New Year's Eve..

...and I am at home blogging! Tragic.

Jamie is at work - we have never, as far as I can recall, had a New Year's Eve together in all the time we've been together. Oh actually, he was home by 8pm last year, but we just went to bed early.

After dinner the boys spent an hour outside playing on the trampoline and the slide and the water table while I hovered close by. I just put them to bed - haven't heard a peep so they must be whacked - and then ate too much chocolate icecream!

And now to tidy up my kitchen.

Happy New Year everyone

At the Lake..

Yes, the two in one day. Martin & Jamie ran from Whakatane over to Ohope today, through that bushwalk. So me and the boys and Sarah and her boys drove over to the beach to pick them up. We spent a bit of time at the playground there.

In the afternoon us Kerrs drove up to Lake Rotoiti to catch up with some friends Jamie used to work with. Lachie had a spin in the boat!

At the Beach..

Our Boxing Day was pretty quiet, but the fun began at 5.30pm when we went around to 126 James Street for a BBQ (also with Dean & Gaynoll).

We had a great time over dinner and a game of Trivial Pursuit. Lachie was still awake at 10pm, so both he and Fletcher are now having an afternoon sleep.

This morning I've been to get a haircut (God Bless my hairdresser, I always seem to get an appointment about half an hour after I phone up) and then some friends from Auckland called in to visit this morning.

And the weather is at last lovely blue sky!

Christmas Eve & Christmas Day

Lachlan opens his new airplanes & helicopters. He took them to Christmas Service this morning and he didn't want them opened for ages. He's in bed now, tired out from a very busy day!

Zac opens his new Veggie Tales DVD. The boys then watched it!

Ben opens his new Nike shin guards for soccer next year....

and models them.

Fletcher received (from Wintersons) a Fisher Price toy called "Roberto" and his tractor and associated construction stuff. He & Lachie have already enjoyed playing with it on Christmas morning.

Lachie opens his Christmas gift from the Wintersons. Everyone looks pretty excited, don't they?! Its great, Ben & Zac have taught Lachie to be excited about presents! He received a great "Thomas Build Me" game.

One great thing about our house is that it has a great back yard and a lovely big silk tree for shade. So today after church we had Sarah & Andy, Abby & Grant around for lunch. We sat outside all afternoon at our picnic table, it was great.

We have people around for dinner shortly. I should go and make a salad or something.

Busy day tomorrow getting what we need for Christmas Day!

Home Again

We decided to try driving home from Havelock North in the morning, rather than the evening. So we left Mum & Dad's at 9.30am this morning. We managed to do the whole trip without any stops, and were safely home by 1pm. The boys ate on the way and slept for an hour or so. They were pleased to be home to their own toys.

Both me and Jamie went out and did jobs this afternoon and Lachie enjoyed playing with his cousins.

Last night of course, we got to enjoy the 6.8 richter scale earthquake that was mainly focused on Gisborne. Of course Napier isn't too far away from Gisborne and so we felt it a treat. It was rolling and just went on and on and on and on!

A Saturday with jobs like laundry and lawnmowing is ahead!

Unfortunately, the rain has been coming down for the last few days. So that dashed my hopes of going swimming or getting out and about much.

Went for a drive with Mum and the boys this morning looking at all the new housess in the neighborhood.

Picking up Jamie from the airport this afternoon!

H a v e l o c k

We arrived at Mum & Dad's at 10pm last night. We find night is the best time to travel for the boys and we don't have to make any stops. I imagine though they will be pretty whacked today. Fletcher has already gone down for his morning sleep and it is only 9am!

Taking Jamie to the airport soon, he is going to spend a few days in Wellington with friends he went to Police College with.

More later!

ps. It is such a hot day here already!

Here are my cutie-pies sitting at their little table tonight, just finishing up a bit of dinner. Fletcher was trying to steal Lachie's garlic bread so I gave him a slice of his own. Fletcher has been doing a bit of walking today - not too far though. It would be great if he acquired the skill by Christmas!

Welcome...

...to my new look site. It was time for a bit of a change and I hope you like it.

After a period of prolonged silence from Lachlan on Thursday morning, I went in to my room to find he had gotten into my lipstick. Silly mother that I am, I didn't rant and rave, I just said: "Can I take your picture?". And then after I had taken the picture I told him he was NEVER to get into my things again! He actually did a pretty good job on the top lip, don't you think? Considering he had no mirror....

Later in the day I dropped Lachie at Zoe's house, and Fletcher at Connor's while I went to a work lunch at Roquette Restaurant. What a treat! And I was the first to order dessert.

This morning we went to the park with Auntie Sarah and Zac - what a lovely hot day it was! It was good to get out of the house as Jamie worked a night shift so was trying to sleep. It is just impossible to keep the boys quiet so its best to leave! We had a fun morning.

At 1pm today we went and watched a Police Dog Display at the Intermediate School. Unfortunately Mum, I didn't take my camera. It was good fun - quite brief today. Jamie was the villain - next time he'll be showing off his handling skills!

The Winterson boys were here for dinner tonight and then down to bed in our room while Martin & Sarah went out for dinner. All the boys had a wonderful time playing together.

I'll leave you with a shot of Fletchie after he woke up from a wee nap today. Look at the curly hair! He's been a bit of a grump the last few days with a big fat molar coming through.

Wednesday

It was our first night in our house last night (Monday night we stayed at Ian & Christina's - to give the house time to dry out). Jamie was back to work and so was I for the morning.

I finished up work a little earlier so I could run to the supermarket. I needed to do some cleaning while the boys were asleep and I had no cleaning supplies! I can't go after Starlights because Fletcher needs to come straight home for a sleep. Here's my little sweetie showing his dexterity. He enjoyed himself this afternoon walking around behind the doll's pram.

And here is me and Lachie tonight after we read a story.

Now on to the Cool Stuff

We picked up our first concept plan from the architect last Friday. Here is a picture. I hope you will be able to click on the picture for a larger image and hopefully zoom in. We are pretty pleased with it but will probably make a few changes - mainly just to the size of the living area. We would welcome all your input!

Our New Pad...A Novel

Yesterday, Monday 10 December, I arrived about 9am - Jamie had arrived a little earlier and had gone to get the moving truck. Just after I got here he arrived with the first load of furniture.

And now let me tell you about said house. I think we'll start with a "Good" list and a "Bad" list:

Bad:
~~Mouldy walls and ceilings
~~Some mouldy patches on the really old carpet that should probably be just pulled up
~~The previous tenants had been told commercial cleaners were coming in. Unfortunately they weren't told the commercial cleaners were only employed to clean the carpet and walls. So they just packed up and left. Oven sprayed, but not cleaned, dirty cupboards, dirty toilet, dirty bathroom.......
~~Smells not soooo good - because of the carpets being cleaned (least I hope that's the reason) - but hopefully we have improved that running 3 de humidifiers over the last two days. You know how some families have a funny smell? I hope we don't turn into the Smelly Kerrs!! I've been praying the fragrance of Christ will permeate the rooms!
~~The windows need repainting (here's an example) - one window has practically no paint and is rotting..mmmm lovely

~~The rubbish that Jamie picked up from around the section that will be removed tomorrow.
Here's a pic:

But, we are very thankful for the opportunity to live here, so now I will list the good:

Good:
~~Its a wee bit bigger than James St. The computer fits in the lounge. And the kids room is really big.
~~It has a great fenced back yard for the kids to play in.
~~The bathroom has only a shower over the bath and a sink - my cleaning is much reduced!
~~The neighbour came over to say hi tonight and commiserate - her house is much the same - and she says we can use their trampoline any time we like.

Jamie has already been doing some trimming of overgrown bushes and he is outside now doing the edges before mowing the lawn. Hopefully we will be the best gosh darn tenants this house has ever seen!

Our Move & a Week at Lake Rotoma

Well I guess you could say that our move went pretty smoothly. We moved out all the furniture on Wednesday the 28th and spent that night up at Lake Rotoma. Thursday morning Jamie came back over to get a head start on the cleaning. Lachie had some tummy issues that day so I stayed at the lake until about 12pm, before coming over to give a helping hand. In the end Sarah came over and gave us an hour of her time to help us clean up. Martin was also very helpful the day before, bringing Jamie & Millsy morning tea and also mowing our lawn for us.

We had dinner with John and Moana and then headed off to the Lake - at 40 minute trip (nothing to big city folk of course).

Jamie had that Friday off and I came back to Whakatane to go to work.

We had an enjoyable week at Lake Rotoma but we were glad that was all it was, a week. I came over for stuff like coffee group and work, but actually did pretty well not coming over every day. Still used lots of gas!