Our Book of Life

We all know growing up is inevitable, something that will happen weather you want it to or not. It takes some people longer than others to do so but the numbers will cosistantly keep ticking. For those that are standing by watching, it can sometimes be with mixed emotions. My Hikawera turns 5 on Friday.(by the way Happy Birthday Jet for tomorrow. Your buddy misses you!!) 5 in New Zealand means "big School". Hikawera began his 1st of his 3 pre visits this week to Kaukapakapa School.  His daddy had the privilige to accompany him. I am still turning inside. Happy, sad, excited... all the emotions. You would think that by number 4 it would be easier!!! Yet once again I find myself saying, "My baby is all grown up and going to school!" (tear) I must say though he really enjoyed it. No photo's this time though sorry, he was not impressed with mum trying to take a few shots.  Perhaps tomorrow.....

Time to meet the Warkworth branch. This is the Branch we attend church at. We have been assigned a 1 year calling to be here. It is lovely. There are about 50 members, my kids make up 96% of the primary and 1/5th of the youth program. It takes us about 1/2 hour of windy roads to get there. Here is our lovely little chapel. The chapel is opposite a public reserve park lands with a boating waterway leading out to the harbour. A very pretty spot. The boys also thought that they had scored big time when they saw that directly across the road is a large half pipe. Needless to say the first few weeks we had to establish the boundaries for where they can and can't go on Sunday. The week I took this they were doing some maintenance to the park, Last Sunday the weather was so nice we had a picnic along the water edge before travelling home.

I love going to look at my garden. I get excited to think that I will one day soon be able to start eating vege's out of our garden. After laying the mulch I picked up the other week it looks really good. There is something that likes to snack on my purple cabbages and peas but if they leave everything else alone, it is a small price to pay...... I am guessing field rat, but take a look and give me your verdict... See the trail in the grass....  Not what I wanted to see so close to my garden! As for our chickens. They are as big as their mother now. A couple have red 'dangly bits' and combs. I can't wait for them to start laying. None have started crowing, so I assume that is a good thing. Will keep you posted though. I am sure it will be a BIG story when it finally happens.. (Elissa I will be spewing if your chickens lay before mine!!!!! I'll be egg envy!!)

Boys LOVE mud. I am sure we all know this. It doesn't matter where in the world you are if there is a mud puddle you will most likely find a boy has tried to get into it. Being on a kiwi farm going into winter it is no different. A beautiful weather saw us having to buy in water (sadly) so whilst the truck was unloading Rakaipaka felt it was the perfect opportunity to find a mud puddle. Slush slush slush he was so happy. The warnings voice of his mother was greeted with big cheeky smiles and more mud, mud, mud. Funny thing about mud. When you least expect it....... Yes the inevitable happened. Rakai landed face first in the mud... needless to say he didn't like that one too much. BUT it did not stop him from going straight back to the mud pits when he was cleaned up.. When will they learn!!!!

Yesterday saw our baby girl turn 7 years old. Nauvoo has been very excited counting down the days to her big day, letting everybody know. The day started early, as we knew it would, Nauvoo was up with the big boys about 5:30am. Pink pancake breakfast was on the menu, dusted with fairy dust (icing sugar). A happy start to the day. Even Rakaipaka was awake. A CTR locket was waiting for her along with some goodies, which was happily placed around her neck. On the way to school, the fog was still thick. When I climbed out of the car to close the gate behind us, I saw this. I hope the photo's do it justice. The light streaming through the fog and trees looked really cool. The country side around us looked like this.... (is this cooling you down in fiji??) Nauvoo took these 2 shots After dropping Nauvoo off to school, the boys and I were on a mission. Birthday cake time. A friend and my closest 'member' neighbour (10 min away) let us use her oven so we were off. A

One day whilst feeding the chickens, I noticed alot of Mushrooms around the place. I couldn't resist taking a few snaps. They are a brilliant orange and it makes you wonder, are there any fairies living on our farm??

I just had to share with you these photo's. My baby Rakaipaka and his little motorbike (which was Nauvoo's once upon a time). He looks so cute in this photo and he lOVES motobikes... what is it with boys and motorbikes.... Answer: they are fast and loud!! Check out the facials in these photo's. A lovely relaxing saturday afternoon on the farm.

It was a gorgeous day about 3 weeks ago on Saturday, so the camera came out to snap a few photo's of the kids at their saturday sports. The boys are with Helensville Rugby Club and Nauvoo is with Kaukapakapa Netball teams (organised by her school). We were also very fortunate that ALL of the kids games were at the one venue. How is that for Luck!!! First was the family photo.. Hikawera's Game came first. He is sooo cute!! When he played his first game he was just so happy to be out there, but we couldn't understand why he seemed frozen on the spot fixated on the sky then whilst his team members were running around the field he stood there and exclaimed pointing to the sky, "Look a hot air balloon!" What were we there for again??? As a serious Rugby family we did what we could. Shook our heads and laughed. (Then prompted him to play the game) It is Hikawera's first real team sport so we are very proud of him. Now, he is doing so well. He has learned to R

You may wonder how passionfruits can be inspiring. (Apart from the fact they taste sooo yummy.) I was checking our gutters around the house a while ago to make sure they were clear, preparing for the rain to fill our tanks. I thought our passionfruit had died a long time ago, however to my amazement and excitement I made a great discovery. On the ground was a single passionfruit. When I looked further I discovered that there were 2 more passionfruit hanging on the vine. Now normally this is not a 'big' thing to excite someone but on this particular day it inspired me. These vines have had no attention for years, surrounded by weeds and gorse. The roots are strong and intertwined. They still grew. No matter what you are going through, the trials the hard times, you can grow through it and the outcome will be good. I looked at these passionfruit and knew if they could survive through all they had and still be strong, so could I. I couldn't resist the photo. Hope it inspir

Last Wednesday was first day of training and this past Wednesday (yesterday marked the official beginning of the season. As of next week we will bo longer have our once a week sleep in we all so need! (perhaps we can substitute for a pm siesta). The world of mouthguards, boots n sprigs, jerseys, waterbottles, which field is that?? And a car boot of muddy gumboots is here! Love this shot, Gumboots and meat pies! I had forgotten how quiet a spetator I am   (NOT!) when dad had to remind me it was only the first 5 minutes of Practice. I promise to behave better now!! Hikawera is playing rippa rugby. For those of you hwo are not familiar with this it is just like touch rugby BYT wach player wears a waist bandk with a tag on either side. Instead of touching ypir apponant you must try to rip the tags off the player on the opposing Team. I will clue myself up on the rules a bit more in the upcoming weeks. Games start next Saturday. The 'Prep' talk before the game the tea