Things I’m Loving

It’s been a full house this week, with Charlotte off school for ‘Founders Weekend’ on Monday and Tuesday – and then home the rest of the week on doctor’s orders, with a terrible cough. She’s been very tired with the cough and suffered from a few nose bleeds too, but despite all this, she’s been in pretty good spirits (apart from getting her first sand fly attack of the season on Monday at a park – they really do think she’s tasty).

We’ve been fairly house bound, but managed a few little outings to the local garden centre, the playground and the library. I don’t like having to drive far (always feel environmentally guilty) when there’s plenty to do on our doorstep. The furthest we went this week was Junglerama in Lower Hutt (Charlotte’s first time at the new indoor play park). We had a fun afternoon there (apart from Sophie getting pinched by a scary three year old). A friend of Charlotte’s from school happened to be there too, which was a bonus surprise for them both.

At home in our garden we’re loving the slightly warmer temperatures and signs of spring. There’s been a lot more outdoor play (evident by the bowls of various ‘magic potions’ scattered around the garden – and the problem I have in finding a wooden spoon for cooking!). The silver birch is showing its first bright green leaves of spring. I have such a love affair with this tree and will be pained to leave it next year, when we have to move to San Francisco for hubbie’s job – but at least we’ll be leaving in winter (definitely easier to leave anywhere in winter, when making a move from one hemisphere to the other).

Talking of hubbie, he’s away for eight night’s on Sunday 🙁 and it looks like Alice is coming down with something, as she’s been out of sorts all day complaining of a sore mouth and now a sore tummy… I’m just hoping I can stay well (they were all ill with some awful bug last time he was away!). I’m sure we’ll be fine, there’s always something to brighten our days – like this stunning double rainbow we saw earlier in the week (more pics and a rainbow inspired poem here!).

Rainbow of spring over Wellington harbour entrance

And finding the little things to love in each week is what this Friday linky is all about. Little things, like rediscovering the living room floor and table surfaces after a toy picking up mission (along with food scraps, tissues, pens without lids, scribbled notes etc!), make a difference. We also made home-made bubble mixture (that worked!) with a little washing liquid, water and sugar! The children were very impressed and, as I always say, one is NEVER too old for bubbles (just wish I’d had some of the liquid, drinkable kind too!).

I’ve also spent this week reviewing how my natural learner daughter is going. The more I look back on what she’s achieved in the past eight months, the more at ease I feel. I found some little worksheets she’d done over the Olympics and a letter she’s just written to a friend. She’s making good progress in writing – her least favourite area. Thankfully, her maths and reading is still going strong too. She loves science too – it’s just a little hard for me to juggle her experiments with a two year old close at hand! Having Charlotte home this week has been good – they’ve had a couple of potion making sessions, resulting in smelly stickers, invisible writing ink, lip balm and a body rub!

Young Alice is a busy little mathematician too – counting everything she sees – even moss circles her sisters decided to dig out of the rubber gaps at the local playground (strange the things that keep my children amused!).

Digging moss circles from the playground!

There seems to be a bit of a moss fascination going on with Sophie – as I even snapped a photo of her, through the kitchen window, voluntarily helping out our gardener to rake up all the moss from the lawn this week! There’s so much moss due to the mild winter we’ve had.