Six Months Later

WOW! I cannot believe I haven't blogged anything for six months! Has it really been that long? Guess we've been kinda busy. And hibernating for the winter. And I've been really far behind with sorting, naming and uploading photos, and don't like blogging if I don't have photos to go with it. The problem is that we do too much stuff, and then take too many photos of it, and then we get too busy doing other stuff to sort through the previous photos and before you know it there's 100+ photos to sort through. Plus we take all our photos on burst mode (takes five photos at a time) because the kids are always moving and it you take five at a time at least one of them will turn out ok. But I've managed to catch up on the photos and now I can blog again. Also I think part of the problem is Victoria not having naps any more. So that's an hour a day I don't have up my sleeve any more.

But where to start??? Well, let's see. There haven't been any real life changing events for us the past six months. We're still living on our little farm just outside Levin, Peter's still driving to Palmerston North and back every day for work. Victoria has just turned three and Kathleen will be five in January. The girls and I go to Playcentre on Tuesdays and Wednesdays now, and Kathleen goes to daycare Thursdays and Fridays. Victoria joins her on Thursdays and since her birthday has started going by herself on Mondays too. I chose to do it this way so that I would have one day a week with each girl on their own, and it would also give Victoria the chance to get used to going to daycare without Kathleen, before Kat starts school next year.

This term Kathleen has been attending "four-year-old school", which is run one afternoon a week at one of the local schools. It gives four year olds the opportunity to sit in a classroom with their peers and listen to a teacher, and also doing activities around a different letter each week. It's given her the chance to get used to sitting on the mat, putting up her hand when she wants to speak, listening to instructions, etc.

The last two weeks Kat has also been having visits at the school she will attend next year. She's been going for one morning a week, sitting in with the current Year 1 class. She knows at least five of the children in this class from the various preschools and activites she has attended. They won't be in her class next year, but at least she will have some friendly faces in the playground to look out for. When I've asked Kat what she's done at school, she has told me all about what she did at playtime but not so much about the classwork. Her teacher has given me her classwork and it's all been really good so I suspect she's just more interested in playtime because that's where she's learning the most. The first week she learnt to play hopscotch and the second week she learnt about tennis and bouncing a basketball. She has two more visits scheduled before the end of the school year.

Kathleen's learning is coming along really well and I think she will probably find school too easy. She is doing well at reading and can read several simple books, partly from remembering the story, partly from looking at the pictures and partly just reading. Her writing is doing well and she's working on her lower case letters. She absolutely loves drawing. Especially drawing people and faces. When she gets going she will sit down and draw picture after picture.

Even Victoria is getting in on it too. She has started drawing faces with eyes and mouths. She has also started wanting to write her own name. At Playcentre we write all the childrens names on their artwork and encourage them to do so if they want to. Victoria can draw a V and will attempt all the other letters (even if sometimes they don't look much like it). She is recognising some letters - V, K, M, and O for sure and I think maybe I and T, and I don't know what else. She also recognises most of the numbers too and can count to about 15.

Ok, so what have we been doing since I last posted anything?

Kathleen is still going to ballet. After a three week break during the school holidays, she was ready to go back again for another term and we are still going once a week. Have tried a couple of times to see if Victoria wants to do it too. She says she does, but as soon as she gets on the dance floor she freaks out and grabs me around the neck and won't let go. So I don't think she'll be the performer in the family.

At the end of July Peter's sister and brother and brother's girlfriend came to visit from Texas. The girls loved having Aunty Mardie, Uncle Richard and Taylor to play with and climb on and entertain them. We also took the opportunity to take the girls up the mountain to play in the snow, and take the Texans to Taupo for a few days. While there we also caught up with Peter's other sister.
We left home on the Sunday morning and got to the mountain in the afternoon. We went to Whakapapa skifield but the visibility was poor and it started snowing. We did a bit of playing in the snow and sledding but the weather just got too miserable and so did the kids. So we hid out in the chalet instead. Monday morning dawned bright and clear, and we went to Turoa skifield where we all had a lot of fun. Throwing snowballs, building a snowman, sliding down the slope. Tried some more tobogganing but the run was quite fast and neither girl enjoyed it too much. But overall I think they both enjoyed going to the snow and we'll have to do it again next winter.

September brought the Canterbury earthquake and thankfully all my relatives escaped unharmed. A couple of days later brought flooding to our neck of the woods. The rain on the Tararua's came down Potts hill and flooded our neighbours paddocks across the road from us, went across the road blocking it off, and flooded the cafe paddocks next door to us too. As well as many, many other farms in the area. Luckily we escaped unscathed since we are up on the hill. Which was one of the many requisites we had when looking for a property to buy in the first place.

This year we celebrated Halloween with our friends from Palmerston North. Lou hosted an Irish party with Halloween theme. We all dressed up and took the girls out trick-or-treating around Palmerston North. It got off to a bad start when we first arrived at Lou's house, to be greeted by Poppy wearing a Scream costume. Both girls were frightened. Victoria got over it pretty quickly when Poppy took the mask off, and was happy to be picked up and cuddled by Poppy even when she put the mask back on. Kathleen however got very quiet and mopey and grumpy. She didn't want to go out trick-or-treating. She would only go if I held her hand, and wouldn't knock on any of the doors.
After the first couple of houses where Poppy and I did the knocking, Victoria got the hang of it and was running up to the doors but Kathleen was still hanging back. Most houses we went to/past had no one home, but of the ones where people were home, all but one had treats to give out to the children. Some even really got into the spirit of it. I suppose we were out for about an hour. By the end Kathleen had relaxed and was getting into it too, also running up to the doors without me. They got quite a lot of lollies out of it and there are still some in the cupboard to be eaten. We've been sharing it out a couple of lollies a day (although I've actually forgotten about it for a few weeks now). I'm pleased they didn't try to eat the whole lot in one go, they are happy to have 2 or 3 lollies and then put the rest back for another day.

One of the girls favourite places to go in Levin is the lolly and ice cream store. If Daddy gives them some money they will keep it to spend at the lolly store. Their favourites are lollipops and bubble gum.

Also around the time of Halloween we had Guy Fawkes. We took the girls to see the big fireworks display at Manfeild and also had our own fireworks at home. Once again, Victoria got into it and Kathleen was frightened and grumpy. I was a little disappointed with the Manfeild display, mostly because it was on a bit too late and the pre-event entertainment wasn't that great. The fireworks were great but Kat didn't enjoy them and her mood rubbed off on me. Our fireworks at home went better. At first both girls were a little wary of the sparklers until they learnt how to use them and they both enjoyed that. Kat didn't like the noise of the fireworks.

Victoria turned three last month. It felt like she had been two for a very long time. Her birthday was on a Playcentre day and she had a birthday cake at Playcentre with her friends. Then she had a birthday party at home the following Saturday, inviting two friends from Playcentre and two friends from daycare. I will try and write about it in a separate post.

And now we are facing the countdown to Christmas. I'm really looking forward to it. I've already planned everything I'm going to buy and hope to get that done next week. I bought advent calendars and both girls are enjoying opening one each day. Of course for Victoria it's all about the chocolate but Kathleen understands that when they're all gone it is Christmas Day. We're not planning to go away or do anything special for Christmas, other than open presents and have a big dinner. After having had a really crappy summer last year, this years summer is shaping up to be a good one. It's been hot and sunny just about every day since Labour weekend (end of October). I've been planting vegetables in the garden and have had to actually look after them and water them regularly. But other than that we are loving the warm weather and spending as much time outside as we can, until the sun gets too hot.

And that is where I think I will leave this update. I promise I won't leave it so long next time! We've got lots of fun times ahead in the next couple of months, with the end of the school/Playcentre year looming, Peter's birthday, Christmas, and Kathleen's birthday. We're hoping to have an active, outdoor summer with lots of trampolining, bike riding and swimming. Both girls are now tall enough to stand on the bottom of the swimming pool in town and have their head above water. Victoria has heaps of confidence and will probably learn easily, whereas Kathleen's not so keen to learn but still has fun in the water. I'm sure we're going to have lots of fun.

Cheers,
Margaret