The Mount

In an effort to keep Vili (and the rest of us) sane while he had Chicken Pox, we made the drive over to Mount Maunganui.  I hadn't been there since I was in high school, but it was just as awesome as I remembered it.  We were there during school hours so we didn't have to worry about Vili spreading his spots to anyone.  It was amazing weather, although the water was still too cold for swimming in.  We made sandcastles, collected shells, went for a mini hike, got ice-cream, watched the boats coming in and out, it was nice. It's where one of the major international ports in NZ is, so there were the huge cargo ships coming and going that the boys thought was fantastic.  And it worked wonders keeping Vili distracted from his itchiness.  Vili was a little apprehensive about the sand at first.  He has a thing about being clean, especially his hands and feet, and when the sand would touch him, he kept saying "Vili's feet dirty!!!"  He got over it though, as he always does.  And Malachi was just back in his zone.

 

My sandcastle was by far the coolest. (Took me (and my slaves) FOREVER to get enough of the right shells.)

This sweet old lady, who was probably 80+ offered to take a picture of us all. It totally made my day.

(On a side note, I look at this picture and think "What the heck? We have 3 children. When did that happen???"  That's insane. And yet it still doesn't feel complete......Heaven help us!!)

It was Lani's first time at the beach.  She loooooooooved the sand, rubbed her feet around in it, ate a few handfuls.  She really enjoys being outside.  It was a tad windy, and baby girl kept trying to taste the wind with her tongue stuck out the whole time. Lol.  It was hilarious.

 
 

 
 

Such a great day. Bring on summer!!!

Chicken Pox

It was inevitable.  We'd been around about 7 different kids who had it.  Malachi has been vaccinated for it.  And so lucky Vili was the winner!  To be honest, he's the last person I would have wished to have it.  He's a firecracker as it is, but add into that being hot and itchy, not cool.  The spots showed up Tuesday afternoon (it was kinda freaky, I saw them coming up before my very eyes), and today is Sunday and they've almost all scabbed over. Whew!!! He did pretty well, other then being grumpy (which some DVD's and junk food took care of), he was only itchy for about 36hours, during which he slept a total of 4 hours and cried almost all of the other 32.  We tried to remedy it with long drives and a visit to the beach (next post), which worked quite well.  And we made an effort to make the Chicken Pox really really cool, telling him "Whooooaaa, Vili has chicken pox!!! Awesome Vili!! Look at all your cool spots!!!"  My kids already think that freckles are fantastic, so I guess having chicken pox was just an extension of that.

We used a combination of natural and not so natural remedies, I couldn't say what did and didn't work.  All I know is that they're going away.  I tried really hard to count them all, and my rough count was 175, about 40 of which were in his hair.  Those were probably the itchiest.  And he only scratch one, the first one that came up, so we shouldn't have any scarring. And he was really lucky that he only had a few on his forehead, which his hair covered, and one by his mouth.  So if you looked at him, it didn't look like he had chickenpox.

 In the ''yellow bath'' to help soothe the itching.

  

We think that Lani got some too, coz there have been a few random spots on her, but nothing major.  So we'll just have to wait and see I guess.

Lani @ 4 months

Our little beast of a baby.  She is by far the chubbiest bub we've had.  I love all her squishies and rolly polly bits.  She now weighs 15lbs, which is about the same as her brothers, but she's shorter so it's all condensed.  She's an interesting sleeper, she wants to be in bed at 6pm every night, will then wake at either 10pm or midnight (never 11pm), and then sleep til 3am, and then wake at 5am and 6am.  During the day she usually takes one big nap (2+hrs in the morning) and then 2 little naps later on.  She's becoming soo much more vocal, squealing and blowing raspberries, growling (especially when she's tired).  She's so ticklish, and loves you giving her tons and tons of kisses.  She's holding on to stuff now, toys etc, all of which come straight up to her mouth.  She can get her thumb into her mouth pretty consistently, and when she wakes up from her naps she usually spends the next 20minutes lying in her bed sucking her hand until her entire sleeve and neck are soaked in dribble. I remember writing in Malachi's journal when he was 4 months that this is my favourite age for babies, and it still is.  She's smilie and happy and cuddley, but still stays in one place when I put her down.

 

She looooves her some bath time. She kicks and splashes and sucks the water off her hands.

 

She found her ear. Poor ear.


Crazy baby.


Play time is fun time.


Having loves with Malachi (he looks weird, but she looks cute)

Checking herself out in the mirror - what is with that tounge girlfriend???!

Pretty baby off to church


She loves tummy time with the mirror.

 

Bundled up for a day at the park with her brothers.

I love this little girl.

Ouch

My children ALWAYS hurt their eyes.  If they fall over, we don't ever get scraped knees or broken arms, they only ever seem to fall on their faces. 

Vili had a fight with the playground last week.

He didn't win.

 

 

Playground - 1, Vili - 0.

Lani's first swim

Both of our boys are water babies through and through, so not liking the water was just not an option for this girl.  Luckily she loves the water just as much as her brothers. :)  It's kind of funny that Malachi's first swim was in the ocean, Vili's was in a hotpool, and Lani's was at the public swimming pools.

 We went the day before and bought her some little togs (size 9-12months, big fatty!), and Malachi picked out these ones.

 

The pool was super warm, like a big bath, and Lani loved it so much she stayed in for an hour, and then only got out so I could go play with the boys. She's so funny in the water, she gets a serious face and kicks and splashes her legs like no other.  Too cute.

 

 

 

I only hope she's this enthusiastic about the beach this summer.

Primary Presentation

This year was Malachi's first Primary Presentation as a Sunbeam.  I was so proud of him.  He practiced his part every day for weeks before, making sure he memorised it.  And we sange those songs over and over and over again.  Infact we practiced everything so much that Vili learnt Malachi's part and all the songs too. lol.  Malachi loooooved talking into a mic, he thought that was just the bee's knees.  And he liked sitting up the front where he could see everyone.  The children all wrote their own talks, which I thought was really nice.  In his little talk he said,

"Jesus wants me to choose the right.  Helping is choosing the right.  I help my Daddy doing the washing, and when my brother falls down I help him."

Malachi and his Sunbeams class.

 

The whole of the Pukete Primary.

 

My Mum and Dad came down to watch his presentation. Malachi just idolises my Dad, so he loved that Grandad came.

 

I can't wait for the other kids to be big enough to be in the presentation.  It is by far my favourite week of church. :)