NZ Trip - The First Half

So our holiday has been and gone. It was amazing, but now we are exhausted tired and sick. Poor Auron was beyond happy to get back home. I know he found it harder this time around, so many new faces and places and no time alone with Mummy and Daddy and his routine thrown into chaos. Our next trip to NZ is planned for next January when my friend Ashleigh gets married. Lili coped pretty well she has never had a routine so never had to adjust really.

Right now onto the trip. We flew out on Tuesday the 5th March. Auron got sick with a tummy bug at the airport so we ran out of nappies before we even got on the plane, ended up having to squeeze him into one of Liliana's. Upgraded a few hours before we left as it was pretty cost efficient since we had so much excess luggage we would have had to pay for anyway. What was nice about upgrading was that we didn't have to wait in any lines, got a whole row of seats to ourselves so plenty of room to spread out, our bags came out first and we got to use the Air NZ lounge facilities. The lounge was a huge blessing for us as the one in Melbourne had a good kids area and plenty of food and drinks. It was really really really nice not to have to chase Auron around the airport making sure he wasn't getting into mischief.
We arrived at midnight and collected our rental car and headed to Shane and Teri's. We chatted for awhile then we went to sleep around 2am. SO TIRED. The next morning we were off to Tauranga as soon as the kids and Teri were off to school and work.
Teh day we arrived in Tauranga was Aarahi's Dad's birthday so we celebrated with a yummy roast pork and steamed pudding. Dad managed to dig around in the freezer to find Aarahi some feijoas which he guarded with his life the rest of our trip. There was no way anyone was going to be allowed to share those with him.
We went to swim with the dophins while we were there. The first trip was a disaster with the weather turning pretty tragic it was so unbelievably rough. We went back a second time and found a huge group of around 150! unfortunatly we couldnt get right in to the water as there were lots of little babies. But you could sit onthe edge of the boat, hang your legs over and the dolphins would jump up and hit your feet, pretty amazing.
We had left Lili and Auron with Aunty Kristen the first day, Lili refused to take a bottle despite me spending a whole month getting her used to it but when it came to the day she didn't come through. I guess it just shows that neither of us are ready to be apart just yet. I didn't cope that well either. So the next day she came out on the boat too.
On Thursday we went and had dinner and a swim down at the beach. Auron freaked out about the sand on his feet and the water chasing him, he ended up loving it though. Auron also really enjoyed his cousins especially Lia. He learnt 3 peoples names while we were away, Lia, Teina and Khyber. I guess they were his favourites haha. He still wont say mum so I obviously don't compare to them!

Photos...in whatever way Blogger chooses to put them!

Ready yo leave to find the dolphins...our unsuccessful trip

A HUGE selection of icecream flavours at the supermarket. Australia has the most pathetic selection of icecream

Walking through Duty Free, every kept stopping to tell him he looked so cute

Hanging out with Uncle Khyber watching Sesame Street on our first morning

Lia was such an awesome cousin, Auron loved her

Auron had fun with his cousin Koney

So happy to be going home to meet everyone

DOLPHINS!

Auron had a huge melt down about touching the sand, but he got used to it and loved it in the end

Dinner at the Mount

Best Fish and Chips in NZ at the fish market on the wharf

It's about time he became useful

This week Auron has become very proficient at doing the dishes. For this whole week the only thing I have washed is the big pots and the sharp knives. Aarahi's response was "about time he became useful" haha considering the about of mess he manages to make every day this is a nice treat for me. I feel like all I do is clean all day everyday. But back to Aurons dishes, I stack them up nicely for him and he spends maybe an hour washing them and then stacking them up nicely on the other side ready for me to dry them but he doesn't like me to dry them until he has finished.
Auron is also very good at making his own breakfast in the morning once I get his bowl and cup down for him. He can put cereal and milk in his bowl with out spilling it everywhere and then pour him self a cup of milk and carry it over to the table.
We are planning to homeschool our children. It is something I have felt strongly about even before I actually had kids. The last couple of weeks I have been preparing stuff to start a preschool program for Auron once we get home from holiday. It will only be 3 days a week and largely play based. It's more to to get us into the routine and to take advantage of these early years when he is just like a sponge. We are also working hard on Auron's talking at the moment. He doesn't have many words that he uses although we have noticed in the last 2 weeks that he's added to his list. His receptive language is great but his verbal language is a bit lacking. He just seems to like to talk in his "own:" language. Like he will carry on a conversation with you but I have no idea what he's saying!
Lili is doing good, being as cute as ever, I wish she would sleep longer at night between waking but I can't have it all. She hardly ever cries, unless she rolls on to her tummy and cant get back over. The ladies at play group think she is the best baby because I can just lay her on the mat on her blanket and she just falls asleep even with all the other kids poking her and running around making crazy amounts of noise. I must admit she is really easy to put to sleep. She loves Auron especially when he is in the mood to play with her!

Well Auron has finished the dishes and gotten himself some peaches for morning tea so I guess thats my cue to go dry and put the dishes away.

A new found interest in toys.

Lili doing her acrobatics...I should really strap her in. I think this was the stage  we stopped using the bouncy for Auron

Finally some relief!

It has been a long, hot summer. This past week or so has been horrible, mid to high 30s everyday! Its been impossible to sleep. Most of the week Auron and Lili have been waking up because of the heat and not able to go back to sleep so we have pretty much been staying awake til 5am or so then all going back to bed once it's cooled down and sleeping until 10am. Today however it's a chilly 26 degrees! Which is kind of perfect timing as Auron's new winter clothes I ordered arrived on the doorstep this morning. He looks so cute in his new clothes.
Only 2 weeks to go until we fly out. We are flying with Air New Zealand and they have this new thing out where you can make an offer of how much you are willing to pay to be upgraded. We put an offer in but I doubt we will get it, would be nice though.
Auron has really enjoyed the little matchbox cars they have at nursery and play group. Yesterday Aarahi took him to pick out a few to buy. One of the ones they pick was apparently just like one Aarahi had when he was little. Cars are definitely a boy thing, I can remember Te Arai being in love with cars when he was little, it was like to the point of obsession. He would "drive" his cars up and down his imaginary roads on the carpet patterns "beep beeping" you if God forbid you step on his road!
Valentines day was a low key affair this year, Aarahi bought me a bunch of my favourite flowers and we had strawberry milk and chocolate fondue and fruit for dessert.

Play Group

At the start of this year I made 2 goals for this year. The first was to get over my completely irrational fears about driving and be able to drive confidently by the end of the year. So far that one is going slowly but surely.
The second goal was to get out of the house more, make some friends and get Auron to spend time around other kids. Last week I emailed a lady about joining a play group and then went. Ok I get that probably sounds easy to many of you but seriously its taken about 6 months for me to be able to work myself up to it. We have been to two sessions so far and have really enjoyed it. Auron was a little scared and apprehensive at first but today he realised where we were and was so excited to go inside. He loved the little kitchen set they had. We are thinking about buying one for his birthday. The timing works out well that Aarahi picks us up on his way home from work and we go to Mc Donalds for a frozen coke.
When we come home in a few weeks Aarahi and I are planning on going swimming with the dolphins! But for this to actually happen we need Liliana to take a bottle. I have tried for a couple of weeks and no such luck. She thinks formula is gross and refuses to drink it, BUT she will take expressed milk from a bottle. I think I have pumped enough to last her while we are away. I probably have too much but honestly I don't know how much she drinks. The nurse asked me how many ounces I think shes drinking each time she feeds. How on earth are you supposed to measure that? she drinks 10mins worth? Auron also likes to use the breast pump it's pretty funny. My nephew Ensign also has the same habit. Eleanor said she had to put the pump away from him. I'm interested to see what kind of mischief those two get up to when we visit.
Auron's been a crappy sleeper the last 2 weeks and when I say crappy I mean CRAPPY. He wakes up at 1am each night. He wants to get up and play. He is stubborn, and usually it takes 2 hours to get him back to sleep, but we have also had nights where he didnt go back to sleep til 6am. (then up for the day at 7am.) And he's not even tired the next day! I've tried cutting out his afternoon nap, tried shortening it, tried having it at a different time but it makes not difference. One night I was so tried, so sick of arguing with a 2 year old which eveyone knows is pointless I just gave him my ipad to watch Sesame Street. He was asleep in 2 mins. I know its useless parenting but in the middle of the night you really don't care. Screaming tantrum and exhausted grumpy parents VS 5mins of Sesame Street in the middle of the night?

Liliana is just a little angel I dunno how many times a night she wakes up. 3? probably more like 4.

This was on a day we tried to cut out his afternoon nap. I could hear him  laughing away jumping on the bed then all of the sudden, silence! He pretty much just wears a nappy and shoes every day, the fact that he is wearing a teeshirt is a small miracle 

Pumping his milk

Mr Independent

A couple of weeks ago we bought Auron a step stool so he can help do the cooking in the kitchen. He loves to be in the kitchen, and is often quite helpful. He LOVES his stool, he drags it around everywhere getting into plenty of mischief. He has also become quite independent with this stool. The other day while I was feeding Lili he went to the pantry got out the bread and peanut butter and made himself a sandwich then poured himself a cup of milk took it over to the table and sat down to his lunch. I was impressed, now he quite often goes and get his own food when he's hungry. I don't know if that makes me lazy or what but I'm not complaining.
Isn't it funny how smells can take you back to memories and specific feelings and times in your life? Well last week Aarahi bought some dishwashing liquid. Pamolive to be specific. Later that night when I went to do the dishes the smell sent me rushing back to when I lived in Auckland, it smelt like Teri. I'm not sure how she would feel about me saying that she smelt like dishwashing liquid though...But now doing the dishes has become somewhat of an emotional experience making me miss Teri and the rest of my family. Thank goodness we are going home soon. I don't think we will ever buy pamolive dishwashing liquid again.

Cute or what?!

Auron and his new step stool

Wearing daddys teeshirt

Daddy was look after me...

Cuddles!

The week that was

I am so glad this week is over, it was long and tiring! On Wednesday I had a little bit more energy seeing as Lili slept really well, on a side note whoever came up with the say "slept like a baby" obviously never had a baby. Annnnyway, I decided to head into the city to go to a fabric store to get some stuff to make something for our new nephew who is due in May, and to go organise our membership at Costco. So walked to the train station, 20min walk, make it to city after 30min train ride, go to the fabric store, it was waaaaay too expensive like $50 a metre, decide to head over to Costco. I needed to catch the tram to do that. Well that was a huge failure too because I soon learnt that prams don't fit on trams! So what do we do? turn around get back on the train and go home. Lucky for me my lovely husband was there waiting at the train station to pick us up.
In other news this week, I hired a carpet cleaner to clean our carpets. Auron had drawn all over them in permanent marker, so that along with the mushed in food and grime and I'm sure some left over vomit from Auron's stomach bug that warranted a good deep clean. What I found fascinating though is that the carpet cleaner got out the permanent marker but was no match for the yellow felt pen . My floors look lovely by the way.
I got my annual hair cut this week. My hair was pretty much down to my butt. If I back I could easily sit on it. I gritted my teeth and cut a good deal off, now its about 3 inchs shorter. It feels good and I no longer wake up strangulating myself.
On Saturday we went back into the city, drove this time it took like 15mins all up to go finish my mission from earlier in the week to sign our membership for Costco. It was closed, apparently they close on public holidays, I thought they would still be open seeing as we are "observing" Australia Day on Monday. Needless to say it was dissappointing, Aarahi says it's a sign that we shouldn't go there haha, he may be right. We just ended up looking around Docklands and getting some lunch. We did stop at a fabric store and pick up some cute fabric.
Aarahi asked me if I could try making corn chips from scratch last night, I obliged and the results were pretty good. They cost about 50c to make compared to the $3 bag of Doritos we have in the cupboard. They kinda made my "quick" nacho meal into a long drawn out process so I think next time I will just make a whole bunch one weekend like I do the tortillas.
Now it's Saunday, and after the longest sacrament meeting ever (2 hrss) we are home since we skipped the last hour of church and I am hiding out in the bedroom because I am tired and incredibly grumpy probably due to feeding Lili 7 times from the time I went to bed at midnight til 830am when she woke up for the day. I'm glad to say that doesn't happen often.
Tomorrow is a public holiday and Aarahi's home, I imagine he's going to make me go driving (I don't drive, ever, I have an irrational fear of the breaks not working and cars crashing into me) but I have run out of excuses and he is insisting that I start driving.

A week of special days

This is a busy week in my family, and always will be. To start the week Monday was our wedding anniversary, yey for 3 years! it really doesn't seem that long but my gosh it seems like a life time. We have done a lot in the past 3 years. Gotten married, moved countries, moved states, had two kids, traveled overseas and all the other stuff that comes in between. It has been three of the hardest but the best three years of my life. I am married to my best friend, and he really is the best husband out there, well the best husband for me anyway. I remember Mum telling me that her and my "other mothers" Teri and Mel were discussing what kinda of husband I needed. They decided I would probably need someone who would "tell me how it is" oh how wrong they were. Aarahi is lovely and sweet and lets me do whatever I want. 

This week is also my sisters wedding anniversary, tehy got married a year before us, and were sealed in the temple the same week as us. Talking of temples this is also the week that most of my siblings and I were sealed to our parents three years ago. This week is also our dad's 'deathday' he passed away from a sudden  massive heart attack a couple of days after my sisters wedding. Last but not least it is also my little brother Teina's 12th birthday. For a LDS boy turning 12 is a big deal. He will receive the Aaronic priesthood. This is very special and he will have the opportunity to serve the sacrament  and attend the temple. He also moves up into the youth program at church. 

For our anniiversary, we started out with going to a funeral for one of the members of our ward. It was really nice to be there. It was a small and simple service but so sweet. After the service was over and we had finished talking to everyone we headed across the road for subway, as it was now 1pm and neither of us had eaten yet because we were in such a rush to get to the funeral. Aarahi pretty much rushed home from work came inside threw a shirt and tie on and we got back in the car. While we were sitting in there eating our lunch Aarahi's Aunty Jenny walked passed, so we called out to her and she joined us for a little bit. We got home about 2pm and everyone except me went and had naps, I watched a documentry about the Amish, but more on that another day. We made a gingerbread house when everyone woke up, then out to dinner.

It seemed like it was Family Home Evening at the restaurant as there were a number of other member families there too. Our dinner was anything but a simple anniversary dinner where we could sit and talk. They seated us right next to the play area, so Auron made a bee line straight for it as soon as he finished eating and that was the end of us being able to eat together. Haha we said next year we need to find a babysitter! Actually next year we will be in New Zealand so I'm planning to leave the kids with someone and we are going away for the night! The night ended with a trip to the supermarket for nappies...confirmation that we do indeed have children and we are no longer the carefree duo we were three years ago. But we wouldn't have it any other way. 

For those who get this in your emails. there is a video on the blog website if you want to watch the address is http://matthewswhanau.blogspot.com.au/ 

This is my Little brother Teina when he was little and cute , my cousin Georgia

My sister Ellie and our Dad on her wedding day a couple of days before he passed away

Our wedding day