They set off at 5.30pm for a 90 minute tour of the sanctuary, with the aid of special red-light torches; so as not to offend the native species lurking in the bush. They walked up to the old gold mine, where they saw weta and lots of glow worms, which Charlotte said, ‘Were shining with light and when I shone the torch light on them I saw their fishing line tentacle things, which they used to catch food.’ As they sat and enjoyed some really sweet, hot chocolate they heard a rustling sound and saw a glimpse of a Kiwi!

They didn’t take any photographs, but the memories live on and they had a fabulous, special time.

Take a virtual tour of Wellington’s world-first wildlife safe haven, ZEALANDIA (www.visitzealandia.com), with this short promotional video. ZEALANDIA is open to the public 364 days a year and is one of the best places to see New Zealand’s native animals and plants in the wild.

Sit back, press play and enjoy this short virtual tour of ZEALANDIA.

Dear Weather Gods, THANK YOU for listening and blessing the second week of the school holidays with such AMAZING weather!

It has been so easy to enjoy this week with such fine weather days. I have been ridiculously sleep deprived, but the Vitamin D dose has kept me going. Thursday was heaven sent and after a coffee with Daddy we parked up at Oriental Parade.

Charlotte and Sophie raced up and down on their bikes, with me racing them on foot and Alice chuckling gleefully from the buggy.

They played on the awesome climbing frame with friends and went looking for star-fish…

We marvelled at the yachts, barely moving on the calm, mirrored harbour…

And the girls sang to the sky…

After our two hour’s free parking we zipped round to Lyall Bay to continue our beach loving, until the intoxicating effect of sunshine and fresh air made us feel giddy.

Charlotte headed off to her dance workshop, whilst Sophie, Alice and I chilled out and baked choc-chip cookies.

This has been a top week (despite Alice only sleeping when in my arms and propped up for three night’s in a row – snuffles and sniffles to blame; but thankfully there’s been no tears – she’s such a happy bubba x).

We’ve loved beating out our own rhythm and getting into the groove of hanging out together again (for more on that theme check out the guest post I wrote over at Juggling Motherhood).

It’s a shame that school and kindi start back on Monday, as we could really do with another week of togetherness.

Seeing my girls come alive in the fresh air and baby Alice take a nap for the first time in the buggy (what a light relief for Mummy! She’s getting a tad heavy in the front pack these days!).

A Sunday afternoon at the theatre watching Swan Lake on Ice. It was BRILLIANT! Alice was quiet as a mouse and even had a nap in my arms, but then had to make an exit with Daddy toward the end of the second half; when she found her voice and started squawking like a parrot. The usher let them step back in for the finale (which was the best bit) when all the lady skaters got tossed high in the air and the men did lots of leaps and spins.

Sunshine Monday and we went to the Zoo, Zoo, Zoo and the sun came too, too, too Highlight was the ‘Amazing Animals’ show and seeing the chimpanzees being fed. And we saw a little blue penguin getting a new bandage on his foot (bless) and stroked a rat (lovely!). Charlotte & Sophie also took lots of random photographs of a character book mark from Charlotte’s school. The idea is to take a photo back to school with the bookmark in it and then all the photographs will be displayed around the school library.

By Charlotte & Sophie…. ‘Bookmark at the Zoo’:

Sunshine Tuesday (YES there’s been lots of sunshine over the past few days!).

With cycling on the waterfront (after a warm up hot chocolate with Daddy)…

Alice happily watched from the snuggly comfort of her buggy, whilst I jogged along. It felt AMAZING to be jogging along. I think I actually got an Oxygen HIGH! My body hasn’t ran since early pregnancy and combined with lots of lovely rays from the sun it was a fabulous feeling I am LOVING that Alice is liking her buggy and long may this last so I can do more running.

We had a play at Frank Kitts playground…

And visited Wellington’s Museum of City and Sea…

There was a lovely exhibition on called ‘The Making of the Word Witch‘ and also ‘Farmer Fred’s Cow’. The girls looked at original illustrations and learned about what’s involved in making a children’s picture book. They then drew their own pictures and entered them into a postcard competition.

Fabulous!

Love, Love, Loving the Sunshine (can’t you tell!).

Half way through the second week of the school holidays and it looks like we have more sunshine forecast to keep us on a high a little longer. After last week’s dismal weather I stocked up on some craft supplies on Saturday morning and am well prepared for the tail end of this week when the rain is forecast again

Monday was a shock to the system, with dismal weather forecast for the week, one ill baby and two children thrown out of kilter with all their routines dashed. Normally I would have got the school holidays off on a positive front with a trip out somewhere exciting; but I’d had two night’s of dismal sleep and could barely fold the laundry, let alone brave a trip out.

I’d pre-booked Charlotte on a holiday swim course, so I knew we’d all be out the door in the afternoon – with the help of Frances (who comes for a few hours each avo/early evening to keep me sane!). I only had the morning to get through – but no one was feeling very upbeat and I didn’t have the energy to steer everyone in the right direction. It always takes the girls a day or two of adjustment after a term of kindi and school. After a couple of days they rediscover themselves and start using their time creatively – both together and individually – but we always have a few ‘teething’ issues to start with. With my sleep deprived lack of tolerance and minimal patience I wasn’t best equipped to manage the bumpy start to the week; but thankfully that is now all behind us

Still, I did manage to bake scones, with a little help…

And see some smiles devour them with lashings of jam…

The indoor play of sliding down the stairs and jumping from seven steps down, using a spare mattress…

was a little much for my delicate nerves after a while and the girls took the hint and escaped outdoors… to give Mummy a breather!

Tuesday morning we visited a friend, which was great but poor Alice was uncharacteristically grumpy. We retreated home at midday so I could calm her with a bath, which thankfully worked a treat. And she looked a lot happier after a bath, feed and nap…

By Wednesday morning, I felt brave enough to venture out to one of my usual wet weather holiday haunts – Te Papa. I knew it would be mobbed, but arriving early and leaving around midday worked out okay. We had a good couple of hours doing the ‘Paperskin Tapa Trail‘ and seeing some amazing tapa cloth art in ‘Paperskin: the art of tapa cloth‘. We played around on a couple of ukeleles in PlaNet Pasifika (discovered a neat book on simple ukelele tunes for children and we tried our hand at strumming a few songs using C and G7 chords). The girls enjoyed ‘Golden Days‘ (again!) and we had a good feed at the cafe. We escaped before 1pm, when the crowds really were getting ridiculous, and headed off to the swimming pool for the afternoon. I really gave myself (and the girls) a pat on the back for a good morning out with no hiccups.

Today has been a great day also, despite the atrocious holiday weather (typical – but then it is mid-winter!).

We had probably the best two hours of the holiday so far with a bit of retail therapy (shocking I know!) at the airport retail park in Lyall Bay. We had an early lunch at Mint Cafe (Sophie has been asking to go there all week – on account of the gelato ice-cream – no matter that it’s mid-winter – she’s a ‘forever’ summer, will have ice-cream in all weathers kind of a girl!). Then we milled around The Warehouse, with Alice taking a nap in the trolley, getting a few essentials and browsing the books and toys. The girls were awesome again for me. Charlotte spent up the rest of her Birthday money on some hamster toys that are all the rage at present (Zhu Zhu Pets), whilst Sophie was thrilled to bits with a couple of Toy Story activity books (there was some heavy duty merchandise of all kinds Toy Story 3 – Scrabble, Lego, Memory… almost every traditional game you can think of was available ‘rebranded’ with a Toy Story 3 theme).

This afternoon was spent again at the swimming pool. It’s been fabulous having Frances help out – as juggling three children would have been a little difficult – especially since Alice is still not old enough to go in the water – certainly not the big pool – and I don’t feel comfortable with Sophie being in the pool without an adult. Sophie spent this afternoon out of the water and in the library near by with Frances.

Kilbirnie is great for facilities all within reach of each other – the recreation centre (check out the link of holiday timetable), library (also great holiday activities), a play-ground, sports pitch, swimming pool (with great school holiday activities), cafes and shops (including the wonderful ‘Children’s Bookshop‘ with story time for pre-schoolers on Friday mornings). And with no parking costs it’s all the better!

We got home close to five and I spent half an hour making ‘Woody’ out of little cardboard pieces, whilst breastfeeding Alice (I had failed to notice that one of the Toy Story 3 activity books, I’d bought Sophie earlier, needed full on adult assistance – erm yes, parents LOVE those !! I’m just glad I’d swung past ‘Subway’ on the way home from our afternoon of swimming and didn’t need to cook dinner too!

Well, it’s time for some shut eye to improve my chances of a positive day tomorrow and I’m really hoping the positive end to this week continues forth into the second week of the school holidays (with a little more sunshine too – that would be really, really swell… ‘Weather Gods DO YOU HEAR ME?!) x

Links for other Wellington based school holiday events…
For some FREE school holiday events visit Juggling Motherhood – she’s put together a fabulous table of events.

… berry smoothies and a ride on the camel at Maranui in Lyall Bay…

The car was loaded up with scooter, bike and roller blades and a ‘Violent Volcano‘ (see video at end of post! Thanks Chicken Grandma & Grandad – the volcano rocks!).

Looking forward to a fortnight’s rest from having to be out the door at a set time in the morning and getting creative with my girls.

Now for that video…

We’ve not had to run for the school bell and pack little boxed lunches of cold food, but have got out the door early because we wanted to and have eaten cooked lunches with hearty appetites.

Charlotte has been endlessly creating, reading, writing and taking over my laptop to write blog posts!

Sophie has been non-stop talking, laughing, climbing, playing ‘Doodle Jump‘ on the iPhone (she’s seriously addicted – with a high score of over 25,000) and asking me to teach her piano (and actually listening and really learning too).

We’ve been to the museum (Te Papa) and made volcanoes, the art gallery (New Dowse) and decorated plant pots and checked out the new visitor centre at ‘Zealandia‘ (LOVE it!) – read a great review at Dawes Family in New Zealand. We’ve been swimming, had hair-cuts and gone shoe shopping. We’ve played at the beach and ran on the grass. We’ve baked chocolate brownies and tucked into home-made pizzas.

Alice has been cooing, smiling and becoming more wakeful during the day. She’s growing out of ‘the newborn’ and into the cute, young baby stage of charming everyone with her twinkling smile. She’s settling to sleep early in the evening and sleeping for a solid chunk of four or five hour’s (and most night’s I’m going to sleep then too – apart from Friday, which is movie night with hubbie). After that she wakes every couple of hours, but I’m well enough rested by then to cope and thanks to my wonderful hubbie surprising me with an iPhone for Christmas I am never bored. I’m getting quite addicted to middle of the night blog surfing!

A week for keeps that’s for sure.

We had a very fun morning of inspiration and comedy. Here’s the girls creating their masks. Capital E set up a room with ultra-violet light for children to see the wonder of the florescent masks they’d made. Very cool! Charlotte (I keep forgetting she has decided she’d like to be called Charlotte, not Charli, these days), said she’d love a few of those lights in her bedroom!

A few photos…

After the golf we returned home for afternoon tea at a friend’s house, where the girls enjoyed a lovely play and came home with these gorgeous chicks they’d made:

Everyone else in the family has managed to escape a drenching. Charlotte thinks this is all very hilarious and very befitting of the Andy Griffiths books she is currently addicted to (with titles such as ‘Just Disgusting’, ‘Just Stupid’ and ‘Just Ridiculous’).

Alice is not giving Mummy a whole lot of sleep between feeds, but Mummy’s going to bed early and with her trusty iPhone by the bed she can at least catch up on the news and blogs in the depths of the night. Such wizardry certainly makes for a much more entertaining night.

Alice is sharing Mummy’s bed at the moment as it’s just too tiring for Mummy to get up and down to put her in the cot – plus she’s such a guzzler that as soon as she’s laid flat she icks it back up or is uncomfortable with wind As a consequence she spends much of the night propped up on Mummy’s chest. Alice is developing incredibly strong neck muscles with all the tummy time she’s getting on Mummy!

Taken on Mummy’s iPhone in the midst of the night:

Daddy is sleeping in the spare bed (as he gets no sleep or room in bed with Mummy and Alice – though he slips in for a cuddle for a few hours some nights). Charlotte has taken to sharing with Daddy (Mummy jokingly says, ‘Excuse me, you’re sleeping with my husband!’). Sophie is wanting lots of extra love too and Mummy or Daddy lie with her most nights as she drifts off to sleep. So the love is being shared all around.

Tonight, Charli and Sophie tried to sleep together, but after half an hour or so of giggles and laughter (which was so beautiful to listen in on) Charli decided she wasn’t going to be able to sleep with Sophie’s singing of lullabies (she doesn’t stop talking all day and the only way she can get to sleep is to sing herself off). Goodness knows how we’d get on trying to sleep together in a tent for the night!

This week and next Alice is blessed with the non-stop company of her big sisters as they are off school and kindi for two week’s. Hugs, coos, lots of love and sharing of the milk spews!

Tuesday morning coffee with Daddy before he starts work (Alice had just rewarded Mummy with the third badge of the day):

On the way we pulled in just past Ohiro Bay to sit on the beach in awe at the fog dancing around the hills. There was a fantastic photograph in The Dominion Post on Wednesday. The Wellington coastline is always so dramatic and it’s really breathtaking to be able to watch the weather change.

Thankfully the fog didn’t change the temperature and back at home it was a hot afternoon, just perfect for playing in the garden. After a little rest Sophie’s fingers seemed to be improving, so much so that she managed to carry buckets of warm water from the sink to the little paddling pool to make an outdoor bath with her big sister! The girls have had such a blast together this summer hols. It’s hard to believe they’ll be going their separate ways to school and kindi next week.