Brief update

Well, no baby to declare to the world yet but in the meantime...

There has been some renovations going on and there have been some lovely peaceful times with each child engaging in their own interests too.

Here Timo is making his rat catching business signs, Lennox draws on paper on the floor and Caoimhe down the back is making clothes for her felt characters on the felt board. There are the vertical posts for the start of the new dividing wall.

The next day the wall went up, lots of stuff came out, and books which occupied the entire big bookcase were sorted. And we now essentially have our own apartment within the big house. There is a door to it which is open and you can see into the hallway. We have downsized to 2 bedrooms, more renovations to come for this, and we now have our own new living room in the front of the house behind the wall. It looks like we have moved out and we have in a way. We still have one room to vacate which will happen soon, and this room will become a spare room for guests, wwoofers etc.

So walls have been removed which used to separate the kitchen from the sitting room, there is now a nice flow and Audrey and Daniel will head off to Wellington to dismantle and pick up the pyro classic fire from friends of theirs who no longer need it and are giving it to us, to install in this part of the house. Toasty for winter :). This was a great stroke of luck because Jeremy had researched the best fire to install and were prepared to buy one and nearly did off TradeMe and their friends just happened to be giving theirs away!

This was how it was before the walls came out:

This is the lovely new living room which is considerably smaller and we love it! I wasn't sure how it would go with contracting into a smaller space and growing noisy children etc, but the changes and space has encouraged new parenting skills and a whole new lot of desirable behaviours and cohesion including Timo and Caoimhe reading to us before bed, their idea :).

Caoimhe is going through a phase of progressing in leaps and bounds with her reading abilities and ability in general to use her initiative to find out things for herself. I'm quite astonished actually. She has also started Math U See and is flying through that, will be passing Timo in no time if she keeps it up! Timo is developing in different ways and taking on responsibilities, his talent is acquiring knowledge from people, especially strangers through his 'gift of the gab'. We are working our way through Holling C Holling books and are currently reading Minn of the Mississippi and enjoying it (thanks to Jules and Fishpond vouchers).

Right, on with the work. There is plenty of it!

Quote of the day

"You're skinnier than me with a baby inside you, it's ridiculous..." - Jeremy to Ruth.

pics from the past while

We have some quite major renovations going on inside, all to be revealed when it's done! It's very exciting, we are essentially creating our own apartment within this big house and establishing a great new heating system just in time for winter.

I have been focusing on practical home education with the children whereby they are all becoming very helpful little troops as part of our functioning organisation as a whanau. Timo is taking on new responsibilities as is Caoimhe, and Lennox naturally does this anyway. An example of this is that I can sit on the couch and not have to move myself at all to fold and put away a big pile of washing, the kids are able to do it all (although there's room for improvement in the actual putting away of clothes in the right spots!).

Anyway, for now:

One of the larger pumpkins grown this year (Masquee de Provence). It is pretty ginormous actually, and verrrry heavy, there's no way Lennox could even lift it off the ground and he's a pretty strong wee chap. It's about the equivalent of five pumpkins in one! Measures about 44cm in diameter and 22 cm high.

Two of the twenty sunflowers we grew that actually survived, growing strong and tall.

Strawberries and other things still thriving in the garden, we each had a delicious strawberry just today :).

Summer garden coming to an end, getting tired now, ready to rest and slowly nurture winter greens.

Part of Timo and Caoimhe's creative game called 'Adventures of Beaky'. Lots going on here. This day they played at this solidly for 8.5 hours, it's true. In their own created world. Lennox was involved from time to time but he mostly did stuff with me.

Ready to hatch! 9 months prego.

The Queen and Snow White:

Timo with a cheesey face and very proud of his first meal entirely made by himself apart from correct seasoning of salt and pepper at the end (carrot soup) it really was delicious!

Chicken dome with rest of garden. We have a permanent gardener now who works in the garden each day, makes a biig difference, all set for lots of food to eat throughout winter - thank you Audrey!!

Some of the babies we currently have:

Self-dressed with a teeny little baby woolly top on head!

Reading together:

Enjoying self-created resource I call 'silly stories' where they get to create their own silly story and each card has a different noun, adjective, verb, pronoun etc,etc on the back so they can turn each card over and discover another silly story that still makes sense. Lots of fun!

Boys will be Boys...

Tuesday Morning

After the Snow White production we saw today (NZ Playhouse) at South School, Caoimhe came home and constructed some of the characters to send to the actors. Originally the letter was going to be a rather emotionally charged one with Caoimhe's dismay at Snow White not looking like she should and she was going to draw SW to show them what she should actually look like, (am working on precluding the precocity! hence a nice letter instead).
From L to R - Dopey, Magic Mirror, The Queen, Snow White, Grumpy.
And a photo taken on our way out to the show:

Sunday

Today Timo and Jeremy are preparing oak logs to be impregnated with shiitake spores. yum, yum and yum. can't wait, (it's going to take some time before we are harvesting shiitake though, maybe next autumn 2013 or did they say this autumn?).

Today is also the first day of the Kiwi Conservation Club Kereru Count. We have already spotted 2 and flagged it on the map.

Lennox and Caoimhe eating tortilla around the fire.

Reading with Rui. Helping Rui with with her English and reading too :).

Lennox helping make sourdough.

Timo fresh back from a kayak with Fleur and Valentin.

Tortillas cooked on the hotplate bbq outside. Sometimes it's as if it cannot get any better than this!

Timo cooking his.

Catch up

It has been a very busy and full time lately but all truly great and progressive nonetheless. We have had many different visitors coming and going, lots of activity going on outside where the property has been expanded in surprising ways and many new things have been created, it really does feel so much bigger than under an acre. We have been eating like kings including enjoying eating produce from the garden every day and trying out new cooking methods, ie, a delicious manuka smoked tarakihi yesterday all done in a pan over the gas hob. I have been quite busy including growing this baby who is due to arrive into our world in just over a month! And I have been organising a National SPACE training weekend to be held in Westport over a weekend in May (can see why event management is a career) and applying for funding for that which seems like we will get. Have also arranged for Sarah the Scientist to come to our house for a day in May and this will involve other local home educated people. Lennox has been an absolute delight and is growing and learning in new ways, Timo is entering a new phase of responsibility and Caoimhe read her first book out loud today by herself (nb, she has taught herself to read as Timo is also doing). It was a basic version of Snow White. Apart from Timo (the boy who has never washed his hair :) we have also all had nits!! On top of it now, but what a trial combing every morning and night (am not using pesticide on our hair). No idea how we got them in the first place... we don't go to school!

Caoimhe helping Tim the Grassman sweep off his truck after delivering a great load of fresh sweet-smelling grass. Tim comes most days with a load and the gardens have been transformed! I will have to document it soon.


Jeremy tries out a 4hp outboard motor on the boat and it worked pretty well, it may be the one we buy. Big, huge, massive thank you to Prue for sponsoring the purchase of an outboard motor, it is the greatest thing and will be of so much beneficial use especially for fishing and potentially new mode of transport to work :) etc,etc. Thank you so much! Will have to get some better pictures of it also, or the next one we try and stick with.

sewing clothes for their teddies.

Feasting including produce from the garden. Yum.

Jeremy's birthday pizza.

Jeremy cooking birthday pizza.

Playing volleyball.

Caoimhe and her friend Toroa looking on Timo's birthday cake (lemon cheesecake with fresh berries and cherry glaze).

More delicious pizza from the pizza oven. Lenny eating his own, he stayed until the very end, meanwhile the other kids were running around etc.


Making their own pizzas for Timo's birthday.



All set to go swimming (self dressed) but it was raining.

Delicious lunch.

A feast for 10.

Beautiful mussels.

Beautiful potatoes.

Pizza Oven No. 2

Superior to the first fantastic start of a pizza oven. This one cooked about 9 pizzas in the space of about 30 mins. Worked so well. Best pizza ever.

They made their own pizzas apart from Lennox who is still a bit little for that so T and C shared a piece. They ate the whole lot.