NZ

So Dru and I have been saving for a while now and finally came up with enough savings to be able to go home to NZ with all the kids for a month.
Masaru is taking a month away from school.
People in general, seem to be pretty stressed out about this when I tell them, but that's alright.
One week is spring break so he's only missing 3 weeks of school, he'll be just fine.  His teacher is giving him work and I'm going to put him in Mum's school back home for a while and see if he likes it as well as Yuki.
Why March?  Why not December when he's got a couple of weeks off already?
Because that's the MOST expensive time to go to NZ.
Why not wait until his summer when he's got time away?
Because that's NZ winter people, talk about lame.
So March it is, over spring break.
Enough said.
We have a mate staying in our house, so to all those potential robbers out there, move it along mate, he doesn't have a job so he'll be basically there all day and night for the two weeks that Dru's gone to NZ.
Dru gets back after his 2 weeks and will be the lone solider in Boise for a couple of weeks.
So if you wanna call, text, bring him dinner, and see if he's ok..................that'd be great.
We'll miss each other, but I think I've got the better end of the deal with my two weeks away from him with the kids and in NZ.  Sorry babe, but someone's gotta fund the trip right? ;)
Masaru will be baptized over there, so that's great for him and for us.  He's really excited about it.
My brother is getting married while we're in NZ, so that's going to be exciting as well.
We're going to try and get some hiking in and short trips.  I think we're slightly limited with our children being with us but we'll manage to figure out some things.
I know Dru wants to make the best of it while he's there.
Maybe we'll go caving, swimming at the lake and beach, hiking in the forrestlands, fishing, kiwi hunting.
It should be a fun time.
So, as always, I promised my diminishing readers that whenever I go to NZ I would give them an opportunity for me to bring them something back.
So here's your chance.
You can enter twice if you feel so inclined because I have two questions for you to answer to enter.
#1 If you were given tickets to NZ what's one thing you would do?
#2 Which 1 year old shot of Emiko was your favourite?
Good luck.  I'll choose the winner when I'm situated in NZ in a couple of days and get one of the kids to pick a name out of a hat.
Wish us luck on that flight people.....................could be 12 hours of sleeping kids or 12 hours of hell.  I'll let you know how it pans out.
I'm not looking forward to the flight back as it'll be me and 4 kids on my own.  Crazy right?  The things I do for family....................................

Emiko is ONE!!!

 So this little sweet girl is one today.
CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?
I can't and I was a part of 99% of it (that week in NZ counts as the 1%)
My mate Rachelle suggested that I take some photo's of her and volunteered to help me.
I'm not having a party for her, or making her a cake.................well I MAY make her a cake, but no party and I MAY get her something so as you can see she's really getting the shaft when it comes to being treated special.
But the reality is she doesn't care either way and with me leaving on Friday for a month I have to be realistic in my goals and remain as stress free as possible.

 So I did something I've never done before..........................this {above}
We set the stage for some cute pictures of her one year old photo's.
If it wasn't for Rachelle I would've never of done this {was that sentence right?}so to Rachelle I'm very grateful {love you}
It's pretty simple, but for me it was enough.

 Come on........................is she cute or what?
You all wanna squeeze and kiss her right now and say 'awwwwwwwwwwwww' AM I RIGHT PEOPLE?

 So here's her little cake care of Albertsons.
I couldn't be bothered.
Rachelle was like 'Do you want me to take a picture of the cake?' to which I replied 'Please don't, I'm embarrassed of it.'
So she did anyway.........lol

All she would do to start off with is touch it with one finger.
It was pretty cute man.

 I guess she was feeling out the situation.

 This is the first time I've put her in a headband.

 I'm not sure if she liked her fingers being dirty.

 See her vampire teeth?
LOL so cute.

 This picture {below} is one of my favourites.

Eventually I had to feed her some cake to get her interested as she just started crawling away.

Now we're cooking with gas.
She loved it. She was even trying to eat the candle at one stage.

 She was pretty proud of herself so started clapping.

 I mean how cute is that?  Sweet girl.

 

 Some more clapping.

Then some more palm to the face eating.

 Trying to escape.

 This {above} is another of my favourite shots as well.

 I love her face in this one.

 She was pretty done after these shots.

 She was looking at me trying to figure things out.

 LOL
She was coughing in this one but it looks like it should have some kind've caption about the cake being disgusting right?

 Cute little face.

 Palm to the face eating action.

 'Do I have a little something on my chin?'

 Itchy nose.

 Love this shot as well.

 She looks good with cake on her face right?

 Love her.

Here we are hanging out after the chaos.
I'm glad I did this and I'm grateful to Rachelle.

I love Emiko and I'm glad she's a part of our family.  She's a good little vampire and just likes to be around us.
I'm pretty sure she likes Dru and I equally but if she was to tip to one side it MAY be to my side.  So I'll hold onto that for as long as possible until she has a chance to figure out that Dad's the softie and Mum's the enforcer.
She's a GREAT sleeper and was my best.  Fastest sleeping through the night and most consistent at staying asleep.  Honestly she never wakes up.  She's a 12 hour a night girl and has been since 2 months old.  Must be lots of growing to do right?
She LOVES, her siblings for the most part but sometimes let's them know they need to get outt've her face.
She's a quick learn and I need to do better at teaching her.
She can point to her eyes and says 'uh oh' and mimics a couple of other words.
If there's a comb she'll pretend to brush her hair and if there's a phone she'll pretend to be talking to someone.
She's always busy.  She wants up then down, then up then down.  It's tough at church.  But whatever.
I was looking at these pictures yesterday and for the VERY FIRST TIME had feelings of sadness that she's growing up.
It was brief though......................I still don't want any more kids..................lol
I'm glad her hair is growing out as it's starting to get cute and a little fuller.  I think that makes all the difference.
No new teeth on the horizon, so it looks as if I'll have my little vampire for a little while longer.
Love you bub........forever.
Mum xox

Takeshi

 You could never convince me that this boy isn't simply stunning.
Look at those eyes?
See all the green popping through?  They're still mostly brown though.
My mate Rachelle took these pic's of Takeshi and Emiko today.

 He's such a great kid man and keeps me great company when the two older kids are off to pre-school and school.

 He's started lying though, like full on.serious face. lying.
I'm not too sure what to do about it except keep questioning him and catch him out in his lie then talk about it with him.

 LOL  This face makes me laugh.
He's such a character that's for sure.

 He's a great brother who gets along with everyone well.
He's my only screamer and he loves to sing.

 He has a bad temper (join the club) but gets over things easy (me too)

 Cute boy.

 We thought we'd try and get some brother sister shots.
But Emiko wasn't having it.

 Oh well, at least Takesh is into it.

Love you bub.
Thanks for being my son.  I'm glad you're with us.
Mum xox

Presidents weekend away

So we went away to a family friends ranch house for the weekend.
We met most of Dru's family there in Wyoming.
They arrived a long time before us.
We didn't get there until around 11pm.
I wasn't feeling the best and thought about not going, but Dru talked me into it and I'm glad he did.

The kids had SO MUCH FUN with their cuzzies in the snow.
Here's Masaru with his cuzzies.

Lots of sledding.

Lots of rides for the littles.

Snow angels.

Little bit of lounging around and watching.

Here's Yuki sledding.

Here's the cuzzies sledding together.

Here's my nephew snowboarding, sort of.

Here's Masaru driving his cuzzie around on the sled.

 We also sat around and played some games and hung out.

 Some of us had the chance to nap.
Some longer than others.

 Here's proof that I actually went out once.
I'm not a huge fan of being cold and when you're on the snowmobile if ANY part of your skin is exposed it basically freezes.
It's fun though and it was nice to get out as a family.
Emiko was napping.
Dru and I took one child each and Masaru took care of business himself.
Who needs a ride when you can drive a snowmobile yourself.

 See ya sucka's.............
It was just beautiful.

 Then we decided to celebrate a few birthday's since we were all together.
First off we have sweet Emiko.

 Dru was feeding her her cupcake (A type anyone?)
So I just gave her the cupcake and let her go for it.
Dru told me I had to clean up the mess if I was going to let her do that, to which I replied 'Sure thing control freak'

 Yummy cupcake.

So sweet.

She got this sweet scoot and zoom from her Auntie.  She loves it and can be found either being pushed around the house by one of her siblings or walking around the house herself with it.
We love it.

 She got these cute things from her Auntie.

Cold hard cash and a doll from Grandma, the perfect gift.

And some sweet shoes and socks from her other Auntie.

I didn't plan on getting her anything..........................................but now I feel bad so might have to think of something after the stellar performance by Dru's family.

 Here's Dad 'helping' Emiko out with her cupcake...........thanks Dad ;)

Here we have Masaru getting started on his cupcake.

 Opening up the prezzies from us and family.
Since he shares his birthday with Dr. Suess, Dru and I have decided to get him Dr. Suess books for his birthday.  Our goal is by his 18th birthday (or so) he'll have the whole collection of Dr Suess books. We got him four this birthday.

 This is what he told us he wanted.  This HUGE mining truck made out of legos.
It was made the minute we got home.

 More legos from Auntie.

 His very own scriptures since he'll be getting baptized soon.
We had to put his name on them since it was free.  He thought that was pretty awesome.

 Crossbow from his other Auntie.  Such a great toy. They all love it so much.
Yuki's already shot Emiko in the face with it.

Snowball maker/gun from his other Auntie.
He also received a Wii game from Grandma which he's been checking out this week once he's finished all his chores.  It's been a great motivator.

He also got this sweet swing ride from his other Auntie as well.  He's making it as I type.

We also got him this pillowcase and decided to help him colour it in and give him little messages from us. 
He loves it.

 It was also our nephews birthday as well.  So we also celebrated that.
He got a ton of cash and a few funny cards.
I think Takeshi looks like he could be his brother.
What do you think?

All in all it was a fun weekend spent with each other.
I had a great time but my children just had the BEST time.
It makes me happy that they love their cuzzies so much.  It makes my life easy when we go down and hang out you know.
It's a LONG trip there and so it makes that trip worth it to us and to the kids.
I love Dru's family and it was the best way to spend the weekend.