Hide 'n' Seek

Whilst at mum's house a few weeks ago, we got to enjoy the wondrous sunshine that suddenly decided to hit New Zealand.

We got to sit outside in her courtyard area and have some lunch.
She has a lovely large flower box in the middle of the area

can you spot the cat?

And it seems like her cat, Chivers, has decided that this is his space, despite the fact there is no space for him!

Chivers enjoying the daffodils as much, if not more than we are!

At least he is showing who owns what around the house!!

End of Year for School

This year has been a fabulous one for my 2 boys at school.
Even though they are both just 6 & 8 yrs old, they have worked hard and made us very proud.
Not sure if this is a good thing to be happening so early because then it leaves a lasting impression of what they need to continue to achieve in the following years to come!!

However we are very proud and have had an awesome year at school with them.
In the week before the end of term Alex had a Grandparent's Day and Flower Show. So mum kindly came over for lunch at the school with Alex and to view all the pretty flower displays they had been working hard on for the day or so before the presentation.
We also got treated to a lovely little singing show as well.
So here are some pictures of the wonderful displays that Alex created this year.

Ben this year has had a young male teacher (22 yrs old) and he has been fabulous. He has created a wonderful class of children who have all been very eager to learn and participate.
This has shown in all the testing the children were put through throughout the year and the wonderful results everyone got.
So sadly we had to say goodbye this term as Ben is moving to another class. The teacher is still going to remain at the school but end of year so next year new grade, class and teacher.
The kids wanted to do something for their teacher to say "Thank you for an awesome year" so a few of the mothers came into the class one day when the teacher was away and asked the children what made him such a great teacher?
Then all their answers were put together on a poster and this was given to him at a class morning tea in the last week of term.

Well, how to make a young male teacher cry, thank him for being awesome and tell him the kids will miss him.
He was so overcome, you could see his heart growing with care and proudness.
He has been an amazing teacher and it has been a privilege to have him as our son's teacher this last year.

The mother's were so impressed with his teaching style and wanted to encourage him to stay with it, that they nominated him for the "New Zealand Impressive Teacher's Award". There was 1 overall winner and 29 others recognised. He was awarded one of the 29 recognised.
I was there in assembly when it got announced and to say he was shell shocked was an understatement. He was speechless, gobsmacked and generally unable to comprehend or understand exactly what he had just been nominated for?
He, as most people do, couldn't understand what he had done so differently from anyone else to deserve being awarded something like this?
But let me tell you, he got quiet ones to come out of their shell, he got noisy ones to calm and listen, he got inactive ones to have a go and he got ones with wariness to believe in themselves and realise they can conquer the world if their hearts desire it.

He shall be missed as our class teacher this next year, but here's hoping he is still around when Alex gets to that school grade.

Stealing Posts

My mother's favourite line in her blogs is always "here is something my daughter had over on her blog, so I have stolen it....!"

So now I am doing it back to her.
She posted about Alex staying with her and seeing as she had the pictures then I have just stolen borrowed them for here as well.

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This is Alex's master piece ... I traced a picture from a colouring book of Lightening McQueen from Cars movie ... (now come on, own up, I bet you have all seen it at some time?)

He actually stitched it using a frame hows that for good training from the word go he also had good tension and stitch length.

Well he has finished it and here it is all framed ready to take home

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He was very proud of himself when he got home here, already to show daddy what he had been doing at Grandma's.

Thank you Grandma he had a great time with you and can't wait until he can come and play again.

Mail and Children

Today I managed to get my first piece of snail mail sent off.

I even went so far as to use mail art on it, ok nothing too fancy, just a little decoration, stickers and transfers.
It was an acceptance card to our niece's upcoming wedding in the middle of November.

On the subject of children, well I am now 1 child down.
Yea that's right, I sold him to the gypsy's!
No he has gone to Grandma's, on his own and he was so excited.
He wanted to pack his bag before we had even left the house this morning at 8am to take Steve to work!
As it was, we needed to go and buy new bags for everyone so we all have our own space when going away for days to the caravan and for long weekends.
The boys are growing and even though we don't have to take half the stuff we use to, they do still have alot of stuff, so they now need their own bags.

So he is now all settled at Grandma's.

How Many Does it Take??

A couple of weeks ago it was Grandma's birthday.

We invited her over for dinner and a cake was made for her.

As it was also the last weekend before my first essay was due in, I removed myself from the cake making business and left it down to the other 3 members of the family.

It seems it takes all of them to make a cake, even a packet one at that!

I did however decorate the cake when it was complete.

Warning, When I am Old I will Wear Purple

My mum loves this poem

When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple

with a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

and satin candles, and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired

and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

and run my stick along the public railings

and make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

and pick the flowers in other people's gardens

and learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

and eat three pounds of sausages at a go

or only bread and pickles for a week

and hoard pens and pencils and beer nuts and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

and pay our rent and not swear in the street

and set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

By Jenny Joseph

Sadly I can see she has the type of spirit where she will darn well wear purple with a red hat too.
Unfortunately, she has been beaten too it by a group of ladies I met in Hamilton Central one evening.

They were all at the Carol Singing Evening that we attended and they looked so great in their purple clothes with red hats that I just had to ask them for a picture as I knew mum would love to see it.

Birthday Time

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to Grandma,
Happy Birthday to you.

Hope you had a lovely day with the family

65th Birthday

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy 65th Birthday to Grandma,

Happy Birthday to you.....

Big party on Sunday, so hope you have a good weekend.

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.

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.

The New Granny

Cute poem I found about how all new mother's think things have changed since their mother's had children!

Now your kids are parents,

There's something you should know,

Their lives are planned out perfectly,

They know the way to go,

They won't need much help from Granny,

She's much too out of date!

Please don't be hurt at this remark -

Just sit back and wait!

Babies are quite different now

Than they were for you and me,

I'm puzzled how we managed

To bring up two or three.

Without the help of all the books

Our children have to read,

We fed and bathed and changed our babies,

And coped with every need.

Reality will set in

When the baby won't conform

To all the rules they've read about

And think should be the norm!

About six weeks of sleepless nights

Should put them to the test,

And you may find them at your door,

Begging for a rest!

Give freely of your help now,

And answer every call;

The time has come for them to see

They need you after all!

Rescuing Grandma

Grandma has been in New Zealand for the last week helping my brother and family settle into their new life in Rotorua.
Today she is flying back to Dubai.
On the news in the last 24 hours there have been reports on the fact that Air New Zealand have grounded some flights due to safety issues.

'Air New Zealand grounded about 60 flights to check 17 planes after a safety "issue" was found during routine inspection of an Eagle Air plane last night. '
Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/

It was only as I heard a news bulletin at 11am that it clicked that grandma was flying up from Rotorua to Auckland today, in a little plane, with Air New Zealand and more than likely one of the ones that had been grounded.
So I gave her a quick call and suggested she check it out, because as she was due to get a connecting flight up here in Auckland, she didn't have the time to get that flight if she only found out at 2pm that her 3pm flight was not flying (it is a 3 hour drive).
So she checked it all out and found that all flights were grounded until 2pm and they could give no reassurance that the 3pm flight would fly. So my brother and family suddenly found themselves driving to Auckland and back to deliver grandma to the airport.

So a good deed by me for thinking of her and getting in touch quick enough.

Unfortunately at 4pm I got a call from grandma to say she was at the airport BUT her wallet was still in the car with my brother and therefore she had no money!
No money means no leaving New Zealand as you have to pay a $25 departure tax before you can go through to the gate!
So off we rushed to the airport (20 minutes away) to rescue grandma again for the 2nd time today.
She was more worried about the fact that it was her wallet with all her cards and driving license, which she needs in Dubai, but unfortunately there was nothing we could do about it at that moment, so we paid for her to leave, we gave her some money for the flight and made sure she had everything she needed and then we saw her off.
Luckily for us, just after she had gone through another Emirates flight taxied down the runway to take off, so as far as Ben is concerned we saw grandma's plane take off!
Unfortunately due to the time at the airport we were never going to make it home in time to make dinner so ended up having to have dinner at the airport. Expensive and not the greatest actually.

So a wild day of rescuing grandma.
Luckily when we called my brother later he had grandma's wallet from the car, so at least it is not lost and we can now organsie getting it to her soon.