Warm Fuzzies

Every night J does the bedtime routine from pyjamas to bedtime stories. It is his special time with the kiddoes, one which they miss when he has to work late.

I love it too...it gives me a tingle and a smile when I walk past the door and see them all snuggled up together, or I hear the stories the children love read over and over night after night.

This is what memories are made of.

The Moment I Wake Up

Here's to you...my fourth child... although you are bereft of fancy scrapbooks and a myriad of photos documenting your every smile, grimace or tear, there are times when I just have to grab the camera and capture your wonder.

We all adore you Bubba.

Linking to Laura

Remember my friend Laura? We got together a month or so back and visited the gorgeous Hamilton Gardens. Of course I forgot the camera, but L didn't...check out her blog for wonderful pics of our wonderful day.

Linkitylink here

Trackstars

Wednesday evening, straight after dinner has settled we all pop down the road to the little village of Waharoa for athletics countrystyle. This means bare feet, lots of totally gorgeous little Maori kids toddling along to their scary looking but totally devoted daddies and no starting pistols -this is vitally important when you have kids with auditory sensitivity like two of ours.

O-almost6 gets to try his hand at field activities. The volunteers are relaxed and kind, but endeavour to teach the kids how to perform the event with correct technique and rules. In between races O practices his skipping.

A3 and C3 have mini races of 20-30 metres and lots of time playing with balls and Ring a Rosie with their friend B.



Mummy even runs now and then to encourage A along the way...hmmm...maybe I should run a bit faster to get rid of that muffin roll!

Sugar free

Just popping in to say that I am doing a sugar detox...prompted by the lovely Lou and explained by the hilarious Sarah.

I don't eat a lot of refined sugar anyway...but I am hoping to minimise my monthly mood swings so am experimenting with this til Xmas...where I will eat all of the sweet and tasty Xmas goodies, then feel hideous for the next few days, convinced of the worthiness of being sugar free and starting again.

Puppetry

In an attempt to encourage imaginative play I started collecting the odd finger puppet for the kiddoes about two years back. Well, they languished in the corner of the cupboard until recently when the bag was rediscovered and everyone wanted to play puppets...problem was that everyone also wanted the very cool lion hand puppet that I made when I was ten and lovingly restored for my children a couple of months back.

So it was with great excitement on the kiddoes behalf and great relief on the referee's aka my part when Grandma and Grandad arrived back from their big trip with HAND PUPPETS.

great choice G and G!

Rumble in the Jungle

I just close my eyes and walk away now...and eventually somebody comes crying...but in the meantime great fun is had by all.

(Apologies for the crappy pic quality...I can't be sure...but it was probably me taking them...she who can totally take blurry photos on a fully automatic camera)