Ahhhh Summertime.

 Happy new year, lovelies!

We're full into the swing of Summertime, over here. Beaches and pools are being swum in, Christmas presents are being played with (especially that big, bouncy one!), dinners are being eaten outdoors and general chaos is the norm at our place!
(Summer is not my favourite time of the year, but I'm doing my best to roll with it this year, I even donned togs the other day! Say whaaaa?!)

We had the coolest Christmas this year. We spent just over a week camping over at Ohiwa (about 40 minutes from home, nice and handy but juuuust far enough away to make it a real holiday!) with my parents. We had the most glorious weather, just a few wee spots of rain the whole time - just enough to keep the temperature reasonable, actually. We beached, crabbed, walked, blobbed, gifted, ate our body weight in treats, beached a bit more, walked a bit more and even caught the odd afternoon nap. So relaxed and lovely. I really enjoyed not stressing about traveling from family to family, or about getting the house tidy, or even really about preparing a fancy lunch. We ate the most delicious, simple bbq meal and it was just what we needed.
Can't wait to do it all again next Christmas.

I feel a bit like it has taken me 9 days to feel ready for it to be a new year, and a new start! Always need a wee break after a holiday with three kids. Hah. But yesterday morning I woke up feeling like it was a fresh year. I logged myself out of Facebook, for what I hope is going to be a really long break (crushing that addiction will make a HUGE change to my life... you can laugh, but FB addiction is some serious stuff!) and got stuck into my housework. I revised our budgets and I bought a new daily/monthly planner - I'm getting myself organised. 2014, BRING IT!

Christmas: Round three.

The festive season has been extra good to us this year. We've had three rounds of Christmas.
We had the first, on Christmas Day, with just us and the kids. They had their presents and we all enjoyed some amazing food. Then, we had a beautiful evening at my parents house last week. The kids had their gifts from them, and Aesop handed out the gifts he had chosen for us all. We had a beautiful butterflied lamb and salad, with rhubarb cake and fruit salad for afters. Divine.

On Saturday, Abraham and I had our own wee celebration. The boys went to Mum and Dad's for the night, so we cooked another delicious meal, and exchanged our gifts.
LOVE this whole 'dragging out' of Christmas - totally doing it again next year.

The gifts were wrapped lovingly, and very carefully chosen.

We took turns, undoing bows and revealing treasures. And, oh my, what treasures to be had!

Abraham gifted me the two Adele albums on vinyl, some new knickers, a julienne peeler (I requested this one... he's not making suggestions about getting into the kitchen.. haha), an incredible colouring book annnnd a Lego dress designer set! So perfect.
Can you see that Lego laptop and Canon-esque camera? So good.

My gifts to Abraham were: A stunning robot cushion by a super clever (and lovely) crafter I was lucky enough to meet down in Masterton, Geek Dad book (this review was the reason for this..) and a Razorwyre record.
Razorwyre is a metal band (think Iron Maiden styles.. big hair, skintight jeans..) and Abraham went to high school with the lead singer.

We chowed down on perfectly cooked eye fillet, fresh coleslaw and spicy wedges for tea, and fruit salad with soy icecream for sweets. And it was sweeeeet. Might have been my favourite Christmas so far : )

(Love you, Abraham. Thanks for a choice Christmas!)

A Very Wellington Christmas.

We decided to do something a little different for Christmas this year. We had a bit of a talk, and decided that that kids really didn't need a whole swag more toys, or knick-knacks, to fill their rooms with, but that a super cool holiday would be a great gift for the whole family.
I put the question on Facebook: ' Where would be awesome for a family holiday?' and had a lot of really great suggestions - and a completely generous offer.
My dear sweet friend Rachelle, who I met through blogging and doing Craft 2.0 (many moons ago, when Aesop was tiny!) offered us her house in Wellington for a week over Christmas! She said they were close to town, had sky t.v, a trampoline and, most importantly, a suitcase of Lego. SOLD!

It was a bit of a mish getting organised (more so due to the craft market in Greytown the weekend beforehand..) and we were pretty gutted to be spending Christmas without any family around (Mum and Dad originally were going to join us, but couldn't..) but we were so excited to be heading off on a huge adventure.

The car trip down was what I was most nervous about, I think. Our kids had never done a long drive before, and I feared they would spend the entire time nagging and bickering. I packed bags for the boys, filled with activities (stickers, notebooks, pens, treat foods, magazines etc) and doled those out each half hour or so. They also had the PSP and Ipod to play on in short bursts, and plenty of healthy snacks to munch on.
You know what? They were AMAZING. I don't think there was a single whinge the entire journey. We managed to only stop two or three times, for ice blocks and toilets, and the whole trip only took 8 hours. Score!

The home we stayed in was so beautiful. Rachelle and Mark have spectacular taste (I would have loved to have done a whole blogpost about the house, but sharing their home with the world wide web might be a small invasion of privacy! Hah). They were also kind enough to decorate a tree for us! What a treat.
The boys were so stoked to stay somewhere that was full to the brim of cool toys and to sleep in bunks 'just like at home', Aesop even asked if we could move in!
(Otto though, funny boy, missed home A LOT. Every morning when we asked him what he wanted to do that day, he would say 'Go home to Whakatane!' Such a homebody. )

Our Christmas day was a quiet one. We ate delicious food, the kids opened a few gifts (Carefully showing each one to Nana and Koro through the webcam!) and we spent a lot of time relaxing and playing.
Aesop received the boxed set of Harry Potter books he requested, and Otto got his PSP (Thank goodness Santa had some luck on Trademe!). Mollie was lucky enough to recieve a Dee*Luxe doll as her gift from Santa. She was nearly as stoked as I was. Heh.
We popped down to Te Papa in the afternoon, and wandered around the exhibitions. Who would have thought the museum would open on Christmas day? Pretty smart. I really recommend visiting on Christmas, if you're ever in Wellington. It was lovely and not nearly as busy as usual!

The rest of our week was spent doing wonderful, touristy things around the city. We popped back to Te Papa to seen the History of Gaming exhibition (Abraham and Aesop loved it - we soon realised it was not so suitable for under 5s, so the rest of us weren't so thrilled), we spent a day at Wellington Zoo, walked about Cuba Street, Visited the, very busy, Weta Cave and generally enjoyed ourselves.

I must note though, that Wellington is a very different place with three kids.
All of the things I imagined doing - eating sushi off a conveyor belt, shopping at Iko Iko, eating at cafes etc - were not suitable at all. It was very much more of a McDonalds on the run, and toys from the Warehouse sort of a holiday. Perhaps when the kids are older those things might be more realistic? I hope so!

The trip home went nearly as swimmingly as the trip there.
We stopped in at the Army Museum in Waiouru, which was fabulous.
Yes, even ole gun-hating Mama over here thought it was great. It's very well done, super informative and well, the perfect spot for a break in the trip. Highly recommend that place!
And we made it home just in time to pop the kids into bed and fall onto the couch in a heap. Three weekends in a row of long drives has meant we've had a tonne of fun, but now some, well-earned, relaxing time at home is in order.

Hope y'all had a lovely festive season, too xx

Christmas- Part two: The handmade gifts.

I had visions of the weather clearing, and of taking amazing photos of these things with natural light and cheerful happy kids. Instead, it remains overcast and very glarey, Otto is at homecare and Aesop had to be bribed into helping me out. Ah well - something is better than nothing right?

This one is a blatant copy. I feel a little stink about it, and almost didn't post pictures. But, in all honesty, if I had thought about getting him one sooner I probably would have custom ordered one of the real ones through felt (this one.), but I didn't. I hope that it might inspire someone else to buy from them though - they're so clever.

These two were made using this (genius) tutorial and pattern : Here. I love it, and was very stoked with how they turned out. I can totally imagine all sorts of softies being made using this basic shape, definitely one to remember.

This 'Man Bat' costume was made using the tutorial over HERE.
For those of you not in-the-know (i.e you don't have boys/are not a comic nerd/don't play playstation..) Man Bat is different to Batman. He looks like this, and is a villain. We gave Aesop a pair of denim shorts to go with the costume, too.
(Note: I'm going to have to adjust the placing of the straps on this one, so hard to get it right without someone trying it on, but the back of the neck part sags at the moment. You know, in case you want to make your own..)




Abraham's presents are all on the line today. Typical.
But yeah, he had the usual boxer shorts (three pairs) and also had two t-shirts with floral pockets (made to look just like these ones he loves so much.). Fairly simple, but he was well pleased!


Lastly, my personal favourite, this is the doctors kits I put together for the kids.

I had some much fun making them matching scrubs, and amassing medical supplies! The blood pressure cuff, otoscope (ear thingy), and thermometer are all real ones, and the bandages etc are all 'proper' ones too. I wanted to make sure it was all stuff that was going to last ages and survive lots of play. Now to get them away from the masses of Lego long enough to actually use it..

So yeah, those were the handmade gifts this year!