An Early Christmas Present

This week marks the week our washing machine died.....a long slow and painful death. Painful for me more than it I think. It had had trouble spinning out for the last few months and would beep every 5 mins. This didn't usually bother me so much and soon became part of my daily routine of visiting the laundry every 10mins or so, but this week it got all a bit too much. So early Tuesday morning I went online and bought my Christmas present a BRAND SPANKING NEW WASHING MACHINE! and boy do I love it. After Aarahi and Auron this washing machine which I've named Edward (we name all our appliances) is pretty much top of my list and love of my life this week. A load of wash now only takes an hour instead of 5! Our old washer has done us well and was bought for us last year by the Kirifi family when we had nothing, and I will be forever grateful to them for not having to be 5 months pregnant and having to hand wash our clothes. They are an awesome family. I had a slight tear in my eye as I watched the man wheel away the old washer, not so much for the washing machine (I hated that thing ) but for what it represented, the love of another family for us in a time of need.

In other far less exciting news...well nothing really. I thought I lost my passport this week and spent a good few hours destoying our house looking for it. I found it in the washing basket which I had emptied twice and hadn't found it. I've been trying to convince Aarahi to let me put up the christmas tree up but with no such luck. I think he may cave if I call it a family home evening activity. We bought some nice decorations for it from Kmart yesterday. Shucks they have good deals. $10 for 70 decorations AWESOME.

Oh just to report back on our exercise efforts...I would say above average. We exercised all but one day but we never made it to a run or jog, mainly because I realised I dont actually own any sports shoes or clothes.

I hope all the Palmy kids enjoyed their primary presentation, let us know how you went.

We have some new missionaries in our newly formed ward, both of which are from NZ and one is a McPhee that used to be in Otumoetai ward a few years ago. It's a small world after all.

 Cuddles with Daddy after mowing the lawns

 Admiring Edward the washing machine. He stood here for a good 30mins just watching the clothes go round and round

Soooo CUTE. This is his new stretch n grow thing. He usually doesn't wear them because his legs are too long to fit them but this one has no feet and is a size one so fits perfect!

A bit of this and a bit of that

A report for this week....very uneventful. Auron is sick with a snotty nose and a little cough. He's a good sick baby though not too fussy.
We have been busily planning our America trip for next year. Lucky Auron will get to go to Disneyland for his birthday, not that he will remember but I have no doubt he will rub it in his siblings faces....haha at least that's what I would have done.
Over the past month Aarahi and I have been trying to better our attempts at personal scripture study. We implemented "Alphabet Scriptures". On Mondays at Family Home Evening we pick a topic for the week starting with the letter of the alphabet that we are up to. For example so far we have done
A: Abrahamic Covenant
B: the Beatitudes
C: celestial.
The following monday we follow up on how well we did and what we learnt. So far....we've been pretty average.

We have also decided that we are too fat and need to exercise more. So each day we are going to go jogging...hopefully we can stick to it. I will report back next week, we start tomorrow.

Auron's been doing good, started doing some standing by himself. Just a few seconds usually when he's playing with his toys standing up next to the couch, he lets go of the couch for a few moments and stands alone.

We went out to dinner and desert on Saturday. To a burger place like burger fuel. the burgers aren't as good but the chips are amazing. Then some spanish doughnuts for desert which we ate in the car on the way home.

Here's the photos for the week.

I can't believe it's almost the end of the year!

Is is just me or has this year just disappeared? seems like just yesterday we were getting ready for last Chirstmas and now its almost time to get out the Christmas tree again. I'm so glad I did most of our Christmas shopping throughout the year we got good deals and arn't burdened with having to face the made Christmas rush or impromtu overpriced gifts. We decided that this year we would buy for all the kids back home seeing as we havent been there for the past 18months or so to give them the usual treats that Aunties and Uncles give their nieces and nephews. The girls have been easy to buy for and my cousin Tiarne is coming over this week to help me finish off the last little goodies for the girls. The boys on the other hand are hard to buy for, I left that job to Aarahi who quite often wants to keep the gifts for himself. Auron wont be getting too much. One big present and new clothes and a few new toys. He's not going to care he will just want the wrapping paper.

This week Auron has been enjoying being able to sit up at the table with us to eat. He has a new highchair thing that you just attach to a normal chair. He loves it thankfully, already associating it with food. This kid is a garbage guts, he eats anything and everything (except broccoli). He often finds food laying around that he's previously dropped and puts it back in his mouth. He ate some play dough the other day, must've thought it tasted ok.

Last week our ward was split in two, we're in the new ward. We were hoping to find out who our bishop was today but no such luck hopefully next week or something. It's a bit of a strange feeling being in a new ward. Most of the ward is from our old ward but they also pulled a few families from another stake. Feel more sorry for them I think. At the moment we have morning church which is nice but no doubt we will be going back to afternoon church next year. I HATE afternoon church. 3 years of afternoon church is going to kill me. UGHHHHH never mind.

Melbourne Cup and Family day

This week Melbourne Cup and racing fever hit Melbourne on Tuesday, and yey for everyone it was a public holiday. Aarahi still worked a half day though. Our ward was having an activity at the park, a Trunk or Treat followed by sports and a massive BBQ. Some of the kids dressed up and the young women and their leaders made an awesome effort to decorate their boots in true Halloween style. There were SO MANY lollies and other sweet treats that every other kid at the park that day went home with a huge bag of goodies.
After the ward activity we went over to my Aunty and Uncles house for another BBQ and to watch the big race. The horses we picked to win didn't, my reasoning for choosing specific horses was solely based on how pretty they looked.
Aarahi also took a full day off work this week to spend at home with us. We started the morning with bacon and eggs for breakfast, and then I got on with the chores for the day. We played a few games of Magic cards then headed out to Bunnings in search of a lawn mower and Whipper Snipper. Lawn mower purchased! Then headed over to Harvey Norman after seeing they were having a big sale. Spent a LONG time tossing up what we should buy and ended up settling for a new dining room table and chairs seeing as I broke ours awhile ago. We got a really good deal which is always nice. After we went to KFC for lunch, not my favourite but I was SERIOUSLY impressed by the  burger I got, it may become my new cheeseburger. Anyway we did some more shopping but no more purchases then home for dinner. I made this amazing curry, amazing in a way that it tasted good, was healthier than normal, was cheap to make and easy! Heres the link to the recipe if you want to try it. http://channelnine.ninemsn.com.au/blog.aspx?blogentryid=690617&showcomments=true

In Auron's news, he has FINALLY started to crawl properly instead of just going backwards. He seems quite proud of himself and is enjoying his independence. His climbing ability is also improving, last night he managed to climb on top of a box in order to climb onto the couch to get his toys. He already has a few injuires from his adventures and im sure there are many more to come.

On another note good luck to Szharei, Mosiah, Teina and Anna who are going to Kapa Haka Nationals in Whangarei on Sunday. Hope you guys have and AWESOME time. Aroha and Zirsha take lots of photos and send us some!

Oh and exciting news my brother Elder Whaanga is coming home from his mission 2 weeks earlier than we expected so we will be at home for his home coming. YEY! Hopefully Elder Matthews homecoming is timely aswell!

 I eat healthy ALL week then I go to church and the young women and kids feed me lollies and naughty drink!

 This is where my boys are right now.

New table, it is a 6 seater but has an extension built in underneath to make it an 8seater.

New Carpet

This week we got NEW CARPET!!!!!!!!!! our old stuff was this hidious shaggy stuff ew gross. It was so hard to keep clean the vacuum cleaner just couldn't get all the dust and stuff out. This new stuff however shows up every little bit of dust and dirt but its so nice a fresh.
In order to get this new carpet we had to move all our furniture into the dining room and kitchen the night before and rip out all the old carpet. There was too much dust in the bedrooms so we slept on the sofa bed in amongst a sea of furniture, needless to say it was a looooooooooong night.

Oh yes my new money saving tip, well it works for us at least. Buying your groceries online. Over the last 2 weeks that I've done this I estimate we have saved at least $200. Firstly because we don't walk around the supermarket and pick up things we don't need (Aarahi doesn't get to see the lollie and chocolate isle). Secondly our supermarket is located in a big shopping centre, shopping usually makes us hungry so more often than not we end up buying dinner and a treat before heading home, and thirdly we arn't tempted to go into all those other stores to buy stuff that we don't actually need. The delivery cost was $9 and the guy came in and unpacked everything onto the bench for me which was nice too.

I made these cupcakes last night. They're peanut butter cupcakes, I'm not the biggest fan of peanut butter but Aarahi said they were good 

This is a trick I have been working on this past fortnight. I love to stand up all the time and now I can get from sitting to standing without help 

 A video of the laughing baby. He was going nuts before we got the camera out.

Primary Presentation

Today was the annual Primary Presentation at church. This is where the kids run the main part of the Sunday services. They were sooooo  cute and did really well. Afterwards we had food and drinks and hung out outside, it was another BEAUTIFUL DAY!

Got my All blacks Gear on ready for the game tonight!

My three Girls

I turn my back for one minute and Auron is missing, I found the boys hiding around by the trees with him

Snapped, Aunty Lucy feeding me cupcakes, soon followed by a raspberry iceblock 

Armageddon and other stuff

This weekend we went to Armageddon, its a sci-fi comic book kind of expo. I really wanted to go, even more so than Aarahi which was surprising because I'm nowhere near as geeky as him. Lots of people dressed up, we had planned to but ran out of time to organise ourselves, plus it happened to be pouring with rain.

We went with my friend Kim and her partner Chris. The boys waited while we went to buy tickets, the line was HUGE. like probably atleast 400m. There was a Baby expo on in the same building and the line for that was non-exisitant, should've gone to that one, people were coming out of that one with HEAPS of food.  Anyway we finally got our tickets and goodie bag (total let down) and browsed around for awhile. We had lunch at food court next to the Crowne Casino, pretty flash for a food court, the prices also reflected its flashness. Must be where all the rich business people buy lunch haha a tiny bottle of coke was $4 Aarahi and I shared a meal as we weren't too hungry but even that was $20 rip off much. I mean we're not stingy but I know when I'm getting ripped off!

We split up from Chris and Kim for an hour or so and did our own thing. We played a card game called Magic. Aarahi had tried to teach me not long after we got married. At that point in time I had no interest in it what so ever and thought i was just being a good wife by playing along but really I was thinking "Oh my gosh how long does this game last" This time I decided to actually attempt to learn and enjoy it...and I did surprise surprise. We even bought a deck and some other stuff to play it, seeing as Aarahis cards are buried deep within mums garage.

The boys (Aarahi and Chris) were excited to watch the Kamehameha competition. They said we would love it..eeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrr WRONG it was so lame. It was just random people doing some random move  off Dragon Ball Z.

Then we went home.

Fresh homemade pasta and pasta sauce

Yummy fresh bread

Tomatoes were only $1 kg so made some pasta sauces

It was quite hot this week,  so I put a few inches of water in the laundry basket and he played while i cooked and cleaned