OK...another catch up post of what I can remember...

Working in the garden and tidying it up...harvesting pumpkins...shelling beans.

Loving Polar Bear

Autumn walks...

Playing in the rain...

Reading library books...cooking through the ages...the digestive system...book on braille...Leonardo da Vinci

~ Out of that has come choosing some pantry items and identifying on the world map where they have come from and we discussed how we try and buy locally but how some things are not possible to grow in New Zealand.

~ Decoding braille messages

~ Writing messages the way that Leonardo used to write (back to front and requiring a mirror).

~ Playdough cookies and people, writing shopping lists.

Questions about wasps and the differences between them and bees.

Watching the last of the monarch butterflies hatch. We had one malformed one hatch which was a bit sad but also interesting that we noticed something wasn't right, right from the start since we'd observed so many at that point.

Attending an ANZAC parade. Nathan went along with his Keas group and he was given a wreath to take up to the memorial. Was their first time going to the parade (was just a small one), but it still had the bagpipes and drums as well as the 21-gun salute.

Both have been taking turns with choosing a meal and helping prepare it.

Nathan's been busy making obstacle courses on the back yard from various planks of wood to ride his bike over.

Playing games...monopoly, scrabble, blokus, snakes and ladders, cards, connect 4 (little son loves to challenge me to a game, even when I win 10 times in a row he insists on wanting to keep playing to try and beat me). Good on him!

Plenty of drawing, making cards, leaf rubbings with water colours over the top.

We've been catching up with my niece and nephew over the past week. So great for the kids (and me) to get to re-know their cousins (and meet one for the first time).

Nathan and his cousin got to do some more climbing on Grampie's climbing frame - he jumps at any chance to have another go. Danielle chose not to have another go.

Danielle's polar bear had a bath out in the morning sun the other day.

We've started rereading My Side of the Mountain. I really enjoy reading this book with all it's wild food gathering, food preparation and self sufficient living talk. Nathan started writing down a list of everything that he didn't know about so we could research into things further.

Nathan noticed that a couple of our chrysalis' have changed colour again - so googling confirmed for us that they are almost ready to break out (they have gone a brown colour with the orange bits on the wings visible inside).

Yep, an hour later I noticed it hatching out. So we sat and watched it for an hour or so as its wings filled up and flattened out and Nathan noted that it was a girl. We came back later and saw that she had walked up the curry plant further and was flapping her wings more regularly and wandered across our hands as it took its time to orientate itself. Danielle announced to her "welcome to our world little butterfly". We saw it do its first fly across the lawn before we left it to it. Amazing how that consumed most of our afternoon.

While hanging out the washing on the line this morning Nathan and I had a bit of a discussion about how the sun and water are vital for life on earth which led onto plants and photosynthesis, so I'm sure that will lead on to some further discussions later.

Danielle's been very busy creating more Beado figures over the past week.

They've been blowing bubbles and doing a bit of kitchen science with various combinations of oil, water and powders.

Playing "pairs" and "set".

Nathan found the Mad Libs book, so we all had fun filling out some of those with silly stories.

Danielle wanted a cradle for her polar bear. So I got her to bring out the little soft bed she has, found a half piece of firewood and voila! a cradle lol. She was pretty happy with it.

Danielle had out her paper dolls with clothes and they both played with them for a while.

This evening Danielle made a book, filled it with pictures and then asked me to write in the story for her.

Last Friday night we had my cousin and his daughter come to stay for the night. The kids had never met but hit it off right from the minute they arrived.

Saturday afternoon Nannie came over with her American friend who comes out to NZ this time every year. Has been so neat for the kids to meet up with Phyllis every year - she's fun, and loves spending the time playing and talking to them. Her and Nathan spent ages discussing Pompeii, dinosaurs and the construction of the Lego bus.

Nathan had planned a few days before that he wanted to cook us dinner on Saturday night - tacos. So, I chopped up the onion for him and then he went to work cooking up the meat sauce. Danielle wanted to help out so worked on chopping the salad veges.

Sunday - not sure what happened to Sunday?

Monday we spent most of the day in the garden catching up with house maintenance chores. Since Simon was lining our pond with cement, I grabbed some before he mixed it up so me and Danielle could make a couple of garden paving stones and inset some glass stones into them. Then the kids set some glass beads and paua into the pond cement before it dried.

Monday afternoon we headed off out with the kids so they could go ride their bikes. They chose to go the Pump Track which is a homemade track on the some that belongs to Simon's bike club. The idea being that the riders are meant to *pump* their body up and down around the track rather than pedalling. It looked like fun that I had to give it a go on Nathan's bike...there's a reason there are no photos of me doing that!

Snow on her birthday?

No, not really!

It was Danielle's actual birthday today.

Her new desk - super stoked with it!

Playing with part of the new Lego set we got her. Nathan constructed and she played...

Then off to do the groceries - Nathan being a smarty pants doing all sorts of random multiplication as we wandered around.

This afternoon I was clearing our my large freezer and it was a long time overdue. We dumped the ice outside on the grass for the kids to play with.