More, More, More

Dad would like a hockey player! Isaac played until he was 9 then gave up. Still hope with Luca, Steve got a him a little stick earlier this year.

We got new carpet in 2014. This line up of the doors made me think of Monsters Inc!

Luca’s 1st swing.

A moody, long haired Tobyn.

Athletics day at school. Isaacs house colour is…you guessed it GREEN.

Luca and Isaac enjoying the fire.

Steve and a little Luca.

Steve and 2 of his boys. Of course isaac wanted in on the action.

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And more photos.

I want to try and blog again. Attempted a couple of times over the past 5 years. It is so good looking at old photos and reading the stories. Poor Luca has very little.

Isaac loving a train.

Dom and Uncle Vaughan at Splash Planet.

The crazy people ready to go for a swim in the lake, brr!

Isaac loved Wot Wots and lego

Do you like what I got you Tobyn?

My gorgeous 2 older boys. Probably about 4 and 10 here. Isaac is so photogenic!

I LOVE this photo. I should get it enlarged, still now I LOVE this photos almost 6 years later!!!

A veggie creation by Tobyn at Aokautere School.

Isaac and his cousins Olivia and Erika.

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Some photos from the past few years.

Luca in the bath at Grandad and Grandmas

Crazy cousins…Hannah, Isaac, Adam and Luca. Ages would be about 10, 8, 6 and 6months

Steve and I at Zumba ZIN day in Wellington 2012. we have both lost quite a lot of weight since then.

Luca ‘stole’ this pear when I wasn’t looking at the fruit and veg store. The lady at the counter was lovely and didn’t charge me for it. So that was when he was about 6 moths old, now at almost 4 the only fruit he eats are bananas!

Nana and a sleepy Luca. Beautiful photo!!!

Wow a very young looking Tobyn and Luca.

Isaac and Luca after we had dropped Nana at the airport in Wellington.

Isaac, not sure where, or how old, I just like this photo!

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I’m BACK!

After a 2 year hiatus I am back! I decided it was time to resurrect this blog and get down my family stories again! It has been amazing reading back through some of the old posts. There have been a few changes in our wee family, not the least that we are now a family of 5! Yes we had a 3rd baby and it was another boy! So I am still a woman and her boys. Luca Benjamin was born Sept 22nd 2011. He was our surprise and continues to surprise us! He is a real blessing and puts asmile on all our faces (except in the middle of the night, lol)

 

Tobyn is now at high school and doing very well. He has grown into a very loyal, caring young man. He still loves dance and hopes to make a career out of it. Reading and computer stuff are also high on his list of loves. Cleaning his room is definitely not a priority.

Isaac started school at the beginning of 2011. He settled very well, had an amazing 1st teacher and thrived. He is a popular wee boy, especially with the girls! There have been many ‘girlfriends’. He is going to be a heartbreaker 😦 This year he Dad has become the favourite. I asked him why he said ‘because he spoils me’ oh dear. I think it is more because Mummy is so busy with Luca that Dad does a lot more with him now. They go out to the skate park, ride bikes and go to the park and the library all things Isaac loves.

Steve has been my rock over the past year! When we found out I was pregnant, on valentines day, we were very scared! After my history we were not sure we wanted to go through with it all. It was definitely a very scary 8 months. Every milestone was celebrated but anticipated with fear. Steve took on a huge amount! He worked very hard gaining an excellence rating at work. He coached Tobyn’s hockey team plus the rep team again and he also played hockey! He looked after all of us. I spent a lot of time resting to ensure everything went well and so Steve did a lot around the place. Last but not least he trained as a Zumba instructor to take over my classes when i couldn’t teach anymore. He loves it and now I am having trouble getting my classes back off him lol.

Me…very tired! Last year was hard but very rewarding in the end. At the beginning of 2011 I was excited about what the year was going to bring for my health. I had lost 20 kgs and was looking forward to losing the last 15kgs to get to my goal. THEN the big surprise, so instead of losing 15kgs I gained a whole lot more! I was very frustrated and still am, it is hard to get back to where I was while still feeding Luca. I instructed Gold Zumba classes right up until the week before Luca was born. Gold is Zumba for the active older adult, the absolute beginner and those with physical limitations. I was very prooud of myself for that achievement. My participants have been so supportive! I went beck to instructing Gold 6 weeks after Luca was born and regular in March this year. It has been challenging running my own business but after 2 years we are still going. The ‘hype’ of Zumba seems to have waned but there are still enough people loving it to keep going plus it is great for our fitness!!!

Well I want to make this a brief so I will end there and hope to be back resonably regularly to have a record of the next little while with the 3 boys growing so fast!

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Flying!

This is an OLD post that I never published. But because I want to have this blog represent as much of our past as possible I want this published. So this is from early 2010!

Yep the year is flying by! Next week is the end of term 1, where has that time gone? We have been so busy, but having so much fun! I also can’t believe it was way back in January that I made my last blog post. So much for being better at this in 2010. But that is OK, a nice newsy blog is in store then!

Let’s start with the youngest…Isaac is now at kindy 3 mornings a week and in the 2nd term will start the transition to school group…ARGH…what was that? Transition to school, that means my baby is getting closer to 5…slow down baby. He is still in love with Ivy and we now have ‘Ivy Day’ because he only gets to see her once a week. As soon as they see each other the giggles start and they can’t stop looking at each other and run off holding hands. Isaac has ventured out at play group on the odd occasion and played with a couple of boys, which makes Ivy very mad. Isaac doesn’t know how to deal with this one, and to tell the truth neither do I! But they do work it out after a while and are happy when they leave each other. What else for Mr I? He has a huge thirst for letters, he is often working out what words start with and can recognise a large number of letters, so transition group is going to be great for him. Other than that he wants to be just like his big brother and comes out with very cheeky comments and looks, got from the 11-year-old. Isaac is doing really well with his swimming and moves up a group next term. He can swim a length on his back holding onto a flutter board and can swim freestyle for 4 strokes. Isaac also had his 1st go at the mini triathlon. He was so excited the 1st week and had a lot of fun, but yet again it goes to show our boys are not athletes! One week at the athletics Steve had a run in with an official…now for those that know Steve this is a very rare occurence, he is a very gentle softly spoken man. Well for the 1st 3 weeks he was able to run aside Isaac in the run and bike and then go with him into the pool area to help him in the pool and encourage him. Well this particular day he was with I on the run and cycle, then when he came to go into the pool the official would not let him in. They said that is what we are here for we will help him…HE IS 4, he needs his Dad! Isaac didn’t know what to do, yes they helped him, with his goggles and into the pool, but they did not encourage him to swim, poor little guy was lost and confused. So Steve told the officials what he thought of that rule for 3 &4 year olds and they told him to calm down and that he wasn’t giving constructive feed back…GRRR. So that’s the little man in the 1st 1/4.

Tobyn has had a great start to the year!!! He is now a big intermediate boy and wears a uniform. He looks so grown up yet so little. I think I was more nervous than he was on his 1st day. But it was all unwarranted. When I picked him up he had a HUGE grin on his face. He has a family friends boy in his class, his teacher dances at the same studio he does, he has a part-time teacher that he had 3 years ago and loved and he doesn’t have any Aokautere kids in his class! A huge sigh of relief. Things are still going well at school, so far as we can tell. We had a parent/teacher/child interview this week and although it was OK there are still a couple of things that concern us. His writing level was WAY below what it has been in the past…last year he was in the advanced writing group, but so far this year he is below average, not sure what is going on there. His Maths is average and reading well above average, so not too bad. BUT the thing that concerned us the most was how into his shell he went in the interview. We asked the teacher if this was normal and she said no and she was surprised at how he was. Later on Tobyn said he was worried that we would be angry…why would we be angry? And how did that look to the teacher? A little to work on here. I do think we can be a little tough on him and expect a lot and maybe we need to back off a bit, relax and let him enjoy what is going well for him!? Which brings me to extra curricular…DANCING is his real love right now. He is working hard and it is paying off, he is looking great. He still has a lot of practice to get the basics right but he is doing really well. He is in a junior boys competition group and they have there 1st comp this Friday and he is looking forward to it. He is still playing keyboard and will do a grade 1 exam later in the year. He also did the mini triathlon and did well to participate. It was a bit like pulling teeth, even though he wanted to do them. And this then culminated in the weet bix triathlon yesterday. He rocked the swim! He did breast stroke and came out in the middle of the pack…the cycle was his down fall, but I guess when your bike is half the size of everyone elses you are at a bit of a disadvantage. He was quite down in the mouth at the end and it was a battle to cheer him up. He has to remember it is about participation and being proud of yourself fo giving it a go!

ME: One word to describe my life right now…BUSY! Zumba has taken off and I am having to be very organised in getting kids to and from activities, making sure we are eating healthily and getting myself to Zumba. Somewhere in there I have to practice, make new choreo, deal with paperwork and answer phones, e-mails and texts. Zumba has made a new lease on my life. I love it and I am getting fit and losing some weight. As well as that it is going fantastically and I can make a little extra moolah with it. We have been going for 6 weeks now and have already had to add to our timetable and will have to add more soon. We have had an article in the paper and were pleased it was well written and received http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/manawatu-standard-palmerston-north-new-zealand/mi_8066/is_20100313/zumba-zeal/ai_n52471170/ Rowena and I are off to Sydney in May to train as Zumbatomic instructors…this is Zumba for kids. We will be some of the 1st to be able to teach zumba to kids. We are very excited about this opportunity. We will be doing demos at the womans expo and will do a zumbathon later in the year…probably for breast cancer. There are of course ups and downs and some weeks are wonderful and others I wonder why on earth I am doing this. My biggest problem is my size…I fear that people laugh at me and won’t want to come to my classes. I have had some people stop coming to me because they think Rowena’s classes are more advanced…which is wrong, but it is a perception and I think based on the way I look. Rowena has had some similar things, but in  a way the opposite, people think she is too hard. But at the end of the day our classes are rocking and we have each other to talk to and support.

Steve is busy with work and family. He has had to step up more with helping out at meal times and is so supportive. He has played summer hockey and will play winter hockey. Plus he has just been named as the under 11B rep coach again. So winter will be long again with weekends full of hockey for him. I know he loves what i am doing and not just because I have now been nicknamed Mummybags…aka…the one with cash in her wallet! He is seeing the changes both physically and mentally and I love that he is so encouraging. I don’t think I could do this without his support and love.

So there you go a quarterly update…until next time CIAO

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The observer

Well here I am looking out my window and wondering what title to give this post. I thought of a few e.g. Today; Update; Fitness; Healthy, Wealthy and Wise. But none if them were quite right and then as I was looking and enjoying my view I came up my title ‘The Observer’, I am an observer, I always like to have a seat that allows me to see what is going on! At the table I can’t have my back to the main part of the room, in a waiting room I need to be at the far end so I can see the comings and goings of people…would you call that nosey? I say I am observant, i love to people watch, I think it is fascinating, I like to wonder about who they are, where they are from, what they might be thinking, how did we actually come to be in the same place at the same time? Anyway the reason for this title for today stems from the fact that I have moved my craft room around. We have had a couple of people stay recently and the way the room was meant always moving the sofa bed so it could be opened out. Now I have the room so we don’t need to do that. But even better I now have a view out the window. I have a lovely garden directly out the window and the road so I can see how many cars go up and down and road, or how many times the kids down the road zoom past on their bikes and scooters. Seriously I don’t have time for that, but I am pleased to have the ‘view’!

There has been a lot of activity in our house the past few weeks! Steve, Tobyn and Isaac have all be running. Steve for general fitness and to lose the love handles, Tobyn for fitness but also training for mini tris and weetbix tris, and Isaac because he has to keep up with his big brother! Tobyn has been doing really well and every time he goes out he manages to knock a few seconds off the previous time. Once a week he does an organised 7km run. Last year he wouldn’t run the whole way, this year he is doing really well. He could still do with pushing himself more but he is doing really well.

I have started practicing my Zumba routines and it is fantastic. It is hard to remember everything but every time I practice I feel better about it. Our classes start in the 2nd week of Feb, I can’t wait to see how well it goes here in little ole palmy, I have a good feeling about it!

The boys had swimming lessons last week. Isaac did well, he is so good at listening and doing what the teacher tells him to. He is however a typical boy and although he tries hard he hasn’t got the rhythm right yet. Tobyn’s teacher was pretty hopeless and after a week he really had not improved at all. I’s teacher is going to do an assessment on T this week to see where he is having problems and see if we can help rectify them. He is fantastic at breatstroke and backstroke and his butterfly was better than I expected, but his freestyle…ARGH, makes me want to tear my hair out! I won’t be putting him into term lessons this year, he has enough on his plate with 4 nights of dance, but I might still get him to do holiday classes. He is enjoying do triathlons and he needs to be a strong swimmer and breaststroke is not going to keep him up with the free stylers!

Steve and I celebrated 17 years of marriage on Sat…man where has that time gone? Steve took me to the local Japanese ‘pub’ something or rather ‘Yatai’ It was very nice…apart from the barely cooked beef, I am not a big fan of almost raw food!  But the sushi and the shitake ake mushrooms, mmm!!!

On Sunday we had a lovely trip to Splash Planet with my bro and sister and family. We escaped the rain in Palmy and found the sun in Hastings. I was a bit hormanal so not in the best mood, but it was a great day. Next year I look forward to returning wearing my bikini with my new Zumba body…LOL!!! Here is a photo borrowed from my sister…

Splash Planet

Steve and Isaac on the obstacle course.

Splash Planet

So that is us in the past couple of weeks, til next time…

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Tobyn singing The Lords Prayer

Here is Tobyn’s 1st time singing a solo in Church. it was for the childrens Christmas service which Steve directed and planned. We think Tobyn could sing very well with a bit of training. The 1st few lines are a bit off key but he picks it up and then when the other children join in he does beautifully.

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2010 a new year.

Wow, did you see the date on my last post? AUGUST!!! I knew it had been a while but not that long.

A brief run down on the rest of the year then…

Let me start with Tobyn…

• The year ended and he has now officially finished primary school and moves on to intermediate. We are all looking forward to a new start in a new school. T is a little nervous about it but excited as well. He can’t wait to try out for the dance team there.
• He has loved dancing this year. Dean asked his boys group if they would like to enter a comp in the Oct school holidays. He LOVED it…so much so that he tried out for the comp team for 2010 and got in! It does mean a huge commitment but so good for him. We will spend 4 nights every week plus some weekends at the studio.
• He participated in the dance production and a friend of mine relayed this comment to me. Said to her from a stranger sitting next to her…”That little boy is a great dancer” speaking of Tobyn…my friend said “Yes, and i know him” So lovely!
• He played summer hockey…not so in love but he did it.
• He had a great year of keyboard and ended the year with a fantastic performance at the concert. He played a set piece and then a piece he composed himself. And yet again another lovely comment made by a stranger “your young boy was the stand out performance for me” I just thought WOW, because her daughter was a stand out for me!!! His final keyboard report was glowing and Roy wants him to sit his first exam in 2010. Tobyn feels a little nervous about this though.
• Also in the performing arts, he had a singing solo in the Church Nativity play. We think he has a lot of potential with singing, with a bit of voice training I think he could be very good. I will endeavor to upload to youtube then you can let me know what you think.
• T has worked hard on his attitude this year. He has made some really good friends in a year where some other friends were not so nice to him. In 2008 he was often sullen looking and hard to get a smile out of. In 2009 he has worked hard on being more pleasant and I can say it works!!!

• All in all T is a beautiful soul, he looks out for his family and friends and has a huge heart. He is definately gifted in the arts and has finally realised this for himself. He is a very bright young man with his academic levels in the top 80% of New Zealand in every area. Particularly excelling in literacy. I wish the very best for him in 2010 and hope he continues to see his skills and put the most in to them.

Isaac

• I turned 4 in Oct with a Thomas the Tank Engine party. We were not going to have a party because Steve was over seas. But with the help of my teen girls at Church we put on a great party!

complete with “Fat Controller Larissa”

 

• I has thrived at Kindy in the 2nd half of the year. After a difficult start he has settled in and lvoes it. the teachers say he is a lovely boy who is friends with everyone, particularly the boys. I have to read a book before I leave and then he usually goes on to the cars or trains. We have a few precious paintings because he doesn’t do very many of them!
• I loves to go to Doodlebugs and Little Groovers…but ONLY if Ivy will be there! Yes Isaac has his 1st love…the 2 I’s are inseparable and it is adorable. I would put a photo but I’s Mum doesn’t want her photo on line, but imagine two wee 4 year olds with chubby faces gazing in to each other eyes with HUGE love. It is amazing for me to watch, I love it.
• I wants to do everything his big brother does! Tonight he went on his 1st official run around the block with Daddy and Tobyn and ran most of the way. At the end he said “I am filthy” I think he meant I am exhausted, LOL. He says he will do the mini tris in Feb…we’ll see, I am not sure he will, but we will try.
• He comes out with very cute things e.g “Why do the educators rub their legs together? They sit on the edge, fly around and make lots of noise.” Talking about cicadas.
• He participated in the Church nativity play as a mouse. But he refused to put on any face paint and not long after scuttling and squeeking up to the front of the church he took off the costume and played!

I am sure there is more to say but it is hard to remember after so long!

Steve

• Business trips away
• Many nights and weekends of hockey, both school and rep teams.
• Dressing up as Ozzie Osbourne, Dolly Parton and Superman for work functions.
• A few days away with his boys in Taupo.
• Many goes at securing the lamb in the paddock, including weight training lifting Sherlock back over the fence when he had escaped.

Yvette

• Not much scrapbooking!
• Stampin up monthly clubs going well… a nice bit of pocket money earnt.
• Training as a Zumba instructor. My friend Rowena and I trained and are now official instructors in this fantastic form of exercise. A latin music inspired fitness class…a party at every class!!!
• And generally caring for the family.

As for all of us there is way more than that short thing. Now that I plan to blog better I won’t get so far behind again. Lastly a few photos to keep you up to date.

T’s vege creation for pet and craft day. It is meant to be the London Eye. Unfortunately the wheel part fell of before it was judged and so he came 2nd.

I love this photo and might see about getting it on a canvas.

My gorgeous boys.

Crazy Man?

Wot's that?

Keeping Track.

Do you like what I got you Tobyn?

I loved Aunty Clares chocolate mousse!

A boy with a beautiful soul, loves his cousins so much!!!

The crazy people ready to go for a swim in the lake, brr!

Thats all for now folks, I really want to get the family stories down better in 2010.

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Check this out

Check this out there is a sneak peak of the kits Tanya is doing.

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You could win something!!!

Now I know how much everyone likes to be in with a chance to win something!!! Go here and see about some exciting news. All you have to do is link to that post and you could win something…go on I know you want to!

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