Wednesday and Thursday

Nathan found his mancala set that I had bought him for his last birthday. Hadn't been played with till now. After about a dozen games he's figured out the strategies required to beat me lol.

Reading library books.

Whittling bark off sticks.

Playing with the clock and cards.

Perfecting yoyo skills.

Making water bombs.

Reading more of our chapter book.

Donning himself with useful tools.

Danielle dressing her baby.

Playing some games from one of our library books....hotter/colder and musical chairs.

Preparing a snack as seen on a kids TV show in the weekend. The celery needed to be "10 cm" long apparently lol.

Had Danielle's gym class followed by some reading and playing  in the park until Nathan's class an hour later.

Vege box Thursday...a refrigerator.

Observing hail...just a few days from November!

We sorted, tidied and vacuumed bedrooms...found lost treasures...were reinspired...

It's turning into a once a week update...

So, the kids had colds last week so not a lot of action really. Not that they were too sick, but I just like us to lay low and since it was a bit chilly from all the wind we stayed in and kept warm. So we just pottered around doing the usual sort of stuff.

Nathan had remembered seeing a couple of kids perform to Michael Jackson songs at the talent quest a few weeks back - so I pulled up a few YouTubes to show him who he was and where the kids found their dancing and costume inspiration.

They both stayed over with nannie and grampy on Saturday night (first time in about a year - woot!) and enjoyed a bbq down at one of the local reserves, observed various wildlife at twilight including loads of rabbits, home for a spa and ice cream at 9.30pm!

Tuesdays have become a bit of a home day as it's the only day where we don't have any planned activities now.

Today started with reading more of our current chapter book about our modern day 'pioneers'. We came to a part where the story talked of a fantail (native bird) flying in the rafters of the barn and how the children then sat down and drew fantails and wrote about them. Nathan wanted to do similar. So we found a book on birds (sadly,  no fantails in it though) and they sat down to draw for a while.

Nathan then started talking about stick insects and how one of our friends don't like them. So being in a trickster kind of mood he drew one and wrote a letter to send to her.

Then out came the playdough.

Danielle had found our Creative Family book and wanted to do some of the crafts. The one with painted fabric and then handstitched together looked a go (I had unearthed our fabric paints just the other day).

While the paint was drying, I made us all buckwheat pancakes in a stack and Nathan wondered how to cut it so we all had an even amount so I showed him.

After lunch I started to paint the laundry and try out a bold colour combination I've been wanting for a while. The laundry also doubles as my herbal supplies area, storage of sewing/crafting bits and pieces and general storage along with washing - so I spend a bit of time in there and wanted to give it a bit of character.

We then went back to the fabric. Danielle had painted a rabbit and Nathan a gorilla. We stitched them together (Nathan did his entirely on his own, Danielle wanted me to do hers). They both then enjoyed stuffing them (yay for Simon arriving home to pick up something and was able to reach into the roof to retrieve the bag of carded wool for us).

Nathan discovered his gorilla "floated" when dropped off his bunk bed. So quite a while was spent dropping them off and rigging up parachutes to see how slow they could get them to go.

Library books were read.

No photos, and much of the same really over the past week!

Nathan reading to me and Danielle, and me reading to the two of them.

Painting and craft making using cardboard boxes and cutting out pictures from magazines.

Riding bikes, walking, scooters, playgrounds...

Sandpit and garden play

Playing with friends

Went on a medicinal herb and weed walk on Saturday that Nathan in particular really enjoyed (especially since we covered a lot of plants that he knew from our own garden or travels).

computer play - Starfall for Danielle, Reader Rabbit Maths for Nathan. Both kids were quizzing me on maths problems.

Continuing on with our chapter book and really enjoying it.

The Brain Box, more brain box and more again - it's been the focus this week! Mostly tinkering around until he gets his own circuits working opposed to following the instructions.

Nathan tried out another Keas group and got right into it and told he wanted to come back and didn't want me to stay lol. Monday was his first time going along and they all sowed sunflower seeds as well as playing games out on the field. I notice the plan for the next few weeks will include a scavenger hunt, kite making and kite flying, craft making and a Christmas party. Sounds fun!

We have also joined the local gym club and both kids loved it, so we'll be back for that once a week (and for the hour between their classes we can go to the library to switch our books over).

Last Friday the we went swimming with Grampie and both kids made huge advances in their water confidence. Nathan has gone from just holding his breath under water for a few seconds to diving under to pick up grampies watch (only a couple of feet deep) and swimming along under water for about 10 seconds. Danielle wanted to go on the water slide with Grampie but first had to be ok about getting splashes of water on her face - so once she'd gotten ok with that she loved the slide!

We've been cooking Mediterranean style meals over the past few weeks - tonight's was Spanish. The meal discussions always turn to populations in certain countries, languages that different countries speak, our own ancestry (Maori and English from DH's side of the family and English and Irish on mine).

A week of stuff

A week of busyness - in no particular order...

I thought I'd lost a bunch of pictures due to leaving my camera setting on video, but I seem to have them all anyway. The kids had fun making movies too!

Last week we went and saw our friend James play at the local talest quest (unfortunately his guitar was playing up a bit - Nathan still thought he was the best though). They kids got to see kids of all ages dancing, singing and playing instruments and quite happily sat for 1.5hrs watching them all.

Danielle collecting flowers in her little felt bag that I made her a few years ago

There has been painting outside

Making bows and arrows (but not aimed at the chickens please!)

Digging in the sandpit

Helping gather branches and mulch

Finished reading Little House in the Big woods

Down to the park with dad to feed the ducks

Playdates with friends.

Started Where Lions Roar at Night - a story about a modern day 'pioneering' family living in New Zealand (loving this and can see plenty of new ideas being sparked off in Nathan's head)

Danielle's been Laura Ingalls...sadly we had no Mary for her to play with

Riding bikes down the street with dad

Parachutes constructed

Writing to-do lists

Playing snap with the cards. Then asking for a new game - I recalled seeing this solataire game where cards are laid out (minus the picture cards). If two cards add up to ten they can be removed. I gave him a crib sheet so he could use it as a quick reference. I've seen him playing it several times over the past few days.

Drinking herbal tea together

I keep finding pictures of Danielle's with her name written on them.

Lego constructions. Nathan wanted to find the middle of his lego board - so we got out the tape measure to figure it out (and used the sheet of paper above to show what I was doing).

Danielle played with the spelling cards

Dressing her baby doll

Brrr, the polar blast going through has us huddled in front of the fire again.

One of my friends came to visit with her two girls today.

We then spent the afternoon...

Some more Little House in the Big Woods
Got into our games and cards stash - Harvest Time, Set, the letter and word cards, jigsaw puzzles
Nathan drew a picture and then took it outside to conduct a car survey again counting different coloured cars that drove past our house and each picture receiving a tick as they did so.
Danielle set up a tea-party
Making creations out of video/DVDs and lumps of firewood
Watched Nim's Island

And because I forgot to add it the other day about the farm walk, and because I'm just soooo funny.

When we were leaving the farm walk Nathan said...

"Hey! Why is that peacock crossing the road!?" (there was one returning to the farm)
Me: "To see what was on the other side" (and so true!!!!)

Yeah, I crack myself up. I'm sure Nathan rolled his eyes at me.

A bit of supermarket maths on Friday - we went to the organic grocery shop and Nathan was asking whether I was going to put all the nuts and seeds into the same bag. So he got a short explanation about things being priced differently and that they all needed weighing to work out their own prices.

I've been waiting to find something for Nathan to fix with his screwdriver and recalled that Danielle's cash register had its drawer jammed so gave it to him to look into (and successfully fixed).

Kids have been helping me out harvesting wild weeds and herbs from around the garden.

A bit of wet weather riding.

Catching water from our water tank overflow (actually from last Monday).

Playing more board games (been cold and rainy again!)

Reading more Little House in the Big Woods

Bubble blowing.

It's school holidays here at the moment, so while nothing changes for us on a day to day, it does mean that we get to catch up with friends who go to school.

Tuesday we had a wee friend over for most of the day that included a play at the park, chatter over lunch, tearing around the house in craziness. Nathan then decided to show his friend his Fire Extinguisher experiment with the candle, baking soda and vinegar - that then turned into the bottle of vinegar being used up and all sorts of concoctions going on out in the garden.

Wednesday was a quiet one with a few DVDs, playing at nannie and grampies in the morning (not that we were really concerned about getting hit by a tsunami, but better safe than sorry and we do live right next to the sea!).

Today we had some beautiful warm weather and spent the morning out on the porch reading for about 1.5hrs. Then made some lunch before heading up to a local petting farm we hadn't been to before.