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

Winter Uniforms

The beginning of term two meant the girls had to start wearing their winter uniforms - long-sleeved shirts, tights rather than socks, and a tie. Since Katie is still in the primary school she gets to wear a pre-tied tie that she just slips over her head, but Meggie has a real tie and therefore she had to have early morning tie tying lessons from her daddy.

All of these pictures are what real photographers call SOOC - or "straight out of the camera". In other words the lighting is off and they need editing in a big way, but I have been flat out busy and decided to post them "as is" despite their lighting issues since we are now three weeks into term two and I haven't edited them yet. Nor am I a real photographer.

The girls were being silly - obviously - as I tried to take these full body shots of them so none of the photos are really worth bothering over anyway. I only post them to show y'all how enormous Meggie and Katie's uniforms look on them. For once it is not a case of me buying things a size or six too big in order to save money for them to grow into, this is actually how the lovely Felicity at the uniform shop sold them to me. It wasn't until viewing these photos though that I realized how it truly looks like the clothes are swallowing the children. And the shoes. . . don't get me started on the shoes! Meggie's are so heavy I'm amazed she can even lift her feet. Between that and her backpack I imagine we'll be seeing a chiropractor by age 16.

Back soon with pictures from our mid-winter Christmas last weekend. Lots of love!!