It's raining, it's pouring

The promised rain has come but luckily not until after Mum and the girls went to visit Oma and Opa Middeldorp today. Ali and Lily had a great time at McDonalds climbing all over the playground except that Mum had to crawl in to rescue Lily-anne when she got stuck in a tunnel that she couldn't climb down.. Oma and Opa both seemed well and happy. Now Mum is tired and off to bed. Love to all. xxooxx.

Monday

We popped around to see friends Megan and Walter yesterday. Ali had a lovely time playing with Theo and Ruby. They spent ages 'swimming' through the lawn and climbing up onto the island (large rock) and being ship wrecked. Lily disappeared off into the play-room and entertained herself with Theo and Ruby's toys for extended periods of time. Lily has learned how to sing the Wiggles version of "Quack quack quack, cock-a doodle- doo" and these are her only words of more than one syllable at this stage. I think she quite liked Ruby's handbag:-)

Today Ali went to daycare and Lily helped Mum in the garden - lol

Saturday

It was off to the farmers market for super fresh fruit and veges first thing this morning and then a leisurely breakfast, browsing and 20 book-out-loud-reading at the library. We managed to sneak in a grocery shop before the kids had a total meltdown and fell asleep in the car on the way home.

The best line of the day went to Ali (she has good odds since she talked non-stop for most of it). She pronounced that Lily was a "Funny bubble muppet" when they had a bath together. Unfortunately the bubble muppet and her big sister wouldn't pose nicely for a photo so there is none today.

Just to let everyone know that our dog has been renamed "Jecta" and Ali will henceforth be known as "Pressca" because she presses things. We have two new pets, they are unicorns, called Tania and Fiona, and they sleep in Pressca's bed.

Anzac day

Well we missed the dawn service again this year.
Phil still went to work - no rest for the wicked.
The highlight of the day was when our neighbour Craig (Ali calls him Cragg) turned up with his digger and dug a hole for the trampoline so it's not so far for littlies to fall off the edge if they do happen to take a tumble. After watching for about 1 minute Ali announced that she wants her own digger just like Cragg's but yellow. When he was finished he offered to give her a ride up the driveway but she was a bit nervous and just posed quickly for a photo.
Lily-anne slept through the whole thing.

Free the frog

This morning we released the frog that Ali rescued from a bucket of water about a week ago. It has been happily living in the bug house she received for her birthday during that time but it had a habit of eating the other guests (1 grasshopper, 1 butterfly, 6 houseflies) and so it was time for it to go free.
Ali's friends Summer and Karli came today and kept Mum very busy trying to keep them all in line. Here they are enjoying a story from Ali all about a poopoo man who flew a poopoo airplane into a barn and got poos on his head. They all thought it was hilariously funny.

Ali and I made her first garden today. It's next to the shed, we weeded it, topped up the soil, put in an edging and then Ali planted coriander seeds and lettuce seedlings. She did pretty well planting sage and a small variegated geranium as well. Then it rained so we didn't get a photo sorry. However I did get a picture of the girls playing with the blocks nicely.

In the afternoon Dad was home so we went for a walk around the paddock to survey the damage. The tree Ali is standing next to is a pohutukawa that we planted for her when she was born. The gorse is not.

Mad Cows

We've spent the last few days chasing cows around the paddock. Wayne's cows came around to mow our paddock but they have little respect for electric fences that are not electrified and thoughtfully did some tree pruning while they were here. Ali got to have a good pat with Oscar (ex calf-club bull) while Lily chose to watch from a small distance. Buddy thought the cows were great fun and he especially enjoyed helping Bob (Wayne the farmers dog) to round them up and herd them up the drive and out the gate.
Lily has mastered the fine art of tickling and has taken to attacking the dog without warning and going " tickle ickle ickle" and scratching his chin or tummy. Thank heavens she has stopped tickling me because her fingernails are quite sharp and her tickling is not very gentle.