Ben-isms...

As most of you would know, Ben has a pretty good vocabulary for a 3 year-old. He is quite capable of pronouncing fairly complex words (and knowing what they mean, usually). A word like croissants he originally pronounced as "gazonks" (about 9 months ago), but he now says it correctly. However, there are some words that he seems to deliberately mis-pronounce. I'm not sure why... he just does.
Some examples that haven't been corrected (and my attempt at spelling what he says!):
olives = "ovverlees"
elephant = "everlint"
spaghetti = "bisgetty"
It's pretty easy to see where he gets them from (just swapping two consonants in each case). It's just kind of funny that he has persisted with these ones!
Anyway, we know what bisgetty and ovverlees are, so all is good!

Enjoying the benefits of living here...

There are 2 things I want to comment on:
1. Enjoying the unique qualities of each season - In Hamilton we are able to experience the 4 distinct seasons of the year (as opposed to Brisbane's seasons of hot or not quite so hot). Both Peter and I have come to realize that we need to do things/eat stuff which each season has to offer, even if by the end you are getting a bit tired of the same sort of activities/food (it just means you actually look forward to the next season). So we have decided that summer is the season for spending lots of time outdoors enjoying the sun and warm weather (even if it might seem a bit hot at times). So picnics, barbecues, swimming/beach etc. is what we are planning to fill our time with over the next few months. And we will be eating lots of berries, stonefruit, peas, zucchini, lettuce, baby spinach etc.

2. Enjoying the availability of local produce - As we have commented before, you don't have to drive very far to be out of Hamilton and driving past farmland (try 5min max. from our house). This means we are able to buy some of our fresh produce straight from the farm gate if we want to. Like today, I decided to go and get some more locally roasted coffee beans, a 20min drive from home (they import the beans - as obviously NZ is not a coffee-growing country - but then roast them on site). On the way I stopped at Strawberry Fields (as the name suggests it is primarily a strawberry farm) and picked up some punnets of freshly picked (just over the fence) strawberries, raspberries, asparagus and apricots! And at relatively cheap prices. I've already taste-tested one of the apricots and it was absolutely divine (way better than the ones I got in Brisbane last summer). And we can't forget our own veggie gardens - I just planted out the dwarf beans that the kids planted and we are able to pick enough spinach to make a side salad about twice a week now.

Feel the love...

After a great weekend, Peter and the kids took some time chilling out on the back doorstep on Sunday afternoon. I thought these pics were cute!

We are going to the Wiggles!

After accepting that we would be missing the yearly Wiggles concert in Brisbane (although we will be in Australia at the time, we will be on holidays at the Sunshine Coast), I was very excited to find out late last week that the Wiggles were doing a tour of New Zealand early next year! (it's apparently 5 years since the last Wiggles tour of NZ). Tickets went on sale this morning and so we are going on the 31st March. Ben and Joanna are both big Wiggles fans.

Jump, jump, jumping...

We gave Ben a mini trampoline for his birthday, so I just thought I'd post a video of the kids having fun on it.

Afternoon/Evening at the Gardens...

We went for an afternoon at the Hamilton Gardens including picnic dinner. I had been told that the roses were looking really nice and so we decided to go take some photos/kids play and have dinner while we were there. Didn't really get many nice photos as the sun was still way to high in the sky (a downside of daylight saving), so I could only try to take ones of those in the shade, which was limited. Ben and Joanna had lots of fun playing cricket and with the play equipment (see-saw, swings, slippery slide). We had sushi for dinner (that Peter had made during rest time in the afternoon). As we were preparing to leave (well literally putting everything in the car), we heard some drumming start, and I convinced Peter that we should go see what it was. It was a Japanese drumming group of about 10-15 playing a end of year informal concert. So we sat down to watch/listen for a bit and ended up staying for 40min or so. It was really nice weather and the drumming was pretty cool. Ben really enjoyed it too!

Garden update...

Our garden has been growing really nicely with the warmer weather recently (yes, it does actually get warm here. Even if the temperatures don't really seem to show it). Our spinach had grown enough that we harvested the first batch on Wednesday - it was very yummy... very tender. Anyway, this is what the gardens now look like... lots of green stuff sprouting! We can look forward to some sugar snap-peas, lettuce, zucchini, spring onions and pak choy among other things...

Absolutely free!!

1. Kindy - I actually got around to visiting the Kindy that I've put Ben's name down at. It looks good with lots of outdoor play (which Ben will love) and to start with he will go Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday afternoons (12.30-3pm). Ben must like it too as we had a bit of a tantrum episode when it was time to leave (I only popped in for a quick look around). Anyway was talking to one of the kindy teachers and found out that there are no fees/voluntary contributions etc. to pay. The government pays the teacher's wages and they also get funding to provide stuff for the kids. They do run a fundraiser each term to help make bigger improvements to the centre, but the teacher said they like it if family spends $20 or so on each fundraiser - which I'm not going to complain about $20 per term (especially when compared to how much I was going to have to pay in Brisbane).

2. Passionfruit - A vine appeared on our fence a few weeks ago, it seemed to have sprouted from a crack in the concrete. Anyway at that stage I didn't know what it was, but thought I keep it there and see what happened. Well it started to flower on the weekend and thanks to google I was able to identify it as a passionfruit vine! Peter and I have always wanted one so we are really excited and can't wait for the fruit to come.

Air guitar extraordinaire!

Ben did a bit of a show for Mel the other evening - something about a "dog mowing song" I think it was... you'll have to watch the video and see if you can figure it out!

Ben's Birthday

I started writing this post the night of Ben's birthday, but haven't got round to actually posting it until now (needed to fix up some photos to go with it).
We thought Ben had woken up early because he was excited, but it wasn't really... it was that he'd woken up with a temperature and a sore head (he's had a temp for the past 2 days, but we thought he was getting better). After breakfast he got to talk to Granny and Grandpa B on skype and open some presents with them (with the webcam). He then had a morning nap (something he hasn't done for years) during which the Hulls's arrived from Auckland (Peter's PRC friends). The plan was to have the birthday cake for morning tea before going to the park at the lake for play and then lunch. But because Ben wasn't feeling himself we ended up hanging around at home a bit longer and having cake a bit later (it was a Bob the builder themed cake).

The sugar hit from the cake seemed to make Ben feel a bit better so we went on down to the lake where the kids played and fed the ducks and we had a picnic lunch. After lunch there was a bit more playing at the park before it was off home for rest time. After rest time Ben talked with Granny and Grandpa W and opened some more presents with them. Then there was a little time to play with the presents before dinner, bath and bed. Thankyou everyone for the presents you gave Ben, he loves all of them (and so does Joanna)!