love, liam: August 2015

Summer is back!!!

and dino's are still the fierce favorite

time for beach fun

playground redevelopment and of course.... CHRISTMAS! oh and moving house. busy month.

best friend beach and zoo visit

a while back i took a very inspiring 2 day playground planning seminar with some really knowledgeable folks at childspace- really lovely, very child and nature focused early educators- http://childspace.co.nz/.
This was organized by the creche and paid for by the ministry of education (woot) and i was someone at the creche who had the time and excitement to take the course. i was the only one there in the course who was not starting her own ECE, and even though i have no experience or background in such things i loved it! a great 2 days. the creche teachers looked after liam after the creche sessions so that i could do the full 9-5. and out of this experience i created a long term master playground redevelopment plan. super cool stuff. so we got our grant money - 17k- to replace the blk safety matting with new surfacing ( this is what the benefit had been for as well) and we are doing a lot more than that :) the plan would require some parent help to prep the site and i had to get everyone on board for that and schedule the work across the christmas break so that it would be done in time for re-opening in january. matthew was my always helpful support and foreman helping me to arrange and get done a lot of the work. we all got into it including liam! first the sandpit had to be taken apart and moved. all of the old black mats had to be removed and the bricks underneath too (the house had been residential when bought by the creche a year ago and the play area was the carpark). oh, and the old rock retaining wall (covered there behind liam) needed to be taken apart (hello jackhammer!) and a new one built. ya. some work.
the new wall design came from the head of childspace, robin, who kindly helped us pro bono :)

it was a heap of work and continued on into january.... across our move and new years and beyond our departure to AU for our xmas holiday! we would have to wait until our return to see the handiwork of the mating company who put in the new surfaces while we were away. matthew and i were both pretty stressed to leave the job before seeing it through to completion! you'll also have to wait until next month's installment to hear how it went ;)

creche had a little xmas celebration. we all brought a plate and santa clause (a dad) came by with treats! this was liam's first "santa"experience. he dug it, no questions asked.

christmas!! this would be first year liam really knows what is going on and i was excited. i made him an advent calendar

it was mainly festive things to do with a wee chocolate thrown in here and there for good measure. i knew enough to put it up out of reach ( over the tv) but eventually even that didn't work. he got up onto the sideboard and got it down and this is how it all ended.

we made it pretty far and i couldn't really be mad. too young. lesson learned. but next year! ha.

weta organized a holiday family photo shoot and we were excited to have some pro photos.
hahah. i give you a sampling of some real winners. in the end matthew photoshoped 3 different images together to make our christmas card. hey! we gotta all be lookin our best ;)

the waiting room- felt like the talent!

a bit more summer fun and some notes:

liam has been doing a lot of word play, esp with song lyrics and is singing on his own a lot more. such a joy to hear! he has become more demonstratively affectionate giving me kisses and even compliments! " that's a pretty shirt mama" or " i like your earrings" he's also engaging in more purposely naughty behavior!

we had a whole conversation about fabric and how it is made.... there is an interest in what things are made of... and he said , no mama, kit makes fabric-- she's a knitter so he is right!

he says "ay mama, " a lot in the kiwi way that i cannot even properly imitate and i love it :) also "and stuff like that" tacked on to sentences.... ha.

at the end of the month i whispered i love you and he whispered i love you back... heart melted. he also told me :
"mama when you get angry i just give you a cuddle to calm you down" omg. wise boy. teaching me things all of the time.

these little guys were really fascinated with liam's dino!

apparently this is a very dangerous thing to do.
whoops! made a nice photo

ramen shop date dinner w/ mom. our fave spot :)

We wish you a merry
Christmas.....

all of the traditional christmas trappings feel a bit odd here in summery NZ where bach cristmases in jandles are the norm but we did it up. complete with saggy xmas fir ;)

xmas morning! didn't take many picts. here's liam's beautiful hat from nana

and 3 days later we moved house! we are all pretty excited

BEST XMAS PRESENT EVER

Welcome Home :)

This month was about the ladies, the ladies, the ladies!

LL cool Liam

liam and i were able to visit 2 of his best girls on one weekend road trip. the first part of henry joan's birthday was here in town at every kid's favorite the te papa museum. we all met for coffee and cake in the cafe and then gypsy tom and ann led a storytime variety show for the kids in one of the favorite play areas.

the next weekend liam and i drove to waiterere to join in hj bday part 2 with her friends up there

are those lollies on the cake??

waiting to go


pinata time!

and from there we drove the rest of the 5 hours north to new plymouth to visit our friends Inge and Elise who moved up here from wellington.

mt taranaki- has been used as a mt fuji stand in in films

we had such a great time! we have both missed our girls and it was great to get to know dad vaughn a bit more. he grew up in the area and we visited his parents who have a massive garden that had me green with envy. they gave me some dahlia tubers for next spring and a passion vine! stoked :)

New plymouth has a gorgeous long seaside track we walked to a cute outdoor cafe where we kicked back with some wine while the kids tore down the hill on trikes. summertime fun

have a pea!

nice compost grandpa!

who isn't happy in a garden


aw...

of course i had to bring inge's flowers indoors!

not everyone can capture your essence ;)

we drove all of the way home on the way back but we stopped for you pick strawberries and at a park with ducks and then liam slept the rest of the way while i listened to "serial" so it was as easy a drive as you could hope for. also drive by a farm selling bales of pea straw to spread on the creche's commumity garden plot. score! a great trip all around :)


mmmmmmmmm

t rex attacks!

at the end of the month we hosted a thanksgiving feast for 40. yeah, 40. i brined and baked two huge as we could get 'em turkeys in sharon's commercial kitchen oven down the street ( yes i was running down there to check them. haha). we made a bunch of stuff and had folks bring stuff too. a couple of our friends showed up with margarita ingredients and cranked 'em out; there was a queue around the corner and down the hallway for dinner; we had folks and food everywhere! it was a total success and really fun. i even stood to make a toast. a rarity for me!!