Noho Marae

This past weekend we had the opportunity to stay on a marae courtesy of the Playcentre Association. We packed up all our stuff for the weekend and headed off on Friday night when we (the manuhiri) were officially welcomed onto the marae, complete with karanga, korero and waiata (speeches and singing). After a big dinner we settled in for the night in the big sleeping house with everyone else. Needless to say with 30 adults and about the same number of kids in the same room there was not a great deal of sleep to be had. On Saturday we were up early for breakfast and then workshops on flax weaving and making poi and then in the afternoon some more weaving and a talk on the history of the area. After another big dinner there was kapa haka from the local primary school (singing and dancing) which our kids really loved. Saturday night the kids were all pretty tired so everyone got a bit more sleep. Sunday we packed up and headed home. We managed to pick up a pet lamb for Lily on the way home from the same kind people where we got Lovey. Mooney has settled in well, the girls are calling him MooMoo for short.... perhaps we should have got a calf?

Hooray for the holidays. It's great to hang out with the kids at home for a bit.

Arohanui (lots of love) to everyone!

Sir Lovey Lambikins the lamb for calf club day

this is me and my lamb lovey he is 7 days old. On wednesday the 8th he followed me......

This post was written by Ali.

Father's Day

In the morning Phil played golf while Mum and the kids fired up the bubble maker in the back yard. In the afternoon we found out how many helpers it takes to assemble a pint size wheelbarrow.

Lily-anne's Fourth Birthday

Today Lily turned 4. After Ali's hockey game we met Lily's friends at Chipmunks playland in town, it's a giant indoor playground with a huge inflatable slide where Lily has been wanting her party for ages. When everyone got hungry we headed to the town basin playgound (outdoors) for a party picnic with cupcakes, chips and birthday cake. We had just finished the cake when a shower came by and scattered the party so we had no annoying hangers on :-) Lily got to choose some presents of her own - strawberry shortcake dolls, a barbie fairy and a gazillion bubbles bubble maker and then we headed home to play with them all. Lily requested beef bulgogi (Korean style stirfry) for dinner and then we all watched a movie called "Go" all together.

Thank you to everyone for all the lovely cards and pressies. If we didn't call you yet we'll give you a bell tomorrow.

Lily-pop

Lily spends a lot of time lining things up - flowers, shoes, crayons, dolls etc. Lately she's been doing lots of building with her blocks. Here is an aeroplane she made one morning when I was cleaning up the kitchen.

Ali's big news is that she lost her second front tooth so now she has a really gappy smile :-)

Mucking around

Ali and her friend Summer play with the chickens - Friendly Pat and Friendly Star
Dad, Ali and Cutie share a family guinea pig moment, Dad seems to quite like the piggles.

Lily and Lulla like to cuddle.

Right back into it!

Here's Lily and Claire at playcentre playing with the fingerpaint.