Remember the days of tying your shoe laces for the first time…

Do you remember those simple days? Tying your shoe laces for the first time felt like such a huge accomplishment. Charli brought home her first ever ‘homework’ book last week. She had a week to complete various tasks and one of them was to learn and practice tying shoe laces! Beautiful!

She’s been quite good at knots for a few year’s now – spending hours tying up barriers round the house with Dan’s ties, or riding round the house on her bike, trailing kite wire. She nearly tripped up the AA man who came to fix our old car late one night with her ‘earthquake’ proof protective wiring! More recently, she’s taken delight in practical jokes and sneaking under the table to tie Dan’s shoe-laces in knots.

Well, she quickly mastered tying her shoe laces with a bit of practice on my shoes first, then on a piece of card with a couple of holes punched in it, before finally mastering her own running shoes (which she’s wearing daily at the moment as her whole school is out on the field doing cross-country running every day – fabulous!).

She was so proud of herself and trotted off to school the next day to show her friends!

Sophie is dangerously proud of herself too (but in a way that would make ‘Chicken’ Grandma reach for a gin!). As a baby she was like a Joey (check out this cute old photo!), being carried around in her snug sling for the first six month’s of her life. Well, her legs have long since uncurled and she now bounds around like a full grown Kangaroo with springs! She’s always looking for a high platform to jump off. If she’s not jumping then she’s swinging like a monkey from the trapeze bars in our garden or at a local playground.

Both the girls have their hobbies and are flourishing at the moment. Charli is still made keen into Star Wars; but also loves ballet, jazz and (dare I say it!) cheer leading (which is a free class since she’s doing both ballet and jazz – yah!).

Here she is displaying a unique pom-pom carrying method (simply put – stick them down your pants!), erm…

Sophie is still mad-keen on horses and we try to take her once a fortnight. We went last weekend and it was, as always, a beautifully, relaxed affair.

It’s beautiful to see them living in the moment and so proud of their accomplishments. We’re settling back into term time really well and it’s been all smiles this past week.

The weather’s been up and down, but that hasn’t stopped us – Sophie and I even played host to one of Chicken Grandma’s old colleagues (they had taught at the same school for 16 plus year’s!). We took her for a huge walk through the Botanical Gardens, riding on the cable car and walking back up the hill past ‘The Beehive‘ (the Executive Wing of New Zealand’s Parliament Buildings). Thankfully, the sun came out the following day so she could enjoy Karori Wildlife Sanctuary (now called ‘Zealandia’!).

And when we’ve not been running from one activity to the next we’ve been either chilling out at the beach, painting or reading. I’m so relieved the girls love books so much, as I’ve been feeling super tired the past week or so (no, not pregnant!) due to some viral thing the doc reckons (blur!) but had to have some tests run on my high iron levels (thankfully not too high) etc. Anyway, we’ve read so many books together. Charli now reads lots to us and even Sophie is beginning to read some words and recognizes most of her letters. I’ve been carrying a bag of books with me to various doctor and dentist appointments this week and they’ve gone down a treat!

Another big, proud moment for the girls was their trip to the dentist and a big thumb’s up! Yah! All clear! They were super good and loved riding up and down on the magic chair, watching the TV screen on the ceiling loaded with a stunning photographic slide-show (none of that in my day…!). Charli even has a hint of a wobbly tooth (ooooooo, now that’s VERY exciting!).