Halloween 2012

Happy Halloween to my American friends and family!! We hosted a fun Halloween get together with some neighborhood friends and the girls had a ball. We all gathered at our house, then the kids followed a map to several houses in the 'hood to "Trick or Treat", and we ended up here again for nibbles and drinks afterwards. I didn't get nearly as many photos as I would have liked because it was crazy, but hope to get some more from friends later. There are plenty for this post anyway! 

Our decorations

Nicky and her girls came over early to get ready and have dinner with us. Ellie wanted to be a vampire and since she is a girl Meggie named her "Draculoola".

Girls having dinner on the patio - very thankful for lovely weather!!

Sweet neighbor and friend Jen.

Meg becoming Elphaba.

Prince Charming of course.

My only costume! Nicky didn't dress up but she is responsible for the fabulous face painting.

Meggie and Katie - Katie was Medusa.

Josie becoming a dead princess.

Anna the bunny, and Meggie.

Sam - such a cute parrot!

Lily Jane is something dead.

Devils Emma and Isabella.

The dead princesses Tessa and Josie. 

Anna and Isabella.

Lottie, Emily and Lizzie.

The boys -they were clearly outnumbered.

Group pic at the beginning and the only shot I have of Katie :(. She was a Barbie and looked stunning. She also tried to wear high heels but ended up taking them off half-way through the evening.

The older girls - Sophie, Aimee, Meggie, Claudia, Katie and Zoe. Zoe just arrived from swimming so didn't have time to get into costume. 

Red, the neighbor's dog, came in and took a nap amidst all the chaos. Chloe was very good and loved the party but spent most of the night being cuddled.

Ben - the birthday boy!!

A few photos. . .

We are hosting a Halloween Party tonight so just popping in to dump some photos off my phone and say hello. I spent yesterday at Marsden for Katie's athletics day - Josie and Ellie had theirs last week but it was such a miserable day that I didn't stay long and didn't get any photos. Yesterday was brilliant, the sun was shining and it was the warmest day we've had so far this spring. 

A peek at the South Island while on a walk last week - still snow!

Dugald's cousins developed a new product called "Karma Cola" - we had some in a cafe a little while ago and it was delicious!!

The red-heads

Ellie in her new swim cap.

Katie tied for first place on the high jump.

Katie and her class having a rest after the high jump.

We found a blow-up pool in our yard and decided to see if it would work. It did and the girls enjoyed a play with the neighbors yesterday after school.

Katie's Birthday Party

Sweet Katie was finally able to celebrate her birthday with a party at the beginning of the school holidays. She invited 10 girls to go to dinner and a movie, then they came home and had cake and presents. Four of the 10 girls spent the night - they stayed up until 3:00 am chatting apparently, Dugald and I slept through it but Meggie next door informed us in the morning. Katie said they had some really meaningful conversations though so she reckoned it was totally worth it. Here are a few snaps from the evening - thank you Meggie for being in charge of the camera!

I also want to brag on Katie - she got Distinction on her ICAS Mathematics test. She scored in the top two percent of Year 6 participants in New Zealand. We are very proud - especially her former math teacher, Daddy. She also got the "Most Improved Player" award for netball at the Primary School Sports Awards. And, lastly, she was chosen to be the head of her house, Innes, for Term 4, a position she really wanted. Woo hoo Katie!

Hi there

First of all, these two are doing just fine.

In fact we are all doing well. It's been a busy two weeks with the girls on a break from school - we've had lots of friends over, Katie's birthday party (at last), we've traveled to a birthday party out of town and gone to Waikanae to spend some time with friends at their new beach house. Now that the girls are back in school I finally have a minute to update here  - but only a minute as we are having company for dinner tonight and I have a lot to do to get ready!

At the beginning of the holiday we went out to Ruth Pretty's place to celebrate family friend Diane Latta's 80th birthday. It was lovely of her to include us and we all had a great time - the girls looked like a picture out of a magazine in their bright clothes eating out on the porch at the festive table Ruth set for them, but alas this is the only picture I have from the party. 

Ellie noticed this little guy (girl?) and friend outside of our window. One of them was camera shy but I managed a few pictures with my phone of this beauty.

The first week of the holidays was filled with ballet - practice every day to get ready for exams in November. I'm not sure how I missed getting a picture of Josie!

Dugald suffered an injury at the beginning of the holidays. He took the dog for a walk - but decided to ride Katie's scooter so Chloe could run as fast as she wanted - and it was a wet day. He didn't quite make the corner and came off the scooter at full speed landing on his shoulder. He's been to the physio and all is well now, but we had a few laughs at his expense. We suggested he might want to tell the physio that it was a rugby injury. 

The weather in Waikanae was a bit rough while we were there - we ventured out for a walk on the beach after a windy, rough, stormy morning and discovered a lot of driftwood and this guy washed up on the shore. Ewwww. . . . is it safe to go back out into the water?

Even Chloe got to go to the beach with us and she LOVED it! The car ride home, not so much. 

I'll leave you with this picture from my glorious walk with Chloe yesterday. We're back to cloudy skies and gale force winds today so I'm glad we got out. I'll post soon with pictures from Katie's party. 

The End of Term Three

First up - sorry that the video link of Katie in the last post wasn't working, I've fixed it so if you are keen to see it you can scroll down and watch it now.

The little two girls have been busy at school as well - they finished out the term with crazy hair and loud shirt day.

They also attended their first school disco and had a great time - here they are ready to go!

The big three girls all had Speech and Drama exams this past month. Josie takes a drama class after school and she took the Grade 1 Speech and Drama exam through Trinity College London. She, not surprisingly, did very well and received a score of 92 out of 100. This is the first time she has taken this exam and we were very proud of her. Katie also started taking Speech and Drama at school this year. Her exam was through Speech New Zealand for Grade 2 and she received an Honours grade (she didn't get a numeric score but her score sheet was mostly ticked in the "well-developed" box). Again we are very proud - only two people in her class got the same mark, so she definitely worked hard and did well. Meggie did the Grade 4 exam and received a score of Honours Plus, the highest grade possible. Her exam was also through Speech New Zealand and this is her second year taking Speech and Drama at school. We are SO proud of all of them and it's great to see them doing well in something they love so much.

School has just wrapped up here for Term 3, so we have a two-week break and then our final term of the year. This year has flown by! We don't have plans to go away over the October holidays but hope to do some fun things around Wellington, and maybe pop up to Palmerston North for a visit. Katie and Josie have a busy first week of the holidays with rehearsals for their ballet exams but other than that the girls are all looking forward to catching up with friends and sleep!

Lots of love to all! Dx

The Jungle Book

The Marsden Primary School put on an amazing production of The Jungle Book last week and Katie was one of the lead characters - Bagheera the panther. It was a fantastic production and such a joy to watch - here are some photos and a video clip.

Katie and her friend Lottie

Nicki doing Baloo's face paint. Louise and I helped with the face painting too, it was a lot of fun!

Ellie was with me while I did the face painting so she had fun with Katie's mask and ears.

Here is a clip from the show - I edited together the bits with Katie speaking and left out the songs, except for the very beginning because Katie is the very first one to sing: