Alfie's 7th Birthday

While all the celebrations were going on for Molly, Alfie was visibly bursting at the seams in anticipation for his own birthday. He did so well. There was only one jealous tantrum. 

It doesn't take a genius to guess the theme of Alfie's birthday this year! Alfie is soccer obsessed. So much so that he's chosen to drop Rugby this winter (after 4 years on the team :( ) to focus on soccer instead.

Most of his presents this year involved soccer.  He got a personalised Manchester United kit from us, a new soccer ball from Molly (to join all his others), a pair of goalie gloves from a friend, a Football Central voucher from another friend, a soccer magazine from another friend, a goal counter, some soccer themed stationery....and the list goes on and on, you get the picture! 

Of course the soccer kit went straight on - and hasn't come off since - and we had to take the new ball out for a play straight away! 

Luckily for me, the discovery of some soccer candles and a ready-made goal post made creating a birthday cake fairly easy! (I really have been very lazy with the cakes this year, but luckily no one has minded).

While I baked the cake, Alfie and Jake got stuck into examining presents. Actually jake was trying to read his biking magazine, but you did a great job of pretending Jake ;) (we're all on to you really!)

Alfie's party was very different to Molly's. He had...you guessed it.... a soccer party! But instead of letting 8 boys and a couple of big sisters run around our house (as we did last year), we made a very wise choice and hired out the local Recreation Centre instead. Jake did a great job of organising crab soccer and other such party antics...

He ran them around for a full hour, then delivered them to me upstairs, hot, sweaty, with red faces and starving hungry! Thanks Jake.

The rest of the party was spent creating their own soccer kits (!) with a bunch of plain white t-shirts and some fabric pens. And opening presents. And of course - eating!

Happy Birthday AlfieRooney!

Molly's 9th Birthday

Molly turned 9 a week and a half ago. To tell the truth, we are still in a bit of shock about this. But it was a great day - despite having to go to school and swimming lessons ;)

She began the day by opening some presents and was completely delighted to find a new scooter in the pile (thanks Matt, Sam, Tilly & Joe!) as her old one has been missing a wheel for at least 6 months.

For the first time in years, she was ready to leave the house early so she could scooter to school!

 

When we got home, Alfie decided to make her a birthday cake, *mostly* by himself and decorated it as he thought best for a girl. She loved that he did it - well done Alfie! 

We have a little tradition that on your birthday you get to choose that evening's dinner. Molly asked for Eye Fillet Steak cooked medium rare (?!!) with kumara roasties and salad.

Molly, it was delicious but you should be aware that your choice has bankrupted us for the moment and we'll be eating beans on toast for the remainder of the month.

After dinner, we all went out to Strawberry Fayre, a dessert restaurant in the city. The waitresses got wind of the fact that it was Molly's birthday and presented our dessert with a candle and all the trimmings. Look at that face!

And as if all that wasn't enough excitement, at the weekend we held a birthday party. Every year we've told Molly it's the last party she's getting, and next year she has to pick just one friend and we'll take them out to do something like rock climbing or the movies. Every year she persuades us that she really needs 12 friends to come to the house for a noisy and messy party instead.

 

This year's party had a World of Wearable Arts theme. The cake definitely wasn't my best one to date, but a red carpet made of icing and some Lego people gave the right effect (sort of)!

Jake borrowed a *real* red carpet from work and we laid it down in the lounge room. We think Hobbits and other similar celebrities have probably walked on it in the past....

For the party, we provided a few boxes of fabric and recycling materials, and let the girls create their own wearable arts. There were some great creations - including an amazing 3-person dragon!

And some not so great creations, involving tin foil, empty Coke bottles and toilet rolls (What WERE you, Jake?) 

 Not to mention, a great big mess to clean up afterwards! Happy Birthday Miss Molly!

 P.S. No, you can't have a party next year. ;)

Back to school 2015

So the kids went back to school yesterday. This means Molly's now in Year 5 and Alfie's in Year 3. How on earth did this happen so fast??

Anyway, their first day seemed to go well, with the exception of a slight drama after school as Molly hadn't listened to where we would meet, went to the wrong place, got lost for 30 minutes and eventually was found by a teacher wandering the streets and was sent back to school. It took a very long time to calm her down.

Other than that, this is what I've managed to find out about their first day...

Molly:
Her class played a game outside all afternoon which involved werewolves.
She ate her friend's popcorn at lunchtime and left all her own food. The entire lunch came home.
She made a name badge for her cubby hole but doesn't have a cubby hole yet.
Practised the Haka with her syndicate. 
She gave all her party invitations out but lost one.

Alfie:
His class played cricket against another class.
At lunchtime he played soccer and grazed his arm. His friend grazed his hand and his other friend smashed his glasses.
After lunch he went to his old classroom because he forgot he'd changed. By the time he remembered and went to the right place, his new class had gone somewhere else. But it was ok because he eventually found everyone in Room 16.
He wrote a poem about himself which included the line "I am the son of Jake and Wendy".
He did some graphs which were easy.

The Rest of the School Holidays

So after our amazing trip away, we still had 3 weeks left of the school holidays. We're almost at the end of them now and it's quite sad :( We've had so much fun!

Here's a little bit of what we've done in the last 3 weeks.....

Alfie spent a week on an intensive soccer camp. This coincided with the start of a heatwave, so he basically spent hours each day running around in the hot sun and by the end of the week he was a walking disaster. But he loved it.

The following week, both children did a week of intensive swimming club. (We do believe in working them hard during the holidays!). As they're both at the same level, they were in the same little group and a lot of giggling went on. But they worked extremely hard and progressed massively. This level includes regular "10 minute challenges" where they have the goal of swimming 20 lengths in 10 minutes. Both have reached 19 lengths and just have to speed up a teeny bit more to get that last one in!

While they've been doing all these activities I've been enjoying the incredible opportunities that modern technology provides by working poolside, working soccer pitch side, working in the park, etc - these days I can just log on from anywhere, it's great!

But if our school holidays sound like too much sport and hard work, don't fret. We have had a lot of playtime too. The water slide has been out more times than I could possibly count, and most of the neighbourhood kids have had a go. Actually so have Jake and I. 

And as if we haven't had enough swimming lesson time, we've also spent countless hours at the Khandallah open air pool. We are SO VERY lucky to have this on our doorstep. At $1.50 per child, it has got to be one of the best possible ways to spend a day during the summer holidays (after the beach, which of course is free). Whenever we go, we seem to know 75% of the other people there, so the kids have instant playmates to swim with (if you're Alfie) or to jump off the diving board with a couple of times and then go and gossip for 6 hours on the sundeck (if you're Molly).

While we've been playing in the sun, Jake's been back at the office :( But we've kept him going with regular lunchtime visits. We sometimes take him to the nearest beach for a picnic and a swim...

And we also took him rock pooling to collect sea anemones...

We LOVE that we can just pop out at lunchtime to do this stuff!  Wellington is amazing.

Because it's been so hot, we've been able to persuade the children that washing the car is a great cooling-off activity ;) And they've actually really enjoyed it (although the car remains very smeary). Signs have been put up all along the fence offering $2 car washes to help raise money for the SPCA, but so far I'm the only person who's taken them up on the offer. (And I've forgotten to pay my $2!)

Also because it's been so hot, we've had lots of late nights as it's just too hard to get to sleep otherwise. One evening we went for a walk around our local streets and while we were walking we came across an abandoned tyre. Alfie decided to roll it all the way home - it took us a long while, but it was worth it because we've tied it up to our Pohutakawa tree with a piece of rope and, hey presto we have a garden swing again!

As usual, we've also spent a lot of time at Khandallah Park over the holidays. It's such a great spot for a picnic, a play, a game of cricket, and a paddle in the stream where the kids always manage to catch a few crayfish (with their hands).

During quieter moments, Molly has been working hard on a piece of fiction for a junior writing competition. The basic rules are that it has to be under 1000 words (this was hard for Molly and we had to do a lot of editing!) and it had to be connected to the ocean. Molly's story involved a dad who murdered the mum by blowing up her boat with a piece of dynamite, leaving the only daughter to be sent to an orphanage where her daily job was to dive for oysters. Interesting ?!The winner will be announced later this month so we'll wait to see what the judges thought! ;)

And other than that, we've done all our usual holiday activities....biking to the cafe, endless hours at playparks, playdates, arts & crafts, and generally making a mess all over the house!

So overall, a great school holidays and we will all be very sad to see it end....