Speech and Drama Night

A few weeks ago the Speech and Drama department at Marsden invited the parents and friends of the Year 7 & 8 girls to come and watch them perform. The performances were to showcase what the girls have learned so far, but also were an opportunity for the girls to be assessed by outside judges. 

Meggie has loved taking Speech & Drama this year and we've already seen the fruits of her experiences by her increased confidence and ability to speak extemporaneously and give various types of speeches like persuasive and informative. For the evening performance she and her friend Olivia chose to present a selection from "Heidi" with Olivia playing Heidi and Meggie playing Clara. 

I know I'm biased but I thought they did a remarkable job, it was a joy to watch both of them and Dugald and I were very proud of our girl. This week she got her results and they received the highest mark, "Distinction" with the assessor providing the following comments:

"Immediately we saw the relationship between Clara and Heidi. Lovely use of soft toys for 

the kittens. Heidi's fears were soothed by Clara's concern. In turn, Heidi showed concern as 

she helped Clara. A gentle, interesting scene. Think of ways to bring out the ending 

more strongly. Nice use of the stage and props. Well done!"

Mother's Day

This post is long overdue but I want to thank my girls and my amazing husband for an extraordinary Mother's Day. I woke up to beautiful flowers from Dugald and sweet hand-made cards (and a generous Amazon gift card) from the girls. I was interviewed at church about my decision to be a full-time stay-at-home mom, and while I felt like I did a horrible job many people since have thanked me and told me it was encouraging - I blush every single time someone comes up to me because I thought I was useless but I did pray that God would use my words to bring encouragement and once again I'm humbled by His faithfulness. 

After church and some fun time hanging out together the girls cleaned the house for me and Meggie, Katie and Dugald made me a delicious dinner.

I went for a nice long walk while they shopped for groceries. I snuck into the kitchen a few times to snap some pics but otherwise I stayed out of the way and just listened to the chaos from afar. I have to hand it to Dugs, he likes cooking about as much as he likes doing our American taxes but such is his love for me that he stuck it out. I don't deserve any of these people!!

Katie was in charge of the main (with Daddy) and she chose to make one of my favorites - shrimp piccata. Yum!!

Meggie chose dessert duty and she picked a delicious concoction of bananas covered in cornflakes and baked, with ice cream and berries. She knows I love anything with bananas and this didn't disappoint.

It was all delicious and I ended the day feeling totally loved and totally undeserving of the sweet people God has given me. Thank you family!!

Oops, I did it again!

I forgot to upload this collage - and I can't leave it out, it has some of my favorite pics!

We have had another busy, fun-filled weekend. More netball - Josie's team won 2-0 and she scored both goals!! Then on Sunday we celebrated Fleur's birthday down at Oriental Bay and I worked at the Marsden Open Day in the afternoon. Now it's the Sunday evening rush to get ready for school tomorrow - hope you had a great weekend too. xx

Mid-Winter Christmas

At last here are our pictures from our very fun mid-winter Christmas in Paekakiriki a few weekends ago. After our camping trip last summer, that ended with us staying in the lodge, we decided it would be lots of fun to plan another trip with the same group since the lodge had the perfect number of beds for us. We left on a Saturday after netball and only spent one night but we packed a lot of fun into a short time frame. 

Before leaving the little girls and I baked and decorated some Christmas "lofthouse" cookies to get into the spirit. Our group decided we would celebrate "Bogan" style. I wasn't exactly sure what that meant but my best translation for my American friends would be something along the lines of trailer trash, or white trash, maybe Nascar . . . it meant we had big hair, wild clothes and lots of makeup. The kids put on shows again, we learned a new line dance from Fleur, the kids got gifts from Santa, we ate great food, drank great wine out of coffee mugs and enjoyed ourselves immensely! 

(You can click any of the images below to see them larger)

Oh Look What I Found!

Two posts in one day - crazy!! I found these photos on the good camera and they should have been with the other sports pics. These are from the girls' first games of the season.

Katie with one of her great passes.

Josie's first game was against Marsden, it was a little awkward since we wanted to cheer for both teams.

I've noticed that in these pictures our girls are shorter than most of the girls around them, what is up with that??? I also found some pictures from Mother's Day that I'll post next since the family made me a delicious meal!! Til then. . .

Sports Update

Last weekend Dugald was away on Saturday morning so I had to get all four girls to their respective netball games in the space of two hours. Thankfully everything is within walking distance because he also had our car. Meggie's game was first, warm-up at 8:50 am, with Ellie's drop-off next at 9:30. Since we got to hang around a bit, and since another mom graciously offered to make a coffee run, we watched her practicing with her team. All photos courtesy of my iphone which explains the quality. . . 

I  missed much of the game while walking Ellie over to hers, but I did notice that the girls on the other team were a head taller and rumor has it they were a year older. The score was something like 22-nil when I returned but then Marsden scored two goals and the crowd went wild. Their goal had been to at least get one so the second was a bonus.

After Meggie's game I picked up Ellie from her skills training and then raced over and saw the end of Katie's game - they squashed their competition 52-0. Katie played very well but sadly I was holding so much stuff at that point that I didn't get a photo. Josie's game followed Katie's and they too lost but Josie played well and they played better as a team this week, it's only the second game of the season and this is the entire team's first year playing netball.

Last week, during the first games of the season, Ellie got "Player of the Day" and Meggie got "Most Valuable Player".

This term the girls have all been doing their cross-country training at school and this week was Katie's big event day. The little girls and I went over to watch her run and thankfully the rain stopped while we were there. Katie was adorable - she was a great cheerleader for the girls in the other classes.

Katie's house is Innes - thus the blue t-shirt and sign. 

Finally it was time for her class to warm up and race - Katie finished right in the middle of the pack and put forth great effort, especially at the end. I was really proud of her for giving it her best.

Katie is the second royal blue t-shirt from the left.

Katie and her friend Fenna post-race.

I especially loved how Katie waited around after she finished to cheer for the others and especially for the girl who finished last. The girls all were so kind and encouraging to each other, it was a joy to watch.

Dugald has been busy this week on a director's course for work but he's finding it worthwhile. Hope you are all well. xx