Our Book of Life

My Rangikawea turned 13 on the 9th of Feb. As his birthday falls on a Sunday this year, he had 2 friends over on the Friday night before and activities on the saturday. Kawea was really great. He only asked for 2 friends to come over one from school and one from church. They all seemed to get along really well. Friday night was Nacho's and Banana Ice cream Splits. The boys then watched movies and hung out in the 'man cave'. Saturday morning Paint balling was on the agenda. Mid day we arrived at Woodhill Forest - about 25 min from our house. The boys ( Nauvoo, Teancum and Dad included) suited up for their day of fun. The age limit was 10 to participate. I am sooo glad of this - can you imagine Hikawera and Renata running around wth a paintball gun?? (yeah NAAH!) After suiting up This is Nauvoo in her combat suit Kawea, Teropere, and Jacob Dad, Arama T, Nauvoo, Kawea, Teropere and Jacob ready for action.   there was a very cool safety breifing. S

Shopping with younger children can be a challenging task at times. Having 3 boys so close in age is also equally as challenging. Some days they are great.. other days they turn into the three stooges and run rampage! We have been working on an earning system for time on the Ipad. Since everyone wants to use it ALL the time and no one seems to want to help out, They now do things that earn them time. If they do something that I didn't have to ask them to do they get double the time and so forth. The relevance to my shopping trip this day was they were all really well behaved because of this system. Though being active farm boys they have to find ways to channel their energy. This photo is a classic "Renata" moment. Now I tell you who else would hold the toilet paper like this. The funny thing is he did it SOOO well!! (look past the people on the left to that little figure..hehe the toilet paper looks almost as big as he is!

Nauvoo was trying to write in her homework book last week, and Kit Kat strolled over and planted a paw on her page. He was very intently looking at her pencil moving across the paper.. Very Cute!

I love hiking. We used to go all the time growing up, whether it was at christmas time or to the blue mountains, we did a lot of bushwalking. I have fond memories of those times. My sister in law Karleen has adopted the idea of family activities to be centered around becoming fitter, and exercising. I of course LOVE that idea and quickly stole the idea.. Luckily for me Karleen is the sharing type. She talked of the hike her family did together and we thought it would be great to be able to do some of these hikes together too. When they brought Nauvoo home, our two families headed off to discover a hiking track in West Auckland. It was a great idea to go together, as the cousins again enjoyed their time together. The hike was supposed to take 3 hours one way. The first part was about 1/2 hour track to a waterfall. Since we had a late start to the morning, we stopped here and had lunch. It is the middle of summer here so there was not a huge amount of water, just enough to have a go

This is really a have to be there kind of moment. Arama Teancum is quite a character most of the time. When he is in a good mood, he is hilarious! We have been working hard at cleaning up our farm over the school holidays. Nauvoo had found a roll of white ribbon in the rubbish pile we were loading for the tip. Teancum had the brainstorm with the wind so strong as it was he had the idea to make it fly. At first I thought to growl him for being on top of my car.... yes on top of, I mean he is almost 6ft already. but then took a chill pill and found my "olympic ribbon gymnast. He was making that ribbon go! I figured the reason he was on top of the car was to get more height. I think I 'll buy him a Kite! The photo's that show dotted white lines is the ribbon in circular motion... My phone camera is not the best but it gives you a good taste of what he was doing... Gold medals all round! lol!!

One thing about being the only girl in a house full of boys is you don't get a lot of GIRL time. My daughter does really well with coping with this, and we always try to make sure she gets away now and again. Nauvoo LOVES to go to her Aunty Karleens and Uncle Ashleys in Hamilton. They have 3 girls and 1 boy. In the holidays we had their son for a week, and Nauvoo went and spent a couple of weeks with them. She always comes back more grown up than when she left. The last time she had seen a lot more 'chick' flicks, and this time. She was dressed to the T... she loved shopping with the girls, painting nails, hair decorating and photo shoots etc. All the things a growing gal loves to do... I missed her like crazy but loved her having such a great time.. Thank you Karleen and Ash, and family for looking after my princess!!!!

When my husband suggested we go to the Youth dance to chaperone, my initial reaction was luke warm to say the least. Not really my idea of a "night out" or so I thought.. I learnt it was a 1920's theme dance. YES!! ok, so I think that won me over to begin with. hehe. I love to dress up in theme, and due to the lack of opportunities to do so, I think it was the carrot that really won me over. The fact that my 15 year old son actually wanted to dress up in theme sealed the deal.. As the time came closer, I wondered just how much 'chaperoning' we would end up doing. The great Gadsby - 1920's is an era I LOVE. The clothes, music, dance, so fun. Teancum wanted to dress like a mobster, so thanks to the $2 shop I was able to pick up some pretty cool accessories. We rushed home from work and got ready. Nauvoo was right by my side putting make up on. She was straightening her hair, and I was trying - let me emphasize TRYING to curl my hair.lol (it didn't work

We LOVE cousin time in our house. These past holidays, we were lucky to have several with us at different times of the holiday. One day we took Emeka, Jazz, Truth, Ashely,Tawhaio, and all our kids (except Nauvoo who was still at her Hamilton Holiday) to the School Pool for a swim  and then to the local park for some Basketball, tennis and even a touch of Netball. It was so great to watch everyone enjoy themselves and have a tonne of laughs. And they never seem to stop growing.!

I have recently upgraded my phone and found a fantastic feature. Panoramic Picture function! Soooo cool. I can capture so much more with this function.. here are a couple of shots.

Our son Rakaipaka could seriously be on Bill Crosby's, "Kids say the darndest things". He comes out with some really funny things to say. Today was no exception. We had just dropped of the younger kids to school, and was on the way to his daycare. Rakai says to me" Mum, are you crazy?!" I answered "of course I am, aren't you? Rakai replied: " No, Im a MAN!" If that was not funny enough, when we arrived in the carpark of his 'school' he asked if he could walk himself to his class. I told him I needed to sign him in so I would take him in, he had an answer for that too... He said he would sign himself in .... 4 years going on 14 some times I tell you!!