when Ada was away

It's quiet.

The house stays tidy. 

Olive has all her toys at her disposal, for as long as she wishes. 

When Ada gets back the noise, mess, giggles, books and negotiations return. The wee songs and little stories return. 

At the reunion Mama gets tears, Olive gets a million kisses , Daddy gets giggles. 

merry christmas

2013 is almost through! Summer has cranked up here in New Zealand and the year is winding down. 

A change of plans means we can go to church Christmas morning. A treat for us! Bring on the carols. We will open presents afterwards at our home with family. Ada will flip, she saw some in our roo, "ooh presents" she says in a revered tone! 

My family has gone from three to four this year and I am loving my days with my two lovely girls and one handsome man. I am so thrilled to be heading into 3 weeks off with the four of us spending time in Auckland and the Bay of Plenty.  

Thank you so much for reading, once or twice or every post, it means a lot to have a wee audience for my wee thoughts. 

My best wishes to you and yours this Christmas! 

5 months and moving

Happy 5 months Olive, you are pure joy! You are so easy going, you smile and laugh so readily, everyone loves you. Olive you love to chew, chew, chew everything.

Olive is getting her commando crawl on.
Go Olive go!

Four months.
Three months.
Two months.
One month.
Ada at five months.

a buzzy birthday

We had a great birthday party for Ada's second birthday! She loved dressing up as a bee and a fairy, over and over again in fact. Ada and friends played on some gear from the toy library while the adults ate cheese and enjoyed some light refreshments. I was so impressed with the two year olds on the day, very few meltdowns from the crowd and even Ada was on good form 95% of the time. In the end this felt like an easy party, I had lovely helpers, Liz and Granma Lizzie on decorations, Jo on the cake and Cam and Grandy Gav set up a marquee. Ada was a bit spoilt with presents from her friends, you are all so thoughtful. Thank you all so much!

Here is the must see singing invitation.
Here is the birthday letter.
Here is our new fave photo, and some others!

into it

Olive loves life. Behold the rocking horse.

Ada is, of course, drawn to all that positive energy... 

o christmas tree o christmas tree

Ahh, Ada is too cute when she sings carols. We know O Christmas Tree and Jingle Bells so far. What should we learn next? Maybe the one with the "Gloria!" in it, we sung that in an Olivia book a few weeks back, it was a good time.

We had a lot of fun putting up our tree! Ada helped hang decorations and Olive did some taste testing. I am loving slowly adding decorations Ada has made. Next we need to add our traditions that help Ada and later Olive understand the significance of Christmas. We sung Jesus happy birthday...  Hmm!

 

swingsational

We are in Te Awamutu and the grandies have a swing set up on a bar over the washing line. Ada is in attention heaven, well almost, she has a very painful ear infection so is mostly rather sad about that, but the swing helps any how!

Olive has been loving the swing too, here she is for the first time on the swing!

butterfly

What a face! Eventually she told Cam to 'put it there'. Poor butterfly was most likely dying. We picked him up off the footpath and then afterwards he was still sitting on the leaf we left him on half an hour later. 

happy birthday miss two

To my dear and darling daughter on her second birthday,

We spent the morning of your birthday at Playcentre. Ada you found it hard to be the centre of attention with so many adults talking to you and so you clung to me. You enjoyed the cupcakes we had made and blowing out the candle. Most of all on your birthday you wanted to swing. Swinging is your number one activity over all others right now. When the sun came out you warmed up too, running and giggling with the other kids in the sprinkler. You love laughing with other kids!

Ada you love your sister so much. You no longer seem obsessed with your baby but are now obsessed with copying and being with Olive. You want each and every thing she touches. Sometimes we can convince you to give her a new toy in exchange. Even rarer still you give her a toy for no reason and allow her to play with it by herself. You roll on the floor and make baby noises with your sister. When we say well done Olive, you say "well done Ada"! When she cries you tell her, "it's OK Olive, it's OK".

I love all the different looks that come over your face. You have eyes of wonder. You have a mischievous grin. You have a silly scrunched up laugh. You have a fake laugh and a fake smile too. When we ask you to have a laugh you look something like this:

My dear, right now, you are a sensitive soul. There have been more tears in the past few months than in the rest of your life. For example you were deathly afraid of walking on the lino in the bathroom after you slipped there yesterday. You say 'cuddle mama' and 'cuddle daddy' more than any other phrase. You are slowly, slowly learning how to move on by yourself when you have been upset.

Some of the best times are when we dance and sing together. You have got some moves Ada! We kani kani, huri huri and peke peke. You can't quite jump yet, but you love to try. You sing little songs to yourself and love wheels on the bus and incy wincy spider best of all.


I love spending time with you Ada and hearing what you have to say. You say things like "I am being a rabbit boing boing" or "I like strawberries". You chatter more and more, about things that have already happened or are about to happen, so I can't always guess what the words are that you are saying. I love that you have ideas and thoughts unique to you and you have begun to express them.

Happy Birthday sweet girl. I love you.

the girls

My babies have become 'the girls', as in "you stay here with the girls" or "look at these photos of the girls". They are a pair now and always. I love watching them laugh together, this is happening more and more. This week Ada has begun sharing with/teasing Olive, different to the FULL TIME snatching. The balloon was a fun time, giggles all around! Thinking about the friendship that will grow is a wonderful pastime. Will 'the girls' be similar or different? I wonder if they will be sporty or arty or both? Will they always have the same friends or not? ...Such fun!...

love poem

My darling is a poet.

I tease Cam about previous loves and crushes but he came to me whole and healthy, so thanks for that, girls.

He wrote this before we even met!

Love Poem, Cameron Hockly

There is nothing timid or meandering about my love for you,
it does not head to the shop
for a bottle of milk and a newspaper
only to find itself in town,
browsing at umbrellas and suit jackets.
Although it does notice camellia trees,
the recently pruned climbing roses.

My love for you is not a walk in the park,
although we may, in love, walk in the park.
This love I have for you
is not off the cuff, or impromptu,
which is not to say that my love for you is rehearsal
and performance.

Nothing about it is calculated or expected,
it was not written in the sky
or the sandy fields by the beach,
if it was written anywhere,
it would be on the pathway
next to the pool,
between our bodies,
as we lie there, drying.
Dipping out fingers in the water
and leaving wet notes for each other.
Chlorine in our hair.
Skin baking on the concrete.
Almost warm enough to get back in.

I (we) am (are) lucky to be loved by a man who loves like this. 

haere mai cutie pie

We planned a small gathering (already small and then it clashed with a few weddings) for Ada's second birthday. I managed to get her singing on video rather than asking to look at herself on video so I did a crazily haphazard job of editing it (yay I have finally tried out iMovie on my computer!). Here it is.

"Haere Mai Cutie-Pie,
Haere Mai Cutie-Pie,
Haere Mai.
Come my party,
please."

The original song is goes "Haere Mai ki te whariki", Ada only ever sings the cutie pie version. You have to admit it's pretty cute.

language

On the eve of a second birthday I want to note a bit about how Ada talks. 

Yesterday Ada told me I was a good girl, twice. I moved a playmat so her bike could go through... Hmm, I need to get back to just saying thank you or descriptive praise. 

 

She says 'morning world' looking out the window in the morning like I do, Cam wondered where she got it from.

 

When we get home or back to the car she says 'here's Ada's one, yay!'  

For a girl who has never seen him before Ada runs around yelling 'superman', a lot. This one I s from daycare. She also talks about her shoulders really often?!

Sometimes, when she has all her faculties and needs something, Ada will tell me to 'lie Olive down now, there'. 

I was out of the room and she called out 'Mummy Loren'! Cam has only reminded her that he is called Daddy and not Cam once. 

Our favorite is of course when she says 'I love you'. No 'v' sound yet so it's 'ilayu' one word. 

I love you miss. 

milestone, bye bye bassinet!

Hello doing crunches in my cot!

Loving this. 

Eep, so quick. 

5 minutes peace

An evening walk. A view like this is so restorative don't you think? I felt quite lucky strolling about on the mountain yesterday. How do you steal five minutes peace?

fashion sense

Ada is developing a taste in clothing. Everytime she sees a different item on anyone in our family she yells 'new one, new one'. She loves trying on clothes when we get given some hand me downs. Her favourite so far is this red and gold number...

Great photo Uncle Hayd!

out about: child friendly cafes

Hi friends!

I am so obsessed with coffee. I thought I could write about 80 Cafes in a short amount of time but it turns out there aren't that many that kids can go to so I have only done 56! Here is a list of where we chose to go with our two in Auckland.

Walton Street, Te Awamutu

Our local is Ruby Red in Mangere Bridge, it has some toys and a couple of kids chairs down the back. This place is packed with toddlers on a Friday morning after music at the library!

On a fine day Luscious in Te Atatu is fantastic. Lots of tables outsided, trees and a big shade covered sandpit. They do a good coffee too.

Kohu Creamery in New Lynn was awesome, you could buy ice cream and there was a caravan with kids DVDs!  They have a new cafe collaboration called The Tannery that we need to go and check out to see what's new.

Mostly we go to Bean There in Onehunga. The space is lacking some style, it still looks a bit like the awkward bar that has changed hands here numerous times, but they have a kids play pit. This too is rudimentary but it gets you through. The coffee is excellent and the food is good standard cafe fare.

In Onehunga Library Cafe is often touted as the go to kid friendly spot. They have a tramp and slide outside and a big kids area inside. The service and coffee and food are hit and miss unfortunately. We get fries and a cold drink now...

Also in Onehunga there is Luscious Cafe. They have a kids play room upstairs. It is noisy but convenient. Luscious do great food but just an OK brew.

Localist recommends entirely different spots, a few over on the North Shore that maybe one day we will hikoi to.

Walton Street, Te Awamutu

Anyone else have a favourite place to enjoy coffee with kids? It's obvious by now, you must tell me!

so this is still happening

A little less often though...

firsts

Special and memorable moments last month:

Ada and Olive sharing a bath. 

Which led to... Ada and Olive sharing a laugh. 

A family walk up the mountain with two babies; one on mums front, the other on dads back. 

Roll. 

Family holiday with two babies. 

Changing Olive on a rugby field while Ada plays at the kindy in Katikati, on the way to family holiday. 

Feeding Olive while leaning on a tree at a desolate and windy truck stop, on the way to family holiday. 

4 months is fabulous

Happy four months to miss Olive on Saturday!

Look at the cheeks!

Olive is such a happy gal, her current obsession is blowing raspberries and sounding like a baby dragon in her efforts to talk. She is rolling over to her back from her front and chowing down on anything she can get her hands on. 

Olive you make us very, very happy. 

Mwa!

Three months.
Two months.
One month. 

Ada at four months.

momentum

Momentum is a wonderful thing. How to get it? Start moving, then keep moving and repeat. I feel like I finally have the momentum to get things done. Don't stop I say! The sense of accomplishment is rewarding. It's so easy for me to get bogged down. I can choose to get swept up in my girls and their wonderfulness or I can be thwarted by the never ending mess and tidying up and sameness.

Would you look at this one though. 

Life is good. 

baby in a bucket

Olive has been getting into the Playcentre vibe. 

Note the heuristic basket and the peg! 

the time Ada painted her own face

Hi blog, long time!

Playcentre was fun in the sun with a paddling pool/ball pit and face painting too. Olive had a long sleep there so it was fun with Ada rather than being pulled in two directions as is often the way with two kiddos. 

Matchy.