Ammon's 2nd Birthday

It is officially Ammon's birthday tomorrow, but I decided to have the party yesterday while it was still daytime and people didn't have to rush home from work.

Ammon's cake was easy - a banana one that I copied off my friend Renee. I was pleased with it and he seemed to like it which is the main thing. Although I forgot about it in the oven so it was a bit drier than I wanted. Oh well.

Ammon loved his presents. A plate set from Brooke/Elisa, a basketball set and book from Nanny/Papa, bubble machine from Leah, transformers sleeping bag from Emerson, a helicopter from Mummy, a fire engine from Daddy, a Thomas book from Aston and a helicopter & driver set from Ryan/Logan (I think he way prefers their helicopter to Mummy's!).

On Saturday we moved him into a big bed and he is enjoying that - sleeping fabulously in it. In the next few days we will put the top bunk on it, and Leah will be moving in with him. For now Emerson will sleep with the baby in her room, but if it doesn't work out we'll look at swapping her.

Ammon and I have had a wonderfully lazy day today, recovering from a very busy weekend. Saturday we got Ammon's new bed, printed off handouts for church, dropped the kids at Mum's to play with Elisa and Brooke, watched Nate play (and win) rugby, cleaned my work, picked up Kirtland to stay the night, organised the anzac devotional, shopped for the devotional supper and cleaned the house, oh and nursed Leah after she started vomiting. Sunday Nate took Emerson and Kirtland to the dawn service then went to church, I stayed home with the two sick kids and cleaned a bit more of the house, decorated his cake, prepared his party, had his party, then went to the anzac devotional at church that we organised. We were so tired when we got home! So today definitely called for a day off! Poor Nate - he had to go to work.

It is not often that Ammon tells you that he loves you. Today I was singing him the Barney song: I love you, you love me, we're a happy family, with a great big hug and a kiss from me to you, won't you say you love me too?

Whenever I sing that to him he gives me a hug and a kiss in time with the song. At the end I ask him if he loves me. Normally Ammon's yes is a "mmm". This time he looked at me and said "I love Daddy". As clear as that. It made my heart squeeze.

Then he carried on "I love Nanny, I love Leah, I love Emmy, I love Elisa, I love Nanny, I love Papa". No mention of Mummy still, but oh so wonderful to hear him say it all so clearly and so uninvited.

I'm having a good day.

ANZAC is coming...

Next Sunday (25 April) is a big day in our house. Not only will we celebrate Ammon's 2nd Birthday a couple days early, but it is also ANZAC Day.

Over the past few years Nate and I have developed a love and a deep respect for the day and what it stands for. For those of you unfamiliar with ANZAC Day it is "a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand to honour members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC)who fought at the Battle of Gallipoli in Turkey during World War I. It now more broadly commemorates all those who died and served in military operations for their countries."

Due to having small children at home, Nate has gone to the dawn services without me, but takes the kids as they get old enough. They enjoy it and look forward to going.

As I do more and more family history, I have discovered ancestors who have served in the military, which in turn makes the day more and more meaningful. One of these is my Great-Grandmother's brother: Ngaope Hoia Te Rauhiri Karawhata (aka Soldier Crawford) as Hoia in Maori means soldier and Karawhata in English is Crawford. A fitting name though.

He was born in 1916 and lived in Waihau Bay on the East Coast of NZ. He served in World War II in 1943 in the 28th (Maori) Battalion in Egypt and Italy. His brother Tui also served with him. They served with Nepia Mahuika from Ngaruawahia and his Son-in-law is who Ammon is named after.

The book "Nga Tama Toa" has made for interesting reading and I was really glad that Emerson gave it to me for Christmas. It has Hoia's picture in there, and I found this one of his brother in the 1943 Battalion Tug-of-war team (he is left bottom row):








Hoia died in 1980.

Painting

We've wanted to paint the inside of our house for a while now, but didn't really get around to picking colours. We finally got some motivation on Sunday and have already started on the kids bedrooms. So far, one down, one to go. Pictures will be up when they're done (and it's daylight to take the photo!).
The kids rooms took priority with baby on the way. We've decided to paint them both the same colour, then it doesn't matter who sleeps in which room. We've picked a colour for the lounge, debating one for the hallway and kitchen and yet to agree on the colour for our bedroom. Ah well, it's further along then we have been....

Stitches

Not even two and he has his first stitches!
Em didn't see Ammon and accidently knocked him over and he hit his head on the coffee table. 2 stitches to his right eyebrow. Yes he cried. Yes he settled down very quickly once he noticed 'Bo On The Go' on TV. Yes I wasn't going to be brave enough to take him to A&E myself, so yes Nate took him. Thank goodness. They had to wrap him in a sheet so they could restrain him enough to do the stitches. Nate said he cried a bit, but I think he was sparing my feelings. If the girls had been there they would have gone ape, they just hate watching a sibling suffer.
But he's tucked up in bed now, with some antibiotics to take 3 times a day and maybe a small concussion.
Oh is this how it is with boys??? A taste of things to come? At least he matches his Daddy - Nate got stitches in exactly the same place but opposite eye. Boys.

Asking the wrong question

As you read this, keep in mind that the door to the roof access in our home is in the toilet....

Leah, flush the toilet!
Leah! Flush the toilet!
Leah!!!! You have to flush the toilet after you're finished!!
Leah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(imagine a month or five have passed with the above being said again... and again... and again...)

Leah, you know you should flush the toilet when you've finished aye?
Yes Mum.
Then why don't you?
'Cause if I flush the toilet the monster will hear me and come down the door and get me.

Mmmm... why didn't I ask it that way months ago??

Leah's first report

Well we had our first parent-teacher interview in regards to Leah yesterday, and she is doing really well. We are pleased. Although there wasn't any big surprises in there, it was still nice to hear she is on a good track. Leah doesn't seem to have the inclination towards excelling at education like Emerson does, but she will do well enough and we think will excel in other areas.

Here's her report:
ORAL LANGUAGE - excellent control and speaks clearly (goal: to develop her confidence when speaking to a larger group)
READING - is secure, understands some punctuation (goal: recognise more punctuation and changes in word/letter order)
ALPHABET - 43 out of 54 upper and lower case letters (goal: to recognise all the letters)
WORD RECOGNITION - 4 from a list of given words (goal: to recognise more basic words)
WRITING - right handed, can write 6 basic words and family names independantly (goal: to increase her basic words)
MATHS - can form sets up to 12, rote count to 39, solve early addition and subtraction problems (goal: recognise numbers to 20 and count backwards from 20)
GENERAL - Is more confident and settled, is friendly and cheerful who is keen to learn and to try new things. She enjoys the company of her class mates and she works well in a group.

The goals are good to know, it gives us direction for helping her at home and with her homework. Already we note how she has a very good memory and does a lot of her homework from memory and barely learns the actual words/text. Teach her once and instead of learning it she just memorizes it and then she's done. So we have to make her go back and really try to learn her words or books.
Mind you, for only being at school 4 weeks now she's doing pretty darn good. If you ask her about school though, she'll only ever tell you about what happened at playtime or lunchtime, nothing at all to do with the classroom.
We walked Emerson to her class and to the car for about 2 terms when she started school, but Leah asked us to wait at the gate from week 2. Even if we go to her room anyway, she just runs off to play or find Emerson barely bothering to show us anything in her classroom. We definitely don't feel like we are as up to date with Leah's learning as we were with Emmy's but that just goes to show how individual our children are. Em loved to show her stuff off, Leah couldn't care less. She did ask us to watch her swimming demonstration though, so we did. Tomorrow is Emerson's.
I think we have Emerson's parent-teacher interview in a couple weeks.

10 YEARS - 4 March 2010

Happy Anniversary my sweetheart. I love you more than the day we were married, more deeper than I thought I would. Everything just gets better and better! Thank you for loving me and our children, for letting me talk you into another one :-) and for knowing me so well.
We are good for each other and I am glad you are mine for eternity.
xxx

Today

With the kids away at Mum's last night, Nate and I got to get a few errands done. One was to buy Leah some new training wheels for Em's old bike. She wouldn't ride it because it felt so wobbly, but now she is stoked and was off down the driveway like a shot as soon as she got on it. It fits her so much better than her last bike.

The other thing we did was to start getting Ammon's birthday presents. How organised is that?! It's still two months away, but today we got him a bike (it's a tradition in our home to get a bike on your 2nd birthday) and a big bed. As you can see the bike is a hideous colour (KTM motorbike brand), but we think he'll enjoy it once his legs are long enough to reach the ground. The seat is adjustable and nope it's not meant to have pedals.

The bed is part of a second bunk set, identical to what we already have. We'll put it up for his birthday. Hmmm... perhaps I should buy him some boy sheets?? For some reason his daddy would prefer he didn't ride purple and pink bikes, or sleep in purple or pink sheets! Go figure.

We'll keep the second bunk in the shed till we need it which won't be soon for baby, but the kids may use it if friends sleep over.

Also got the cleaning done at work, the lawns mowed, Leah's teddy fixed up and a rest before the kids came home and we went for dinner at Marc and Nat's. Not much beats sitting around with good friends and good food with good weather and a swimming pool.

More of Leah's Birthday

Some pics from her kindy farewell...

her party at Lollipop Playland - the cake came out really well!...

and getting off to school this morning…

You probably can't see it, but she also got a haircut for big school (to her shoulders, much better!). I stayed with her till 10am and she was very clingy, wanting to go back to kindy. She said the kids scared her. There were about 9 others in her class, and she knew one from kindy. I left her doing maths which she seemed to be enjoying as it was all colour, cut and glue and waiting for morning tea.

She's 5

Here's a few pics from Leah's birthday today. She woke up to balloons hanging from the bunk above her, to banana-choc chip pancakes for breakfast plus prezzies. A day at Nanny's, then honey chicken for dinner and a small cake for dessert. I wasn't going to do a cake today, but I was making cupcakes for kindy tomorrow and had left over mixture.

She says a big thank you to Uncle Andre and Aunty Shannon for the money (she came out waving $10 around very excitedly. You did well to whip over here and hide it under her pillow!), and Brooke and Elisa for her new dress. She plans to wear it tomorrow for her last kindy day.

Ammon started back at swimming on Tuesday and gymnastics today. He likes both but wants to do his thing not what everyone else is doing. Leah is nervous about doing her own gymnastics on Monday because now I can't be with her while she does it. From 5 years she has to do it herself and I sit upstairs watching. Today Emerson started dancing. She is doing hip-hop and so far is liking it. It's in Ngaruawahia so a little travel involved but also an excuse to visit Nanny and Papa.

Em is in room 10 now with Mrs Williamson. She likes her and her class. It is a mix of year 3 and 4. Em is year 3. Leah will be year 1 with Mrs Gribben.