Another month gone....

Bet you were wondering what we've been up to? I realise the last big update was a month ago - we've been pretty busy, so I'll just note the major things we've done:

Marc's football team had a pre-season game on Sunday 25 March which they won, and Marc's legs seem to be OK (he was out for most of last season with Achilles problems). He's played again a couple of times since then, and all's going well.

I did a turn at parent help at Max's kindy before end of term. It was nice to see what Max gets up to there and how much he's changed since he first started going. The younger kids now follow him around including three or four girls who always want to play with him. He's off to morning kindy at the beginning of next term (five mornings a week) so he'll be the youngest for a little while. It will be interesting to see which of the big kids he follows around!

We've also spent a lot of time with Ian and Ngahuia - who live down the road (both colleagues of Marc when he worked at Dell - and he now works with Ngahuia at NetApp). Ian's daughter Megan has been in New Zealand (visiting from the UK) so we took Ian and Megan along with us to playgroup, music, swimming, Junglerama, and the local park. Max and Megan are a couple of weeks apart in age and got on really well....

We also spent a lovely relaxing weekend with them at their holiday home over the hill in the Wairarapa. The weather was great and the kids (and I&N's dogs) spent most of the weekend running outside.

The following week was end of term for playgroup, music and kindy - with Max having a party at kindy on the last day - not because he is moving up to morning kindy - but because Linda (his favourite teacher) was leaving to move to another kindergarten. She has been fantastic with him and he (and the other children too) will really miss her.

My mum also had her birthday during that week, so the boys and I had lunch with her, and that night Marc and I, my sister Ali and her partner Clay took mum out for dinner to a fantastic Cambodian restaurant in town where we had a lovely meal - we'll be going back again I'm sure.

Easter was nice but busy. I attempted to make Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday. I used the recipe in my breadmaker book and they turned out to be absolutely revolting - next year I'll do it the real way and knead everything by hand. Saturday the boys had a birthday party to go to for Max's friend James who was turning 4. His party was great and the kids enjoyed a treasure hunt, pass the parcel and playing musical statues (which was entertaining as it's pretty hard for 4 year olds to stand still!) After the party we went to Ian and Ngahuia's for a BBQ - the weather was pretty mild so we sat outside to eat dinner (possibly the last time for a little while though). Sunday the boys were excited to find the Easter bunny had left them an Easter egg each, and they also enjoyed running around outside finding the ones hidden there.

They were also given Easter treats by Ali and Clay, Nana Jan, Grannie Annie, Clay's little niece Emma (she's not even one yet!) and some money from Grandad Len and Ngaire - thank you to all of you. The rest of the weekend is a blur as it went past so quickly, but I know we enjoyed a really nice BBQ dinner at Grannie Annie's, we collected and put together bunk beds for Max, moved the boys bedrooms around, farwelled Megan, Marc played football, and I managed to do a little bit of gardening too!

We then had two weeks of school holidays to fill - so have had lunch on various days with Marc, Grannie and Nana, morning tea with Auntie Ali, various playdates with Max's kindy friends, a visit to the library, a birthday party for my friend Nickie's son Ryan who turned 2, and Max and I did lots of weeding and hacking of bushes on fine afternoons while Elliot slept. Marc is currently away (for the second week of the holidays) on a training course in Sydney so it's been pretty hard going entertaining both of them all day, everyday! Thankfully he gets back tonight.

I'm also busy setting up a little business so that should kick off in the next couple of weeks - I'll tell you more about that soon.

Not making any promises but I am going to try to update more often (more than once a month anyway) in the future!