rain, rain, rain, sunshine, rain, rain, rain

It's been a case of enjoying the outdoors on the non-rainy days while we can, and hunkering down and enjoying the inside together time the rest of the time.

We settled down in front of the fire this morning to read up about the coming Winter Solstice and Matariki and to make plans for our feast and what seasonal decorations we'd put up. The kids were then inspired to make some drawings about the seasons (and Nathan wanted to add a poem to his).

We did reading on Maori mythology and a bit from Story of the World.

After lunch, the rain stopped and the sun came out, so off outside we went. The kids were investigating under the stones for what little creatures were hiding. They then disappeared around the side of the house to dig a few holes where I'd removed some leaves to add as mulch to the garden. Then the rain came back about 1/2 hr later (which was perfect timing as it was pretty cold out there).

Back inside for a snack. Danielle had found a few activities in our Earthwise book that she wanted to do again (we did these last year).

The previous week was a collection of inside and out...

Nathan's right into Monopoly at the moment, so we've had a few games of that. Daneille's discovered a few more of our games that she enjoys. Nathan's been continuing to play and figure out numbers and how they all work together. Danielle's been playing on the computer with a reading CD-Rom we have.

We've been doing a bit of kitchen science again...revisiting a few old favourites, and a discovering a few new ones.

Danielle's book of animal portraits. These little fellas have really been a favourite in this house for many years now.

A walk down to the park

(you'd think this kid thinks it's summer still!)

We've had SO much rain it's really kept us inside a lot.

But we've managed to venture out a few times. As soon as I saw a blue sky we were down having a lovely walk by the river with a friend for a few hours. I got to have a natter with my friend and the kids got to burn off all their energy.

Drinking morning dew from the nasturtium leaves.

Yesterday we went to visit a friend who has recently moved and got so play and see some new sights.

In between the sunny days we've played games, written stories, been to the library, read books, watched DVDs, played old playstation games, starfall...

Nathan's been getting the Cadoo game out most days and challenges whoever is willing to have a game. Danielle's started dancing classes and is enjoying them.

We've had Keas (they had a guide dog and his owner come to visit), been on the big Keas National Trek over the weekend where they all had a games day followed by a trek up a big hill. Later on Simon took Nathan on a big bike ride on his new bike and he got to try out the gears on all the slopes.

A real home-bound day yesterday with the torrential downpours, but fortunately no need to be out in them!

Nathan got out Blokus so we all had a game. Danielle also had out the Cadoo game and discovered if she looked through the glasses that come with it and realised that the red tiles from the Blokus turn clear. Good little colour and light discussion came about.

Danielle then got out Whoosit (guess who) for a few games.

Nathan wanted to play Cadoo. Until I haven't played it with him (got it a few years back to have on hand when he was old enough). Since it's usually just he and I who play games together it made it a bit tricky playing the game properly since you need to do what is on each card for the other person to guess. I said to him jokingly, if he could read the cards then I will play with him. Well, it seemed to be the motivation he needed to go from can-read-but-doen't-like-having-to-figure-out-what-stuff-says-unless-necessary to taking the time to read out the cards so we could enjoy a game. And another game. And another.

He's also been enjoying playing with his Top Trumps card game that he got for his birthday.

Interesting how the maths knowledge develops in a kid who hasn't had any formal sit down time. Nathan was looking at a couple of sheets of stickers that Danielle had bought the day before. He noticed that one sheet had 34 stickers and the other 45. I heard him talking to Simon in the morning saying "if I add the 3 and the 4 that is 7 which becomes 70 and then the 4 and the 5 are 9 so that's 79". The only previous discussion we had was a few weeks back and he got it. I showed him later how that is represented on paper with the ones and tens columns, but the moment had passed. Will be interesting to see what happens when he comes to numbers that need carrying over...

Danielle's been very busy dressing and playing with her baby, beading,

Today was a bit of a cruisey one and a lovely late autumn day.

Nathan did a catch up on writing a Thank you letter to an old aunt for some birthday money he received.

We read some of our library books before heading down after lunch to get some new ones.

After the library we headed out to the beach where there are loads of tracks to wander amongst the sand dunes. We had with us a book that Danielle had found at the library of the same series as Nathan's most used reference book. This one was on NZ Wildflowers. We did really good at IDing quite a few of them and was a good refresher for me for noting some more medicinal plants found locally. These books have awesome life-size pictures of the leaves and flowers.

Hmmmm....

We've had Nathan's bowling day with a few friends for his birthday.

Then back to our place for Ice Cream Cake that Nathan had requested I make, and then he decorated.

On Monday we went into the city and went to the Carter Observatory. There was a neat movie that they played in the top of the dome along with pointing out different stars and how to get your bearings using the night sky.

We then headed down to the Botanic Gardens on the way back to the car for lunch. It was lovely with all the autumny-ness about it.

Then mid-afternoon they all dropped me off at the airport. I went away for a few days to visit with my brother and his family. My flight was delayed and I noticed out my window where the sun had disappeared and the moon had appeared. I was excited (lol) to see the first star of the night - Sirius. Since we'd just learnt about that at the observatory I took a photo for the kids to show them hehe.

We've been catching up with friends again now that Nathan's all back to full health.

I started to read to the kids a book that my mum bought Nathan last year...George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt by Lucy and Stephen Hawking. Have only read the first few chapters and so far is a fun read.

Already, it's inspired the kids to build space ships with their Lego...

Black holes...(crickey, can't even get my own head around those)

Youtubes of...Space shuttles launching and sonic booms

Discussions about evolution theory and creationism

How astronauts live when up in space...

Danielle spent a lot of yesterday revisiting her interest in the butterfly life cycle...she was dressed in her butterfly wings most of the day. She decided her butterfly would need a nest for when it rained, so she spent about an hour building a nest from twigs. Nathan meanwhile spent a bit of time trying to nail small branches together to build a hut, but that proved a little frustrating.

Somehow this lead onto me mentioning the Butterfly Effect (Nathan was discussing how you couldn't hear a butterfly flap its wings unlike a large bird like our chickens or a Tui). But, since I know next to nothing about it (aside from cause and effect and the classic idea of air disturbance from a butterfly flapping its wings causing changes in weather patterns all around the world), and we were driving in the car at the time, it's been parked until I remember to look it up and pitch something at his level (and mine lol).

Nathan figured out how to add large numbers in his head today - he realised if he was to break down the numbers into chunks of 10s and add them up and then add on the small numbers afterwards, that it wasn't so daunting to do (such as 35 + 25).

Last night Nathan was asking me how chef's cook food with a flame in the pan. Not something that I was knowledgable about, so a bit of research later and I was able to show him some Youtubes this morning on flambe cooking.

Our day started off with Nathan riding in a Mountain Bike event called the Kids Bike Jams. He had a blast.

Waiting at the start line.

And over the end of the line...

We then went to the local Marine Centre and rockpools. How cool! They have open tanks set up for people to lift up the sea life (they aren't harmed by being handled as they are conditioned to surviving in the rough seas and against moving rocks). We were invited to also pick up and handle any that we found in the rockpools outside.

Snake starfish (brittlestar)

We found a Sea Hare (a huge slug lol).