Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Wordful Wednesday

Maddie and Jules are settling nicely into the 'Ram" and have celebrated Christmas by getting a dodgy tattoo!

** The one thing that has totally surprised me about moving to Paraparaumu from Wellington is the number of people with (generally) badly done tattoo's! Everyone from Grannies to teenagers seem to have them. After seeing a middle aged conservative woman the other day with Helter Skelter on her arm makes me very grateful that I never got myself inked as a teenager!!

You can visit more Wordful Wednesday posts at Seven Clown Circus!

Camping


Camping - are we mad!

As it turns out - pretty much!! We decided to take a test run using the local campground. We do mean local - about 100 meters as the crow flies from our house. We checked the weather forcast, loaded up the car and off we went.

Camp set up was fine and everyone was happy. We played in the playground while Wayne cooked dinner. Just at the end of cooking it started to rain. Not a light sprinkling of rain but a massive downpour but that's all the fun of camping isn't it! We had a few leaks in the tent but nothing major. We put the babies to bed and Trelise was playing happily in the tent.

And it rained and it rained! Trelise comes running out of the tent buck naked crying that she has peed in the tent! Lucky for us it was an easy clean up by the entrance.

And so the rain continued. Wayne and I went to bed to find the airbed had a leak. We pumped it up but by the middle of the night it was flat. Not that it really mattered as by the time it had totally gone flat Trelise was being an octopus and Madeleine had decided the only way she was going to sleep was on my chest. It was a long night!

But it was fun and we will be doing it again!!

Sorry no photo's - note to self never let Wayne take all the pictures of an outing - they are all out of focus!!!!

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Merry Christmas!


The weather was fabulous this year - no wind or rain and lots of sunshine. We had a relaxing day with lots of presents and food and just hung out. We had Wayne's parents and my Dad and Stepmother drop by to share in our Christmas joy. I glazed a ham for the first time and it turned out great (if i say so myself!).

My Christmas fairies

Why play with your own age appropriate gifts when your baby sisters ones are around. Poor Maddie and Jules didn't get a look in!

Poor Madeleine was pretty unwell all day and the poor wee button spent most of the day relaxing in her bean bag. She is now back to normal.

We set up the slip in slide in the lawn and everyone willing had a go!




Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Wordful Wednesday

Bliss!


You can visit more Wordful Wednesday posts at Seven Clown Circus!

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Jules has turned!

You know the moment when your sweet baby turns into a toddler capable of harm. I was hoping for a few more months but yesterday while meeting up with some other twin mum's in the neighbour she turned. Attacked a little boy on purpose twice and went in for the kill a third time in a slow and deliberate way! Earlier that day the word 'no' was heard while I was removing a shredded roll of toilet paper from her clutches! I'm sure Mads (or Mad dog) is not far behind!

They are lucky that they are still cute!


I'm off to the hairdressers this afternoon to go back to my 'natural' blonde!

Monday, December 22, 2008

Farmers Market

We now have a farmers market every Saturday morning down the road from our house so it's become our Saturday morning jaunt to get the kids ready and off we go to buy our weekly fruit and veggies. It's wonderful - not only is everything fresh it's so much cheaper than in Wellington!

Here is our first haul! And as if we didn't stand out enough Trelise dressed as a fairy got alot of comments!!

Probably a bit late with everyone's Christmas functions winding down by now but I wanted to share the easiest Christmas dish I've ever done. I put icing on top of mallowpuff biscuits and stuck a couple of jaffa's and spearmint leaves in it. They flew off the table and only took me a few minutes to make.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Oh Christmas Tree

We have done something a little different this year for our Christmas tree. I couldn't face trying to keep Jules from scaling the tree and Maddie from eating all the decorations and Trelise from opening all the presents so we decorated the tree in our internal courtyard.

Kath I'm well aware that you will find the way I've managed to only use one colour distasteful and that I've been able to not make the courtyard into a 'grotto' is a Christmas crime!

All it needs now is the presents underneath it!

Ikea light shade for Katie

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Wordful Wednesday


Sometimes pictures are not reality!

Here Trelise is about to go on stage for her end of year ballet performance. Within a short period of this picture being taken the smiles dissolved into crying!

You can visit more Wordful Wednesay posts at Seven Clown Circus!


Tuesday, December 16, 2008

My day just keeps getting better and better!! NOT!!!!!

You would think that putting Mac down this would be the end of my bad luck but no it just keeps getting better!

I washed all our bedding this morning - duvet and covers and hung them out on the line. I washed the dishes as our dishwasher broke the other day. Anyone who knows me knows how much I hate doing dishes. And I've had to do tons today!!!

Then the rain started just as I was about to walk Trelise to kindy. No problem I think I'll just take the car instead of having a child moan and cry all the way down the street because she is getting wet. So we drove. When I went to start the car to leave kindy the key wouldn't go in! Sadly I don't have the skills to start the car without the keys!! So me and the babies walked home.

It's now absolutely pouring with rain and I have to pick up Miss T and bring her back in this. She is going to scream all the way I tell you!

Of course all our bedding is still on the line and you guessed it - it's our only set! It's about now I'm wishing that I remembered where I packed the sleeping bags!

Thankfully the 4 square 50 meters from us sells wine!

Mac 1994 - 2008

Last night Mac was pretty clearly at the end. I'll spare everyone the details but this morning I rang the vet. I am very thankful to the staff at the vets who were so kind and helpful in trying to make this as easy as possible.

Even though I know that it was for the best I'm really sad that we no longer have Macca in our lives.

Rest in peace Mac - we love you xxx

Monday, December 15, 2008

Making Friends

I went to a twin club meeting today and met lots of lovely women. As you would expect when meeting a number of people for the first time my children were all badly behaved. Oh Trelise! I knew she was tired and I did hope she would pull it together! She did after a spot of time out. Mad dog and the rat bag were also pretty wild and but at least they looked cute!

I found a friend for Trelise and hopefully that will work out and she will feel more settled.

Then at kindy I've been invited to a get together on Friday afternoon to meet some of the neighbourhood women. Yay!!

Friday, December 12, 2008

Mac update

Mac is still with us. He seems quite happy although he must be in some discomfort at times. He's eating and drinking. He's sleeping or hiding a fair bit but it's hard to know if this is because he's in a new house or hiding from the kids. He can't groom himself and he is drooling alot so his fur is not looking so good. I gave him a bath on Wednesday and he was a very thankful cat afterwards. It didn't last for long however and today he's pretty manky again.

I'm really struggling with when to make the decision to put him down. I know he's not going to get better and I don't want him to be in pain. It's such a balancing act to decide when his quality of life is not good enough and while I don't want him to suffer I don't want him to lose days. I guess if I didn't care it would be easier. In some way I wish that I had done it on Monday you know like a bandaid being taken off but I just couldn't with the kids there.

Anyway I know this is part of owing pets and while I'm incrediably sad about it at the moment we have had 14 years of taking care and loving Mac and that does make it all worthwhile.

Back for good this time

I haven't been slack and not posting! Our PC died and it's taken us a few days to realise that it's unfixable and we needed to go and buy a new one.

I've got so much to blog about from the last few weeks!

We are settling into Paraparaumu well. For me it's a little unfortunate that everything is or has wound down for Christmas so we can't get out there and meet lots of new people until things start up again. I do however have a small twin mum catch up to go to on Monday.

It's quite exciting discovering new things around town. Even though we have been on hoilday heaps I've never lived anywhere apart from Wellington. I'm learning patience when it comes to the old people. Slowly learning patience I must admit when someone is doing 20 in a 70 area or when they walk as a pack and me and the double stroller and whining three year old just can't get past!

Trelise seems really happy and is trying to make new friends at kindy. She is stuffed after the session which is only a couple of hours. Surprisingly as she is used to full days at creche. It's hard making friends and she broke my heart yesterday as she was telling Wayne a story about an ant who was starting a new creche and didn't have any friends but was trying really hard to make new friends. I'm hoping that on Monday one of the twin mothers will have a 4 year old girl for Trelise to meet or at least know someone who does! Apart from that is loving being up here.

Maddie and Jules have taken trouble to a new level. On one hand I'm glad to see the teamwork but on the other hand the trouble they get into! I was always thankful that Trelise wasn't a climber as a toddler - I have not been so blessed this time! And the fighting over possessions - it's a dog eat dog world here!

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Paraparaumu Here We Are!

Finally we have made it to our new house! The whole move went well and only 1 thing broke in the transistion. We are in the middle of unpacking but the house looks so much better with all the old ladies stuff gone. The net curtains we ripped down within half an hour! The pot plants left behind took a little longer to remove outside as there were so many of them! When we are settled in I'll post some pictures.

But I will say that the house is fab! Wayne just fixed the spa this morning - yippee!

We do have some sad news. While Mac was in the cattery he started dribbling and it was obvious that something was wrong with his mouth. I rushed him to the vet and it looked like he had a bite on his tongue that had become infected. When the course of antibiotics cleared up the infection but the dribbling was still happening - the second vet visit came with a diagnosis of a mouth cancer that's eating away at his tongue. He's at home now with us but it's more than likely that we will be putting him down later on this week.