Danielle's Birthday || Ice Skating

Danielle organised to go ice skating with some of her friends and our family for her birthday this year. In fact, she sent the invitations before we knew what exactly she was planning!

: :Rachel | Happy skater : :

: : Monique : :
Do you like her dress?

: : Friends : :
Left to right: Monique, Danielle, Esther, Diana, Rachel, Lucy, and Abby 

: : And another group photo :) : :

: : Yes, I was there too : :
Why won't photos of me skating turn out well though?!

: : Rachel & Danielle : :

: : Gifts : :

: : Cake : :

Mum's Birthday | | Stampin' Up! Party

Usually we have a family dinner with presents for Mum's birthday, but this year she thought it would be nice to spend some time with her friends and make some cards together (one of her hobbies, when she finds time {smile}). So last Friday night she had a Stampin' Up! party. We had a fairly small group but that worked out well, with more space around the table and everyone being able to talk.

Why do I always try new recipes when we have visitors coming?!
I had never made eclairs before, but I was flicking through my recipe book looking for inspiration and this recipe looked easy so hey . . . my first ever attempt at making eclairs from scratch succeeded! 

Eclairs, custard squares, vanilla cupcakes (If you use your imagination, the icing looks like beautiful dark red roses [Mum's fav] haha), and choc cake. All but the cake were new recipes :P

It was a late night, but we all enjoyed it. (Yep, I love experimenting in the kitchen! ;)) So, happy birthday Mum, and thanks to everyone who came :))

17!

For my birthday this year I decided to have a Stampin' Up! party with some of my friends and their mums. I had hoped to have it soon after my birthday, but with busy schedules September 2nd (two months late lol) ended up being the date. I realised on Saturday night that I hadn't done any planning (the 2nd was a Monday) . . . oops! So Monday saw me hurriedly writing lists and then {seemingly} visiting every shop in Manukau. I discovered balloons, tablecloths, and ribbon is hard to find in specific colours :/ I ended up missing the ribbon but I got the rest of the food et cetera that I wanted (phew!).                    

       

Meanwhile, the others were baking (usually I try to do that a day ahead, but being a Monday night that couldn't exactly happen this time!) and cleaning/tidying the house. When I got home I passed the balloons out to be blown up, and made several more desserts. Somehow the afternoon flew by, as the clock seemed to speed up!

Finally, we {mostly} completed our last-minute preparations, and guests began arriving.

Somehow, we squeezed all fourteen of us around our dining table; the next two or so hours quickly passed as we made our cards.

: : Making cards : :

: : Fun times : :

After we finished our cards, we made for the dessert table. (I'm sure it was feeling lonely having been on it's own all evening ;))

Dad must have had something funny to say lol

: : Yup, the food : :

And thus concluded the celebrations for my seventeenth. Thanks everyone who helped/attended etc. ;)

It's Been a While...

Sorry, readers. :(
Here's a bit of a review of what I've been doing during my absence.

Bushwalk in Hunua with the homeschooled teens
Back row: Suz, Ruth, Marieke, Toby, Andrew
Front row: Bee, Essie, Becks, Ben, Dad, Jarrod

Bee, Ruth, Es

Our Bible Study celebrated its third birthday this year. The six of us went with two of our mums to Mission Bay for lunch, then to Kiwi-Yo and Savemart Onehunga. It turned out to be one of our not-so-photographic days, so I only have a few photos like the one above.

: : Celebrated Essie's 16th : :

: : Dad turned 50 : :

: : Celebrated Danielle's 10th birthday : :

: : Tried some cake design : :
This is a Mocha Layer Cake

: : Trip to the Martha Mine in Waihi : :
Tyres in top left photo are worth $20,000 each!!
Bottom right photo: I found a helmet tree!!! :P :P

Dad, Mum, and Laura went to Wellington for a couple of days
 so my dad's family could celebrate his birthday with him

: : Played with Monique's donut maker : :

How cute is this? Maria's three by the way. . .

: : My bro turned 14 :O :O  : :

: : Made this scarf for a charity : :           

: : Stayed with my cousins in Stratford when Dad and I went down for his cousin's funeral : :

: : Maria had Laura on her lap, but she'd slipped off by the time I got the camera : :

Yesterday

To the Americans on here...
Happy thanksgiving for yesterday!

Some things I am thankful for:

• blog readers ;)
• family
• friends (love you :))
• computers/internet
• pets
• music

Visit to Lyndal's

Diana and Lyndal brush Marmalade

 My mum and Lyndal met at school when they were 8- or 9-years-old, and they've been friends since. Lyndal used to live about 20 minutes away from us, and we spent a lot of time with her. Now she lives near Albany (must have been about four or five years now I think!), close to an hour's drive away, and we see her significantly less often.

Mum organised for us to go up and visit her on Monday, April 30th.

I took a couple of my textbooks, fully intending to get some school work during the drive, but I'm not sure that I even got through two pages!


The view

 I did take a few photos out the windows, but none of them were particularly great (rainy weather, etc.).

Finally we arrived. It was rather windy and I began to wish I'd brought a warmer sweater! We weren't sure what the weather might do, so we decided to ride first while it was dry, then have lunch.

Currently Lyndal just has one small pony (Marmalade), so only Danielle down got to ride; I became photographer, while Mum and Jarrod looked after Maria and Laura, and Mickey (the dog).

Bryce

In stark contrast to us older ones when we were her age, Maria was very apprehensive to get on Marmalade. What I mean is, when I was about two I think, I preferred to ride the thoroughbred ex-race horse over the 14hh ponies, and as a baby, Monique would crawl around the paddock after the ponies! (And yeah, she would be kinda dirty afterwards...). Maria, however, would cry when you tried to put her on Marmalade! Although, we did eventually manage to get her to stay on long enough for a photo (see image below).

The rest of my siblings were more enthusiastic! Danielle got to ride on her own - an unexpected lesson!


Diana's turn





After everybody had had a turn, Marmalade was returned to her paddock, and we went back inside (out of the wind!!!) for lunch.



They're kinda small, but I love the fern backdrop!



Danielle



The not-so-excited Maria



After lunch, Lyndal taught us to play a new game - No Thanks! You have a deck of cards numbered from 1 up to I'm not sure what (sorry), and a pile of counters. One card gets put face-up on the table, with the rest in a stack upside down next to it. The counters get distributed among the players. Going around in a circle, each player gets to choose between picking up the card, or putting down a counter. Now the point of the game is to have the lowest number of points, however, you can't play if you run out of counters! So eventually you must pick up the card, which also means you get all the counters that have been put on top of it. Then you need a number sequence (eg. 1,2,3,4; 15,16,17), which is to help lower your number of points (eg. if you get 17, then you get 16, 15, and so on). but there is only one of each number, and all players have a chance to pick up each card. So you have to pick the timing - get a fairly low card (or one that fits in with your sequence), when there are as many counters as possible on top of it, but before anybody else picks it up! Well hopefully that gives you the idea... ;)

I will quickly not that some of my siblings spent more time digging into the large bowl of popcorn rather than playing!! (okay, well I suppose you can't blame Maria...:P)



Marmalade





Finally, Mum announced it was time to leave. We said goodbye, gathered our stuff (which can be quite an undertaking with young children who drop things everywhere!!!)

When we got home, I found myself rather tired, not so helpful when I've got heaps of school work waiting to be done (yeah, despite driving for quite a while, I actually didn't accomplish much work!

 



 

Group Photo

The Smiths Come for a Visit



Mrs. Smith plays the piano for us

 One day during the holidays (sorry I don't recall which one exactly! lol), the Smiths (our pastor's family) came over for afternoon tea.

I must say the double choc chip muffins were, as usual, a hit! Sorry, no pics, but in fact I'm probably doing you a favour - if you saw a pic of these mouth-watering, choc-filled muffins, you might salivate so heavily your keyboard would be kinda gross...:P

But anyway, to get back to what I was writing about...



I'm not sure the ukelele is supposed to be on the tramp...!

 Nobody in our family can really play piano (Danielle was taking lessons last term, but no-one is learning right now), and Mrs. Smith is Grade 9 (!), so it was really nice to hear the piano played that well, despite the fact that she played from memory because we don't have any books her level!

Monique enjoyed Keith (4 months) and the other little ones (she loves young children).

Amelia enjoys our trampoline

Diana and Amelia LOVED playing with each other. I think Amelia has probably only met people within our church so far, and it is relatively small, so I think there is like one other girl her age (who is our cousin!). Also, my siblings were talking for AGES before the Smiths even came to NZ about being friends, going to their place to play and whatever!

Despite the fact that I was sewing, I still managed to read to Aaron (4yrs). He just loves Thomas the Tank Engine, so I got to read parts of a few books to him (haha little ones aren't patient enough to listen to a whole story!), and name the characters on the covers of the books shown on the back covers; thankfully their names were written down, or I would have been stuck!!! lol



Amelia and Diana pose...



 I think Mum enjoyed sharing some of her accumulated homeschool knowledge; it's nearly 11 years since she began homeschooling me!

And mainly, everyone enjoyed socialising for a few hours!

~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, um, I hadn't planned to write much...consider yourself lucky!!! haha

Bee

Danielle's Birthday Party

I organised a birthday party for Danielle this year, which we held on February 23rd.



Food



Pass the Parcel - I did it a bit different this year; as can be seen,
everyone stood in a line and passed it under and over, under and over, etc.



ok this is more of a line..
I actually let them start with one parcel, then after a little
while gave them the second one. hehe before I wrapped the
parcels up  I was worried I didn't have enough 'fillers'!!!




Pressent table, er, desk




Writing a story for the story competiton.
I split everyone into two teams and got them to write
a story about Danielle. They had a 10-minute time limit.
Afterwards they had to read it aloud and Danielle judged them.




Judging the stories




Yeah, we played Twister




In each of these bowls, there is a lolly under the flour.
They each had to get it with only their mouths.
Lol a couple were blowing the flour off before picking the lolly up in their teath!



Flour everywhere...



The Chocolate game!!




One of her pressents




Friends and pressents




Cutting the cake