Events, Surprises & More...

Mum: “Hayden, come on, you need to have a shower today.”

Hayden: “Ohhh, I don’t want to.”

Mum: “You have to. You know you’re not having a shower very often with your cast on, but if you don’t have one today you’re going to smell.”

Hayden: “I want to smell! I sleep better when I’m smelly!!”


Yes, Hayden did give in and have a shower (and he smelt so good afterwards). I forgot to ask him if he slept okay CLEAN! I usually give him a quick shower by getting him to hold his arm up in the air, but his cast is so heavy that we have to make it fairly quick. We got his cast wet by accident the first week he had it on, so it had to be removed. The inside of the cast was all soft and mushy when they cut it open and it wouldn’t have been long before it started to smell bad. When we need to wash Hayden’s hair Tony wraps the cast in a towel and then tapes a plastic bag over it really well…it has to be done really well so no water leaks in. Only two more weeks to go and we won’t have to bother with it anymore. Having a broken leg in a cast must be much more of a pain trying to shower!

One of the nice things about writing this blog is that people have been taking the time to read it and sending me lots of nice e-mails about the photos, Hayden’s arm, our house, the things we do, etc. I only wish I could convince more people to keep their own blog, but it doesn’t seem to be a ‘kiwi type of thing’ - yet. I think blogs are the greatest idea because we so easily forget details of the past, and I am so excited at the thought of getting this published into a book one day for my children to read when they’ve grown up.

So a few days ago I viewed our blog and immediately deleted ‘Photos of Tony and I’ (sorry, Tony). I did say I hated photos of myself, but boy, what was I thinking to post such AWFUL photos of myself!! I came up with a great idea…When the boys are all grown up and they say to Tony, “There’s no photo’s of Mum when we were kids, what did she look like?” Tony can show them a magazine picture of Nicole Kidman (I’ll just die my hair red when I’m an old woman). And then Tony can explain that when you get older you shrink!! Well, enough of bad photos and wishing I was drop dead gorgeous…on to the events of the week.

Last Friday (the 5th) the New Zealand Olympians returned home from Beijing. The Aucklanders did a parade around the North Shore; stopping past many of the primary (elementary) schools, including Hayden’s. All the kids and teachers at Hayden’s school stood on the street and each kid waved a silver fern flag as the athletes passed by. It was exciting for the children and a well deserved welcome home for the Olympians.

Nana finally returned home from her 5-week holiday to England, Scotland and Wales. It’s been a long 5 weeks waiting for her to come back. We missed Nana and going to her house. Nana says she had a great adventure, but 5 weeks was way too long. All she wanted to do was come home to see 'her boys' and watch Ashton at his swimming lessons. The boys learned all about Nana’s adventure to Scotland to see where the Lochness Monster lives. The boys had non-stop questions and were fascinated by the idea of a monster in the Lake. So, yesterday after school we went to the Library and got some really cool books on ‘Nessie’ that has lots of good stories and photos.

This week, as we all know, was September 11th. I’m not really as patriotic as this picture shows (or maybe Tony has had an influence on me since Americans are well known for being very patriotic) but I thought it was worth hanging up our American flag to honour those who died. It wasn't my own idea and I probably wouldn't have thought about it, but apparently there was a big campaign in the US for everyone to get their flags out. For us kiwis, hanging up such a big flag like this one is definitely "over the top." In fact, I know that if any of our neighbours noticed it they probably would've said, “What the…?” Anyway, it only stayed up for one day since Tony insisted I take it down every night and put it up again in the morning (it's a really nice flag that he got as an Eagle Scout). Of course being a busy Mum in the mornings and evenings I didn't have time for that. Anyway, I remember going through the Twin Towers in my early twenties, and even 7 years later it’s still hard to believe they’re not there anymore. September 11th will always be a great reminder to us all that tragedy can strike anyone at any time. We all go through one day after the next taking our lives and often the people around us for granted. I’m trying to remind myself more often to spend more ‘quality’ time with my children (other than just going through life’s daily routines) and to make decisions each day based on the fact that ‘the day I just lived’ will never come back.

Inspired by an old friend of mine (Michelle from my BYU Hawaii days) I had Ashton help me do some baking this week. I was inspired by Michelle after she mentioned in her blog she baked with her little girl even though she hates having a messy kitchen. I am exactly the same way about having a messy kitchen so this week of doing some baking with the help of 'little hands' was a rare event! We made some pumpkin loaves (one of my favourite recipes) which turned out very yummy. Unfortunately, we can’t buy canned pumpkin here in NZ, but I brought over about 15 cans in our shipment from LA. Those will take me awhile to get through. Ashton enjoyed himself and the loaves have disappeared fast.

It was Father’s Day here on September 7th. I chuckled to myself all week because Tony was so unusually hands-on with the boys in the evening when he got home from work. I just knew he was afraid of not getting anything for Father’s Day since he never remembers Mothers Day. I never get a gift from the boys, but he promises that next Mothers Day will be different. But regardless, I took the boys shopping during the week and they were really excited about giving Tony gifts, which they did in bed on Sunday morning. Hayden bought Tony a book on fighter jets, Ashton insisted on choosing a fancy Hot Wheel car and Noah chose some Hubba Bubba bubble gum! Sunday morning was an unusually beautiful sunny day (lately), so we packed a quick picnic to take to the beach after church. By the time church was over the weather had completely changed and it was back to being cold and windy. We went to the beach anyway and quickly stopped and got $3 worth of hot chips from the local fish n' chip shop. It was so cold and windy that we ate without talking and were back in the car 15 minutes later! Even though our day didn't turned out as planned the boys enjoyed making Tony feel special. They think their Daddy is awesome and they love nothing more than when he comes home from work and gets into some rough n' tumble.

Grandma sent the boys a surprise parcel this week and in it were lots of cool pyjamas and two cool teddy bears made by their cousins – a baseball bear and a spiderman bear. Ashton liked his spiderman pyjamas so much that he wore them all day at Kindy on Friday. He took his other two pair of pyjamas (Lightning McQueen and Superman) to Kindy with him in a bag as he wanted his two best friends to wear them (but they didn’t want to).