Johanna

Last week was the school holidays and we had my cousin Johanna, who is 11, come stay with us.  She is one of my 5 cousins on my Dad's side (plus 1 more that we never really knew about, and ex-spouse's children who aren't really "legitimate", if you know what I mean, so we don't count them).  My Dad only has 3 sibblings, and each only have 1 or 2 kids, so it means there aren't really very many Bruntons out there, except our hord of course.  So it was really cool to have her come and stay.  She's such a great kid. Has had to grow up faster then she should have, and knows things 11 year olds shouldn't, but man is she awesome.  So helpful and polite, but still managed to let her hairdown and have a blast.  We stayed up late eating junk and watching movies, had endless phase10 battles, baked, went swimming, went walking, and just had fun.  She's already told her Dad that she wants to come back every school holidays.  Most of the pictures are on her camera, but here are some of the ones I took.

We had a picnic with all the kidie winks of one of the unseasonally warm winter days. Most of the picnic food that us mummys worked so hard to make ended up being fed to the ducks, and we had a few munchkins make a break for the water.  But it was a really great way to spend a morning.









Johanna made huts and beds and all sorts of cool things for Malachi.  He just adored her. He kept saying to her "Johanna you're my big cousin and I love you." And after a day, Vili was all over her.





We did a ton of baking.



We went out to the temple to see it at night. Johanna had been there to see us come out after our weddings, but it looks cool at night. Then we stopped at McD's for icecreams, only to discover the had $1 cheeseburgers, so it was icecream AND cheeseburgers for dessert.







We went to Te Awamutu to these awesome pools.  It was so good, super warm.  After wards we ate lunch at some gardens down the road.











We had a dessert night with all the fam bam.  Other then our weddings, it was the first time Johanna actually met most of us, that she can remember.  So that was nice.  She was so excited to see everyone, kept making sure that we were all coming etc.





We took Johanna to the Museum, now that we're recently acquainted with it.  She didn't appreciate the woolen garden as much as the munchkins, but she could actually read and I didn't have to worry about holding her hand, so it was good.





It was so good having her stay.  I'm a firm believer in family relationships, infact I'm hoping to have our first Brunton Family Reunion in the next year.  So it was really nice to have another Brunton around for a week.

Rugrat

We have been visiting the pet shop alot, partly so I can do exposure therapy on my kids with the animals (completely unethical, I know) which has been working really well, and partly coz its winter so anything warm and inside and free is a must for us.  During our visits we've talked about getting a pet, maybe a bird or some fish, but decided that a guinea pig would be perfect, coz its small enough that the boys could hold it and play with it, it would live completely outside, and have very small upkeep costs.  And then a few days later, like mana from heaven, one of the girls I visit teach (always pays off doing your VT!) said she wanted to get rid of her guinea pig and did we want it.  Heck yes!  Totally free, which made it even better, cage, food and everything.  And so we now have our own little guinea pig  It's a "she" and she was originally called baa-baa, but we decided to rename her.  I let Malachi pick the name, and if you know Malachi you can probably guess what his first pick was - "LIGHTENING MCQUEEN!!!!" Once I advised him that it was a girl he changed his mind and decided on Rugrats (I dropped the s so it didn't sound fobby lol).
And there we have it.  Both the boys love her.  As soon as Malachi gets home he asks to hold her, and he sits there patting her saying "It's ok, its ok. Ohhhhh, what a good girl."  Any chance Vili gets he makes a break for the door and is out there banging on her cage, which I'm sure she doesn't appreciate. 









I'm hoping having her will help to teach my kids about the responsibility of caring for an animal.  And that not all animals will kill you.

Hamilton Museum Visit - Part 2

We went back to the Museum, to see all the other stuff that we'd missed, all the regular exhibits.  I thought it might be boring for the kids, but it was awesome!  It's all about the history of Hamilton, so it started with the Maori history, then had stuff from the early settlers.  Hats off to the people in charge coz they did such a good job of making learning about what could potentially be boring stuff, be super exciting, even for 3 year olds.



Malachi got to practice his Pukanas.



This huge magnetic board had all the parts of a Maori village that the kids got to move around.  Amy and I decided that when we've made our millions we're going to have a magnetic wall.  It's awesome.



They had a bunch of items from local artists.  This was one of my favs.



We of course went back to the vegie garden.









Then we all played dress ups with the early settlers clothes.









The kids watched an oldschool movie, black and white, no sound, Charlie Chapman styles.



Malachi did some embossing.  He thought it was magic.



Yey for warm, fun places with free admission on a rainy winter day.

The Pet Shop

Such a life saver on a rainy day.  We went with Porse (the company I work for/through doing my childcare).  I was a little worried that it would be a waste of time seen as Vili thinks cats are the devil and Malachi cries when dogs bark.  But boy did they surprise me!  I totally put it down to peer pressure - all the other kids were doing it so they did too.  Both of them patted the animals and there were no tears.  I'm thinking of going back once a week, to do some fear reduction training with them.  Either way, it was a fun way to spend a morning.

The Dog.











The Rabbit.



The Rats.



One was hanging to the top of its cage, and Vili took the opportunity to harras it.



Guinea Pig. These were by far the favourite. Probably due to their smaller stature. If we ever did decide to waste money on a stinky animal, this would probably be my first choice.





The cat. This was the biggest shock, because usually Vili SCREAMS at the sight of a cat 10m away.



The turtles.



The birds.



Fun day.