A little bit of this and a little bit of that....

I'm thinking it would be truly Grinch-like of me to wait until the end of this rather long post to announce the winner of my Kiwi Summer print giveaway. And I just couldn't do it to ya. So without further ado....

Drum roll please......

The winner of 'In the Words of a Kiwi Summer' print is........

Penny from My Spirited Baby. Congrats chick! Email me your address and I'll get it in the post pronto!

It's so awesome being able to return the giveaway love. Cos around here this week, it's still being flowing freely baby! This week I won a Bakers Delight Voucher for some Fruit Mince Tarts through Kiwi Mummy Blogs...yummo! And I also won Angela-Noelle from Striking Keys Weekly Favicon Freebie giveaway. I've been waiting for ages to win this.

What pray, you ask is a Favicon? Check out the little address bar at the top of the page where the address www. starts? You should see a cute little snowflake that matches our blog header now. Cool huh! And thanks to Angela's fab instructions that came with the Favicons she made me, I've figured out exactly how to do more in the future. Goodbye boring orange Blogger symbol, and hello snowflake!

And in other little bits of this and that this weekend....

I managed to find plenty to occupy my time. Instead of doing what I should have been doing, which was packing for our big road-trip to Hamilton later this week. As you can imagine, it was waaaay more fun spending time.......

Making another batch of candy cane crunch for the boys' daycare teachers

Baking Christmas cookies to take to our friend Maia's 1st birthday lunch

Building a zoo out of blocks with the boys. Not sure exactly how all those animals will get on in the same enclosure though. Survival of the fittest methinks?!

Zooming around the house in the block trolley. Capturing some bike action - you'll note there's a little boy desperate to be just like the bigger boy

Making and flying paper and blow-up aeroplanes

Writing to Santa - as a rule we take a very low key approach to the whole Santa thing. We far prefer to celebrate and focus on the birth of Jesus rather than on Jolly old Saint Nick and all the hoopla that comes with keeping up the fairy tale. So we're not really talking the whole thing up, but by the same token when Noah asked 'how will Santa know where to bring the presents? Can I write to him?' we did let him as it was such a cute request. So we wrote this letter to leave at our house. Just so, you know, we're covered  ;-)

In any event, it looks like Santa will have no trouble using his sleigh in the snow getting to our UK family if these photos are anything to go by, sent by Grandma & Grandad and Uncle James & Aunty Ann-Marie over the past couple of days. No dreaming of a white Christmas needed there, it's more a case of praying it clears enough so they can travel to be together on the big day!

As you can tell from some of the pictures this weekend, the little munchkin is FINALLY walking. He took his sweet time but he's getting more confident each day. His favourite method of practicing is for us to hold our arms out for cuddles and he teeters and totters weaving drunkenly between us, launching at us with a great big bear hug in his final steps.

Although the weather has been quite wet most of the weekend, it cleared up for a short while leaving a very still and balmy Saturday evening for all to enjoy. We'd received an intriguing invitation in the post to 'Share the Joy' earlier in the week. Did anyone else get one of these in the mail? Turns out that Cadbury is hosting some special Christmas events, one of which is a light show on a house in central Wellington and a life-size winter snow globe hosted in a couple of places in Auckland.

So as a real treat for Noah (who isn't often found up past 7.30pm), we spent a rather lovely one-on-one hour together experiencing the magic of some Christmas lights. Yep, he is in his pyjamas. Kids can get away with it though, right?!

And a little Cadburys chocolate from the kind ladies at Share the Joy went down a treat too.

I gotta say, this summer's bucket list is getting shorter by the day. Last night Noah and I got up close and personal with some very fluffy and vibrant pohutukawa on our travels.

And we also heard the first cicada of the summer belting out a tune in our garden. I managed to catch the sound on video (although he was safely hidden somewhere in the trees). When I remarked to Noah what a sweet sound it was, his reply was priceless. 'It's a lullaby' he said. Yes, it sure is Noah. A real summer lullaby. Just imagine lying in the shade of a pohutukawa tree with the deafening sound of cicadas lulling you into a dreamy doze. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.................

Um, where was I? Oh yeah. Packing to do...boo. And as much as I I'd like to wave a magic wand over it, you know - all Harry Potter like, it just ain't gonna happen.

I hope everyone's weekend was as fun-filled and totally enjoyable as ours!