New template...

Well, not quite a new template.  I just replaced the Christmas picture with something I like :)

And I've managed to lose our blogroll.... I'll fix it up sometime.

I don't like SD cards...

We've been having issues with SD cards recently.  Our (I mean Mel's) new camera uses SD cards rather than CompactFlash which our previous camera used.  So we had just started using the two cards that we had a lot more regularly (one had been in the video camera, the other in our netbook).  After having a card reader fail on us (seems like every card reader has dodgy design which lets it get bent pins unless you put the card in very very carefully...), I'd bought a $2 card reader off ebay... which had been working fine.  Until a couple of weeks ago.

Our larger card seemed to go bad, but then was working fine again after formatting.  We hadn't lost any photos though.  And then the other day, the smaller card suddenly went horribly bad in the camera - the camera couldn't access it at all.  And we had lost some photos.  Our $2 card reader is now completely dead... I suspect that it's the culprit.

Some recovery software (RescuePro and PhotoRec) has managed to retrieve some of the photos that were on it, but not all (I haven't processed any yet, which is part of the reason why our flickr uploading has been a little slow recently!).  So we don't have as many photos of Christmas Day as we would have liked.  After 7 years of using CompactFlash and never having any issues, I've decided I don't like SD cards.

Busy busy...

We've been rather quiet on here lately... partly because we were away for a week at Mt Maunganui, partly because we've been busy leading up to Christmas and partly because my parents have been here so we've been doing stuff with them instead of blogging. We don't have photos of our holiday up yet, but we'll get some up sometime soon! There are a couple of videos though...
(Oh, and merry Christmas to any readers that we're not going to get to talk to tomorrow!)

Kindy Christmas Picnic 2009

On Wednesday night was the annual Kindy Christmas Picnic. Obviously this is the first year we have been (as Ben only started kindy during 1st term). It is just held at the kindy, with everybody bringing their own picnic blanket and food, and finding a place on the grass in the outside play area to eat (daylight saving makes the whole event a feasible option). We had fish and chips, which was a popular option with other families followed closely by pizza. It was a good opportunity to get to know other kindy parents better (especially the dads, most of who don't do the day to day drop-off and pick-ups), and the kids have fun playing. The kids had also been practicing some Christmas songs, which they performed along with the Teachers.

Advent activities

Here's some photos from some activities we've being doing during Advent.

First is making icing biscuits. The kids love this activity, mainly because they get to eat sweet icing and lollies - I think. They each got to choose a colour for their icing - Ben chose black and Joanna chose blue. Then there was a variety of lollies to choose from to decorate (licorice, mnms, mini marshmallows, choc chips).

We also spent a morning decorating some boxes to use with our Nativity scene dress-ups (another advent activity that I intend to blog about sometime this month), for the wise men's gifts for Jesus. We each decorated one (Ben's is the 1st, mine the 2nd and Joanna's the 3rd), the reason we did 3 was so there is one for each type of gift the wise men brought for Jesus (gold, frankincense and myrrh) - not to perpetuate the 'three wise men' error.

Knight in white armour...

When the kids were getting dressed the other morning, Joanna decided to try out her skirt (with in-built bike pants) on her head. Ben was the first to recognise the similarity of it to that of knight's armour.

Summer is here!

We have now had 4 days of sunshine with maximum temperatures above 20C (which is comfortably warm by NZ standards - definite shorts and tshirt weather!).  Just in time for our beach holiday!

War on Santa - Attack no. 2 (aka...Christmas Tradition - Advent)

Here is the first of my more detailed descriptions of some of the Christmas Traditions we are starting this year (that I promised I'd do earlier in the week).

Advent Calendar

The main reason that we are doing an Advent calendar is so the kids (and us) are reminded of the reason for celebrating Christmas, every day leading up to Christmas.  There are a couple of reasons I think this is important:

1. So the kids (Ben especially) become familiar with the details, meaning and significance of the birth of Jesus.  Doing a little each day means Ben is able to memorise details of the story, so he can recall them whenever he wants to (which he does frequently when 'playing').  This means he is also able to tell his friends this knowledge, which they may not hear in their own homes.
   
2. It is a tool to help counteract the many messages about secular 'Christmas' (Santa, presents/materialism etc.) that bombard the kids everyday leading up to Christmas.

Ok...on to the details of what I have done for our family Advent calendar this year:

We are doing readings that concentrate on the events around the birth of Jesus. We have 25 readings mainly from Luke and Matthew's gospels.  I got the material from Wendy, who specifically wrote it to aim at a preschool age audience.  Each day there is a Bible passage to read (we're using the NIrV version); some questions to help reinforce the main points of the reading and check/aid comprehension of the passage; then there is a key verse selected from the passage and some suggested activities related to the passage (usually drawing a particular scene or person mentioned).

The actual calendar is made up of paper lunch bags (tuckshop bags), each numbered and strung up on a ribbon.  Inside the bag each day there is a piece of paper with a paraphrased version of the key verse for that day, plus a 'fun' something for each of the kids (well not for Naomi, she's a bit young).  Some days these are small gifts (eg. balloons, bubbles, pencils, special food) and some days it is a special activity (eg. icing/decorating biscuits, special story time, having ice creams for afternoon tea).

Work Christmas Party...

Was last night.  We got friends from church to babysit Ben and Joanna so we could go (Naomi came with us).  As I mentioned the other day, it was at Vilagrad Winery.  The food was 3 course buffet style (here is the menu if your interested), with a yummy cheese platter to finish the evening.  The entertainment for the night was a live band 'The Sound Workshop' with accompanying space for dancing.  Peter's company also organised a challenge...solving a reubik's cube where the solution resulted in the new company logo (which most employees didn't really know what it looked like) being displayed correctly on each side.

Creative discipline...

Yesterday, Ben was sent to play in his room by himself for 10 minutes, as he was not playing appropriately with Joanna (whinging lots, getting overly frustrated with toys, and generally over-reacting to everything).  He initially protested to the consequence, but when I went back to his room after the 10 minutes to tell him that he could come out and play with the rest of us again, this is what I found...

A ship

The Flower mill

He said he'd made it as a 'surprise' for me.

A week of lasts...

From this Wednesday just gone, till the end of next week, there a quite a few things that will be the last for this year or forever in some cases.

1. Wednesday -  was the last day my parents were here.
2. Thursday - was the last morning Bible study for the year.
3. Friday (today) - was the last visit from my midwife - Naomi had her 6 week check and will now see a Plunket nurse (child health nurse) for her health/development check-ups
4. Saturday - is Peter's work christmas party (which I'm really looking forward to - we're getting a baby sitter for Ben and Jaoanna, plus it's as Vilagrad Winery which I've been wanting to go to sometime)
5. Tuesday - is the last day of Playgroup for the year
6. Thursday - is the last day of kindy for Ben (there is actually 1 more week of kindy after this, but we will be on holidays)
   

Immunisations... False start

I took all the kids to the medical centre for Naomi and Ben to get their immunisations (Naomi's 6 week ones and Ben's 4yr old ones).  I thought it was easiest to get both done at once instead of making 2 separate trips. Well I get there and the receptionist tells me I can't get them done today for 2 reasons:

1. Naomi has to see a Dr before she can get her 6 week immunisations (I didn't know this), so we need to make an appointment for the Dr and then an appointment to see the nurse.
2. Ben couldn't get his today because there was a nurse away sick, so with only 1 nurse there wasn't any spare time to do it.

So...we have made appointments for next Wednesday morning, for Naomi to see a Dr and both of them to see the nurse to get their needles.

Mixed emotions...

I've been experiencing very mixed emotions today including:

1. Sadness - because my parents have gone and I really enjoyed spending time with them and sharing my children (their grandchildren) with them and I am missing them.  Plus the kids really liked having them here and enjoyed spending time with them and are going to miss them too.
2. Fear - I haven't had to deal with all 3 kids on my own doing the whole day to day routine since Naomi was born (my parents arrived 1 week after she was born, so Peter was still home until then).  So I know it is going to take a bit to adjust our routine a bit and get used to getting everything done in a day on my own.
3. Excitement - About accomplishing all the daily tasks on my own without too much drama and also spending some time together as a family by ourselves.
4. Loneliness - I've gotten used to constantly having other adults around the house during the day and therefore having extra adult company and conversation to normal. (hence the marked increase in the number of blog posts today - I guess)
   

I seem to frequently be feeling more than one of these emotions at any one time.  Mum and Dad melded so well into our family life/routine, doing lots of little things (and some big things) to help out, that most things I've done today (including doing the washing, making lunch for the kids etc.) have reminded me of them and hence stirred up the emotions I've mentioned.  It is great to have had such good family support (of the practical kind) for the past 5 weeks, but it is hard to go from that to totally nothing (not having any family living in NZ).

Survived kindy drop-off...

It is one of the things that Mum and Dad were totally doing for me while they were here (and I was very thankful for).  Ben starts kindy at 1pm and Naomi is due to feed between 1pm and 1.30pm.  I like to stay at kindy for a little bit at the start and do some activity/play with Ben (and Joanna also likes to get some time to play there too!).  So as of today, it means I have to drive to kindy so I can spend a short amount of time there (a bit shorter than I used to), then jump back in the car to get home in time to feed Naomi.
 I then have to fit in sleep/rest time for Joanna and I (Naomi is still you enough that she sleeps anywhere still), before getting back in the car (or maybe walking if we have time) to get back to kindy to pick Ben up at 3.30pm.

It should become a bit easier when Ben starts going to morning kindy, but that won't be happening until sometime during first term next year.

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.