Meggy and Grace

The girls had a great day at school. I stayed long enough to see them go off with their form classes, and after that they had orientation, collected their text books and then met up at lunch. When I met them after school they seemed a little tired, but happy to be at high school. Of course I only got to take one photo (humph! a mother likes to record these moments)... but it is better than this morning when I was instructed not to cry, sing "Jerusalem" (the school song), or try to hold her hand and go off to form class with her. As far as I am concerned I was very well behaved. I didn't do anything on the list. I did have a wee laugh though thinking about how it could have been if Sam and Jessica were in town, and if Dad was on duty and decided to swing by the powhiri in the fire truck :) She doesn't know how lucky she is!

Anyway, I am really glad that this "first day at high school" thing is over. I know it will be easier when Seb and Lucy change schools...

Megane Lallemant - CGHS

My babies are all back at school. Megane started CGHS (Christchurch Girls' High) this morning, and the other two were back in class yesterday. I just can't believe that Meg is now at our (me, Sam and Jessica's) old school.

10,000 big ones!

well well well.
Tonight we should tick over into the 10,000s....
10,000 earthquakes in our area, in the last 16 months that is.

Pretty exciting stuff, no?

Megane's dress

By the way i fixed up the dress i did not buy it.
Sorry i forgot to add that

Megane's dress

This is my (megane) dress i have always never liked the dress but the fabric was so cute i am not finshed yet but i am still working on it (i will put up a picture when i am done)

my boy

Ahhhhhhhhh, and I thought telling him he could not snowboard off the garage roof was going to save us from knocked-out front teeth and broken bones. Seems not. He is still determined to find ways to kill himself by degrees.

Thankfully, today was not the day he finished the job.

Lucky Lucy

Lucy is 7, and a real lover of all things HORSE. When we go to the museum she loves to ride the life-size model of a horse in the Victorian Street - and does not like to get down. We can visit the whole rest of the museum and still she will want to be up on that horse. We went to the Bush Inn Centre the other day and found this lovely specimin (man, my spelling leaves a lot to be desired these days). Sebastien got so excited when he saw a picture of Lucky Luke on the base that I thought he was going to get me to put "a gold money" in it too. It's times like this that it is really fun to have kids. I just wanted to cover her with kisses and hugs when she was riding this horse, it made me so happy to see her have fun.

Sheesh, proof I'm not image concious (sp??) but I SHOULD BE!

Dad's house! Or should I say, his firewall... I dropped by to give afternoon tea to the men building this wall (in the searing heat) and took this quick pic from the car. Sam, I sure hope you are right about men wanting "hot pastry, no matter what the weather" because I took them Kidd's award winning beef, beer and bacon pie, and lamb and kumera pie.

And I'm posting this pic of me and Dad chatting because it is real.

Real ugly of me, but also REAL.

(plus I'm wearing my fav vintage cowboy shirt, with deserves to be famous anyway).

Edible glitter... after the wait it deserves a post

Well...

Remember how Megane is the cupcake queen? Well for over a year now we have been trying to get the super-fine edible glitter that they use in fancy cupcake parlours - it is harder to come by than you would imagine, especially if you live in a far off island that has been smitten by over 9500 earthquakes in the last 500 days.

Anyway, we bought some! And of course Meg had to make cupcakes for her loved ones

Just one step at a time

Okay so I am a food-nazi. I know it. My family knows it. And I don't apologize for it.
Mostly it is because I am picky about smell, texture and THE LOOK OF IT. (Gag, just looking at seafood I know I won't like it) There is also the health componant... which is big for me.
So... let me introduce you to a blog I found recently www.wordofwisdomliving.com Skip (the author) makes a suggestion a week for healthy changes that will get you eating more like your greatgrandparents (ie without all the white sugar, trans fats and white flour that we eat today). Change #1 was get rid of the soft drinks (well, you an have 1 a week if you have to) EASY! I never drink fizzy drinks anyway.
Change #2 is never buy deep fat fried food (unless your fish'n'chip shop people use lard) PANIC, the kids *love* f'n'c and I just know our provider uses oil. I've got 2 choices, get a lard pot (like Dad had when I was a kid) or convince them that oven chips are just as tasty (never gonna happen... trust me I've tried a thousand times. Bugger, the smelly ol' lard pot can live out in the fridge in the garage).
So friends, it's up to you.

Megane en pointe

This is soooooooo Megane. Her personality is just like this - denium cut-offs, mile long legs and in her pointe shoes. Is it a ballet practice day? Oh no, she just likes wearing her pointe shoes :)

Marie, c'est pour toi

Comme je t'ai dit, moi non plus je n'ai rien a porter a l'eglise!

More wisdom kiwi style

Okay so here are a few more - this one is important, this one is funny (I love you naked Betty!!!), this one is just typical of blokes, I'm laughing - even though it is naughty - because this is such kiwi humour :), I just never get tired of this one, and here are some funny days of summer (although you must NOT try this trick at home), and this is where I got the inspiration to train Dom... and here is where you foreign types learn about rugby shorts ("stubbies"), and of course you can't pass by a bit o' Ritchie, oops, did I say that outloud? I meant, RUGBY.
xx

Words to live by....

Right when you were thinking that the Dead Rabbit advice was Da Bomb and you didn't need another Bible - I mean, more words of wisdom - let me lay this one on you.

When I get sad, I stop being sad and start being AWESOME.

Enough said. And this cool, cool, super cool dude prooves it (PS gotta love that Noo Zeelin' accent) when he internalizes a really really complicated situation in his head (with Space Invaders tunes whirling in the background).

ha ha ha ha, MARIE!

Dom est rentre!

Isn't love beautiful xxx

Terrific advice, if you have a dead rabbit handy

I thought I'd better post this on the ol' blog since it really is great, and useful advice (we've had about 45 earthquakes in the last 24 hours so we are probably looking at a Grand Re-Opening of our back yard lavvie sometime soon).
Dad was telling me the way to clean out (deepen, remove the stench, refresh) a full long-drop is to throw in a dead rabbit, at the end of the summer. The blowflies will get the rabbit, and then the ensuing maggots will take care of the bizzo.
See, Dads really do know everything. Don't ever question their "right-ness" or ability to know it all.
And for those who are wondering, you should be able to find a dead rabbit on any old country road, or, a drowned (or frozen) lamb would also work if you were stuck for a dead rabbit. I don't think a dozen docked lamb tails would have enough meat to get a good blowie infestation going though...

I don't believe a photo, or other visual, is necessary. If you have further questions, please refer them to Dad.