Wordless Wednesday

This picture was taken in 1990 - I'm not sure I'll be admitting which one I am!

Mothers Day Photo Contest

5 Minutes For Mom is holding a photo contest with the winner getting $1,000.00. It's sponsered by Egg Beaters - Yay! The competition is for photo's of what motherhood means to you.

Here's my entry

This picture is of Juliette at 2 days old in the NICU. The blue is from the photo therapy lights treating her jaundice. This picture is important to me as it shows what a struggle it was for my girls had to be the happy healthy babies they are now. I look at this picture and I'm overcome with love for my little sparrow and how lucky I am to have her and her sister's in my life.

Wellington

I know alot of my blog readers aren't from Wellington or New Zealand. So I thought it might be nice to share where we live with everyone.

Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand and has a population of 180,000. Wellington is situated at the lower end of New Zealand's North Island and is the world's southern most capital. We have a pretty temperate climate although often on a colder side for me! Wellington is made up of 4 cities - Wellington City (where we live), Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt and Porirua.

Our famous cable car - runs from the central city up to Kelburn and the University.

We celebrate Guy Fawkes in a big way

This is Oriental Parade beach - it's totally man made. The real estate along here is among Wellington's most expensive. Now for some pictures from around where we live.

This is the South Coast - rough and beautiful with it's own seal colony

This is Newtown - the closest suburb to us. It's full of quirky shop's and restaurants.

This is Scorching Bay - the beach were as a youngster I spent many many summers as my parents live on the hill above it. It's made famous with Peter Jackson having a house around here and the chocolate fish cafe which has boosted many of a celebrity!

This is Evan's Bay Marina - we live on the hill in the background

This is our town hall and civic buildings - This is where I worked in my life before having kids. The fern ball in the centre is my favourite sculpture around Wellington.

Wellington has many many items of art scattered around the city. This is just one of them around the waterfront.

Finally the bucket fountain. It even has it's own website http://www.bucketfountain.co.nz/
Why is it so important - because every Wellington child is taken here as a treat to watch the buckets fill with water. Once they are full then they drop and water goes everywhere! It's been around for a long time!

Which TV Mom Are You?

I've just taken this test and I'm Marge Simpson! Sadly I do have some hair resemblance on a bad hair day!

What TV Mom are you?

Apart from that we have been busy buying a new TV cabinet to go with our new TV. We got a bargain and it looks great. I would post a picture but my lounge looks like a cyclone has hit it - maybe tomorrow!

And even more exciting the poo seems to have ended - it feels like it has gone on forever!

And we have crawling

I have very clever clever girls. We have had commando crawling for a little bit and now we have proper crawling! My life has changed forever yes now they can get some speed up and their range has increased!

Madeleine

Juliette

Is it to big?

You know how when you make a big purchase and it arrives and then you think "yikes what have we done" well we are thinking "yikes what have we done!"

It's 46 inch's of top of the line Samsung. It's pretty impressive when you play movies on it. We are going to mount it on the wall and we think that will decrease it's size a little.

This is what our lounge looked like before

And this is with the beast!


We are planning to renovate at some stage in the near-ish future and when that happens our living space will be much larger and I think that it won't stand out so much. Well hoping anyway.

Poo, Poo and More Poo

If I thought I was sick of dirty nappies yesterday I was wrong - soooooo over them now!

Yes the babies are still having issues. Happy as little bunnies apart from the horrible nappy rash that they now have. The doctor is not concerned so far and I'm hoping that we are now over the worse (fingers crossed) . As we have only had a couple of incidents this morning.

We are now the proud owners of a massive TV! Wayne picked it up this morning.

Wordless Wednesday

The House of Poo is still continuing

Will it ever stop!

If I never see a dirty nappy again it will be to soon!!!

My House of Poo

Looks like Maddie and Jules have both got a tummy bug - no vomiting just lots and lots of poo! I'm so sick of changing dirty nappies. I've lost count of how many I've changed already today!!!!!

100's and 1000's

Very simply 100s and 1000s are little coloured sugar balls used for food decoration.

We use them on top of cakes and other baked goods like biscuits. Here in New Zealand we also use them to make fairy bread - a popular food for birthday parties. To make fairy bread you butter white bread and then sprinkle 100's and 1000's on the buttered side. Then use cookie cutters to make different shapes. That's it - really simple!

We have had a busy weekend. Big changes around the house. We live in a house built in 1906 - as you would expect the house has been renovated over the years. One strange renovation has caused what we like to call the dog leg. To get to our main living areas you need to go around a cupboard in the hallway. So after much debate Wayne has removed the cupboard to make our entrance way straight through.


Here's a picture before any work started. The open door is where we used to come into our lounge / kitchen area. Trelise can open the fridge and has a yogurt craving at the moment!

This is Wayne taking down the walls with his little helper making sure he is not going to fall.

The finished product - not a great photo because you really can't see the difference it's made to our lounge!

Sweet Teeth

I just had to post about the going's on in our household this morning. Both Wayne and Trelise have a very sweet tooth. Wayne in particular is terrible and can't walk past a sweet at all! In my rearranging last week I moved by baking ingredients to a cupboard that Trelise can get into. It's not really a problem as she can't open any of the jars. She pulled out some 100's and 1000's and left them on the table. I caught Wayne opening the jar and about to pour a large quantity into his hands. I of course said "Wayne Oliver stop that right now!" Trelise didn't know what we were talking about and was asking what all the fuss was about. She saw the jar of 100's and 1000's and of course wanted some. Knowing that Daddy is a sweet tooth and that I wouldn't been keen on this consumption she grabs her Dad by the hand and says "Come here Daddy away from Mummy"

I see - divide and conquer has already started and knowing Wayne it's likely to work!

The End of the Week

At last it's Friday!

No plans yet but at least it's Friday!!!!

Wordless Wednesday

The End of an Era

Trelise and nappies are no more!

Not even at night!!!! Three days ago she refused to have one put on at night and said that she would get up and go to the toilet if she needed to pee. I did think "yeah right" but no it's true. So we have been three nights nappy-less and she does get up if she needs to go. It's a miracle and one I thought was a long long way off. It's been a long toilet training road for us and I really thought she would be going to school and still having accidents.

I never expected to feel sad about it however!

She's absolutely no longer a baby. I dread the first day of school!

Madeleine and Juliette are now into everything. They have a particular fetish for paper and shoes. It's resulted in a lot of destroyed mail. Poor Maddie now has a scratch on her forehead from crawling into a chair - she's under my chair at the moment whacking my ankles with a baby toy. Jules is at the opposite side of the lounge probably trying to programme the clock on the video player. They are still fighting over toys and I know it's only going to get worse!

We have been to the zoo this morning. It's a beautiful day - not hot not cold just the right temperature for walking around our hilly zoo. There was very few people there today so it felt like we were there all by ourselves. We got a great look at the cotton top tamarin's. There were 4 right at the front of the cage so we got to look at their faces right up close. All of the animals were out and about. We had such a fun time.

Trelise's Great Escape

We had a major drama in our house this afternoon. Trelise decided to have some privacy while using the potty and locked the bathroom door. It was one of those things that happened so quickly as I was getting the babies out from the buggy. Anyway I couldn't convince her to turn the lock the other way to release the bolt. Poor baby was so distressed and I couldn't do anything until Wayne arrived home and climbed in the window to rescue her. I was unsure if the window was open (our bathroom has a large drop) and I had a feeling it was so I was freaking out thinking she might decide to save herself. Lucky for all of us I managed to convince her to lie down on some washing and go to sleep.

Anyway Wayne arrived home and couldn't open the door so climbed up to release her. While all this was going on she was curled up on the floor asleep!

Apart from this we have had a wonderful weekend. Had a great day today going for a walk along Wellington's waterfront with my Dad and Katharine and now we are having a BBQ dinner with Wayne's parent's. If only all of autumn will be like this as it was absolutely beautiful today.

Rearranging Thursday

I've been busy busy busy today rearranging my kitchen. I've been finding it harder and harder to keep up with all the housework and now am pretty much just spending all my time tidying and doing no cleaning. Why because I have to much clutter! With the help of my wonderful talented friend Nik I'm been working my way around the lounge and now the kitchen and now both rooms look 200% better . I wish I had taken photo's of before so I could show you the after!

Tomorrow is the bathroom (yes I've even got clutter in my bathroom) and maybe a clean out of a few kitchen cupboards. It's like a woman possessed - well not like, it is a woman possessed!

Nik, you will be pleased I've done the hall! It now will no longer assault your senses!!!

Wordless Wednesday

The course is done!

I finished my course yesterday at last and I'm finally free of it's boring chains. It's all sent off now so I just need to wait to see if I pass. I've gone past the point of caring now so what will be will be!

My favourite teacher at creche left to take up another position yesterday and it's really upset me. She was the teacher that was closest to Trelise (or so I think that is) and I just don't have the same relationship with anyone else there. I gave her a bottle of wine and a nice card which made her cry and then of course made me cry - I'm such a sook!

I had the following conversation with Trelise last night. We was asking me if she could watch TV and I said no it was my turn now. She asked me why so I said "I'm the Mummy and you are the child and the Mummy tells the child what to do", she put her hand up as in talk to the hand and said "I just don't care Mummy I don't care". OMG what is she going to be like at 13! She was sent to bed early as her behaviour was terrible!