I know i have missed a few days of blogging…it is mainly because of the school holiday as i have no time for anything else but the kids,
however it is also because i just re-opened my Etsy shop again and i have a few hat orders that i have to do,
so im trying to get those orders out in my spare time (been knitting furiously lol), which is usually after the kids are in bed for the night….
that time is my downtime that i usually use for blogging and uploading photos, but now i have to divide it evenmore
between uploading photos, making hats and quality time with hubby….so needless to say im behind on blogging again.

But don’t worry, eventho i didn’t get a chance to update the blog, i have been keeping my promise and still taking daily photos.
Ijust dont have the time to download them from my memory card, edit and upload them or update my blog as often as i would like….

Anyway, so we finally had a decent weather over the weekend after a whole series of crappy weather…
so we decided to take advantage of the fine weather and went to the Spring Festival in the botanical garden over the weekend.
The tulips were in full bloom and was soo beautiful….i took some tulip photos of course which i will post a bit later or maybe tomorrow
if i get some free time to download the photos from my memory card and upload them here.

in the mean time…while we were in botanical garden over the weekend we saw a Tree Climbing Competition for kids,
which was one of the school holiday activities that the City Council have going during the Spring Festival.
Along with the competition, there were people there who were teaching newbie kids on how to climb a tree properly
with safe rope and proper harness. After observing a few kids having a go at learning how to climb, Miss C decided she wanted to give it a try,
luckily i have my camera with me so i took some snaps….we were impressed that she was brave enough to climb pretty high up…

oh and btw, these pictures were damn hard to take in a full sun as well as dappled light underneath the tree so there are a lot of harsh shadows
and blown highlights….but i dont care, i have mommy goggles on when i took these coz we were so proud of her, she was very brave
and we were impressed that she have the guts to do it as it was pretty high up (specially for me coz im petrified of heights! lol)
and most importantly we were glad that she had a great time.

getting ready to climb…safety first, so she has to put the harness and making sure the rope is secure…

being taught how to handle the rope…

making sure everything is safe and secure before the climbing start…

okay so here we go….being hoisted up first…

a bit higher…

and she is off….

now she is trying to go back down…

going down is easier than climbing up…

just like a pro at handling the rope now….lol

almost there…

and…touch down! yay…isn’t she brave?!

its school holiday this week and im trying my hardest to plan activities for the whole week so that i won’t have a restless
and bored 5 year old in my hands…and let me tell you im almost running out of ideas already and its only day two! *yikes*

So far, we have been to the malls where they usually have some sort of school holiday fun activities….
it keeps her occupied for about 10mins max during the day (yeah that wasn’t a lot of help), and then we have been to the park
and to the library, and to give mummy a break we have coffee together while Logan is asleep LOL

Luckily for me, tomorrow i have her Nana to help me keep her occupied….and i just found out from WCC (Wellington City Council)
Spring brochure that there are kids activities in town that we can take the kids to during school holiday,
which we are planning to go to depending on how the weather is like tomorrow…

Today i took her to see Dora and then we had lunch together, then go to the park and of course we can’t forget my coffee break.
Don’t get me wrong, i love spending quality time with my kids….however im not sure i can survive the whole 2 weeks.
its pretty full on when im constantly on the go since i wake up in the morning until 7pm (if im lucky) when my hubby gets home from work…
well lets just hope i have enough energy to keep up with the kids for the next couple of weeks…

at the park, burning off some energy…

then off to my coffee break…this is my mocha, let me just say that this was the only break i get the entire day *sigh*

and a slice of chocolate cake that we shared together…oh my it was sooo yummm! this is where i get my energy from LOL

this is her “babyccino” which consist of frothy milk and marshmallows…

Claudia insisted that i take a photo of both our coffee together, obviously the big one is mummy’s and the little one is hers…

she gets this cool Dora Passport that keeps her occupied during the time i had my coffee LOL

and her reward for being good for mummy…a rocket pen which has 4 different colour (red, blue, green & black),
not that she doesn’t already have a gazzilion pens at home…coz thats what she does, she loves to draw and she loves cool pens.

and lastly we can’t forget her picture with Dora…

we had a Plunket appointment this morning and now that my baby boy is 6 months old the nurse recommended that we introduce solid food.
as usual the very first solid that they suggested was rice cereal…so we decided to give him his first solid lunch today.

well let me tell you one thing….introducing solid food is one messy business!
we had gooey cereal everywhere because he keeps wanting to grab the spoon…
so in the end i just gave it to him and he seemed to really enjoy playing and eating at the same time…LOL

im sure there will be plenty more messy business for us in the future…
however just to see his face and his reaction the first time he tasted the rice cereal was priceless!
sure glad i got it on camera….

my baby is 6 months old….
wow, i still can’t believe its been six months since we brought him home from the hospital…that went by really fast!
he is growing beautifully and hitting his milestones as he should be….he can roll onto his tummy and back really well now,
in fact he just rolls around all over the living room floor everyday LOL

we are soo gonna be in big trouble when he starts crawling…
nothing in our tiny living room will be safe because everything will be within his reach…*gulp*
ohh btw, we just spotted his first tooth peeking out and seeing from the way he is chewing his hands and drooling like crazy,
im sure it wont be long before his other chompers will show up too…

he is talking up a storm eventho we have no idea what he is going on about….LOL
he loves his big sister, no matter what mood he is in (even when he is crying) he always smiles and grin when he sees his sister…
we love his smiley face, his laughter, his squeal, and everything about him….just love LOVE love him to bits!

I can’t even describe the feeling when we look into his crib/cot in the morning and seeing his beaming smile when he sees us….
its just the most amazing feeling and it makes everything worth while. He really is a delight and he makes our family complete…

Miss C had a special day at school yesterday…her class was doing a “Pirate Day” so she was going to school dressed as pirate
and the kids are supposed to be bringing a plate of finger foods to share instead of their usual packed lunch.

The thing is, i only just found out about this the day before, however the little miss told me that she has been trying to tell me about this all week
but apparently i had not been listening as i was too preoccupied with other things in my mind…*whoops, bad mummy!*

So i was feeling quite guilty about this as we looked around the house for things she can wear for her pirate outfit.

Since  we could not find anything decent i told her we should go to the $2 shop to get an eye patch and a pirate hat….
she told me she did NOT want to wear an eye patch because only boys wear eye patch! She was quite adamant about this,
so we proceed to get her a bandanna instead and i had to buy her a pair of new black boots because of course pirate wear boots she said…
and i cannot argue with her on this one. LOL

Well after looking around her whole wardrobe we decided on a stripey top and black and white tights to wear with her boots….
she said she also wants to wear a skirt because she wants to be a pretty pirate….hell i dunno if there is such thing as a ‘pretty pirate’
but considering this was a last minute effort we settled on a red skirt for her to wear and she was happy with that…thank god! LOL

So i took a couple of snaps of her in her pirate outfit before i drop her off to school, but because it was so cold outside yesterday we didn’t take many….then as i dropped her off to school she asked me to come visit her at lunch time. I told her i can’t promise anything but i will try my best.

By the time lunch time came around i was feeling pretty lousy as i was coming down with a cold…but i still remember that made promise to try and document our day to day life more often and i know it will mean a lot to Claudia if i come and visit her at school during lunch….so i braced myself, bundled up with a few layers of jackets in my attempt to keep warm and headed off to her school.

I thought i’ll stay for only a few mins to take some quick snaps and then i can go back home to rest….so i took a few pictures inside her classroom
while the kids were having lunch and left after about 20-30mins when it was time for them to play outside.

I was going to post these pictures yesterday, but i was so crook (sick) and i crashed right after the kids went to bed so im posting this today.
The first 3 pictures were taken at home before i dropped her off to school and the rest are the pictures i took at lunch time in her classroom.

I asked her to give me a scary pirate face and this is what i got LOL

this is her “don’t mess with me” pose lol

check out these cute and creative pirate food for their lunch…

having yummy chicken and popcorn for lunch to be a lean mean pirate machine hehehe

and then eating her so called “pirate sword”

with her friend Arno…

I just love Arno’s full pirate outfit…

and this is one of Miss C’s friend, Stella and her awesome pink sword…

Miss C and her girlfriends…

another one of Claudia’s friend, Jonty showing off his awesome pirate arm muscle to the ladies…LOL

Claudia and her wonderful teacher…

and of course we can’t forget her best friend, Denise….

and lastly, Claudia and Stella playing together during lunch…

Miss C loves reading…everytime we go out she will go to the bookshop and ask if she can get a new book to read.
Last week she brought home a book from the library and started reading it while i was feeding Logan…
he seems to be fascinated with it, so today we decided to do a reading session together.

She wanted to read to her little brother, so i asked her to choose a few books from her bookshelf that she wanted to read to her brother.
He loves looking at all the colourful pictures inside the book while listening to his sister reading…

I think we are going to continue the reading session… its a good bonding time for all of us, and the kids seems to enjoyed it.
I really hope he grows to love books and reading as much as his sister…

We decided to have a family brunch today and we had a wonderful time…
My dear hubby ordered his usual fave brunch food - the eggs benedict, i have a very yummy steak sandwich,
Miss C ordered from the kid’s menu - a ham and grilled cheese toasted sandwich, while Logan intently watched us enjoyed our food…LOL

It was such an awesome day….we are were blessed with a nice sunny day (the weather forecast for today was crap….im glad they were wrong!)
the food was tasty and we really enjoyed the nice and relaxing environment in the Espresso Garden Cafe. Well in short, life was good….

Here are some snaps from our brunch, which should serve as a reminder that we should really do this more often….

Today i took my lil guy for his 5 months vaccination….i still can’t believe its been 5 months, wow time goes so fast!
He was a trooper and only cried for a short spell when the vaccine was being injected in and then he was all happy again after its over.
To be honest i think it harder on me to see that huge needle going into both his chunky thighs! LOL

Anyway, i decided to take more pics of him today…i just love his blue vest i got from Jakarta and his white fluffy bunny hat,
so i just had to take some pics with him wearing them. So here is my little tiger bunny…

in his yellow bumbo chair….used to belong to his big sister and now being handed over to him.

and he is always chewing on his hands now because he is teething, we can see a teeny bit of his chomper showing thru his gum.

Since we moved house, i have been walking the little miss to her school every morning since we only live 5 mins away from her school.
The location of our new place is totally awesome, everything is within a walking distance.
We are right across the street from the swimming pool and the park, the mall and the supermarket is just around the corner….
i just love how this new place is very convenient.

However, since i have been walking Miss C to her school every morning from our new place its been really hard for her to say goodbye at school.
She cried and clings on to me saying that she wants me to stay in school with her, i told her that i can’t stay
then she told me that she will miss me too much when im not there. As sweet as that may be, that my daughter cannot bear
to be apart from me, its not a good feeling leaving your daughter while she was crying everytime you drop her off to school every morning.

This has been going on throughout all week, so i talked to her teacher to figure out whats going on….we need to get to the bottom of this.
The thing is, she used to bounce along to school excitedly every morning when i used to drive her to school,
so the only thing that has changed is the fact that now i walk with her to school from the new house.

So it turns out she has not adjusted to the move as well as we thought….although we have prepared her for the move
well before the sale of our house was confirmed. She kept on telling us that she loves the other house better….
we totally understand that it was the only house she has ever known and that she has been in that house since she was born
so she is very attached to it.

Ever since the sale of our house was confirmed we’ve been preparing her for the move & we tried to keep a positive spin on things…
we told her how great it was that the new house is so close to her school, its also close to the park and the pool so we can go there often,
and all the other good things about it, however she still insisted that she loves the old house better…

Well, i think she is slowly getting around to the idea that this new place is now her new home….
but it might take some time for her to adjust to that, and obviously this is also part of whats affecting her when i drop her off to school.

Her teacher suggested to break the crying habit with a promise of a “special treat” when she is being a good big girl
and not cry when mummy drop her off to school. So over the weekend we talked about her clingy-ness and the crying….
and we told her that if she can be a good girl and not cry this week we can give her a special treat.

During our talk she mentioned that her friend Stella got this cool colourful straws that has sherbet inside it….
we agreed that she can have that as her special treat if she promised to be a good girl this week.

For the last couple of days Miss C has stick to her promise in being a good girl and she did not cry when i dropped her off to school…
she asked if we can go get the sherbet straws after school today.

So after school we had a stroll over to this one specific service station (the only place we know that sells it!) to get her sherbet straw.
And guess what??….they are only .20cents for 3 of them! What a steal!!
i didn’t even know that we can still get candy for 20cents these days! LOL

Anyway, i love those sherbet straws because not only because they are a bargain….they motivate my lil girl to be in her good behaviour
and they also help make me feel better because i dont have to see my daughter crying in the morning…so its a win win in the end.

And another upside of this…after getting her special treat she is more than agreeable for me to take pics of her.
So after all that drama….and a long essay, here are the pics we took after school today…

As some of you already know, we just recently moved house and we had to downsize quite a bit…
we went from a 4 bedroom house to a 2 bedroom townhouse.
I know for some of you it seems that we are going backwards seeing that now we have 2 kids and yet we are moving to a smaller house.
However rest assured that its all part of a bigger plan we have…which is moving to Australia.

Anyway, seeing that we do have 2 children obviously we have quite a bit of stuff…and if you ask Russ (my dear hubby)
he will say that my photography stuff takes up more room than anything else LOL

Now we have quite a problem seeing that in our small townhouse we have no garage….so we decided we will buy a shed to store some of our stuff.
I thought this weekend is about as good time as any to go buy a shed. We went to a few places but we ended up in Mitre 10 MEGA…
for those of you who don’t know what that is, its like a huge place for home improvement and DIY stuff.

I never know a shed could cost so much! I just hope Russ can assemble it together when it arrives in a couple of weeks time.
We’ll have to wait and see on that…i will update you with it when the time comes.

Btw, the little miss had quite a good time there coz there was kids playground inside and we also went to the cafe inside and had some yummy cakes.
As part of my promise to be more proactive in photography i took my camera with me and I managed to take some snaps while were there…
here are a couple of pics i took of Miss C with some random Mitre 10 things while we were waiting for daddy to order the shed in the checkout.

oh and we also went there to get a new toilet paper holder…apparently there was a different opinion between Miss C and daddy and she was really dissapointed when we go for her daddy’s choice so this is the face we got from her…