Some more shots of Christmas Day

Brunch New Zealand style!
Bacon, Hash Browns, Shrimps, Eggs, Mushrooms etc
Mmmmm

Busy Busy

Well the boys are out again today with fencing and weeding. They are very enthusiastic and getting through more than Phil thought they would. Bec decided that she like farm work better than office work - she sat and what the Grinch about 2.5 times yesterday while I worked. Shes watching it again this morning - she'll be able to recite it soon! The kids have put their inside tents up in the lounge with all their Christmas presents set up inside them so will have a tidy up today around those and get a few jobs done so that this afternoon I might be able to get some scrapping done. Had some photos printed last week in anticipation! One of my goals is to get more scrapping done in the coming year. This past year has been a very quiet one with the scrapbooks.

Off to Work!

Well we are all off to work today (Phil has been working right throu anyway) but the boys have got a job on the farm nailing in staples onto the fences, Bec is coming with me into the office - she started last night packing her lunch and getting her drink bottle ready - shes very excited. I'll take the lap top in and she can play games on it, shes also packed her bag with her new Polly Pocket and drawing bits and pieces.

I managed to get a little scrapping done yesterday afternoon. Hope you are all enjoying the holiday season.

Waiting to Open Pressies

Here is some pics of the kids waiting for Phil to come home before they open their pressies. Rebecca was most excited and put out carrots for the reindeer. We had a good day and the kids made it special. You can see the christmas spirit in their faces!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone hope you all have a great day. Very quiet one here - waiting for Phil to milk the cows then the kids will unwrap their pressies. Enjoy your day.

Rebecca Angel

Rebecca got a beautiful angel from her cousin Ruth. I just had to share with you all. You did an awesome job Ruth!

Thank you Ruth for the angel picture you gave me it is hanging up on my wall now. It is very special to me I really like it. I hope you have a good Christmas as well.
Love Rebecca

Te Puke Christmas Parade

The kids were in the Whakatane and Te Puke Christmas Parade with the school. Callum was God of the Sea - Tongaroa. The float won 1st prize for best school and overall Mayors award in Whakatane and then second in the Te Puke parade.

They are advertising the fishing competition on Easter Sunday next year.

Callum as Tongaroa

There were two men under the fish moving it - thats Phil you see under the end of the fish.
Thats me talking to Callum. Rebecca and James were up closer to the mouth of the fish.

Happy December to you!

Oh dear I see by my last blog that it's been nearly a month since I have been here! Terrible isn't it. I haven't finished my christmas shopping bad aye. We did have a night away a couple of weekends ago and visited the Te Puna Quarry Park which is on the other side of Tauranga.

Te Puna Quarry Park
It used to be a Quarry but thanks to volunteers they have beautified it.

The Orchid gardens are just beautiful.



China Lady, Man and Callum is sitting on a China dog.

Layouts without photos 9x9's

My workspace- I'm in a state of creative messiness!

Rebecca a her table in the scrap room - she is working on a layout.
She is also in a state of creative messiness lol

The journal centre

Scrapping Room

I'm very lucky - I have a scrap room! It's in a state of creative workings lol. I have just brought the printer out and now I can connect the laptop up and journal, then print, then place on my page!

Just popping in to say Hi! Hope you all have a good weekend.
See ya!

Stockcars

We went to the stockcars on Saturday night to view the fireworks as well as have a great night. It would have to be one of the better meets I have been to - apart from the one in Palmerston North where it was all night demo derby racing! I'm not sure whether its cos I've got old lol or because of where we were sitting - we climbed up to the top and sat just off from the corner and we could see the whole race track. It was very exciting both Phil and I were 'come on you can do it' yelling out to the drivers 'ooohhhh he'll be annoyed he just pipped him'. Lol. Phil was really relaxed and I think the kids thought we were both mad lol. Anyway we had a great night and the fireworks were spectacular and sooo loud! - yep must be getting old! Hope everyone has a safe and happy guy fawkes.

Who's visiting?

I'd love to know whos visiting my blog ... if you are a stalker lol or a lurker ... or just a visitor please leave a note ... cos I'm feeling left out that James has had 8 messages loling

Internet

I have been working around 4 days a week at the moment. On Monday I spent most of the day getting the office on to broadband via satelite - thought it would be a easy task as we brought a wireless router for our place and I plugged it in and away it went ... but the router I got for the office needed to be reconfigered and it didn't want to load any internet not even the page to add your user name etc - spent an hour on the phone to telecom and was lucky enough to get someone who cared enough to go the extra mile as he said at the end of the hour that they aren't actually supposed to help people reconfigure there routers lol I've been calling it a rooter and can't seem to get that name out of my head lol. Anyway I got broadband internet going in the office and now it doesn't take up a phone line with dial up. My mission on Tuesday was to go and get another cat 6 cord (have already brought 30 meters lol) and get a second router (as one of the ones I have been using belongs to someone else) and hook it all back up. Whew I had some issues with that internet - first of all on Tuesday morning the other router I brought to run in the office wouldn't load pages so put the one back in that we used on Monday which was a different type and away it went lol then I tried to get the old computer running with it and here I had 1 computer loading the internet but not the one I had lol I was not going to let this get the better of me - anyway I knew that it would have to be a setting within that computer as it was working via the same line as the other - anyway I managed to work my way thru it and now it is going! YAY.

James' blog

James start a blog site today in an effort to get him writing more. His link is at the side of my blog. Go visit it, I'm sure you will enjoy his view of the world.

Loving this Homework!

The boys are doing this awesome homework at the moment where they have to help around the house in anticipation for their end of year camp to the Bay of Islands - how exciting we never went to far off places like that as kids at school!. Anyway over the next two weeks they have to clean the toilet, clean the shower, cook tea, wash dry and put away the dishes, hang out the washing, fold it and put it away, vacum the entire house, clean the shower and wipe down sinks I LOVE THIS HOMEWORK!!! Callum has really embraced the challenge and has done nearly all his jobs in the first few days. James one day decided his spelling was easier lol. The really cool thing about this is that I get it done twice a week loling.

Some scrapping work

Family Canvas

Decorated tin

SENZ06

A few scrapbooking things that I have done lately. A mix of things from 2 sheets of paper and 2 sheets of cardstock. Had hoped to get more done this weekend but been busy with not a lot lol. Went to Awakeri Hot Springs this afternoon for a swim, tidied our bedroom, tried to sort out the kitchen/office space, went to town to get silage covers on Saturday then covered the silage, very boring really lol Bec said we tidyed up the house yesterday and blobed loling.
Hope everyone had a good weekend.

Callums green felt pocket, James third prize for the photo book, James second prize for his family canvas

Second for Leading

James second for Creative Crafts

Callums felt pocket

More photos

Rebecca and Scruffy

Senior Room Pastel art

Rebeccas third prize for her Pastel Urban Art

Painted stones Rebeccas is the big one in the middle with pink on it

Just after the leading

Ag Hort Day

Callums playstation cake

James mi mi

Well we had a good Ag Hort Day yesterday and the rain held off for most of the judging. It did pour down in the middle of the day which was a shame.

Rebecca enjoyed her day. This was the first time for us to have entered a lamb so didn't really know what we/she were doing. She got a second for leading so she was wrapped with that. Scruffy behaved really well. Vun didn't do so good but did get a merit ribbon which he was wrapped with. Both lambs and kids enjoyed their day. The boys reckon next year they will enter a lamb. There were some beautiful looking calves and a gorgeous Hereford Bull who looked stunning for the occasion.

James got a second and third for his craft entries - which were off the page scrappbooking. Rebecca got a third for her pastel drawing, Callum didn't get any certificates and was disappointed but we have explained to him that thats they way things go and he does have his rugby trophies / certs. His teacher did comment on his cake and said he thought it was a great idea.

I am really impressed with the senior rooms pastel art work. All the pictures looked awesome and I have three original art works to frame!

oh

Well I dropped by to upload a couple of photos but it doesn't seem to be working this morning.

Ag Hort Day has arrived today and both boys baked cakes and iced them and also have art work to show. Rebecca has done a vegetable creature and also has Scruffy the lamb to exhibit. Believe it or not its a quiet morning so far as I'm not working and the kids aren't catching the bus as I will take them and the lambs (Vun's as well) down to school. I think it will still be on - it poured with rain last night. Have recently been blamed for bring the rain to the Bay lol. Yeah it rains here but not half as much as Mt Bruce. I see they have been getting a bit of a battering down there lately as well. Hope you are all ok in Eketahuna - wave wave.

I'm not really into towing trailers but since I have been here I have done it a couple of times and yesterday I was asked to take the 4 wheeler into the motorbike shop. I thought I had enough petrol to get to the petrol station and guess what .... I ran out of petrol!!! Yeah and someone did say 'trust you to run out of petrol' lol.

Catch you all later and hope you all have a good day.

Nicki

Felt Pockets, Zek and and a IPod Nano

Well I think its a IPOD Nano anyway lol.

As most of you know I'm not very good at just sitting and like to keep my hands busy so when we hit HB and I didn't have anything with me I went and brought needles and felt to fiddle around with at night. This became quite a production line!

When we got to Debs Zek had spied the felt and ask if I had any felt that he could have as he had brought a new IPOD Nano (I think that was what it it) its the tiniest little movie player that I had ever seen. He had brought it on his trip to OZ and its so new he informed me that they don't have covers out for it yet and he would love a little piece of felt that he could use to make a cover for it. Zek, I said, would you like me to make you a felt pocket - ohh yes please auntie - so I felt quite privilege that my strapping 18 year old nephew still wanted his auntie to sew him something. Zek is like his mother and in to crucifixes and I managed to get a small cross from spotlight and sewed that on to the front of it. There were then a number of smaller nieces and nephews who all also wanted felt pockets for mp3 players and yugi yo cards so I ended up sewing felt pockets! Of course they all also wanted to do there own and Libby, Tom and Callum all did great jobs of theirs.

The great news is that Zek has been offered his first job as a Electricians Lackey in Turangi - I wish him all the best as his embarks on his adult working life and hope that it turns into a Apprenticeship.

GOOD LUCK ZEK - and auntie loves you!

Naughty Lamb!

Oh dear James decided to plant his plants out in the vege garden and Rebecca put her lamb in there and it ate his sweetcorn plants! Had to dive for cover on that one .......




Ag Hort day is next Thursday. The boys have homework of doing a craft on there own at home. James has done a double canvas. He has cut a A4 photo and then stuck it down on to the canvas. He hasn't quite finished and is going to put it together so that it hangs in two.

Callum had made this holder out of felt for his Weetbix Rugby Cards during the holidays so decided to put his craft work in as his homework. He's done a great job!

Where did the days go!

Well the days are just zooming on by and I know it will soon be Christmas - my favourite time of the year. Phil thinks I'm mad cos I start playing Christmas songs in October lol (probably earlier too! but shhh) My favourtie Christmas album is Celine Dion This is Christmas...

Anyway I've not been on for a day or week or two oops and I've had a friendly reminder from one or two that I had better up date the blog so here it goes ...

We had a good school holidays and Phil managed a couple of days off the farm which did wonders to his temperment! We stayed at his mum and dads for one night and he went and helped fed out which he and the boys enjoyed. Then we went to Deb and Karls and caught up with mum and dad. The kids had a ball there and we didn't really see much of them apart from when they were hungry, we went to the Napier wharf a couple of times for fishing and didn't catch anything. Phil went home on the Saturday to get ready for AB and the kids and I along with Tom came back to Te Puke by bus on the Tuesday. Managed to catch up with Heather and Jo and not a lot of other folks but maybe next time ...

I've got a few photos to upload so will start with the Kids Holiday Project






Mosacis

We decided to get some tiles and tile a old table we had. This has been a joint effort with the boys doing all the 'smashing' James said on the day that he had had the best day as he was able to 'smash things'. This is a work in progress and I will keep you posted on how they are going. James and Callum decided to do tables as well. James has finished his and needs to grout it. Callum, Bec and I are still working on ours.

I've been tagged!

Thanks Lainie - she tagged me!

Here’s how it works:

1. Players must list one fact, word, or tidbit that is somehow relevant to their life for each letter of their first or middle name.
2. When you are tagged you need to write your own post containing your first or middle name game facts, word, or tidbit.

I'm not very good at these things!

N - Nutty Nicki lol
I - idiot
C - Can do
K - Kinetic
I - in to anything crafty

James' Plants

James got lots of things for his greenhouse for his birthday from Nana, Grandad, Auntie Karen, Uncle Gary, Ruth and Bevan and was given them a week before his birthday. They have started to sprout.

The beginnings of a pea plant.
Mmm might be eating them for Chrisy lunch!

James going into his greenhouse.
He had turned the hose on for the sprinklers.

James enjoying a shower in his greenhouse.
(There is that random behaviour again lol)

And this is how they grew so fast - here he is talking to the plants.
And yes he really is!

Bull Vallance

Callum feeding his calf Roseta (after the one who won NZ Idol)

Had a busy day at school today with a Super 4 Tournament, James was playing Soccer and they won one game, Callum was playing hockey and was very excited to have a scored a goal. He gets stuck into the game just as he did with Rugby. I was surprised to hear the other kids at school also calling him Bull so I guess that will stick. Sold lots of Moozees (over 200 of them) so if you are looking for a good thing to sell at a school function that would have to be it!

James' Birthday

James celebrated his 12th birthday in the weekend and had his mate stay the night on Friday. After a chosen birthday breakfast of hash browns, eggs, bacon and pancakes, we all then went fishing down at Pikowai Reserve. We didn't catch anything but the kids really enjoyed playing in the stream and sand, Phil had the weekend off and cooked us a sausage sizzle on the beach. James was heard to say later in the afternoon that he had the bestest birthday ever!





James has had a great desire to push a cake into his face and asked very politely whether this could be his day to do this ... so after we all got a piece of cake he slammed his own face into the cake and then proceeded to eat it. Sadly I think he gets this random behaviour from his mother, who gets it from her Auntie Caroline lol. The good thing about this act was that we were down at the beach and he was able to clean himself in the sea and there was no mess!