Nana

Tomorrow is a bad day, a very very bad day.
Nana died on Dec 1st, 13 years ago. EVERY DAY I miss her, and I want to talk to her. Every day I try to be just like her.
Megane asked me the other day why I always say that we were never naughty at Nana's house... and I said "because we loved her so much we just didn't want to do anything naughty that might upset her AND she made it so we didn't need to be naughty."
I have a folder of papers that smell like Nana (they were in the sideboard behind us in this picture) and sometimes I treat myself and get it out and have a quick sniff. I never look at photos of her because I can see her in my mind easily. I may show photos of her to someone else, but I don't need to look at them for me.
I have so many memories of her... which I can't share here because they are too special.
I love you Nana.
xxx

Grandma and Grandpa Sitton

We love these people SO MUCH!

Merry Christmas Grandma and Grandpa Sitton

xxxxx

Lucy's birthday bike...

Lucy was able to ride a 2-wheeler (without training wheels) at 2 years old. We refrained from letting her until she was 3, when we figured she had more balance and a better ability to judge distance etc. Since then she has been biking our 5km run route and doing jumps with Sebastien. She loves biking! She has worn out several bikes in the last 3 years and for her birthday we got her a "gears bike". Dad gave her a basket to go on the front which is "perfect for taking my Zhu Zhus for rides". In fact the first thing she did was hook it up and settle the Zhu Zhu pets (Dad had just given her... she wanted them for about 18 months but her mean mother never got her one) into the basket with a blanket and then she was OFF! Oops, I forgot to mention that as soon as she saw the bike she ran straight into her bedroom to "put on some good biking clothes" (a swimsuit?? I am nobody to give fashion advice but still...) and then she disappeared on her bike.

That is our white house and fence you can see in the background, and Sebastien is zooming in the other direction. We live on a dead-end so it is quite safe for the kids to be out on the road. I'm not sure what Dom is trying to tell her... probably something boring about slowing down, or wearing a helmet.

Yahoo! Look at me Mama!

These photos are out of order - this is Lucy tearing off down our (earthquake cracked - and no, don't even ask, we are about a year away from the insurance doing anything) paving. Don't you love the look in her eye that says "I AM SPEED!"

Dom is halarious

So, this morning before he left for work he said "do you like spending money? do you want to go shopping today? Like, lots of money?"
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Sure I'm not my sisters - I have 5 pairs of shoes and 1 pair of boots, 1 pair of jeans, 2 pairs of shorts, 6 skirts (I made 3!!) and 3 dresses so you can see I don't love *clothes shopping* but I don't mind spending money :) He proceeded to write me a list of stuff to buy - icecream, fruit, picnic supplies for 150..... not exactly what I had in mind. Now I am going to shower and head off to the shops. I've been for a run and checked my emails - so sorry Dom but there is just no time for other housework today because I have to go shopping!
Life is sweet!
All it would take to make it perfect would be pictures of my nieces and nephews in Canada. All of them (hint hint).

Violette Elisabeth Lallemant

I'm sure there are lots of details like when she was born and how much she weighed, but frankly when you are as CUTE as that who cares about details???? She is healthy and obviously *beautiful* and she has a darling name so... without any more fuss meet our new baby niece who we love enormously already xxx Violette Elisabeth Lallemant
Violette et Maman (Joanie Lallemant)

Violette et Papa ("Frenchie Mat", aka Mathieu Lallemant)

Maman, Papa et Violette

(Mat, we are loving your new hair and glasses)

Papa, Violette, Grandpapa et Grandmaman

Can you see a family resemblance?

Lovely kiwi grass.... for Styci who has Grass Issues

Sadly none of these photos turned out as well as I hoped.... the sun makes the grass look all patchy but you can get the general idea - relatively smooth, close cropped grass that you can sit on without crushing the grass or ending up sitting in 4 inches of itchy grass...

The clothes line in the background is a nice touch :) Hope you enjoy the sight of our smalls flapping in the wind!

The bare patch is from the swing - I won't take criticism from that. There have been years where I have moved the swing constantly to avoid it, but recently I've given up.

I just threw in this photo of our hedges for fun - no grass involved. Sorry Styci.

This photo almost shows the lovely smooth surface... Let's face it, you'll just have to come and experience it.

The two ways of eating cereal...

First of all there is like a pig at a trough.... standing at the counter with rice bubbles, sugar and milk everywhere - snorting optional. Oh and face IN THE BOWL....

Then there is like ummmmmmm DAD! Total precision eating - and barely a stray rice bubble floating on the eaten side...

Of course when I pointed it out to Dad he was prouder than proud and Lucy tried to disguise it by stirring the Ricies, he he he, the apple didn't fall far from the tree here :)

Chillin' with the homies (these pics are all kinds of sideways - sorry!)

Seb took this picture - I know I am her mum but I do think she is such a pretty girl :)

While I was making dinner they were making daisy-chains in the garden. Sebas loves to see how long he can make the chain before it breaks (and he has a total hissy-fit)... Turns out he can make them really long.....

And here is Dad with the kids in the Valiant the other day. He let both of them sit in the front and even rigged up a seatbelt arrangment (go figure, he is really handy when he wants to be). Meg was in the back seat being the Princess. They just love Oogah & Gaye and were so excited to GO AND STAY THE NIGHT AT HIS HOUSE!

My Lucy Baby Darling turned 6

This is a happy Lucy! And her custard cake. Okay so it is a bowl of custard with fresh strawberries - so sue me! The girl loves custard!!!! (At her "real" party she will be having a cake, so calm down Aunties) Please note the Zhu Zhu pets that Dad gave her. She was kissing them through dinner :)Because her birthday fell on a Sunday this year I made her favourite meal.... fish and chips. Oh and yes, she does have a little F'n'C with her ketchup!

Family dinner: Papa, Lucy, Megane, Gracie and Sebastien (Dad was at the Fire Station but we went and saw him)

Flowers in my garden

These roses are a standard (a rose bush that is a ball of roses on top of a stalk) beside my deck. I love that it is a standard because the kids and I are never prickled when we are playing on the grass, and also because the ball of blooms is at the perfect height to been seen from the deck

This rose bush is beside the garage. I've tried to get rid of it many many times, but no matter how often I hack it off at ground level it just keeps coming back. I like that in a plant :) And yes t is beautiful, but it is one that the kids often impale themselves on when biking madly around the garden (if I don't keep it seriously pruned back, and would you with roses like that???)

This of course is not a rose bush, it is a black (yer, whatever.... I wanted dark red and that is what I got) rhodendron. We planted it on New Years 3 years ago and it is finally startng to show some life! Megane and I regularly pull out the ground cover (so it doesn't totally suffocate) and I think we ever fertalized it a couple of times so it is very gratifying to see it start having more than one flower. There are many other lovely plants in my garden, but these are the 3 I am in love with this week. Sigh, I wish I loved veggie gardening.

Anyway, I don't often sit down but I did this weekend... I sat outside and ate dinner (I was the only one at home, how sweet is that?!) and looked at my flowers and listened to the birds. I live in paradise, I really do.

More weird earthquake stuff

Well for the most part we are all ignoring the earthquake and it's aftershocks. No one has anything fixed but there is now plenty of food at the supermarket so... priorities, priorities. Except that there has been an annoying casualty at my house. Behind the garage (where we had our veggie garden until the neighbours grew their NZ native tree too big so it casts a huge shadow and drops leaves that smother everything.... and then the chickens....) there is a crack in the ground from the earthquake. Several cracks actually... but no liquifaction. Anyway my lemon tree is now dying. The leaves are going yellow and falling off, and the apple tree doesn't look great either. The grass back there has also died off in huge chunks. What the????? I'm about to go to the shops and try to find something to perk up my lemon tree.... like catnip for lemons. Fingers crossed it exists. I refuse to lose anything else to this earthquake.
PS I forced the front door open today because of the lovely weather and breeze. You have no idea how much you miss having a front door until it is gone.

My "sister" shelf

Someone is pregnant on the sly. I know this for a fact because I am sick and for the last 4 days i've been nesting madly.... I've spring cleaned the house, reorganized all the kitchen cupboards, the attic, my bedroom and my classroom. So you might as well 'fess up, whoever you are.

Anyway, here are a couple of the shelves in my bedroom (they are built into the wall with the wardrobes). Poor ol' Dom has to live with them looking all girlie at the moment because I 'redecorated' while he was out this evening. It's a bit of a shrine actually - to my special sisters of many varieties. You will probably see yourself represented if you look hard (some of you might need to look in the boxes though). Nana, Dolly, Kylee, Chuck, Sam, J, Marie, Marie-Jo, Em, Grandma Sitton, Rhonda & Camie, Helene, Traci, Mary-Ellyn, Catherine L, Laverna, LN, Megane & Lucy, Bex, Anna, Nellia, Nicki, Sara, Van, Joanie, Lesley, Styci and Erin, Kanako, Hiroko and Catherine Verreault.

Je vous aime xxx

I love you all
xx

Murray Sebastien

This is the wonderful Mrs Pease. She walks on water, she really does. She took Sebas for reading recovery for about 3 years. She worked him LIKE A DOG and only had limited success (turns out he is dyslexic) at the time, but she is awesome and we love her. She is also his teeball coach, so when I got a frantic call from Seb about needing a Mother Helper to drive them to the park and then sit there in the rain and count points, how could I turn him/her down? **I sacrificed my daily nap for this** what does this tell you about how much I owe this woman?

Anyway here is my sporty little dude... on another school Rep team. He is sooooo excited to play. He would not stand still to have a picture taken with the team, or with a bat or anything. I almost had to get out of my camp chair to take the photo.... but luckily he zoomed past me a few times....

And this is my 3 home runs in a row boy! Check out that grin!

Then for even better, amazing, fantastic news - I talked to one of his teachers today and she said she did a running reading record with him yesterday and he was reading like a 9-10yr old! I nearly died! (So did she, she said she told him she wanted to jump up and down yelling "woohoo" and he totally recoiled in horror like she might hug him LOL)
Apparently all the extra support he now gets at school and home (desk set up, brain gym, coping strategies, teaching techniques etc etc etc) are finally paying off. He no longer has to spend all his time and energy decoding the words, so he can actually pick up content from text for the first time ever. This of course helps with the decoding of words (as if you read something that makes no sense you can now be aware of it, whereas if you are just reading word-by-word you don't know if the string of words is nonsense) which makes it faster and easier, and then you get more content and fluency. It does not mean he is "cured" but it does mean he can now progress at a faster rate with his learning (especially when he overcomes the dysgraphia by learning to touch type) and school work will have more meaning for him. Imagine how annoying it would be for the spoken word to actually have meaning but anything on paper was total jibberish to you. BUT everyone else was acting like the paper was all great, and helpful and useful... The poor boy once said to me he is so sick of having to remember everything he writes so he can recite it back. I told him to just READ it and stop trying to remember it and he then explained to me that once you write something it is no longer there. Nothing is there. Just marks, so you have to memorize your writing or what is the point in writing it. !!!!!! What a nightmare.

Anyway, I am doing a happy dance for him - do it with me :)

Lucy as Taylor Swift

On my camera are DOZENS of photos of Lucy dressed up in different "Taylor Swift outfits" - Meg and Grace had a field day with getting her to pose like TS the other day after we bought her new album. They had the best time (as always)....
This photo is my personal favourite. It had me laughing for quite some time :)

150-years-of-firefighting-in-Christchurch Parade

The never-ending countdown until the Rugby World Cup in 2011....
Lucy is actually going to be "a Canada horse police girl" when she grows up, but I thought it might be fun for Dad to see a GIRL near the recruiting tent (he he he, wild naughty laughter)

Hmmm this picture doesn't do it justice - all the way down to the Cathedral there are fire pumps with flashing lights... It was a boys dream come true. Pity my boy was at cricket (where he did get 3 outs - 2 bowled and 1 run-out and "heaps of runs")

I know what you are thinking - why doesn't my town put on a parade for having 150 years of firefighting? Well, I don't know the answer to that... maybe your city just isn't as cool as mine. In any case it was on Saturday and I took the girls down to see it (Sebastien was at cricket with Dominic). We didn't get any photos of the actual parade, but as you can see, the tail end of it, heading into "the Square" was pretty impressive. When all the pumps (from the antique ones to the new ones Dad drives today) were in the Square (ummm, big courtyard in the centre of town) there were all kinds of demonstrations and people dressed up in old uniforms and stuff. The girls loved it, and Megane and her best friend Grace even managed to get on the 6 o'clock news coverage of the event.

If anyone has been to Christchurch in the last 3 years they will have noticed the big CountdownBillboard until the Rugby World Cup. It is still ticking away slowly, and can I just say that I am VERY excited for the competition to start! (And, fingers crossed I will get to do some interperating (not spelling obviously) work for the French speaking nations! Woohoo!)

Monday 01-11-10

I had to post today just because of the cool date :)
Megane has gone to a symphony orchestra thing with Dad tonight. She said to me "you know what Mum, I am not going for the music, I am going because I love Oogah and I want to spend time with him." How sweet is that? She has *a ton* of homework as usual but she really wanted to go.
Lulu told me today that it is her birthday in 13 days, and that it was 14 days but it is one less than that now. So I asked her how many days left, tomorrow? She thought about it and said "20", he he he. And then she self corrected and said "twelth" which is her way of saying 12. I love her to bits.
Sebas nearly killed himself yesterday. We have major roadworks on and around our street and he has been using it as his own BMX track (as you do). Well yesterday he somehow came off his seat, fell forward and sconned himself on the handlebars. He came in and show me an enormous red welt across his chest. Apparently it didn't hurt "too much" then but today "it's kinda starting to spike me". He is yahooing and eating me out of house and home so I assume he hasn't punctured an internal organ or something. Boys.