How to get a good photo of all three kids!

PUT THEM IN A TREE!!! Heehee, a beautiful tree setting, so i placed all three kids up in it. They weren't overly happy about being stuck up there, so i said let me get a good photo and you can get down. This was the result......

Left, Right or in between?

Been reading up on left-handed children (Maggie). It's really fascinating. Did you know there are different degrees of left handedness? You also have a dominant foot, eye and ear, but they're not always necessarily the same side.
Just for fun try these:
1. Inagine the centre of your back is itching. Which hand do you scratch it with?
2.Interlock your fingers. Which thumb is uppermost?
3.Imagine you are applauding. Start clapping your hands. Which hand is uppermost?
4.W...ink at an imaginary fried straight in front of you. Which eye does the winking?
5.Put your hands behind your back, one holding the other. Which hand does the holding?
6.Someone in front of you is shouting, but you cannot hear the words. Cup your ear with your hand to hear better. Which ear do you cup?
7.Count to three on your fingers using the forefinger of the other hand. Which forefinger do you use?
8.Imagine answering the phone. Which ear do you hold the phone to?
9.An imaginary football is rolling towards you. Which foot do you kick it with?
10. EYE dominance test. Stretch your arm out in front of you and point at a small object some distance away, so that your finger is pointing directly at it. Now close one eye. If the finger is still directly in line with the object, then the eye you have open is your dominant eye. If you now look only with the other eye, the object will appear to shift sharply to one side of your finger, this is your non-dominant eye.

Apparantly very rare for someone to do all these with the same side of the body!

Slooooooow renovations.

Our renovations are sooooo slow moving, but little by little we are making changes. Current project is the arduous task of stripping wallpaper in the kids rooms ready for plastering and painting. I will feel so much happier knowing they all have cute/cool bedrooms. After that it will probably be a while before we do anything more inside.
The kids play area out the back is looking cool though and the next task will be to put in a deck and do up the gardens around the pool area.

We've recently had to redo some of our back yard fencing too. Sub managed to break his way thru the gate (made out of an old door), so we now have a metal gate. Also had to put another level of retaining for the garden, as Sub had learnt to get over the wall and inside when we were out.....seriously i don't think Alcatraz could keep that dog in. For now he is fenced outside, but i'm sure it's only a matter of time before he finds a new way in!

Surprise!!!

The gaps between posts are getting further and further apart i know, but i am a slave to facebook and once venting my daily disturbances on there am not so inspired to repeat myself here. Must try harder!!
Well since my last post we've had a couple of birthdays. Maggie is now four and at morning kindy, Charlotte is now seven and missing her top two front teeth (so cute)and while Ryan doesn't turn three till Nov, he has none-the-less, just started morning kindy. He's loving it, and for three afternoons a week it means i get some wonderful one-on-one time with Maggie, which she's never really had before. Have to say though, by the end of Thur afty Ryan is exhausted for the week and in much need of a huge nap on Friday (so i guess in a way i actually get 4 afternoons with Maggie).
Charlotte has recently performed in her school play, where she was the narrator for her classes part. She did brilliantly!! She loves the stage, so i am looking at booking her in for drama classes.
Ryan also has had hid tonsils and adenoids out, which is such a relief. I am so much more relaxed when he is eating now, without the fear of him choking. I know he still could, but it's a more normal risk now, not a very real risk.
Study for me has finished for the year. I passed my course, which is a relief. Was great doing the course though, before jumping in to full time study next year. I have learnt a lot about the university system and gained a lot of confidence in myself and my abilities. Still nervous about next year though.
Anyhoo, will try and come back on before another four months has passed.

Just putting it out there

and in ten years time (ish) we'll see how right i was.
Thinking my three year old will one day be a vegetarian! (Although one of the ones that makes allowances for seafood!)
Maggie is not a big meat eater. She does eat it, but really takes her time. Put salad on her plate however and she scoffs it down! (Not complaining by the way!)
We were driving back from Kaiteri the other day and discussing what takeaways to have for tea. Pizza was mentioned (not something we have very often) and miss M yells out "I want a salad pizza" (Mmmmmmmmm!?!)
She does however love seafood of pretty much anykind. Fish, shellfish, whatever. She was happy to eat oysters at a very young age (and much to her Daddy's upset). On the same night that pizza was discussed we ended up going to the noodle bucket (First time ever and YUM!! Definitely going back!). Miss M saw the menu pictures and stated "I want the one with the wimps" (Too cute!). Sadly she had to share the honey chicken with her siblings (of which she ended up giving most of her chicken to her sister), but did get to share in a number of "wimps" from her Daddy's garlic prawn noodles (very happy little girl!).

Don't mess with the heart!

While i am not totally against this government (they have made a couple of okay changes), they do have to be dreaming if they think the general kiwi population are going to sit back and let them go against some of our key 'from the heart' beliefs.
Specifically the mining, but there are other issues as well. I realise that yes the money would be useful, but at what cost?
Summing things up at the moment they are suddenly okay with killing whales and mining our national parks....next it will be nuclear power!! SERIOUSLY - WHAT ARE THEY THINKING! I know there is more to it than saying it like that, but you just don't mess with matters of the heart!!
There is also all this guff lately about trying to make money so we're as rich as Australia. HELLO....We are not Australia, why on earth would we want to be like them? If we were that desperate why not just become a part of Australia and be done with it (and NO, funnily enough i am not for that idea either!)

IDIOT

Sadly these days it usually takes someone commenting i haven't been on in a while to get me in here. Life is currently soooooo busy.
Along with the usual intricacies (current favourite word, so while this isn't quite the right spot for it, i'm using it here anyway) of daily life i have added study into the mix. IDIOT!!
For this year i have one semester full of study from home doing my Certificate in Learning Support. I have realised that i didn't appreciate just how much time was spent on normal daily chores/tasks till i tried fitting in full time study as well. Again IDIOT!
So far we have had 1 official week of the course and i have no idea how i'm doing. We have a University of Canterbury site where you can go to see what others in the course are up to and a part of my course is actually based out of this site, but all of last week had very little happening on there, so i'm feeling quite unnerved. I'm hoping it's all because last week was orientation week at the university...so here's hoping for more feedback this week.
I do however have my first assignment ready to post away (due in March 8th), so that's kinda exciting. Not looking forward to some of my assignments though.

Anyway's we'll see how we get on over the next few months and if all does go well then next year i will start my first full year of three doing my Bachelor of Primary Teaching. IDIOT!!

Summer

We have been having a great family fun-filled summer (when the weather allows). Christmas was awesome....kids were spoilt, but very happy and we had lovely food with all our relatives and some nice times.
I got to have my first New Years in a long time as we pitched our camper on Daryl's cousins' lawn and so kids were put to bed and i could continue to join in. Pretty casual evening, but good company and a few songs on singstar. Good fun.
The new year saw us head away camping up Quinneys bush with Daryl's sister and family, which was awesome! Such an awesome campsite. We camped on the edge of the playground, so were able to monitor the littlies, while the big kids took off on their bikes for adventures. Big flying foxes, a massive water slide, go karts and swimming in the river. Brilliant!
The rest of the holidays are now being spent catching up with friends and spending any sunny time in the pool or at the beach. GOOD TIMES!

'Gordon', our camper up Quinney's Bush


Go Karting fun


Cringing ready for the splash! Charlotte and her cousin go down the waterslide together.


Fun on the flying fox