At the Phoenix Family Day, at Wellington’s Westpac Stadium, one little dribbler was so chuffed when the All White coach, Ricki Herbert, signed her football… It was a stunning mid-winter Sunday and football fans turned up in the thousands. The bright yellow Phoenix flags flew proud in the sunshine. Sophie had a go at dribbling […]
Sophie
Sophie’s ‘Rascal Rabbit’ book
Last week, on a rainy day, Sophie and I sat down to write a story about Rascal rabbit, from Sophie’s Kindi. He’s come to stay a few times and he certainly lives up to his name. We used ‘Snapfish‘ and Sophie is delighted with her own special book. We’re going to give a copy to […]
Action Girl
Sophie the action girl, your enthusiasm is amazing. You love thrills and are fast on wheels. Cycling, scooting, roller blading. Twice this week we’ve gone to Kindi on foot and back (6.7 km!). You did great – though had a rest in the buggy for part of the way (Mummy did great pushing you and […]
Wild beauty & time well spent
Rock pooling, rock climbing and tossing the largest rocks we could carry into the sea was a great way to spend an hour of our time this afternoon. Wellington’s south coast is wild, rugged and forever changing with the tide, weather and shadows of light from sunrise to sunset. I don’t think we’ll ever tire […]
Drawings in the sand
At low tide the wet, flat sand of Lyall Bay makes a welcome canvas. Sophie delighted in writing messages of love and mastered drawing hearts (a little something she’s been working on). Charlotte drew pictures and made trails (with maths questions!) for me to follow. They both asked for me to take a photograph and […]
This is Me – [Kids Click]
The theme for this fortnight’s ‘Kids Click’ competition is ‘This is Me’, with the mission… ‘You need to find a way to take a photo of yourself in a way that tells us something about what kind of person you are, or what kind of things you are into etc.’ Sophie, age 4, took this […]
Chocolate cake to combat cabin fever
Sophie woke with a cold on Tuesday morning. It was one of those mornings when finding a positive reason to get out of bed wasn’t easy. Howling southerlies ripped through the beams of the house. Like most Kiwi houses, we have a metal roof which makes the sound of rain and hail feel primitively close. […]
Because
She left the breakfast dishes with guilty abandonement. She knew she had an hour, if she was lucky. She wasn’t really dressed warm enough, but baby Alice was already strapped to her chest, so she grabbed a blanket and wrapped it snug around them both. ‘Exercise and fresh air; both high on the list of […]
YUCK [Kids Click]
Kids Click competition, from Greatfun4kids, now has a blog site of its own and the competitions are running once a fortnight. The theme for this fortnight is ‘YUCK’ and Charlotte (age 6) took this photograph of a terribly explosive, overflowing ‘nappy filler’ as she calls them: We have plenty of these now that Alice’s stomach […]
Flowing with watercolours
Whilst the rain continues to lash down outside we have been flowing with watercolours inside. I know little of art techniques, but I do enjoy a quiet moment to draw or paint. I have fond memories, from my childhood, of whiling away hours drawing and painting, particularly on weekends away visiting extended family. Dan also […]
SkyWatch Friday: Last of the sun before the rains
This was the sky on Sunday, as we ran in the last hours of the setting sun. It’s now Thursday and we’ve been corked in with an oppressive grey sky, incessant rain and now the wind has started to throw its weight around. Few parts of the country have escaped and there is flooding in […]
Scrumptious fairy cakes in the lunch boxes
On Wednesday we made fairy cakes, which Sophie and I decorated. They made a colourful addition to the lunch boxes for the rest of the week! Recipe here! It was a scrumptious time. You’ve got to try the fairy cakes. We scoffed the fairy cakes from our lunch boxes at morning tea. Yah! They were […]
Cooking with Sophie: Butterfly cakes
Sophie whipped up some delicious butterfly cakes yesterday. The recipe and instructions follow. The biggest lesson we learned was DOUBLE the recipe! The recipe we followed was supposed to make 8 cakes, but we managed to make only 6. They must have used mini paper cake cases to make 8! We used muffin cake cases, […]
Orcas to start the day
Think of the perfect start to your day. A coffee and pain au chocolat perhaps? A beautiful sunrise or birdsong at your window? Happy children that eagerly cooperate in everything that is asked of them? Tuesday morning we couldn’t have asked for anything better than seeing a family of Orcas just metres from shore. FIN-TASTIC: […]