The King's: 2011

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Sophie and Dad go to the Basketball

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

A great deal has happened since my last post. We've had our survey results and The Rock is number 1 music brand in NZ for the 6th consecutive year; Max and Sophie have both had nasty virus's (at different times), Sophie had 2 weeks of school holidays, Grantz stayed for a few days over the holidays which was great, Mike and Carol, along with Tara and Graham (Carol's daughter and new husband) came up for the Semi Final stay for a couple of days and of course; I managed to get to 4 Massive RWC games all for free! and The All Blacks are Rugby World Cup Champions!

Fish & Chips at the beach on Game Day

Good mates Sophie and Leo

Max looking more cute each day

Sophie spent a day with the neighbours on Saturday during Labour weekend, so we returned the favour on Sunday (Game Day) and took Leo and the kids to Orewa Beach for the day - they had an absolute blast and it was good to see Max isn't as scared of the water this time around. Yes summer is well and truly on it's way and I can't wait.

We had a couple of invites to watch the RWC Final at friends houses and at different bars in town, but we struggled to find babysitters (I guess they all wanted to watch the game too!) So we thought it would be nice if we invited Row and Justin and their two kids, Sabine and Piper around for a BBQ evening in front of the telly...and a couple of beers to boot. We all had a great night and the kids knew something special was happening - as none of them wanted to go to bed so they all ended up staying up super late while watching most of the game! Max is pretty clever and recognises and yells out every time he sees The All Blacks logo and Sophie seems to understand the magnitude of what happened and has been asking a zillion questions about Rugby and other countries taking part.

The day aftert the big win, we wanted to show our support so we headed into town along with 250,000 other Aucklanders and stood and cheered on our boys in black during the parade. Two out of the four of us enjoyed it! (that's all I've got to say on that one)

Loads of fun on the trampoline

Half time 10pm RWC. -kids have progressed from the 'over-tired' stage to the 'gone freakin crazy' stage.

Just a couple of people in town for the parade!

at least someone was happy to be there!

We got pretty close in the end

I've kept the pool clean all winter as it's been easy and relatively inexpensive to maintain, a few bags of salt every few weeks, a vacuum once a fortnight and making sure the pump goes on for a hour or two each day, pretty easy. The water's been tested a couple of times and it's in tip-top condition for summer. I've even braved the elements a couple of times and jumped in...and then very quickly jumped out.

Both kids love playing by the pool (while we're watching them of course). Bring on Summer-time!

Fun outdoors

Yum...a cockroach ice-cream!

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Nana's (this time with words)

My I Phone has died and I can't find the camera so sorry, no photos. The photo below was taken a couple of weeks ago when the kids went to Nana's for the weekend. Ingrid and I were intending on heading to a family reunion in Palmerston North (on her side), but we ended up getting last minute tickets to the Rugby World Cup! The game was fantastic and the break wasn't too bad either.

We've been to check out a new school for Sophie: Sunnybrae School. We turned up without making an appointment, hoping just to find out some infor about enrolling, but before we knew it, the principle met us and took us into her office and explained everything about the school - (that's more contact and communication in one visit there, than we've had since Sophie's been at Willow Park!). It makes perfect sense to send her there next year, a lot of her buddies from Kids Klub are all going along, it's pretty close to Ingrid's work and - they will allow Max there in a couple of years too! Sophie seems pretty relaxed about it too . syaing "I;m going to Sunnybrae next year"

Speaking of Sophie, I'm heading along to her first 'show' tomorrow at school - she's very excited - her role in the show/performance is the Taniwha - I'll try and find a camera to take some shots/video. She's topped her class for reading too and now enjoy's reading stories to us every night (not to mention the odd story to her baby brother which looks very cute)

Max is on fire these days...his vocab is getting bigger by the day and he's communicating pretty well. He still has trouble with number 2's, but then so did Sophie and she managed grew out of it. So as long as we continue to give him daily medicine and watch his diet - he's ok

Ingrid and Sophie went to visit friends on Sunday while Max had an afternoon kip - the girls ended up staying a while so as soon as Max woke, I slapped a All Blacks beanie on his head and whisked him off to the pub to watch his first game of All Black rugby on the big screen. The bar was packed and very loud but Max LOVED it. Every time the AB's scored - the place burst into cheers and claps - Max started going around hi-fiving everyone and clapping everytime we scored - he looked very cute. (and no camera to take photo's)

Tomorrow night Ingrid and I are off to see Chris Cornell (review of Sunday's show here)- who happenes to be the best male vocalist in the world...the dude is playing a 2 hour sold out acoustic set and we can't wait to see it.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

The Shield

Couple of weeks ago I made an impulse decision to drive to the Naki for the weekend to watch Taranaki defend the Ranfurley Shield. Sophie thought it would be a great idea to tag along and catch up with Nana and Auntie Rochelle too. We left Saturday afternoon and came back Sunday night. The Naki defended the shield and we all had a great time!

Soph going on a road trip. You think she looks excited?

Having fun at Brooklands Park

Soph and Nana

Sweet view

The kids are getting really well together as the photo's show below. Soph's also reading Max books and mothering him loads. Max is at that age where he must do EVERYTHING by himself. It's cute but also extremely frustrating, especially when you are running late and you're trying to get him dressed for kidsklub and he wants to undo or do up all his buttons (which takes about 15 minutes!). He's talking a lot more too obviously, he can't pronounce his 's' at all - so poor old Soph is known as Gofi now.

Sophie is enjoying school still and seems to be making lots of friends - she has had a couple of after school play dates with classmates recently too. The only shitter is the school has changed their policy which now means if you enroll you kid and move out of zone within 1 year (which we did) then they have the right to remove the child from school, and the other new rule is siblings no longer have automatic entry if you live out of zone. It's a real concern because she loves the school so much but we may have to move her.

Monday, August 22, 2011

A Day at the Beach

The weather was extraordinary over the weekend so we packed up a picnic lunch and headed East to Bucklands Beach for the day. Max had a little kip in the car on the way out (only took 40 minutes to get there) but that saw him through the day.

35 Minutes drive from home...a pretty sweet beach.

Great park for the kids too

Max and Sophie getting a lesson on Sea-Shells from Mummy

Max passing on his extensive knowledge of Sea-Shells to Sophie

Dressed for a day at the beach...

Max showing us how to walk a straight line...that was after he had 4 beers too!

Sophie the tree explorer

A kind lady let Max walk her doggy

...or did she let her doggy take Max for a walk?

Sophie stoked with her tree climbing efforts

Sweet day at the beach

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Computer gone bung

Our computer has died - im trying to retrieve 5 years of photos and video's from it - but not looking too flash. Thankfully I wrote down the address and passwords for the blog - here's a couple of photos from the airport when mum came up last weekend.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Family Portrait

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Longtime between posts

Busy busy busy. I'll let the photo's do the talking.

Max and his Great Grandma NanFlo (looking pretty chuffed). We went to the airport to see off Mum and nan before they headed off to Aussie for my cousins' wedding

Now if I jumped in the photo, it would have been four generations...but someones gotta take the pics.

Trip to the Park - Max loves his slides

"mmm how am I going to get past her?" - Sophie is a whizz on the jungle-gym

Sophie and Daddy going through the car wash

Max got crook - luckily it only lasted a couple of days...poor wee thing!

School holidays have been on which has meant a bit of juggling. Sophie has been in a School Holiday programme every second day (it costs $70 per day!) So Ingrid took a couple of days off, Me 1 day, and Sabine's mum Rowena another day. This day Was Daddy's turn - so off to make lollipops with Sophie and Sabine - They had a blast!