Quick Update

No time at all for blogging, but I figure this is better than telling everyone who is curious what we are up to!

We leave here in a week, less actually.

The basic plan is that on Saturday, Ben will drive a 2 tonne truck up to Kerikeri with the rest of our stuff (minus what we really need).

He'll be aiming to get back the same day, so he is available to take the kids out on Sunday, or stay here and help me clean.

I'll be cleaning here all day, though we might slip away to a show we have tickets for. Then, we'll sleep a night on the floor (since the beds will be gone) Saturday, and possibly Sunday- though I think my reference (if the cleaning is all done) will be to head to the bach Sunday night.

Ben will go to work from there, and go home to Nana's for the week, while we stay at the bach, and then we'll see him in the weekend.

This is just a loose plan. We'll do the same thing the following week for his last week of work, and then he'll probably head straight up to Kerikeri to look for work (which we gather is pretty scarce, and only of the burger-flipping variety).

Meanwhile, we've sold lots of stuff, including the fridge which will be picked up tomorrow. I've been keen to go fridge-less, so now we will (for 4 or 5 days, lol). It's a lot easier to get my head around while we live here, and I can walk to the shop to buy meat.

We sold the washing machine, but the lady has the worst feedback I've ever seen on Trade Me, and surprise-surprise, she hasn't shown up to collect it. So annoying when there were 5 bidders, adn 24 watchers. But I have said we'll relsit tomorrow if it's not colelcted and paid for today, given that it's 9:20pm it looks liek that is what wil lbe happening.

I've kept back 4 days clothes for the kiddos and I, and a plate each and a bowl and a set of cutlery. This is working well for not having too many dishes to do...not so much for having dishes there when you need to use them, lol.
I have no idea how many boxes I've packed- one load has already gone, and there are over 40 here waiting for Saturday, and it's not done yet!

I can't imagine what it will be like to have no computer for 3 months, and my initial thought of using a cyber cafe occasionally got busted open by reality- Tombliboo in a cyber cafe? I don't think so.

I am really looking forward to it though ,and hope it will be a wonderful time of closeness for my kiddliwinks and I...it will be lovely (I hope).

The big stress this week was buyign a car- Ben's company car is our's for less than 3 weeks now. We finally got one last weekend, but it turned out the dealer had lied to us on several counts.

After masses of discussion amongst ourselves and with family and friends and the LTSA and citizen's advice bureau, and finally the seller, we began a process of trying to get our money back. The dealer eventually did give us our money back, which was fabulous, though it was minus the nearly $400 we had already spent on the car. Still felt worth it to not own a car that probably won't pass it's next warrant.

We have bought another car today, and our previous experience left us far better prepared for the task. More to come...

Leafy Fun...

Sunday

J-Man and Pricness getting along well...


Completely impossible to get a nice photo of 2 kids and a toddler...


Daddy and daughter...so sweet. They went swimming together this afternoon. J-Man didn't want to go- he was making a game on the computer, as part of a competition he and J12 had created for themselves. Tombliboo couldn't decide if he wanted to be home with me, or swimming with Daddy. In the end, we got it wrong- he stayed behind, enormously upset, and the jobs I thought I might get done while he was gone has to wait.




Princess has lost her first top tooth. We forgot to put money under her pillow. Well, I didn't forget, Daddy did- I went to bed earlier than her (as usual). I managed to cover that up by saying I could see a coin...phew! But she was upset the tooth wasn't taken. I thought- wow- I have a child that believes in the tooth fairy...it was taken last night, but today she asked me if she could please see it again since she has forgotten how it looked. She's just playing along with us.



J-Man had a haircut...here he is, just woken up, not really happy about having to go look for a car.


Some nice photos of the kiddos having fun today...we bought a car! 8 months without one, I forgot about it and haven't taken a photo- will add one tomorrow :0)

The Easter Egg Hunt!

I got up early to pack lots of boxes in preparation for dh and his parents to take them al lup to Kerikeri.

I also needed to plan the Easter Egg Hunt...it was a big success, and cousin M11 (who always says just the right thign) told me, "You sure know how to make a good egg hunt."


First the kiddos needed to find little hunting eggs, and marshmallow eggs around the yard.



Tombliboo (2) did not want to get dressed (as usual), but was eventually persuaded at the thought of an egg hunt. He found loads of them, and was buzzing about each find.


He unwrapped every one, and once the next stage was done- stripped naked again, as usual...Cousin M11 thinks it's hilarious, but is a bit concerned about his future (lol).




Next they each had a treasure hunt to decipher to get their "big" egg...only this year it was a teeny bunny and a bag of chocolate buttons. Noone complained, and really that was enough chocolate for anyone.


Princess (6) had written clues which she read wihtout any hiccups apart from mixing up b's (and d's) and not knowing what the "ruddish" was. That is an interesting point about reading- she never used to muddle b's and d's, it's a new thing. Quite strange. J-Man always muddled them. I should have thought of it before, but maybe it's time to say, "If a word doesn't make sense, try replacing the d with a b" (lol).



J-Man and M11 had jumbled word clues. J-Man found his surprise very quickly, then helped his cousin when he really was stuck.

Tombliboo has a treasure hunt idea I learned from Jackie...I gave him a spoon, and said it needed to go in the right place and he'd find another clue. He put it in the drawer, then found a pair of his undies (lol, they were clean)...he went to put them away and found his Thomas the train water-tower. He put that away and found his easter bunny.

Still more reading...

Princess continues to look as though nothing is happening on the reading front, but I know it is...

She is really noticing words. She came to me last week and said, "Mum! Did you know the start of the word "diet" is die? That's funny isn't isn't it?"

Yes, very funny- I believe someone has even made a joke of it...I was surprised a 6 year old would notice.

Yesterday she noticed that "Mum" and "Mom" are like "Hannah"- they are spelled the same forwards and backwards. Somehow the name "palindrome" hadn't sunk in, but that's ok- the meaning is understood :0)

She also continues to be a bit frightened by the prospect of reading...or maybe daunted is a better word. It's kinda strange to me, considering she is daunted even whilst doing it...and so different to J-Man, who just bowled ahead and had no thought (ever) that he couldn't do it.

But still, so wonderful to watch the unfolding. I'm still baffled people think school is important. How can it be? Here's a little girl loving life, just playing with little ponies and hanging out with her family...and the reading is progressing, without any bother at all.

It is as it was created to be- a way to look after children so their parents can work. And they can learn to fit in, and do as they're told- to become good soldiers and workers.

Phew...

I have been so busy, there's been no time to write.

Packed 60 boxes last week. We will move in 3-4 weeks...just got to find out how much notice we need to give here.

Hubby has 4 weeks work- he may get more, he'll discuss it today...but it's time we got ready to move.

Our new house won't be ready for several weeks after the work runs out...so the plan, at this stage, is for dh to move North, and stay with his parents, while he looks for work.

The kiddos and I will go visiting :0)

Right now we're living in chaos really, trying to pack up the last three years of living- throwing stuff away, giving stuff away, selling stuff (ridiculously cheap, lol), but all with a deadline.

We won't have an internet connection after we leave here- so posts from me will become very infrequent over the following 2-3 months. I'll still try to post the odd update, so you will know what we're up to :0)

Howick Historical Village

We went to the Howick Historical Village for the first time ever, and it was fun!

We used to live very close to this place, and pass it often on our way elsewhere, but we never quite got round to visiting. I'm so glad we finally got to go.

The trip was with 100 home-educated children, so it was a big event.


The children were all split up according to age and gender, which I thought might cause a problem with J-Man not wanting to go off alone, but his best friend J12 was there- so it went off without a hitch.



Tombliboo wasn't quite feeling 100% (as evidenced by a performance on the bus the likes of which you have probably never seen before in your life), and eventually I needed to move away from Princess as well, and sit in a quiet place where he could breastfeed off to sleep.


Some time, after a pretty good day, but not quite after we had had enough- he got naked, and it was time to leave. J-Man felt embarrassed that others were laughing at us, but I am a bit used to that now- I was impressed my toddler managed to keep his clothes on so long!

More Reading

Princess keeps chipping away at breaking the reading code. She doesn't know she is, but I can see it.

She'll ask me as she's writing on her picture..."How do you spell 'handmade' again, Mum?" I can't remember how many times she's asked me (and I have it written on a piece of card near the art table for her as well), or how many times she has written it without asking.

But my job is to answer questions, and so I do.

Yesterday, she was studying her (rather disgusting lolly) for an extraordinary amount of time as we waited for a train, then she announced, "I think this says "Triple Power Push Pop" , and she was right.

Today she asked me to read to her, and so I did. I said I wanted to do some more tidying, but she argued that books were more important.

I said, "You are more important than the tidying". She agreed children are important, but books came next.

Later I was feeding Tombliboo and she asked if I would read some more. I said I would, or if she wanted she could read a book to Tombliboo. She wanted to read, and did very wel. She stopped a few times to ask what does "th" say, or some such thing...but mostly she read alone.

It wasn't a hard book (Maisy), but she did it, and she enjoyed it. She read "today" without sounding it out, and I was surprised. She didn't know how she knew it.

The bit that really amazed me was when she sounded out "delicious"...she was reading for meaning as well as sounding out every word. She read "di-eh-ll...delicious". I said, "You just read 'delicious'...that's a very big word- I'm going to faint!"

She said, "I don't see why- I only guessed- it had to say 'delicious'." And she was right, no other word beginning with d-e-l woudl have made sense in the sentence, but it was really cool.

Our Week so far...

Princess has been enjoying doing more colouring by key pictures. She drew this super-cool picture of Hubby and I dancing, looking at each other...it's very sweet- like me heels?


J-Man has been busy painting his LOTR figures, and making games on the computer.

Tombliboo has been making a mess in every room, and being cute. I found him yesterday cleaning up a gigantic rice bubble mess, saying, "Oh no, Mama- I (s)pilled it all ediwhere."


We had a slight breakthrough yesterday too, when I observed him pulling dvd's off the shelf and letting them crash with a giggle...I asked him to stop 3 times in different ways, but he carried on. I picked him up and sat with him in the kitchen and asked if he was ready to pick up all the dvd's...he said Yes! I asked if he'd like me to help him, and he replied yes to that as well. We started picking them up together, and he said, "Sorry Mama- sorry to do dat a dvds Mama."

N and B2 came to play, and we all had a lot of fun- and got some work done too...the same as usual, put away the magnetic marbles so the kids can throw them all ediwhere again and then put them away, and then watch them fly round the room again, etc.

But that kind of crazy-making (terribly standard) activity is not a bother at lal when there are two of you enjoying a chat while you work.


Tombliboo asked for a book about space over a month ago, and I ordered it as soon as possible- it finally arrived, and he has enjoyed looking at it. Princess wanted a trial of Reading Eggs and that came too, but she has only used it once...she loves it though. I imagine it would be more appealing to girls than boys, but it is fairly cool (except for the r-e-p-e-t-i-t-i-o-n, though Princess copes with it because she enjoys the program enough).

The kiddos found Twister (I didn't even know we had it) and had a ball trying to get as tangled as possible.



There has also been a bit of reading, a lot of chasing, a lot of ponies and Lego, and a few movies.