Happy Birthday Daddy!

Not such a great day for him...firstly he's on nights this week so misses dinner with us, plus he has had some kind of tummy bug this week, so he's been really miserable all day, then goes to work instead of bed! We had planned to go swimming before school/kindy (underwater photos!), but he called it off. And for this birthday I didn't know what to get him, so he got all the things he's given me over the last 10 birthdays...ask him!!!
Thankfully Lily made him a pom pom creature ☺
Eden made him a cupcake at kindy too...here it is Daddy! ☺ I had to take a photo of it before we got in the car at kindy, as it didn't last much past then!
Happy birthday?
Let's transfer it to next Friday instead!!!

First of the Christmas Parties

Awesome luck last week as one of the "fan" photos I sent to www.no8.co.nz was picked as the best...and the prize was amazing! A camera (my point and shoot's just died too!) worth $650, 14mp, underwater capable (Lachie's most excited about this!), etc, etc. THANK YOU no.8 website! (If you 'like' them on facebook you can check out the photo!)

First of the Christmas parties this week...guess what, we've got some Santa-fans in this family!

Sorry about the lack of photos of Lachie and Lily...they WERE there, just no really nice shots...but just wait til the weekend!!!

Not quite ready for Christmas yet...but getting there! Here's the cake I made to for the Highland Dancing school to raffle...tickets on sale at the A&P Show and at the recital

(should have photographed it before wrapping it up!)

And I wish you could see just how sparkly Rudolph's nose is!

In the last week...

The start of the scarecrow making week...Lachie putting his "skeleton" together

Lily learning all about zipties after drilling heaps of holes

We've had tall man...now here's long arms!

The waterboy

Lily loves her new t-shirt...and oh so appropriate!

Chillaxing! Then the batteries went flat, so no photos of the fun painting exercise that would become their clothes...

Cooper- getting some air in his new favourite place!

SO funny!

The scarecrows...before hoping into the car ready for school the next day!

Lachie with his scarecrow, that won second place...in the small scarecrow category??? Oh well, at least the schol vege patch will be well looked after! Lily and Eden getting cuddles from "Stacey-Lee" the scarecrow that gets to come home and look after our strawberries and veges...luckily she wont scare away the fairies who are kissing our strawberries ripe already!

Ready for the fireworks to start

Hmmmm, and you wonder why we call you a monkey, Lachie!

Home for some sparklers...heaps of photos later, but here's one of Lachie's and one of Lily's Sunday: woke Daddy up the "nice" way with apple toasties

The week was topped of by a perfect night out at the Smiths, great meal and even better company! Thanks Kel, Stu, Georgie and Molly

Tall Man!

Doesn't it make you wonder what we've been feeding Cooper???

Well, not too much cake...but occasionally there are tasty trimmings to be devoured (and funnily enough visitors seem to know when to turn up too!)

Not usually a purple fan, but I really like this cake too...was for a friend of a friend, hope she didn't mind all the flowers, plain just isn't my thing! The purple is a match to her bridesmaids.

Couple of cakes...

Sereena and Donald's wedding cake - congrats guys!

Complete with their cute kids!

And happy 80th birthday to Claire's Nana! And thanks Claire's Mum for making and icing the cake!

Happy Labour Weekend everyone!

Pukekohe Road Trip

Yip, it's already been said a lot this week, we're totally nuts! But it was a cool day out...breakfast in Taupo, swim and lunch in Hamilton, rugby in Pukekohe (almost Auckland!) and dinner in Cambridge. Thankfully our kids travel soooo well! And Mum and Dad decided to come too...they left about 5 hours after us though and we arrived at the same time!

Beautiful day to watch an awesome end-of-season game of rugby!

Cooper's sure learned something from all this rugby watching...TACKLES!!!

Ready to....pounce!

Eden was a bit gutted that her favourite player, Jason Shoemark, wasn't playing...his last HB game too

Still, had a chat to him after the game, he was pretty gutted too! Handshakes and hi-5's all round!Hi-5's too from Richard Buckman and the other players

Lily got a hand "kiss" from Tana Umaga - oppps, opposition, but still a star!

And a win, after a real nail-biting game - makes the travelling all the more worthwhile!!!

Ngati Whai Festival

Lachie and Lily have been singing the school songs SO MUCh that Eden's almost word perfect and Cooper's always running around singing "aue tatou tatou e"!

Lily before...

Lachie (and friends) after...Whole school...(Lily left and Lachie right) - prize for anyone that sends this back to me with them circled!!!

Eden's Birthday

Going to the rugby of course! Happy birthday big 4 year old!

"With" her favourite player, playing his last home game

Look who we spotted!WHO taught Cooper to kiss Jason Shoemark???

Kate and Sophie...one of them looks the part! The other one was supporting the Lions...most of the players thought she meant the British Lions though!Super-cute! Maybe she'll be running round with us next season! Four kids I can manage from behind the camera...but five's a whole different story!!!

Oldies and younguns...