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. :)

Kiwifruit Picking

Now that I think about it, this was a pretty patriotic thing to do, being that we're all kiwis (well, almost all of us.  Tui has a few more years and a few more $$$ to go until he's lucky enough to call himself a kiwi).  My cousin's husband is in charge of a community fruit picking group that harvests unwanted fruit and distributes it to needy groups in the community.  This was the first time that it worked out for us to go with him, and it was awesome!  Firstly, I had never seen how kiwi fruit grew.  I thought they grew on trees.  Nope, turns out they grow on vines, like grapes.  I was stunned. So we picked and picked (the boys picked and played. Vines = sticks + boys = good times), and filled up as many boxes as we could.  The deal is, you come and help pick for as long as you can, then you take home what you want and the rest gets donated.  Pretty good scheme.  Beautiful day for it too, the first sunny day all week.  It was a lovely way to spend a morning, out in the fresh air, doing some service, and getting ourselves some free fruit.

I forgot my camera (what the heck?!!!) so pinched Jeremy's ipod and took pictures on it, so they're not the best quality, but they're photographic proof of the event.

And what do we do with all that kiwifruit?
 

Make pavalova of course!!!

THINK

Saw this on facebook today (who ever said facebook was a waste of time?!!)

And I couldn't have been more moved.

This topic has been on my mind alot lately, gossip, negativity, etc. I feel like both of these consume too much of my day and are preventing me from growing.  And then in the Temple yesterday I had the same prompting, that I need to address this.  Yes, most of what I say maybe be true, and I might believe that it's necessary, but is it kind or helpful or inspiring? Absolutely not!!  I remember a talk from President Monson here about how we need to spend less time judging people and more time loving them.  And this little picture on facebook reminded me of that.  So here's to having lips that never speak guile and a heart that filled with a little more Christlike love for people.

PS. I am soooooo making one of these boards and hanging it in my house!! 

Cheifs 2012

We kept promising Malachi that we would go to one of the Cheifs games this season, he's old enough to stay interested the whole time and get excited when everyone else does.  But it just never kinda worked out, which is dumb because this was the best ever season for them.  It was always raining or someone was sick or Tui was working, something always came up.  So after they won the finals, they planned a big parade and we made sure we took him to that! He has a poster of them in his room that he carried around waving, and we painted their faces.  They had so much fun.  The actual parade happened so quickly and was so packed that there was no time to take pictures.  But here are some from before they went.

 

I love Vili's little pukana in this.lol

Westpac Helicoptor

As part of my "job", we get to go on all these really cool outings that they organise.  Today it was one my boys have been looking forward to for weeks, visiting the Rescue Helicoptor.  Poor Malachi woke up with a fever and a tummy bug and couldn't go, he was so sad.  So it was just me and Vili.  They got to sit inside it, which was awesome. The pilot was there and talked about how he flies in the sky to the people that are hurt and brings them back to the hospital.  Vili just listened to him in awe. They had obviously done this before because they had it all figured out - give the kids a sticker, let them sit inside and take a photo, shake hands with the pilot, give them a helicoptor toy, and done. 

Hopefully this is the only time he ever needs to be in one of these.  But for a 2 year old boy, this was better then Christmas morning.

Lani is 10 weeks

10 weeks doesn't sound long, but it feels really long.  It's like she's been with us forever.  This little girl is just all chubs and blubs and we love it!! She has double and triple chins, and more rolls in her legs then I can count.  I'm pretty sure she's our chubbiest baby yet.  She's smiling all the time, especially at me (I've now bumped Malachi down the line and become her #1 Fav person, the way it should be).  She sucks on her hands all day, and if she doesn't have her hand in her mouth, she has her tounge sticking out, trying to lick something. Lani can be a real madamn sometimes, making us really work for some giggles.  One thing that makes her laugh today, tomorrow she'll decide it's totally not funny and give us a stone cold face.  She talks the most to Daddy, telling him all her troubles. She loves watching TV and mummy is trying NOT to take advantage of that, although it is handy when I'm trying to make dinner.  She sleeps way better then her brothers, but still not as well as other babies (like her 2 cousins born a few weeks apart who are both sleeping through the night - lucky!), but I'm not looking up the ladder, I'm looking down, so we're doing ok.  She's still got her birthmarks on her eye and face, but they have started to fade. 

We just think that she's the most beautiful thing on earth. 

Because she is.

She always looks ready to give someone a knuckle sandwhich.

Tounge, always out.

She loves her play arch.  Almost as much as her brothers love it.

Purty baby.

Strengthening those legs.

No matter which way we put her, she'll turrn her head upside down.  Malachi used to do the same thing.

Pukana!!

Lovin her some tummy time.

There goes that tounge again.

Sucking on her bottom lip.  Both the boys did this, as did Tui when he was a baby. Must be some tasty lips.

Little fatty in her bumbo, drooling all over herself.