After a blast of summery sunshine on Sunday the clouds have rolled in with perfect timing for the Christmas countdown to commence. The heavy rain clouds filling the sky make a befitting backdrop for twinkling lights. It’s normally rare to see their sparkle much before 9pm at this time of year; but the downpour has […]
Art
Dotty Love
“I, Kusama, am the modern Alice in Wonderland.†Yayoi Kusama Taking advantage of the fortnightly, free Wednesday entrance to the Wellington City Art Gallery we ventured into Yayoi Kusama’s ‘Mirrored Years‘ exhibition after school yesterday. Kusama couldn’t have described herself better; she certainly is a modern day Alice in Wonderland. Her creative genius gifts visitors […]
Affordable Art
With the New Zealand Affordable Art Show on this weekend in Wellington the girls decided to create some of their own art. With the only cost being a couple of canvases and paint, this really is affordable art! I think it’s so important for children to see their art displayed in the main living areas […]
Drowning in a sea of paper
The lounge coffee table, once perfectly polished and gleaming, adorned with fresh flowers and a chosen book or two of the moment has long gone. Underneath are drawers of stickers, stamps, stencils and colouring books. The surface is pot holed and well loved. Glitter, scratches and pen marks hide under a ton of work in […]
We Are Family
What a weekend! Spring really is upon us and here’s a little video clip of our family fun on Wellington’s Waterfront on Saturday (with plenty of hooning around and shoddy camera work!): Sunday was a trooper of a day too. We always love chilling out at home on a Sunday morning (and catching up with […]
Art Take Over!
It’s Sunday and I really needed to have a break and be in my own head-space. Dan has been out all day with the girls and it’s been so peaceful. But I’m never alone. There are always delightful surprises carefully placed around the home to remind me of how lucky I am to have such […]
Highs and Lows of a day with preschoolers!
This morning was perfect in every way. The girls woke at 7am and were so enthused by the day – I love it when they wake up like that! Sophie was trying to serenade us on the piano, whilst Charlotte headed straight to the art-room (my laundry room) and conjured up one of her numerous […]
Charlotte’s Interior Design
On a recent visit to Te Papa we listened to a curator talk about old toys. She showed us some beautiful toys made of paper, including paper dolls with various paper costumes. Yesterday afternoon, Charlotte discovered a wonderful game on Nick Jr where you can decorate a house, print it off and then make the […]
There She Blows!
We got lucky and saw the whale today! The day started with Dan catching a bus to work, at 8.10am, and then Charlotte shouting at me, ‘Telephone! Telephone!’. I pelted downstairs (as I keep forgetting to set the ring tone to ring more than six times) and just grabbed the phone in time (to cheers […]
Entertainment from the Car
The miserable wind and wet weather continues over the school holidays. We are having fun at home, but the occasional drive out lifts all our spirits. The other day we cruised down past the end of Evan’s Bay, along Cobham Drive, to look at the great sculptures (check out the Wellington Sculpture Trust‘s website for […]
Unremarkable?
Today was a day like millions of other stay-at-home parents around the world, but does that make it any less remarkable? Children wake up every morning with driven curiosity and grasp at every opportunity to learn and explore. As a parent I feel a tremendous responsibility to ensure the doors are wide open in every […]
Settled and Happy
We’ve been back home in New Zealand for nearly a fortnight and it feels good to be back to our regular routines. Charlotte settled straight back in and is so happy. She particularly enjoyed Aunty Claire’s company in our first week back. Sophie took a particular shine to Aunty Claire’s boyfriend, Mike, and keeps saying, […]
Back at Kindi
Charlotte’s back at Kindi and all my positive visualisation of her happily returning obviously sent out the right message to the Universe, as she is loving it. On her first day she was greeted by several children running up to hug her and she was so happy. Today I walked in at the end of […]
End of Term and Both Girls at Home
Today was the first day of the school hols and it was quite strange to have both the girls at home for the day – though lovely too of course! Charlotte was quite sad at not going to Kindi, which I saw as a positive as she is definitely loving it. We’ve had a truck […]