Our Christmas 2008 Newsletter
to share a glimpse of our lives with you.
In our little piece of paradise, life in 2008 has been incredibly busy, with lots of excitement and fun.
To the right of the photo, there’s an opening in our trees, where we play Cricket in summer, and Soccer in winter, and “Survivor Challenges” at the Boys Birthdays!
To the right of the photo, there’s an opening in our trees, where we play Cricket in summer, and Soccer in winter, and “Survivor Challenges” at the Boys Birthdays!
Left to right: Reuben, age 7 is our Duracell battery, always on the go, he is a natural sports man, and gymnast, and loves most physical activities especially outdoors. He also enjoys puzzles and anything that involves some tactile or kinesthetic activity. He loves to help, and is really great at being a caring brother to Raphael and Zipporah.
This year he has achieved good progress at reading, and like his brother he enjoys and is advanced in maths. He enjoys cubs.
Reuben needs time to dream, and has the “gift”? of determination!
Next is Steve, the most adored Dad, who rarely gets a moment to rest, as he works long and hard, and then plays long and hard too, with our 4 kids and a few neighbours kids, who all love to go on real long bike rides with him, or play sport in our yard, or swimming or fishing at Cornwallis, or Tennis at the neighbours. It seems we have found something of a ministry to neighbourhood kids, we are the place to find a welcome if home is lonely after school, or on weekends. Steve likes to set himself challenges to push himself, and recently broke his own record by mowing our whole ¾ acre site in well under 3 hours. There is not much time left for any of his own pursuits, except for those that we do together. He leads us on adventures with Geocaching, we especially enjoy those with a puzzle or mind game to work out first in order to access the co-ordinates
Isaac, age 9 is our explorer, he has always loved to seek learning challenges and has a huge array of interests, but they do depend on his mood and energy levels, on his best days he’ll push himself to achieve almost anything, on a bad day everything is “Boring”, though often that boredom leads to a really great new activity or accomplishment. He loves sport and has worked hard to achieve Best Bowler at Cricket Awards this year.
In term 4 Isaac began attending the local Laingholm Primary, starting in his age group Year 4, after 2 days the associate principal tested him, and found he was working at a 12 year old level across all levels, and higher in some areas. So he moved to year 5, and he will begin year 6 in February. While he is enjoying the experience, he realises it is not the best fit for him, and says he will want to come back to homeschooling soon.
Zipporah age 5 is our little dancing queen, and the natural gymnast, she has been invited onto the competitive gymnastics team, but has chosen not to for now, as dancing is her real love, especially being in shows She is always the first to master the new routine in her dance group. She has definitely inherited the dance gene from Great Nana, who was a professional dancer many moons ago.
Zipporah is the happy little creative and if shes’s not busy doing physical stuff with the boys you will find her quietly drawing, colouring, painting, beading or teaching herself to read. She has quietly beavered away until she is now a fairly competent reader. She loves to get messy, while being arty or creative, and our heads have locked a few times over the need to clean up the mess behind herself - with help from me of course, but not all done by mum! Even though she loves the action and the mess she still loves pretty clothes, and won’t ever wear jeans….unless they’re pink and pretty of course! We are heavily into preloved clothing, and have always been blessed with plenty of pretty stuff to satisfy her need to express her feminine self.
Me next, I spend most of my life listening, and driving, cooking cleaning, playing, teaching and just generally being there. I don’t find much time for my own creative pursuits, but was pleased to be able to complete a Whale Shark on canvas for Isaacs room which the kids and I stripped and re-decorated as a homeschool project. Steve took the kids fishing, and I used acrylics, for fast completion (3 hours). We have enjoyed the friendship of some American homeschoolers for about a year, who returned home in November, and we had fun creating a scrapbook of photos of all the activities and outings and exploring we shared together during their time in NZ. Other than that Mums creative pursuits are mostly limited to use in food prep and designing safe & natural food and recipes for our allergies and sensitivities, and problem solving.
After 3 years, I still love living in Laingholm, and the drive to and from home through the trees and hills of Waitakere is always refreshing to my spirit, it still feels like we live in a secluded holiday resort.
Raphael age 2, is the most loving and caring beautiful little boy. He is the one to notice a mess on the dining room floor and go off to get dustpan and brush and clean it up. He is very independent and competent and will open a can of beans if he decides he wants lunch before Mum has prep’d anything. His favourite busy work activity is puzzles. He gets bumped and scraped a bit as he’s always trying to keep up with the others activities, but always comes running, “Mummy I bumped my head, can you pray for it?”! He knows what he likes and dislikes, and is very clear at communicating that in words. He has just chosen to move to his big boy bed and sharing a room with Reuben, so now I’m woken each morning between 5 and 6am with “I love you mummy, please can I have mummy milk?”. Beautifully articulate he won the heart of a camera man at an audition the other day with his very special line “Auckland’s amazing” with great expression. He loves anything to do with music, and sings with gusto and good tune at family prayer times and at mass.
2008 Highlights
Suburbs New Lynn Cricket
Coach Rene Bullinga
Isaac, 2nd from left,
Reuben 2nd from right (with funny pose),
Some team members didn’t make it to awards night.
This year he has achieved good progress at reading, and like his brother he enjoys and is advanced in maths. He enjoys cubs.
Reuben needs time to dream, and has the “gift”? of determination!
Next is Steve, the most adored Dad, who rarely gets a moment to rest, as he works long and hard, and then plays long and hard too, with our 4 kids and a few neighbours kids, who all love to go on real long bike rides with him, or play sport in our yard, or swimming or fishing at Cornwallis, or Tennis at the neighbours. It seems we have found something of a ministry to neighbourhood kids, we are the place to find a welcome if home is lonely after school, or on weekends. Steve likes to set himself challenges to push himself, and recently broke his own record by mowing our whole ¾ acre site in well under 3 hours. There is not much time left for any of his own pursuits, except for those that we do together. He leads us on adventures with Geocaching, we especially enjoy those with a puzzle or mind game to work out first in order to access the co-ordinates
Isaac, age 9 is our explorer, he has always loved to seek learning challenges and has a huge array of interests, but they do depend on his mood and energy levels, on his best days he’ll push himself to achieve almost anything, on a bad day everything is “Boring”, though often that boredom leads to a really great new activity or accomplishment. He loves sport and has worked hard to achieve Best Bowler at Cricket Awards this year.
In term 4 Isaac began attending the local Laingholm Primary, starting in his age group Year 4, after 2 days the associate principal tested him, and found he was working at a 12 year old level across all levels, and higher in some areas. So he moved to year 5, and he will begin year 6 in February. While he is enjoying the experience, he realises it is not the best fit for him, and says he will want to come back to homeschooling soon.
Zipporah age 5 is our little dancing queen, and the natural gymnast, she has been invited onto the competitive gymnastics team, but has chosen not to for now, as dancing is her real love, especially being in shows She is always the first to master the new routine in her dance group. She has definitely inherited the dance gene from Great Nana, who was a professional dancer many moons ago.
Zipporah is the happy little creative and if shes’s not busy doing physical stuff with the boys you will find her quietly drawing, colouring, painting, beading or teaching herself to read. She has quietly beavered away until she is now a fairly competent reader. She loves to get messy, while being arty or creative, and our heads have locked a few times over the need to clean up the mess behind herself - with help from me of course, but not all done by mum! Even though she loves the action and the mess she still loves pretty clothes, and won’t ever wear jeans….unless they’re pink and pretty of course! We are heavily into preloved clothing, and have always been blessed with plenty of pretty stuff to satisfy her need to express her feminine self.
Me next, I spend most of my life listening, and driving, cooking cleaning, playing, teaching and just generally being there. I don’t find much time for my own creative pursuits, but was pleased to be able to complete a Whale Shark on canvas for Isaacs room which the kids and I stripped and re-decorated as a homeschool project. Steve took the kids fishing, and I used acrylics, for fast completion (3 hours). We have enjoyed the friendship of some American homeschoolers for about a year, who returned home in November, and we had fun creating a scrapbook of photos of all the activities and outings and exploring we shared together during their time in NZ. Other than that Mums creative pursuits are mostly limited to use in food prep and designing safe & natural food and recipes for our allergies and sensitivities, and problem solving.
After 3 years, I still love living in Laingholm, and the drive to and from home through the trees and hills of Waitakere is always refreshing to my spirit, it still feels like we live in a secluded holiday resort.
Raphael age 2, is the most loving and caring beautiful little boy. He is the one to notice a mess on the dining room floor and go off to get dustpan and brush and clean it up. He is very independent and competent and will open a can of beans if he decides he wants lunch before Mum has prep’d anything. His favourite busy work activity is puzzles. He gets bumped and scraped a bit as he’s always trying to keep up with the others activities, but always comes running, “Mummy I bumped my head, can you pray for it?”! He knows what he likes and dislikes, and is very clear at communicating that in words. He has just chosen to move to his big boy bed and sharing a room with Reuben, so now I’m woken each morning between 5 and 6am with “I love you mummy, please can I have mummy milk?”. Beautifully articulate he won the heart of a camera man at an audition the other day with his very special line “Auckland’s amazing” with great expression. He loves anything to do with music, and sings with gusto and good tune at family prayer times and at mass.
2008 Highlights
Suburbs New Lynn Cricket
Coach Rene Bullinga
Isaac, 2nd from left,
Reuben 2nd from right (with funny pose),
Some team members didn’t make it to awards night.
Busking Isaac & Reuben with their Ukulele class colleagues, and teacher Clare McCormack, performing their festival repertoire along with Christmas carols at the stage in the public square Browns Bay.
Zipporah in the foreground, looking on.
One of many days tramping in the Waitakeres
This time with our friends Beatrix (mum) Vincent 11 and Lucas 7. Reuben using camera, both husbands are at work.
This time with our friends Beatrix (mum) Vincent 11 and Lucas 7. Reuben using camera, both husbands are at work.
After a visit to the "MAZE in Maize" at Kingseat, we ate a picnic lunch then the kids tracked down this pile of sand to play in…. such is typical of the Natural Learning Mode of these 3 families: Nola in black with Aren 4.
Lishelle in white with Joshua 9, Tomee 2 and Aimee 6 - Zipporahs best friend in the whole world!
In a freak storm in April
Our Trampoline was upended over the neighbours fence, and quite mangled!
Zipporah & Raphael saw it happen and came screaming through the house to where I was and all they could manage was to point outside and say “trampoline!”
One special joy for me living among the trees, has been sharing my love of the sensory activity of crunching and playing in the piles and drifts of autumn leaves, with our children. We have had lots of fun having leaf fights with cousins and aunts and uncles too! 
Raphael with Jacob(looking on), his cousin one generation removed, just about twins! Playing the ball blaster game together.
After Raphaels demonstration, Jacob gathers balls and takes his turn. It was so funny watching them with such similar looks and expressions playing together as if they belonged together.
Peninsula Club
Retirement Village, Whangaparoa.
Ukulele Concert for the resident senior citizens.
Isaac and Reuben on the left.
Retirement Village, Whangaparoa.
Ukulele Concert for the resident senior citizens.
Isaac and Reuben on the left.
Tree Chopping at Chris and Donnas House.We took all the wood home for our fireplace.
Chris and Donna, with cousins Thomas and Hannah are moving to Christchurch for 3 years, with Chris' work promotion, so we will miss them enormously. Normally they are the cousins we see most often, usually once a week.
Love to Learn Drama Company with acting coach Terry Harold.
The Pirate show (September)
Zipporah extreme left, Reuben third from right, Isaac extreme right.
Arabian Nights (June)
Isaac playing Prince of the Black Isles, Reuben the king who was fooled into being poisoned, and Zipporah the merchants pretty wife.
Their brothers Flynn and Raphael in the audience
At Briannas house having fun together.
TVNZ : 60 Ukulele Players
Being filmed playing for Breakfast TV, also aired later on Maori TV
Being filmed playing for Breakfast TV, also aired later on Maori TV
November 22nd Isaac and Reuben played Ukulele among hundreds of other kids at the Ukulele Festival, Mt. Smart Stadium, and accompanied Jordan Luck (ex The Mockers) for “Why Does Love Do This To Me” and Ray Colombus for “She’s A Mod” There were plenty of fantastic professional Ukulele entertainers too. The Festival was a great family day out, lots of music, and a Painted Ukulele Art competition.
The year finishes with an era closing, as my Mum and Dad move out from our home, to go and live with and take care of great Nana, who has recently become more fragile, but has done extremely well to be independent until 89 years of age!
In 2009 we’ll begin a new adventure, of welcoming two Christian Korean children into our home and family for the year as they attend school in New Zealand.
We wish you all a blessed and special family time over Christmas and in the new year.
Much love from us.
2 comments:
I really loved seeing that family pic. Merry Christmas!
What a fabulous update :0)
I was just thinking of doing a similar thing, a month-by-month record of what we have been up to..will I get around to it? I don;t know, lol, but it sure was nice to read your's...and I showed Aimee the bit where she is famous...she thinks Zipporah is her best friend in the whole world too ;0)
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