STyLe BY MAyA

Those who know Maya know that she is very much into fashion. She selects her outfits very carefully and is not afraid to mix colours, patterns or styles. Maya can always make it work. Her top advise is that girls must always wear a skirt or a dress to look their very prettiest-she makes sure to have at LEAST one maybe more on at a time everyday. When you tell her that she looks great she simply replies, "I know". Her confidence and comfort with herself is astounding and many times quite an admirable trait.
Anyway, that being said, she had an opinion on Eddie's "villain outfit" as I like to refer to it. I had him in his white turtleneck shirt with his blue yoga pants. Maya gave a little giggle and said, "Edday looks like a grown-up covered in milk!" Maya knows style so it must be true. Luckily Eddie didn't feel all that self-conscious about the assessment. He probably even took it as a compliment. What do you think of Ed's outfit-villain or adult covered in milk. Maya can't read so don't feel like you have to spare her feelings.

Our Earth Hour

Tonight at approximately 8:05 (5 minutes tardy) we commenced our 60 minutes of switching it off. There was a bit of a freak out from the girls, what with fire being involved and everything. All the safety stuff at school really freaks them out about natural disasters and fire. The topic of fire often rears its ugly head in every prayer-morning, meal and night. So naturally you can see how having candles lit would freak them out. We managed to calm them down, seeing as to they only had to put up with candles and flashlights for 10 minutes until we got them all sorted out in their beds. Mark and I managed to pass the time working quietly on word puzzles and reading award-winning non-fiction. No, really it is true-see look here a picture! In keeping with lights out we took it without a flash-by candlelight only. Some wax got on my camera but it all peeled off just fine. All in all we feel that it was a good experience and one we wouldn't mind repeating in the future. Plus, it was fun to run around and check out some of the heathen, earth-hating neighbors that chose not to participate. We are down about a dozen rotten eggs, but it was all worth it to teach them folks a good lesson.

HAPPY EASTER

Well Easter has come and gone. This was a particularly sentimental Easter for us because it is the last one for us in here in New Zealand. We have grown accustomed to the large chocolate eggs and chocolate chip hot cross buns. I know these things will be available in its various forms in the future but it won't be quite the same. I guess that is how things are sometimes. Aida was so excited to get a huge Cadbury Creme Egg pack. She came to us after dinner with her eyes wellilng up with tears, her cracked open egg in one hand, and a spoon in the other. Apparently she was under the impression that the large egg was filled with that creme and she was ready to dig in. Not so. It was just a hollow chocolate egg. False advertising to have the creme egg foil on a hollow egg. It didn't help that she had seen the pimp my snack creme egg where it was filled up with creme. That is what she thought she was going to get. You had to be there, it really was sweet, even though it sounds gluttonous.
Lucy had fun playing with her big chocolate bunny and was very generous to share it with her friend and sisters. After the Sunday naps she went to the fridge and pulled it out and gave her little Lucy cackle and said, "my bunny had a nice refrigerator nap." All in all it was a good Easter and a far cry from our first Easter in NZ when the ground was frozen. We also got to celebrate a nice lamb dinner with our good friends here. I am especially grateful this year as i have had some time to stop and reflect on the great sacrifice our Lord and Saviour has made for us so that we can enjoy our families for all eternity and return to our Heavenly Father. What a great and precious gift. I hope that we can live in gratitude and to the fullest so that we can be worthy of such a gift. I love you all and wish you the best. I hope all of you have a happy Easter and can have fun with your families.

Backfire

Mark has been trying very hard and admirably I might add, to get the girls to stop hanging out in our bedroom. We love the girls but every now and then it is nice to have a place to go that doesn't have fingerprints or piles of their stuff. Well, last night Mark caught the girls having another little rendez-vous in our room, which included cuddling in our bed with their dirty feet, and once again banished them with great fervor. To accentuate his point he firmly shut the door after shooing them out. We went ahead and started with our nightly routine of cleaning up. I gave a small yelp as I opened our bedroom door to put something away and Ed popped into view. Apparently when Mark had tossed the girls out of our room, Ed had tucked himself away in a corner out of view. Now to why we did not hear his cries for help. As soon as I opened the door he ran out with a half-eaten lollipop. Not only was the lollipop half-consumed but the wrapper was also just half-consumed (thankfully). That wasn't the only treat Ed had during his brief lock-up. He had also gotten into my early Easter candy stash and eaten I don't know how many chocolate eggs. Here is a picture of one wet, partially unwrapped egg that escaped. What was of more concern to us was that the ratio of missing chocolate eggs to wrappers. Anyway, we tried to snap some quick photos to capture the moment so feel free to check them out.

Why Sheet Washing Day is Fun

Hanging out the washing has become a love/hate thing for me. It nags at me all day until I get it hung out but once I get it out there the feeling of accomplishment is so great. I really get a lot of gratification seeing it all lined up on the line with the empty baskets beneath. If it weren't for hanging out the laundry, I don' think a ray of sun would ever touch my face. So yes, it not only conserves a little energy, it gives me my daily dose of vitamin D, but wait there's MORE! My favorite washing day is when I hang out the sheets. This video clip shows why. There is nothing like cool sheets hanging in the breeze to cool off in. Sorry about Ed's um...look, it was hot out okay? The one thing that will never be fun will be putting the sheets on the top bunk. What a sweaty process! It is pretty fun when I can get mark to do it though :). For a few more laughs you can look at the new quotes from Lucy and Maya today on the left side-bar.

Passing Time

The waiting game is not really as much fun as it looks. Okay, so the girls are having fun but still... We don't want to leave NZ but we also know that it is time for the next phase of our lives. Of course there things that I still would like to have done and seen here, but for the most part I think that we have done well embracing this part of our lives. So often it really does get easy to think about how things are going to be in the future and get caught up in the whirlwind of when we are/have/... then we will .... It can drive you crazy.
I won't lie, Mark and I have our "real-house" complete with hydrolic kitchen island and self-cleaning bathrooms all set up in our heads. The planning and dreaming has been there, but I don't feel like we have held ourselves from doing things that we can do now. We have created a home for our children and made lifetime friends. Overall, this has been a wonderful experience and we have been truly blessed to have learned the lessons we have. Don't worry, the sappiness will really come on when we do leave but I just thought you would like a little sample of it now. Oh and it was just an excuse to show the girls working together on this little cat puzzle. Just look at those cute little pudgey hands. I just love how they can work so closely and cooperate with one another to complete the task at hand. I love my girls!

HOORAY FOR AIDA!

Congratulations are in order for awesome Aida. Today she competed in the annual Weet-bix Tryathlon. We were lucky to wake up to clear blue skies and no wind. I am not sure how many children were there, heaps and heaps and HEAPS! It did get a little toastie-roastie running around cheering for Aida but it was so worth it to see her get out there, have a good time, and try her best. I have to admit, I had to switch my camera back to automatic because I really don't know what I am doing and the action was quick.

While I was waiting for her to start swimming, I managed to take several pictures of a lovely brown-haired girl in bright pink togs just like Aida. Sorry Aida. I did manage to get her in a few of them and was relieved to see that I didn't miss her going into the pool. My eyes must be getting old, or more likely, the culprit would be the four hours of sleep I had thinking about the tryathlon.

Not really too much to think about, just thinking about it into the night and again in the wee hours of the morn.

I took one picture of all the kids lined up on the bleachers. This is only like 1/4 of the bleachers. They were packed full of kids, and when they emptied they were packed full with kids AGAIN and AGAIN and I don't know how many times AGAIN! I got too caught up in cheering and didn't get any real good pictures of the action, but I am so proud of her and she had a good time with her buddy Flora.

Shhhh

Since Mark is on the airplane right now (or he should be), I thought it would be okay to post his "welcome home" surprise. Lucy decided he would like nothing more than some of her lemon grass and basil that she has been growing outside. It took her awhile to pick just the right blades of lemon grass and trim them all to suit the plate. Her plans were to freeze it all so it would be fresh for him tomorrow when he arrives. We decided it would be best if she didn't wash it all before she froze it.In addition to the lemongrass, she picked some basil and took care to add some shaved carrot. I don't think even Lucy is as excited as I am to watch Mark sink his pearly whites into his gourmet salad. Yum Yum. I am sure it will make all his travels worth it! Here's to you Mark! :)

Guess What

My online photo class starts today. I am excited to learn how to use my camera, the class is focused on learning how to use my camera more to its capabilities. Who knew that my camera could do so many things? I have most always used the automatic setting on my camera and felt a little guilty about not using any other buttons on the camera. Every time I would take a picture, there they would be staring at me. Already some of my guilt has subsided because even though I may not know how to use them, at least I now know what they are there for. You will be happy to know the first assignment is on white balance. As much as I like to pretend that I am taking "artsy"mis-coloured shots, I am excited to get this light situation sorted!

Who Can?

Who Could Open this Can?

Not Aida. Not Lucy. Not Maya. Definitely not Ed. Just Juice, Just Me.

I decided to surprise the girls with their own cans of fizzy with our fish and chips tonight. I distributed them and then went to get Ed's nutrient filled dinner of fried fish.
Enter Aida and Lucy asking me how to open their cans of fizzy. To their credit, they were pretty certain it had to do something with the tab and probably would have figured it out on their own...
Delving a little deeper into the real issue begs the following possibilities.

A. I am a helicopter parent. I hover over my children and have a tendency to do things for them they can very well do for themselves.

B. I am an uber, cool, health conscientious mum that rarely, if ever lets her children consume such unhealthy, sugary, artificially coloured beverages.

Hmmm. Once I told them that indeed you do lift up the tab on the can to open the fizzy, I let them do it for themselves. Given that we do have f & c once a week and it is far from healthy and we often have fizzy with it just from a bottle instead of individual cans, I can't claim to be a healthy mum either. In conclusion, I would have to say that maybe I am a little bit of "A" and "B". Most of all, I just thought it was funny they didn't know how-did you?

YEAH

It's bedtime and I am on the horn, Ed is screaming, Angelina Ballerina has just ended. Doorbell rings.


Real glad I answered.

Diva Maya

Today I decided to get my post done for the day early on enabling me to sit around and rot my brains out tonight with whatever "B" movie I could find on any of the 4 channels of tv. Not so! The girls returned home from school and Maya decided that she would like to try on some of my shoes. She went through quite a few and they were cute, but it wasn't until I saw that she was bossing her sisters around that I realized the extent of the problem. Maya has taken on a Diva like personality. I have no idea how she was able to talk Lucy of all people into catering to her demands but she did it somehow. Anyway, it was just another moment that made me wish that I knew how to take proper photographs because it really was very cute.

Lucy. Ellasto and Othro

Last night at dinner Lucy decided to surprise us with a book that she had written at school. I am proud of her and all of the confidence she has gained with her language skills. It is great that she is taking an interest in creating her own stories. I provided the translations below each page in case you have trouble deciphering anything. Enjoy!

The Tiny People

Help said Amy and Jack I'm shrinking they said

Soon they disappeared they were gone they turned into spots

then they came back.

illustrated by Lucy Berg, authored by Lucy Berg

An Oldie

Okay, so nothing you haven't seen a million times before. I chose this one because I did not take any pictures of the goings on around here today and it does pertain to something that went on today. I finally made it to Lucy's class to show off my awesome caterpillar chrysalis movie. I got to showcase it to 3 groups of 6 year olds. They were all real cute, but it was Lucy's face that really did it for me. She was just pumped to have me in her class. As an extra treat, I brought in a "j" caterpillar for them to keep their beady little eyes on to see if they can catch the change. It is funny because when you watch the video is seems like forever but really it is only a couple of minutes and it is surprisingly hard to catch. That age is funny in the classroom, maybe I will get back to teaching it one day.
Aida is working on a sweet collage poster titled "All People Are Different". The background is graffitied with different characteristics that people may have and she has done some sketches of different people. So far she only has Lucy and Eddie done, but I think they are pretty good. Lucy comes complete with headband.
Maya is struggling with missing her papa and gave me a couple of hours of peace when she watched "Angelina Ballerina" twice in a row.
Ed was able to call Papa Georgio on Skype. He found it all very amusing. I hope it was just an accident or he is really going to start giving me the heebees.
For a more "professional" version of events go here
I just can't get enough of them. Truly amazing-I wish everyone could see it happen in real-life to truly enjoy the beauty and complexity of God's creations.

Flower Girls

My attempt at transforming the girls into flowers-sans Maya's pollen headband. They had a "Flower Birthday Party" to attend today. The costumes didn't last too long, but the girls had a great time and the party was well planned. Goody bags were proclaimed "baby-ish" (one of my most favourite words) and were replaced with Hawaiian leis. Although, the girls admitted to me that even though they may be "babyish" they still like them. Me too-who doesn't?
Don't worry, Ed was not dressed as a flower. He just stayed home and ate mass quantities of leftover pizza and gummy candies with mum.

YUM

Seriously, I need help. I cannot stop eating these delectable delights. I have a HUGE chocolate headache from all the mini-eggs. I just treated it with a full-sized creme egg, so I am sure things will be looking up for me very soon. I know it is all wrong but that crispy shell on a mini-egg and that overly-sweet fondant in the middle of a creme egg are too tempting. It seems that people either love them or hate them. Me? I love 'em!
I have to wonder that if they were offered year round would I eat as many? Or do I only eat as many as I do because I rationalize with myself that it is a temporary item that needs to be taken advantage of as much as possible?
When looking for my photos on google I came across some freakshow that just happened to have a crate of mini creme eggs (60 bags/crate-in case you didn't know) in their possession and they were selling the lot on ebay with assurances the crate had a street value of 160 USD.
Pfshaw! Upon completion of my wee scoff that anyone would go for such a thing, I noticed that the bids were indeed up to 75USD and climbing. I suppose given the means I maybe would make a crazy purchase like that. The only difference would be that the person who most likely wins that bid probably has more altruistic intentions than I and is going to give them away.
My bid would come with the self-promise that I would have to limit myself to only one bag a week and wind up eating one bag a day. No, really I would. All the Bryan Kest in the world would not be able to reshape the bobaladdi that would ensue.