Easter

Easter arrived and we decided not to fight traffic, but instead to stay home and do some gardening interspersed with entertaining and lazing around on the deck eating Easter eggs. We started the morning with an air guitar lesson (it's best to start them young), Bell needing some assistance in moving her arms but Alexa was a fairly quick study. She did find it too hard to coordinate the hair flick as well though, so more time will be needed on this!

David disappeared to get some white chip stones. Seeing Alexa was keen to help we gave her a bucket and spade and asked her to cover the path with the stones. It's amazing what child labour can produce!! David placed the stepping stones and made sure they were sufficiently far spaced that it will have to be my job to get the wood from the shed.

Weekend fun

Last weekend James and family came over for a late brunch following a training run by David and James. The deck was put to good use in the sunny conditions. Eva and Alexa hung out in the bean bags. Eva, on left, is 8 months and much more adept at actually playing with her toys and sitting up, Isobel at 4 months just kind of sits and looks.

The older kids (Zane, Ethan and Alexa) found a few balls to play golf with - the aim being to get the ball into the ceramic container along the back. Much fun was had, not many balls actually reaching the target.

kid's stuff

I know that playdough is primarily intended for play for children, however it's hard to resist 'helping' Alexa to get full enjoyment of the stuff. This (in pic) is a result of a wet morning. David and I were challenging each other to make different items - egged on by an eager on looker. In picture you will see a person sitting at a table, with his/her horse standing at a bar drinking from a trough and with a barrel of grain beside.

A visit from the UK

We have recently had a visit from Phil, Libby and Carley from the UK. I saw a lot of Libby and Carley when Alexa was born as they live in Clapham. I would catch up at least once a week for a coffee, exercise and chat. Libby was very good at fielding the many many questions I had about children's development and what to expect/how to handle something, as Carley is about 6 months older. As you can see from the pics, Alexa enjoyed playing with Carley and kind of looked up to her.

A new deck

We have had Steven building our deck over the last three weeks. The first shot shows the first step, getting the french doors added, then the last two show the completed deck. For the kids and I, who have been able to take advantage of sunny week days, it has increased our enjoyment of our property enormously. I love being able to throw open the doors in the morning and creating a lovely flow thru from kitchen - lounge - deck. Alexa loves running around and up and down the stairs. The deck faces north and therefore gets sun from dawn to dusk so is gorgeous, particularly early morning and late evening. I'm hoping it will also make this winter warmer as it can be a spot to soak up some sun which doesn't get to the kitchen until later in the day and hence I found it a bit cold this last winter. Of course I was also getting used to my first winter in over a year, and my first winter without central heating in over 7 years - so it was to be expected that I found a large NZ wooden house a little chilly.

For those of you who haven't visited us, this house was moved to its current site and thus the 'front' entrance which you see to the left of the picture, is placed at the back of the section. The 'back' door is the first door you see driving up to the house, and thus is the door used by all.
It's a real shame as the old front door is lovely with stain glass windows and a lovely looking porch. We have done our best with our improvements to maintain the age & look of the house - hence the french doors have been made to look as the windows did.