Survived the morning...

Well I'm happy with how my morning went.  I managed to tidy up the table after breakfast so it was all clear (I'm bad about keeping this a habit, but Dad was doing it while he was here and I quite liked/got used to having a nice clear, clean table between meals), put away the clean washing (Mum had been helping out a bit with this, sorting and folding it all, so all I had been doing was putting it away in the cupboards), washed and dried (in the dryer because it is raining today) a load of towels, all before leaving for Bible study.

I also really enjoyed Bible study and learned a lot.  We were looking at prophesies from the old testament which prophesied about Jesus being a prophet, a priest, and a king and the birth of Jesus fulfilled these prophesies.  It meant we looked a lot of old testament stuff that isn't the usual Christmas story stuff - which made it rather refreshing.

Back to reality...

Mum and Dad left early this morning to fly back to Brisbane.  So it is just Peter and I and the kids for the next 10 days (until Peter's parents arrive for a visit).  I realised yesterday it will be the first time that I will have to survive a whole day with all three kids, all by myself.  We have the usual activities today - Bible study, lunch, kindy for Ben, special afternoon tea at the shops afterwards...a pretty busy day, so I will see how I go.

War on Santa - Attack no. 1

Some of you maybe familiar with the Jesus Storybook Bible, well YouTube has a clip with the Christmas story from this being read by David Suchet, with accompanying illustrations.  It makes a nice change from just reading the story to them, plus my kids love watching any stuff that's on a screen.  I'll definitely be watching this with Ben and Joanna a few times this month.



Thanks to Gordon.

War on Santa...

This year I'm really feeling a big influence from the secular world on Ben's view of Christmas.  He can spot a picture/figurine/statue of Santa at twenty paces (which has really heightened my awareness of how we see Santa nearly everywhere we go - shops, advertisements, magazines, storybooks etc.).  So I am trying to do as many things as I can to expose Ben (and Joanna too) to the real meaning of Christmas (celebrating the birth of Jesus).  I've already mentioned some of my ideas and I will try to blog about these in more detail, as well as other ideas I think of.

Advent has started...

As most of you are probably aware - yesterday, being December 1st, was the first day of advent leading up to Christmas.  In past years this has not really been significant as we haven't done any Advent stuff, but this year is different.  I've made a Advent calendar which includes a bible reading for each day (thanks to Wendy), along with some discussion questions and a small fun gift (toy, food, or special activity/treat).  I've also purchased a felt Nativity scene which the kids can play with - moving the people and animals around.  I'm also going to put a collection of Christmas story books (we don't have many at the moment, but plan to add to it - although it can be a challenge to find ones that aren't all about santa and reindeer).  I'm also nearly finished making some Nativity scene dress-ups for the kids to play with, so they can dress up as Mary, Joseph, a shepherd, wise men or an angel.  Now I have done/am thinking of doing some other things for advent too and I want to take some piccies of the stuff I've told you about, so you can see it, but I don't have time right now, so it will have to wait for another day.

Waking up...

Just thought I'd update you all to say that Naomi is starting to wake up a bit more and behave more like an average baby - staying awake for a bit after most of her feeds and having periods of unexplained crying/fussiness.  On the whole she is still a pretty content baby.

Cakes are now in the oven...

They won't be ready to come out until at least 5.45pm.

I should have been more organised...

At the start of the week I decided today would be the day I made this year's Christmas cake (I've actually never made one before - Peter isn't overly keen on fruit cake - but Peter's mum made one last year that was really nice - even Peter thought it wasn't too bad - so I've got the recipe from her to make my own).  I bought all the dried fruit at the bulk foods shop last friday and meant to check the ingredients list yesterday to make sure I had everything I needed.  Well I never got around/forgot to check and didn't look at the ingredients till this morning, when I realised I hadn't bought the rum! (plus a couple of other ingredients that I don't normally have in the cupboard).

So I went off to the supermarket at 9am to get the missing things and intended to drop by the bottle shop on the way home to get the rum (can buy wine in the supermarkets here, but still have to go to a bottle shop to buy spirits).  Anyway as a I suspected, the bottle shop was still closed - didn't open until 10am.  Which meant I had to come home and wait until after Naomi's 10am feed to then go and get it.  Which has meant that a morning/half day cooking Christmas cake, has turned into a whole day event.  Because the fruit has to sit in the rum for 2hrs, then the cake has to bake for 2.5-3hrs.  Therefore the fruit isn't going to be ready now until 1pm (Naomi's feed time), so the cake probably won't get in the oven until 2pm at the earliest etc. etc.

I have managed to make some shortbread and rum balls (stuff to give to the neighbours for Christmas) to use up the time, so I have got something done this morning that needed doing.  Now for a bit of sit down and rest, lunch, feed Naomi and then back to that Christmas cake making!

"Mum, I'm about to throw..."

"...up!"  Ben woke up this morning and promptly threw up.  So he's spending the day at home (and hence so am I).  There has been a tummy bug going around the kids in Hamilton the past couple of weeks (a few kids from kindy were away last week with it), so I'm assuming that this is the bug Ben has.  It's nice that my parents are still here, as it means they are able to take Joanna to playgroup still.

Taupo touring...

Last weekend we decided to go away for the weekend so that Granny and Grandpa B could see some of the country other than Hamilton. They were keen for some mountains and some thermal stuff, so Taupo seemed like the best place to base ourselves. We booked a bach (a holiday house, for non-Kiwis) through bookabach and headed off on Friday afternoon. The weather forecast was good for Saturday, so we headed up to Whakapapa in the morning. We went for a short stroll at the now-closed ski-field and managed to find a last little patch of snow to play in - which Ben had been keen on! After warming up in the cafe, we headed back down to the village and went for a short nature walk and had a picnic lunch. After that, we went for another short walk, this time to Tawhai Falls, followed by the drive back to the bach. All up it was a pretty long day - we were all tired by the end of it.
On Sunday we planned to have a slightly more relaxed day, so we just went in to Taupo to the AC Baths (thermally heated pools) for the morning (as a special birthday activity for Ben!). That ended up being very nice - Ben had oodles of fun in the nice warm water. We had a relaxing afternoon back at the bach and then went out for a nice birthday dinner in town again.

Monday morning was pack-up time, so once we'd done that we started heading north again. A stop at Huka Falls for morning tea, then on to Orakei Korako - a thermal area about half an hour north of Taupo. We all had fun walking around there looking at steaming pools and bubbling mud, before heading back home after lunch.

A very busy weekend, fitting in lots of stuff, and tiring Granny and Grandpa B out thoroughly!