A Grand Adventure

Big Brother had one more birthday present to come... the Grand Adventure!  

Bright and early on Wednesday morning we jumped in the car and headed to the airport, and hopped on a plane to Auckland

 
The wonderful Jetstar crew let him have a look around the cockpit, and even pretend to fly the plane, then we headed off on the next leg of our adventure.

First stop: Butterfly Creek

Butterflies

Crocodiles

Spiders

Feeding a Lamb

Then off again, on the main part of the adventure!

We walked along Queen Street, and just happened to come to a theatre...

This is the moment when we asked him if he'd like to go and see the show

And so we settled in to watch Mary Poppins

To round off the day we headed up the Sky Tower 

Then it was on the plane and home to bed! 

A Grand Adventure was had by all... and it was nice to spend time with Big Brother, and get to see how much he has grown up lately... he's quite good company nowadays

Wordless Wednesday: Big Brother's Birthday Faces

Turning Six

Big Brother is six!  Today he had a chess party...

 

Preparations the night before.. yay Dad, a giant wall chess board!

Presents waiting for morning

Big Brother was allowed to wake us at 6:30 as it was his birthday.  He arrived in our bed promptly at 6:30... he tells me he checked the first time at 5:17 (yawn)

A big smile for the first present

Smallest next... jellybeans!  (Gone by 730am)

This might not have looked very exciting today, but I think he'll be very happy on Wednesday

The big exciting present today... 

And this is what he did for the rest of the morning:

This afternoon he had a wonderful time playing with friends and eating lots of sugar... 

tonight he tried to stay up long enough for fireworks, but he crashed and burned before it got dark... so did Little Sister

He had a great day... and now he's six!

Story Time with Little Sister

Little Sister has discovered the joy of getting mummy to record her endless stories.  I have become a scribe.  In the interested of my mental health I have limited the dictations to two stories per session.

Here are the two she did today:

"Aurora touched the spinning wheel and then the three good fairies put her to sleep.  When Prince Philip kissed her she blinked and woke up.  Then the three good fairies were happy.  Prince Philip brought Aurora down the stairs and the three good fairies saw her blue dress.  The red one turned it into a pink dress.  Aurora cuddled the king or the queen and Prince Philip married Aurora.  The dress went pink, blue, pink, blue."

(Illustration to follow when the camera has recharged)

"The ponies were staying at the pony house with flowers growing and they went to meet Cadence and Celestia.  They had a holiday with Cadence and Celestia and they had fish and chips and sausages and hot dogs for dinner.  Cadence and Celestia put some sauce beside the fish and chips and sausages.  Then they watched mum's favourite movie.  There was a princess in the movie singing songs and some girls and boys singing with her.  The princess was called Aurora."

She has had me write the title of the next story in preparation for her telling it when I want to write again.  The title is, "Swinging Hotdog Chairs".  The mind boggles.

Mr Simile and Miss Metaphor... and morning kindy

With the more pleasant temperatures Big Brother and Little Sister have been enjoying playing outside a lot more.  Lots of bike riding, playing in the play house (van) and lots and lots of pretending.  It's this last part that I've been watching with interest.  BB has never been much of a pretender, and he has, it's safe to say, about as much imagination as a bottle of lemonade.  The sugarfree kind.  Flat.  LS, on the other hand, "marches to the beat of a different drum".  She has her own little world going on in there... and she's dragging her brother along with her.  He doesn't do it "properly" though, and they frequently don't see eye to eye when playing "The Dog and Puppy Game", "The Secret Passage Game" or the "Getting Petrol and Going Shopping Game"... or any of the others with equally self evident names.  So I've been watching, and listening, and I think I've figured out what he's doing wrong.

Big Brother pretends in simile.  He often says things like;
- let's pretend to go to the supermarket.
- we're pretending to be at the supermarket now.
- I'm pretending to buy the tomatoes (vague hand gesture) here's my pretend money

It's "like" he's doing X, but he knows he's pretending.

Little Sister on the other hand, is in a metaphor... she's still very well aware that it's just 'tend, but in the moment... she just IS.

She is Celestia
She is the baby
She is the dog
She is Aurora

If she's a pony, eating grass in the secret passage, she's down on all fours, mouth millimetres from the grass, biting and chewing.  BB says, "NOM" and is done.

So there you go, there's my insight for the day... BB is Mr Simile and LS is Miss Metaphor... I doubt they'll ever meet on this one, but it's nice to see him trying.

In other news, LS has become a morning kindy girl.  We're giving it a go for this term, with the possibility of moving on if it doesn't work out, as I am NOT a fan of all day kindy.  Here she is on her first day...

It's that time of year again... time to pack up boxes to be sent off for Operation Christmas Child.  Even though we're not religious, I like supporting this... because everyone deserves a treat at Christmas time!

Normally I'd like to do one each to match Big Brother and Little Sister's ages, and one each for an older boy and girl, but last year's never got sent due to living in quakeville so we had two sets ready for 2-4 year olds.

Here's what they look like all packed up

One is in a different box because we only managed to get three "official" boxes so added one of our own.

Here's an idea of what can go inside: 

The guidelines are:
Something to love
Something for school
Something to wear
Something to play with
Something for personal hygiene
Something special

There are also some things that aren't allowed:
Nothing that can leak or melt
No food
Nothing used / second hand
Nothing Breakable
Nothing Gambling related (including cards and dice)
Nothing "scary" or harmful (no toy guns, etc)
Nothing religious, political or racial





Some of the things in our boxes are: bouncy balls, crayons / coloured pencils, dolls and cuddly toys, slinkys, lead pencils and rubbers, colouring books, friendship bracelets, skipping ropes, pencil cases, combs, face flannels, and some other things I can't remember!  I really hope some little boys and girls like their gifts, and get lots of joy when they open them.
I think packing for an older kid could be much more challenging... I'll keep an eye out for things that might be good through the year.

In other news, a friend needed dinner delivered so I got to use my segmented trays (woohoo!) AND.... bliss, press and stick too!  (Yes, I know I'm a geek, but it's the little things that keep me happy).