleep-in and then was presented with... presents :) I got the Big Bang Theory season 2 and Despicable Me. The boys got me a cup with their picture on it - too cute. I got breakfast and lunch made for me and watched most of BBT - it was awesome! K was quite taken with Despicable Me too. As always the dish of roasted pork belly seethed in cider and apple juice was delicious.

Party time!!

The day of Kieran's party dawned bright and sunny with a happy little boy racing into the bedroom for snuggles.... early, very early! It was a gorgeous bright sunny day- all the better for us to sweat. We got to the playcentre at 9:15 and got things set up. People arrived, children played and before we knew it 10:30 arrived and with it snacks and cake. K blew out his candles brilliantly - all 3 were snuffed out in their prime. We then chilled and chatted and by the time we cleaned, vacuumed, stacked, replaced sandpit covers etc it was fairly late. We dropped off the keys and then realised that we had forgotten the dishwashing liquid and the rubbish bag! Doh! Luckily the cleaning day is tomorrow so I let the Playcentre Prez know I would be popping in briefly to collect our tat. It was 2pm by the time we staggered into the house - and boy, I was tired. K wasn't. He was so in alt with all his toys that he couldn't sleep. Once C was up we headed out Helensville way for some strawberry ice cream and strawberries. Once home K leapt about in the baby bath on the lawn then played with EVERY SINGLE ONE of his presents :) He finally succumbed to sleep at 9!! Tomorrow - my birthday!!! We also have to stop in at playcentre - might take K along for a walk... or maybe not. We'll see. And also return a peapod - size medium, not large. And then over to visit Rache, who has car trouble. I empathise, how I empathise!!

Time of tides

I have been watching the situation in Brisbane. My heart goes out to all the people affected. There are truly tragic situations - like the young boy who drowned with his mum, letting his younger brother be rescued first. The whole thing really highlights the might of nature. It is going to cost Aus squillions! Having pored over all the info I was thrilled to see that mum and mike's (newly repaired/refurbisbed) house looks like it is out of the flood zone. Facebook has been fantastic in seeing how everyone was getting on. Ross and Mark are holed up with 2 cases of wine, Mel's sitting on the Gold Coast and thinking about an inflatable boat, and Stace is keeping the Telco updates coming :) Here nary a cloud has crossed the sky, and my days are peaceful and filled with my 2 young shriekers :) I consider myself extremely fortunate in so many ways. Cam slept for over an hour this morning - brilliant. This arvo I will bake biscuits, cake and collect the playcentre key... I may even stop in at a playground. I was going to go out with the stroller.... but think I will drive as time is tight this arvo! Tomorrow.... cake decorating, trip up to the shops and baking for the party!
Well, the best laid plans.... K decided to sleep for just over 2 hours while C decided sleep wasn't an option if he wasn't in my arms. This kind of sucked as I needed to do some SMINZI stuff... guess what I am doing tonight. Once K was up, weeping but awake, we cavorted in the garden. He got given a hippo squirter for xmas and is lethal with it. It has been the cause of 3 time outs in the last 2 days.... shooting water inside the house/at his sibling or parent is just TOO tempting. We emptied the pool as the water was a touch on the manky side and proto mosquito's were dashing about in it and then C and I rolled around on the blanket while K bounced around the garden. Literally. Naked. On his moonhopper. Around 5 we rustled up some biscuits for K's party. He helped mix the ingredients and counted the chocolate buttons. Amazingly, there were no buttons to be found after his efforts. Hehehe.

Eating up the freezer

Periodically I go on this mad binge where I (shock!!horror!!) clean out the freezer, inventory its contents and attempt to use our frozen food in our planned meals. Oh yes, everything is planned in our house. I make up the fortnight's meal plan that rolls from one payday to the next and this feeds into the shopping list. Just call me little miss spontaneity :P. Anyway gazing into the maw of the freezer I realised 2 things. 1- I obviously believe that a pie a day is necessary to life to judge by all the frozen pie dough and 2 - we don't have nearly enough ice cream in there. There is zero ice cream in my freezer and after 2 days of mortgage/job news and the root canal Chris will have to have (say hellooo to $1400 winging its way out of our bank account) I could have used ice cream. To be perfectly honest I would probably do better with a gym membership - but that aint happening. What else. K is really digging the whole sit on the toilet and get treats thing. No results as yet, tho he did defecate outside. I let his father deal with that, man to man :) See, this is why I wanted boys :P. I have been mulling over the menu for K's party. I will make biscuits tomorrow and might knock out the cake tomorrow night which gives me all day friday to decorate it. My only other option is to bake cake friday and decorate laaaaaate that night... I think not!! I still don't know what cake I want for my birthday and am rather disinclined to make one myself. Chris will be preparing the birthday dinner...but would he cope with a cake related task as well? In other news the people selling the House of our Dreams offered to rent it to us for 300 a week for 6 months or so to see if we liked the property with a view to purchasing it if we do/job sitaution improves. We were actually really excited by this but the cost of transferring phone and hiring a truck would be too expensive and the move would cost us money. In fact, we'd just come right and then Chris's contract would end.... and who knows what would happen then. Suppose we could get a tenant... but, no. Some more birthday cards came for Kieran today - Great Grandma Marjorie (and Ken, of course) and Lesley & Ian.
And that's all for now :)