23 February 2008

Scrumptious Summer Fun

It would have been so easy to have let an opportunity such as yesterday afternoon pass us by. With all that is going on with the house and trying to return it to looking immaculate in time for the open home the past two weeks, our Saturdays have been so taken up with cleaning/tidying/de-cluttering that we could almost be considered boring!

However, we treated ourselves to our first! trip to the beach as a family for the summer for a couple of hours late this afternoon and had some great fun in the sand building sandcastles, a moat, and trying (unsuccessfully!) to get Noah into the sea. He is such a funny wee boy and so uncertain of new experiences. I guarantee if we did it another 2-3 times he'd probably be fine with it so we just didn't worry about pushing it too far today.








We went down to Island Bay, and joined a fair few other locals with the same idea. We were joined after half an hour or so by a little girl called Lilly (about 3 years old) who helped us with our construction. You wouldn't have known that we were the adults and she was the child though as we were very thoroughly bossed around as to what was to happen!We actually thought it was a little sad that this wee girl wasn't spending time with her parents, we asked her where they were and her dad appeared to be sitting 20 or so metres away but didn't appear to be very interested in what she was doing. After we left the beach we went across the road to check out the awesome playground, and Noah raced around on all the various equipment until Daddy showed up with icecreams for us all to share.







And a lovely couple of hours was had by all!

It was very hot trying to sleep last night and still very warm today. Noah and I had a lovely morning at home together whilst Mark went out to Karapoti for a mountain bike ride. Yesterday was actually exactly one year since Mark's knee mishap, we remembered this on our way to the shops as we happened to drive past the spot I had to rescue him from to take him to hospital at about the exact same time of the day. Aahh it feels good to be a year on from that!

This morning Noah and I did more cleaning/sweeping/tidying, made some lemon muffins, enjoyed a coffee and fluffy together and then undertook damage control to try and keep the house from getting trashed too much before we left it empty for the open home. Not sure how successful I was as I think I ended up cleaning the kitchen about 4 times this morning! We went off to Baba Jules house for a sleep/lunch and then were back at 2pm to catch up with our dear friends Tracey/Dayne and kids (Cam & Mikayla). We were meant to go up to see them in the Hawkes Bay last weekend and were sad when that didn't work out, so it was really LOVELY to be able to spend the afternoon hanging out together. The kids had a great time all playing together including Cam & Noah going outside in the rain to jump in puddles.








Two groups through the open home this week - the agent said that was indicative of all his open homes this week, but apparently both groups seemed pretty keen so that is good?! (depending on how you look at it) news.

In other fun this week, Noah THOROUGHLY enjoyed playing with bubbles in bathtime so much so that Mark managed to snap these beaut pics of him....






eating 'wheels' for breakfast aka Cheerios and playing with George I, II and Nina (his name for Georgina) in bed.




The cutest story of the week is Noah and the 'moush'. Yesterday morning as I was sweeping up in the garden I saw that Murphy had left the back end of a mouse in the courtyard...nice! I yelled to Mark 'there's half a mouse here to clean up when you get a minute'. Noah hadn't seen it as what was there didn't really look anything like a mouse, but for the rest of the day, he was asking 'moush?' 'moush?' as in 'where's the mouse?' We think this stems from a couple of weeks ago when Murphy had brought in a live mouse and as it was in pretty good spirits we showed it to Noah for a few minutes whilst Daddy had a firm grasp of its tail, and did the sign for mouse, before he then helped Daddy let it go free in the garden. Not sure if it was the same mouse yesterday (horrible thought as it was kinda cute!) but hearing Noah say (imagine Dutch/Belgian accent and you get the drift) 'moush' was one of those lovely moments you want to remember as a parent!

We get to look forward to Nana and Poppa coming to visit us this week, staying Wednesday through Saturday so Noah will get to enjoy some quality time with the two of them on Thursday and Friday. He is so aware now of who people are, just yesterday in the supermarket he was sure that he had seen 'Geegee' (aka an older lady with glasses and grey hair in the supermarket - bless!), we had to keep saying 'yes it does look like Geegee but it's not Geegee'. So no doubt if we mention Nana and Poppa are coming between now and Wednesday it will definitely stick with him too!

17 February 2008

Tidy House



 

Our house has never been as clean or tidy as it has been the past few days (but no thanks to Noah!) If anyone did try tell me how much 'fun' it is trying to keep everything tidy and clean for selling a house with a toddler in tow, I'm not sure I paid any attention! Everytime we put one thing away in a cupboard to reduce clutter, we turn around and something else has been pulled out to play with instead! All good fun really. In addition to the 11 groups that came through at the first open home, we also had 2 different groups through yesterday who weren't able to make it to the open home today. The agent was 'reasonably happy' with the turnout, he said it is what he would have expected for just the one ad in the paper so far. He said he'll have more news for us about people's feedback on Tuesday or Wednesday so we'll just have to wait for that.

This week Noah had a short week (as did I) after an hour of vomiting on Thursday night just as we left daycare. At the time it was a bit stressful as we weren't sure how we'd get home given that the usual walk up the hill was out of the question. Luckily, Mark put on his Superhero Daddy outfit and ran all the way home, jumped in the car and came back to collect us. During this time Noah and I hung out in Mark's staff kitchen, with me trying to keep him comforted, calm and distracted and catch each bout of vomiting in a bowl. The YouTube video of Noah and Daddy doing the haka came in VERY handy as we watched it over and over while waiting for Daddy to arrive in the car. And when we got home it was as if it had never happened, Noah ate a piece of toast, had a shower, usual bottle of milk and off to bed. Even though he seemed totally fine in the morning, we had a lovely Mummy & son day together since daycare have a 'no-go' policy for 48 hours after any vomiting episodes. I have to say I quite enjoyed the short week, and am quite getting used to them after all the public holidays already this year!


 

We enjoyed a trip out to Plimmerton to visit Marissa & Magnus, and Noah was well entertained in the car all the way there by the umpteen trucks and trains we saw on the journey. Saturday we went down to the Greek Food Festival, and the bifteki was so good we had to have another piece! Late on Saturday afternoon we went down to Havana Bar for a bit of 70's fun for Mark's friend Lucy's 30th birthday. Noah had a great time sticking his head underneath a dripping gutter to get wet, and devouring every bit of food in sight!

Today, we all enjoyed a family outing to church, then it was off to Jules for lunch and a nap for Noah whilst the open home was on. Mark then had a game of netball late this afternoon so Noah and I took a walk up to the park, giving the new umbrella stroller its first ride-out. It was very easy to use and so much lighter than our other one so hopefully it will come in very handy for our UK trip in 2 months' time. Noah is just so confident at the park now, it was a joy to see him running between the swing, roundabout, seesaw and slides and wanting to have a go on everything! He was super confident even going down the big slides on his own which forced Mummy to have to go down beside him to make me a little more comfortable at him flying down on his own!


 

We have a busy week ahead, netball Monday, Meg out to watch Juno with Sarah on Tuesday, Meg out to Hospitality Leaders meeting whilst Mark hosts his team for a poker night Wednesday, dinner out together for our 4-year wedding anniversary on Thursday, and then HOPEFULLY a quiet weekend to end the week!


12 February 2008

On the Market

So we are now...officially... on the market. Below is the link to the open2view website with the blurb and pictures taken yesterday. We were very fortunate to even be able to get any outdoor shots as we had a torrential downpour with thunder and lightning for an hour between 4-5am Monday morning in which 20 mm of rain fell, so we were a bit dubious about what the weather would be like by midday when the photographer was due. I even heard that a house in Khandallah which is only 10km away from us got struck by lightning and it completely fried all the wiring and every appliance in the house.
Link to photos is: http://www.nz.open2view.com/Property/174728

I had to laugh when I saw Murphy in two of the pictures, I had said to Mark before I they were put on the Internet that I wondered if our friendly feline would prove to be a nuisance and manage to con his way into any of the shots...kinda cute at the same time though!
Now it's a simply 3-weeks of wait and see whilst we continue pray and believe in God that we have made the right decision for us as a family.

11 February 2008

Preparation

This weekend has seen us racing round doing all sorts of preparation for selling... yes we have finally decided to go for it after several weeks of indecision.

We began the weekend by the usual trip to the supermarket but also stopped off at Chocolate Frog cafe for a muffin/breakfast and to pick up a few plants to pop in the gaps in the garden, it really is amazing what $18 and a bit of colour will do to spruce up an area.

After lunch Mark went off to be hosted at the cricket for the day, so me and Noah hung out in the garden, sandpit and paddling pool, achieving a lot in a few short hours (tidy garden, mopped entranceways, swept garage, and a general tidy of the house). Then I had 5 girlfriends round for a potluck dinner and a fashion workshop which was a really fun girly evening together.

My most memorable moment of Saturday though has to be Noah bouncing on the bed upstairs, and then deciding that he wanted to go to 'sleep' which involved getting a pillow in position, lying down, pulling the duvet up over himself and closing his eyes very tightly shut! He did this several times until Mummy either said 'boo' or tickled him after which he would dissolve into fits of giggles...too cute!

Sunday I was busy on hospitality most of the day but Mark and Noah had their usual Sunday morning fun at the ducks and playground, and a few passing showers gave Noah an added opportunity to enjoy splashing in some puddles.

The pics today are, I think, Noah's very FIRST face painting experience, I arrived at daycare tonight to find no children but various little animals prowling the centre. Noah had great fun saying 'RRRAAAAAHHH' to himself in the mirror when he got home tonight too.




I also couldn't resist (although it has used up most of the last of our monthly bandwidth but too bad!) posting a video of Noah and Daddy doing their own version of the haka recently..what fun!



Well I'll post this for now so I can head off to bed, but will add the link to our house once it's up on open2view.com which should be sometime tomorrow with a bit of a blurb about our potential sale process too.

06 February 2008

Wonderful Waitangi Day

Today was a holiday day off which felt very strange for a Wednesday. After a cold couple of days when a rogue southerly storm blew through Wellington, it was nice to have the sun back again!

We're still not 100% sure on our decision re the house but we're leaning more towards selling assuming we can come to an agreement with Jules around the logistics of it all, so we're holding fire for a few days until we can suss it all out. So for today's news..

We had a lovely webcam this morning with Grandma, James, Ann-Marie and cousin Jack. Noah had fun showing off his various tractors, trucks and planes through the screen. Then we did some cleaning (with a view to getting the house ready for open homes), and enjoyed the usual morning coffee which was not complete without a fluffy for Noah of course!







Then we headed down to the botanical gardens for a picnic with our antenatal group. It is the first time we've all managed to get together for about six or seven months, and was wonderful to hear what everyone has been up to, and to see all the kids (definitely can't call them babies any more!) playing and interacting. The photos aren't altogether wonderful as with hats on and such active toddlers as the subject matter, it is pretty hard to capture the moment!





We then dashed home to put Noah down for a much later nap than usual, and then once he was up and about headed out once more for a lovely swim in Karori Pool and then onto Sarah, Paul and Riley's to see them all for probably the last time before they head off to Melbourne for a year or so for Paul's work.
And back to work tomorrow it is......

03 February 2008

Indecision

Short and sweet this week. So much of our focus has been on what we are going to do about selling/renting or doing nothing that we have been able to think of little else. We have had 3 separate real estate agents to visit to try and ascertain who we would use if we do decide to sell, and at this stage (Sunday evening) we are selling, not selling/renting and staying put!!! So pretty much we still have NO IDEA!!

I(Mark) was up in the big smoke for 2 days this week (a course on teams and leadership) which was really good, so poor old Meg had a full on couple of days holding the fort and she did a awesome job. Also, I went to the Wellington Sevens yesterday (I dressed up as a member of the Harlem Globetrotters), spending yet more time away from Meg and Noah. From the reports they had a great time, entertaining friends from her church hospitality team.

So as you can imagine, today was a long overdue daddy day care day.....

First up it was a trip to a kids play centre called Junglerama (where I play indoor netball!!) for a one of Noah's friends from daycare (George's) birthday. In his usual way, Noah was timid and clingy for the first 5-10 minutes, and then I couldn't stop him running off and having heaps of fun. The food was served (a box of fried goodies) and Noah was last man standing at the table...packing in as much as he could (I actually had to stop him from eating more!). I also think it was one of the first times he had drunk a cold drink through a straw...very funny to watch his facial expressions and the bemusement of actually getting drink into his mouth. We then had another 30 minutes of fun and games on the equipment and it was time for home and a sleep.







After a sleep we all shared lunch, although Noah was less than hungry and then a trip to the pool to give mum a bit of a rest. Noah loved the pool again and it was fascinating watching him share a ball with a little boy who was 4 years old. I think daycare has taught him to interact with other children and it really is a joy to watch. After a swim, me and Noah went to watch Jonny play cricket and we were very lucky to see him walk out to bat and hit a few runs.

Anyway....enough said, a decision needs to be made so please think of us, give us advice, pray for us etc etc etc, as we really need guidance and to make a decision on this so we can move forward with whatever we choose to do.

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