House of Sick

It seems we are all either sick (me and Isabella), getting sick (Ang) or recovering (Harriet & the boys) this week, the whole family is sounding like we have a five pack a day habit in the cough department.
Some pics of the boys from today

and because I have been sorting some old files of photos some from a few years ago

Miss Isabella aged 10

Harriet and Sol as Dora and Boots for Halloween 05

Harriet getting ready for a dance show aged 3yrs

Sol and his curls aged 2yrs

and lastly thunderbirds are go...one of my favourite pics of Kahi

BOy MOndAY

Billy really wanted to visit a farm today, it was pouring with rain when we did school drop off but I figured we could at least see a few animals and even though it rained more and more as we drove to Ambury Farm, in typical Auckland weather changeability the sun came out just as we arrived

and we were just in time for Billy to help with Milking Priti and Rosa






before heading off to look at other animals

we spent lots of time looking at


this wee 3 day old baby

than on to see the kids


Arlo wasn't keen on the animals coming too close and was pretty miffed when the goat licked his pushchair strap

we had morning tea with the chickens

it would seem chickens do not like bananas for morning tea

but sheep do


Arlo was much more keen on the birds following the ducks around


till they got away through the fence

but the best bit of the farm, not the animals but the muddy puddles




they must of spent 20 mins running through these

before heading to the car for dry clothes.
While driving away Billy noticed the large mountain and we talked about walking up the old volcano, the farm sits on the old lava flow, so we drove around to the base of Mangere Mountain

but past here was not pushchair friendly and Arlo was sound asleep

so we played in the little children's garden at the bottom of the mountain instead


can you see Billy? ..he was playing at being camouflaged

there was a great ride on Weta which we went on a whole imaginary adventure on

next time we will bring the backpack and climb the volcano and look at the old Pa site

Deep Water Oil Wells

this is what Miss Isabella was doing today
Action Against Oil Exploration Expansion in New Zealand Greenpeace volunteers covered in 'oil', at Muriwai beach' send a strong message to the Government to stop its plans for the drilling of new deep water oil wells off New Zealand's coast.

Weekend Roundup

Visiting Nanarie on Friday night while Harriet is at dance practice

Saturday morning we had an impromptu PJ dance show, Billy did a hectic dance to Mambo No.5 (the bob the builder version)

while Harriet showed us her latest Bollywood dance

the small people all went with Leon to the Zoo so we popped on our frocks and checked out the Auckland Craft Fair


Ang's frock was my latest sewing project from some vintage barkcloth

the craft fair had amazing things but the space was too small and it was hard to see anything in the crowds, I did get these lovely patches from Millicent Crow and Ang got some hand knitted fingerless gloves before we retired to Smith and Caugheys for Devonshire Tea. The rest of the afternoon was spent finding a new washing machine and dryer, our washing machine has been eating clothes and requiring hand filling with a bucket, it has now been replaced with a lovely front loader, we were however a little overdressed for Harv.ey Normans on the shore on a Saturday (trackies and uggs would have fitted in better)

Miss Harriet who has been sick most of the week was very happy to get to go babysitting with her big sister for one of her little school friends.

Sunday Miss Harriet was very (well mostly) patient while we cleaned out the entire laundry and back hall space to allow the new whiteware to arrive so we took an afternoon ride to the shop.


each of the small people had a list (with equal numbers of things) and a basket


which were a bit heavy by the end


there were signs spring is coming

and time for a swing before heading home


for me to start attacking the backlog of washing