Home

Yep that is right, we are now home from our honeymoon.

We didn't want to come home, but are so happy to be here with our 2 little munchkins.

I really enjoyed my week away from them, didn't actually miss them that much, but on the other hand I missed them loads.

It was lovely to have days to myself and not have someone constantly going "Mummy, I need, or Mummy I want?!"

I was fine with being away from them until the last night, when whilst sat in the hotel restaurant having dinner, I noticed a lady with a young boy, he must have been about 4 or 5 and all he wanted to do was go to sleep, it was about 7.30pm.

As I turned and looked over at this scene my heart went crazy.

All I could think about was how just only a week before I had been sat in that exact same position during our wedding reception trying to eat my dinner whilst Alex slept on my lap!

At that point I was so glad we were getting on the plane to come home the next morning.

The flights home were the longest ever when your heart hurts, especially the short 25 minute flight from Auckland to Hamilton that got delayed for a while and then seemed to take ages to take off.

When we finally landed I think I was running across the tarmac to get into the building to see the boys.

There they were stood with Grandma, waiting patiently.

Ben turned and saw me and ran and I just ran to him, picked him up in the biggest hug ever and cried.

Cried because I was so happy to hug them both, because I was tired from travelling and because I get emotional when I travel home from holidays etc.

It actually ended with me kneeling on the airport floor hugging both of them and I could see all the ladies standing around smiling and watching their hearts break with the knowing feeling of what I was going through hugging my boys after being away.

Tahiti was wonderful and we have loads of pictures and stories to share.

So I will get myself organised and over the next few days share with you our experience of honeymooning on Moorea, an island of Tahiti.

Glad to be back,

Tahiti Here We Come

Today we leave New Zealand and depart for our 7 day honeymoon in Tahiti.

Winging our way with Air Tahiti Nui we will ahve a lovely 6 hour flight.

White sands, nice temperatures oh and no boys for 7 nights.

Sheer bliss I say.

Our Wedding

By the wonderful powers of modern technology, I am able to bring you some pictures of our wedding from yesterday. They were taken by one of the guests at the wedding.

Unfortunately they are not the greatest pictures but they will give you an idea of our wonderful day.

We were so lucky in that the sun shone from 6am onwards and never stopped.

It was the best day we have had this spring, so I think the gods were watching us for this day.

The temperature soared, and there I was spending the whole 2 months before the wedding wondering how myself and the bridesmaid would keep warm on the day, and we had no worries about that, we didn't need shawls at all.

Everything went as smoothly as it was planned.

We had all our friends and family there with us and it was just how things should have been.

The Greenhouse where we held the ceremony

After the ceremony we went and had afternoon tea in the pavilion with the cutting of the cake.

This was followed by lots of pictures in all the most wonderful places around the themed gardens with all our frinds and family.

This is our friend Wendy, who kindly sent us the pictures that you are now looking at.

The Italian Gardens where I would have loved to have held the ceremony, but due to getting married in early spring I couldn't guarentee the weather, so settled for just having pictures taken here.

Ben and Alex had an amazing day and loved seeing everyone.

We are now off on our honeymoon for a week in Tahiti whilst my mum, grandma, looks after the boys.

Have a great week and catch you soon.

Wedding Day

Today is my Wedding Day.

I have waited a long time for this day.

I will be back soon with all the details and lots of pictures.

Have a great weekend.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday dear Kimmy,

Happy Birthday to you...

Today is my best friend Kim's birthday, all 33 years of birthday.

Her only concern....why did I have to have my wedding the day after her birthday?

How was she meant to have a great day with drinking if she has to come to the weding tomorrow?

I told her to get over it.

Works For Me Wednesday

Over at Rocks In My Dryer, it is again WFMW where she posts what works for her and we post back with what works for us.

It has been a while since I last posted anything.

This week what works for me is LOVE & FAMILY

With my wedding coming up on Saturday, then having all my family around helping us and all working towards making Saturday a wonderful day for us, then that works for me.

Tomorrow all the grandparents will be staying here and the boys are going to have a ball with them all here. They talk about them constantly.

So love and family works for me as I am sure it does for everyone out there.

Hen's Party Update

On Saturday I went to Rotorua to have my Hen's Party.

It was a glorious day and a lovely break away, even just for 24 hours.

We drove over in the morning and spent the afternoon in the spa pool at Polynesian Spa Pools.

There was about 7 of us there and it was lovely just soaking in the warm water outside gossiping.

We finally got out after about 2 hours as we were all turning to prunes and beginning to feel a little light headed.

The evening was spent at a Moroccan restaurant that has just opened in Rotorua called Abracadabra.

It was fabulous, they had several little rooms away from the main restaurant, so there was 12 of us in our own little private green room.

So we could laugh and joke as much as we wanted without disturbing other people, we didn't have to listen to loud music being piped through and we could stay there as long as we wanted.

Apart from unfortunately having to wait a rather long time for the food to eventually arrive, it was a great meal. Good food and plenty of it.

They dressed me in fairy wings, a veil and tinsel for the evening. I think I was beginning to look like the Christmas Tree Fairy at the end.

Mum with our family friend Lynne

Aunty Pauline, she just blinked as the flash went and it caught one eye slightly closed, she is not drunk!

Veil and wings

Tinsel, wings and veil

The next day, mum and I headed over to the dressmakers to have a finally trying on of my dress. It is now all complete and hanging in my best friends house here in Hamilton.

Couldn't leave it hanging anywhere here at home as no rooms with anywhere that I could hang it so Steve won't noisy about it!

It looks awesome. Just right for me and so well done. I am very happy with how it turned out because it is now slightly different to how it was originally going to look.

I will post pictures of it next week sometime as son as I have some on the computer.

The weekend was also another momentous time for me, as it was the first time that Steve had ever been on his own over night with the boys.

May sound odd to some, but he has always been honest with me and said he wasn't sure he could cope. Ok also the opportunity for me to have a night away and leave him with the boys has never really come up. Yes I know he has had plenty of nights away and left me with the boys, but they have always been for work, 3 days this year and yes 3 weeks worth last year as we moved to Hamilton, but I have had 3 years of daily doses of the boys to learn how to deal with them all day.

I was always wary of leaving him when the boys were slightly younger because he was very good at having hypos at night and I always worried about who was going to help him if it was serious.

I do still have that worry all the time, but he doesn't seem to have many hypos at the moment so not so worried, plus the boys are older now and a lot easier to deal with, so no worries that he is going to get all hung up trying to sort the boys out and not eat enough.

So all in all a great weekend, apart from the part where my uncle was rushed into hospital at 1am on Sunday morning. Yes he is very sick, yes he has had an operation but he is now actually making a great recovery and crisis is a lot calmer now, although it was enough of a crisis for my dad to change his travel plans and be coming home a day earlier so he has more time to see him.

Only 5 days to go until the wedding

Sign

Grandma is in the country!

Yes that is right Alex and I drove up to Auckland the other day and collected her.

Shame that as we had to get out of the car so the biggest thunder storm came over head, we were drenched by the time we got into the airport, although we timed our arrival so well that when I went to pay the carpark ticket we had been there all of 14 minutes, now that is well timed for international travel.

Because my parents have been known to travel rather a lot, then we have got into taking a sign to the airport for when they arrive.

Ben actually got to meet Grandad for the first time when he was 2 weeks old, at the airport.

Yes that is where I presented this bundle to my father with tears in my eyes, going 'look at what I did!'

So going to the airport to meet grandma or grandad is not new to my children.

But because I couldn't find the usual sign I quickly threw one together the night before mum arrived.

Due to the rain and the quickness with which Alex and I entered the airport, found mum and then got back to the car, sadly I was unable to get a shot of Alex holding the sign, but I have posted a picture below of the sign.

So imagine Alex standing in the arrivals area of an airport holding the above sign and yes he was a hit!

The amount of people that read the sign and then smiled at the sight of this little 3 yr old boy looking for Grandma was amazing. I must have made everyones day. Pretty sure we probably could have come home with several other grandmas apart from our own if we had the space. I think several of the old ladies wanted to come home with Alex after seeing him with his sign.

Hen Party

Today is my Hen's Party.

Spending the weekend in Rotorua.

Will blog more about what we are doing and how it went later.

Oh yea, only 1 week (7 days!) to go until the wedding

What Would You Do.....?

At family circle time the other evening I asked the boys 'What they would they buy if they had lots of money?'

Wendy, my best friend, has a 16 yr old son. Her husband and she have just finished a 6 week parenting course on Teenagers.

One of the things she got from this course was a box of conversation starters for dinnertime, because everyone knows that dinnertime is when teenagers say the least!

I happened to read one the other day whilst at her house and then suddenly thought I would try it on my 2 monkeys.

The responses we got was definitely not quite what I expected.

Ben - he would buy a scooter or skateboard for his big friend Jake. Although when we told him that we thought Jake already had one, then he said he would get something else for Jake.

Alex - he would sort out getting 2 dolls houses made for his friend Eleanor and apparently Bob the Builder and Wendy, with Lofty, Scope, Dizzy and Muck are all going to help him make these houses.

Ok maybe the answers were a little far fetched, but the thing that I got from it was that they had both thought of other people instead of themselves.

Grandma

Grandma gets here today from Dubai.

Alex and I are driving up to Auckland to meet her at the airport.

Not sure if she actually realises all that is left to do for the wedding that I have left so she can be included in some of the planning.

Oh well, she will find out when she gets here later.

1st & 2nd Day Update

In the pouring rain at 3pm I stood outside the class room waiting for the teacher to release the animals.
Ben saw me through the window and waved, then eventually he came out with the teacher and started to tell me all about his day.
Whilst I stood talking to the teacher, Ben suddenly yelled 'Daddy' and went running off, I turned and there was daddy, come to meet his big boy from school on his first day.
No disrespect to Steve, I just hadn't thought about him meeting Ben from school, I thought we had taken him as a family and that after school would just be a normal everyday thing, but it was great to see Steve there, all smiles and questions for his big boy.
Turns out Steve had even finished work and was coming home then as well. As he said 'it is not everyday you have your first day of school, it is a special day'
Have I ever told you how much I love this guy, he is a sentimental as I am and a fabulous father to his boys.

So at dinner time we had our family circle time when we had all finished eating and we had some great talking going on.
Ben telling us all about his big day, Alex telling us about what he didn't like at swimming and us talking about taking our big boy to school.

This morning Alex had Daycare, all by himself, at first he wanted to know who was going to stay with him, but when I called Steve later to find out how he had been I got told that he had hung up his bag and then dissappeared, not a care in the world!
Ben and I walked to school and because we were rather early then we sat and read a book in his class room. We put his lunch box and drink bottle in the right place, emptied his book bag and then hung up his bag.
At 8.30am I went with Ben to the office to hand in some papers and then we walked back to his room, thinking we could sit and do something until the bell rang at 8.55am.
Instead he then turned to me and said 'bye mum, see you later, you can go now!'

Still got 15-20 minutes until the bell goes and I simply got dismissed!
Well I think he is going to be just fine, who said school was going to be a problem, he loves it.

WOW Toys

Several years ago I was looking for an areoplane for Ben because he was obsessed with them, we lived under the main flight path into Auckland Airport at the time, so he saw them everyday.

The only decent plane I could find was this one. A WOW toy, battery free, high quality, British designed, developmental toy which are guaranteed favorites with all pre school children.
It came with a pilot and an animal and has friction wheels, so you can run it along the ground and the propellers go round. It is a really solid toy and the best part is it requires NO batteries to make the parts move, which any mother will tell you is definitely a bonus.


This then lead us on to getting the helicopter, which is an animal rescue one, comes with several animals and the helicopter has a magnet, so you can pretend to fly down and grab the animal and fly it to safety. Again it has a friction button to make the blades go round and no batteries, in fact all WOW toys require NO batteries, so I love them.


We, over the time, have also collected the twin racing cars and the out door adventurer. Both allow much interaction and imaginative play, and everything goes together. All the people are the same size and can fit in any vehicle etc.


Alex has just found all these toys again in the toy box and now we regularly hear him playing along with them, talking to the people using lots of imaginative playing.


I think we might even have to look at getting another piece for him for Christmas as we need something aimed at his age group to get him, and although he loves all the toys Ben got for his birthday, we don't want Alex to suddenly jump 2 years in the types of toys he plays with when he is after all only 3yrs and needs to still learn what 3/4 yr olds learn at this age.

Alex Swimming

Alex had his swimming lesson this week and as usual loved it.

He has learnt how to float on his back and it is so funny to watch the teacher give him his float board, lay him on his back and then just go off and leave him floating around the pool, where he will just float for ages without going under.

Just floating around

They also tried a new activity this week, which was to sit on the floating board with their back to the teacher and then the teacher helped them to fall backwards into the water. Some of the children just fell back and others managed to do a roll at the same time as falling in, thus making them come up standing the right way up.

Alex wasn't so sure of this as he was told to put his goggles on his head and he didn't like that so much, said it hurt and that he wanted them on his eyes like normal.

I sit on the board like this.....

And then I end up in the water like this.

1st Day

I have not actually known what to do with myself today!?

Alex and I got to swimming at least 1/2 an hour before we needed to.....

WHY?

Because our little big boy started school today.

So am I happy or sad?

A little of both actually.

Did I cry?

Well I got a lump in my throat for about 2 seconds as Steve told me 'he would be ok' as we left the school, but a quick hug from Alex and I was fine.

I guess I was more worried about him not knowing what to do at lunchtime or getting himself confused about something and not knowing what to do or who to ask.

Other than that I am very happy for him to be at school, he so needs the stimulation that school will give him, someone else for him to ask all the questions too.

But how can I be worried when as the the teacher was taking the attendance roll this morning she casually asked the class 'what date is it today on my board?' and this voice popped up and said 'the 8th' and guess what?....it was Ben that had said the date, so what am I worried about he is already answering questions in class!

He looked so smart and grown up in his school uniform this morning, although his school bag was just about as big as him and probably as heavy! At least today was the only day that he had to carry all his books to school as they all live at school from now on and he just brings home his homework book and reading book, so a lot less to carry in his huge bag.

My best friends have been wonderful, I received a text from one making sure I was alright and I had a lovely talk with the other on the phone when I had nothing to do whilst sitting outside swimming. Makes the day go so much better when you have friends checking on you and thinking about you on these special days in your life.

Alex has had a good day, although everynow and then he has asked 'where's B?' and I will say 'school' and he will then be like 'oh ok' but it has felt weird not having him around. Usually if you are at home with just Alex then it is because Alex is not well and Ben is at Daycare and then you wouldn't be out doing things.

So I will now get some snacks ready for my big boy and then Alex and I will go and collect him from his momentous first day at school.

Sudden Dayout

At 5 to 10 this morning I got a text from my best friend saying 'Funky Monkeys on in 5 mins'

thinking she meant the tv, I quickly turned it on and tried to find the channel I thought it would show on, whilst also texting her back asking 'where?'

The reply I got back was not quite what I expected ' stage by river, city side'

So there I was screaming round the house for everyone to get their shoes on, me, who had just finished vacuuming was trying to get dressed, fast and we just flew out the door into the car.

Steve is driving over the bridge whilst we quickly discuss between us where we can park etc.

Ended with him dropping us off and he went to park the car.

The boys and I ran down the hill, past all these poor adults who must have thought we were mad, at the same time as singing 'head, shoulders, knees and toes' because you could hear the Funky Monkeys on the stage.

We found our friends, plonked down on the grass, watched the show and then told them that more than 5 minutes notice would be lovely next time!

Ben loves the Funky Monkeys, to the extent that if possible he would become the 4th Funky Monkey. He has met Chris, Neil and Joe many times and is always inviting them round for lunch, sadly they are always busy.

The event that was on was actually one that we knew about, the Great Race, a rowing race between Waikato University and Cambridge University, yes the one from England, that is usually racing Oxford!

But we had just expected to wander down to the river for the first race at 12.

Instead we ended staying out all day in the glorious weather that Hamilton has managed to produce for the last couple of days, having an impromptu picnic that was quickly brought from the local supermarket across the road.

With nothing else to do today and the fact it is Father's Day, then we had a great day out with friends that seemed to keep everyone happy.

Have a great week.

Birthday Party

Ben had his Birthday Party yesterday, and he loved it.

This is the first birthday that he has got excited about, totally understood what was happening and so totally enjoyed.

We just had a few family and friends come over for lunch.

I just put out a light cold meat and salad buffet and of course the birthday cake, which had to be chocolate said Ben.

Not sure where he got this idea of a chocolate cake with chocolate icing, but he has gone on about it all week, so good old Betty Crocker and I , with the help of my 2 little helpers, whipped up a chocolate cake with icing on Friday evening.

He loved having everyone come to his party, and although he clicked in that everyone who came seemed nice enough to bring him a wonderful present, he never expected it.

To top it all off, the sun has shone all weekend and so the kids were able to get outside for 5 minutes.

He received some wonderful presents, a new school bag, some toys to throw into the swimming pool and then go under to fetch. Loads of books to read, a skateboard, some Bionics Lego and some plastic mechaeno type set which he can make different things with.

Today daddy and him made this dune buggy, they also attempted a helicopter but it got taken over by one helicopter mad little brother.

Alex has actually been really good about the whole birthday thing, he has had moments when he has found it a little hard because Ben has been getting all the attention, especially when Ben's birthday was one day and then he had a party another, this was too much for Alex who felt like he needed some attention everynow and then! But Alex has suddenly discovered all the WOW toys that we have in the toy box and has started to amuse himself with the car, helicopter and areoplane.

One of our friends even ended up staying for the rest of the day, so we went on a huge bike ride down to the river. If the party hadn't tired them all out, the bike ride and walk sure did.

Our friends actually ended up staying the night, and by 7.30pm the 3 boys were crashed out for the night.

Ben had a fabulous day and is now all set ready for school.

Presents

Grandma and Grandad are still in Dubai, although Grandma arrives back on Wednesday.

She was very good at planning though because she left a present for Ben here in New Zealand.

So because I knew what it was I left it until the evening to give it to him, so he could open it after dinner at the table.

They had been kind enough to give him a whole 200 piece box of Magnetix.

So there we were chasing these magnetic balls all over the dining room table, trying to make weird and wonderful shapes with coloured plastic sticks that joined the balls together.

We had a great time with this and can see many fun family times ahead.

Ben even spoke to Grandma whilst we were playing with the new toy and I sent her a copy of this picture whilst he was talking to her, as her blog says, the power of modern technology.

Wedding Countdown

2 weeks until our wedding and our honeymoon in Taihiti