Our Book of Life

I have not posted a lot of Winter sports stories this year, probably because I am not the freezing spectator on the side any more. However it has been all go.   Arama is the Ref for Hikawera’s Home games and I am umpire for Nauvoo’s netball. With 4 children playing sports Saturday morning we are often split up from 8am and regroup around 1pm. The weather has just turned really cold here, so it is time to bring out the winter Jackets. I had to snap this photo of my ‘two peas in a pod.’ These two are our dedicated supporters!! Renata usually goes to Hikawera’s games and cheers on his brother, while Rakaipaka goes between Hikawera’s games and Nauvoo’s netball games. Three cheers for the supporters Hip Hooray! Hip Hooray! Hip Hooray!  My Supporters ready to go! Liss checkout the hat! He still LOVES this hat! hugs

 I have a dear friend who does SOOO much for me!! Like ALL the time. There is not a time where I don’t think she is amazing and will she ever stop giving. Anyway, this Friday I was able to return the favor to her and take care of  her youngest son for the day. It was great! He is the same age as Renata, and though it was Ren’s day at kindergarten, Rakaipaka thought it was so cool to have Thomas with us. Thomas has swimming lessons on Friday at the heated pools, so off we went to Swimming lessons. He is a great swimmer for 4 years old. While he was in his lesson Rakai and I had a little dip. It is so theraputic. I loved the soak. So did Rakai. He is a fish I tell you!! Thomas and Rakai having hot chips.  Rakai more interested in the sauce on the chips than saying 'cheese' to mum again! After swimming lessons it is a  tradition to get hot chips and sauce. So of course we don’t break tradition. The gentleman who served us gave us an extra ‘large’ serving of chips.

Arama Teancum started piano when he was 7years old. As time went on he lost interest in it , and by 12 years old it was PAINFUL for him to practice and for us to try to get him to, so he turned to drums. He was awesome at these too. (Arama is the kind of Boy that is great at anything he tries) So you can imagine my surprise and absolute pleasure when I saw this. Arama has been doing music at school and here he is playing an arrangement he composed on the piano. I dared not say a word!! I pretended not to notice and   Just watched with pride as he twinkled his fingers around and was equally stoked when his brother sat next to him to watch.   This is a ‘Yay’ moment for a parent. ( he didn’t even know I took the picture!)

The last of the birthday 'rush' in June, is Arama Teancum. He turned 14 this year. He can now go to church dances... that is if we can get him to go. Arama LOVES Diagoku Restaurants. This is what he wanted for his birthday. He invited one friend and we also invited the other Young Man from our Branch Youth that is his age (it was also youth night so worked out quite well) We left early so we could get the Early Bird Specials. On the way, all the kids were really excited. We placed our 'bets' to see if we could guess how many times Rakaipaka would say Arama's friends names. Ben and Ryan. I am sure I came close at 120 times. At the restaurant it was such a treat. Ben and Ryan had never been to a restaurant where they cook the food in front of them, so it was fun to watch them share the experience with Arama - even down to trying the entree soup and chop sticks. They could not quite convince me to eat all of their salad bowls though.... Rakai Loved it he would

Kawea has been a member of the ABC Choir this year. We travel an hour every monday to get to rehersals and then home again. He is really enjoying being part of the choir and there have been a few concerts come up so far. This one was in Newmarket at the Baptist church. All the funds raised from tickets would go towards their choir camp in a couple of months. This night, we invited the missionary couple from our ward and another couple. WE loved the concert as the church had beautiful accoustics. here are a few shots of the night. Nauvoo tried on Sister Nelson's glasses that is where the Nanny mc who?????

Our dear friend Raymond has been asking us for a long time when we are going to get some more chickens from him. He gave us our first lot and had a few more for us. I have been procrastinating, and finally I revamped the coupe. We turned it on its side and used some steel reinforced grid to fortify the coupe from the dogs. It made it bigger too... To my surprise Arama and Teancum came home from rugby with 13 hens already laying.. Thank you Raymond. You always look out for us!!!

In May/June we have 4 birthdays two weeks apart from each other.  Early June is Hikawera's Birthday. He was so excited about this birthday, I don't know why! He would remind us every day for about a week and a half before hand that his birthday is coming up! Wow the pressure. Arama had to go to Samoa on his birthday for the 50th jubilee/Anniversary but we made it a fun day anyway. We went shopping the night before for his presents and found a great science kit that you can make your own glow in the dark goo.. He actually really enjoyed it. The safety equipment The work in progress and the 'camera' smile. The kit ready for attack  We had a yummy chocolate cake for dessert and some more little presents. He was excited to see what dad would be doing with him when he returned. Love this shot. Hik with his big smile, and Ren with his sad face as he was not able to blow the candles out...  Arama came home from Samoa Early Tuesday morning. He was

On part of living rural is if you want to go anywhere, it takes time. Winter brings shorter days so our travels often find us arriving home in the dark. This day, it was such a beautiful sunset as we came up the main road to turn onto our street. Beautiful!!

After Nauvoo's Baptism, we had a lovely dinner with those who attended. Nauvoo was excited to have an ice cream cake....and it was really YUMMY!! Her face in these two pictures says it all! Happy Birthday my baby girl. (I have to apologise for some of the photo's from this night, the camera was on the wrong setting)

This birthday, even though I have seen it on the calendar for the whole year, crept up on me! Perhaps it was not subconciously wanting to admit my baby girl is now 8.  Prior to her birthday, we began the preparations. She was interviewed for her baptism a couple of weeks earlier. It was a new feeling when Elder Nelson, came out of the interview and complimented us on how well we are doing as parents. Our children know the gospel foundations and are good children. I quite often doubt I am even scratching the surface of being close to a good mum, and wonder if it sinks in the truths we teach our children about their heavenly Father and the Gospel. It is a blessing to know we have such wonderful strong spirits who do feel and know the right. The weekend before Nauvoo's Baptism we took a drive to south Auckland, to where I remembered was a lovely shop with good quality dresses. The mission a white baptism dress. An hour and a half from our house, we found the shop as remembered but

It is not until you have time to stop and breathe, that you realize how busy life can become!! Sitting down and doing 'nothing' seems to be a rare moment. I have been busy with work, family, winter sports then there is church.. I have missed writing my blog, and missed reading all of my fellow blogger entries... Now, it is catch up time... lets go back to the future, or should I say forward into the past?@!?