MOOOOOOOOOO

Well Valentino now gets locked up in his little pen at night so that we can  steal his Mummies milk in the morning!

Little Monkey Bay in Training....

Monkey has started to learn a few of life's lessons....he now ties up,lets us pick up his feet,can have a cover put on and taken off...all rather hesitantly but he really is taking it all in his stride.

another new member to our animal family(on Loan anyway)

We have kindly been loaned Thomas...he is a harness trained pony and can also be ridden by the kids...he is a real gem to drive with the cart...the kids are having an absolute blast and can hardly stop smiling when they are in the cart...and the same goes for me!

My Tongan surrogate nephew...and my kids newest cousin

We have welcomed into our family Uto from Tonga.His father lived with my family when we lived in Timaru 30 odd years ago and now his 15 year old son is spending a year with our family. He is living with Mum and Dad but we are all helping to bring him up the kiwi way...he is a real delight to be around as he is experiencing all the things in our life that we take for granted..we love his smile and his laugh and his all round innocence,this will be an interesting year for him and our family will learn so much from having him around...

Boys doing what boys should be doing....

Give these 2 boys a box of matches and paper and a fire they can build!...give them food and they can cook   it

we have a new addition to our animal family...meet Monkey

Zoe has been asking for a foal for along time and through the generosity of a very kind friend her dream has come true...Meet Monkey Bay and his Mum Enchantment...Monkey will stay with us and begin his future around us and other children. He will never be big enough for any of our kids to ride but will be broken in and hopefully harness trained so that we can use him to pull a cart in the future...we are going to have a lot of fun with him and I hope he will teach Zoe the patience she will need to become a great horsewoman over the next wee while...We adore him and I'm sure he is living with us to teach us all a lot of things we need to know...will update on his progress ...all going well so far, each day we bring him into the yard and put his halter on and handle him all over, he has had his front feet trimmed and a cover placed on his back not to mention a leading lesson each day as well

Zac and Leos catch of the day!

Funny....John and I had been having a bit of a giggle about how cute it was that the boys were trying to catch an eel...off they would go down the back to the creek every day after school with dog roll for bait(and the next day a fully feathered dead rooster!)they would come back up several times looking for different equipment like a fishing rod with a hook and sinker set up for fishing in the sea!  and to our absolute amazement they got one! you should have heard the noise...I think they couldn't believe they caught one either...Zac ran home for a plastic bag to put it in...I suggested a bucket was more appropriate.They were well chuffed! I had to explain that if they were to think of catching more they had to find someone who would eat it as eels take along time to grow and we don't want them all gone in the future....they now go and feed the eels and trap them but let them go just for fun.

snippets of a great day spent with my 3 sisters...

After a bit of organizing all 4 of us managed to spend a fantastic day at the Ellerslie flower show in CHCH ...not very often we all get together and we ended up with only 2 of our 9 children with us...so Sofia and Na'uli had a very Aunty devoted day!We had nice food, looked at lovely garden beds,loved the amazing fabric flower costumes, had heaps of laughs and also got sucked in by a few gadgets we just had to buy thanks to the very good sales and marketing teams around the show! FUN FUN FUN