Heading into the end of the year again...

 It's been a frenetic Spring!  Padfoot has had lot's of birthdays to attend - including his own.  Boogie stepped up the intensity of her ballet with her first exam (pre-primary class exam).

 She also did her first ballet competition which required extra lessons and lot's of practice.  She's absolutely loving it and got second equal in her classical dance.

 She was very proud of her silver medal and wore it more or less solidly for a week and a half.  Padfoot tried some special dance moves as well...

Around the birthday season Boogie, Margie and I went to the World of Wearable Arts show, as did Raywin and Roger.  We also had  a family trip to the NZSO's show Tall Tales and Tangos, which included Peter and the Wolf.  Padfoot was a little apprehensive about the wolf, but was proud of himself afterwards, that he wasn't scared.

 

As the weather warms up we've been able to move out into the garden a bit more.  Both kids have enjoyed helping - although I think Padfoot just likes wearing my gumboots...

Halloween was awful weather so we had a bit of a party at home.  No trick or treaters this year!

We also went up to Tretham for the Guy Fawkes fireworks fantastica display.  This was a beautiful evening and the kids ran around and danced to the band and had a very late night.

Boogie had her school disco last Friday and I got out the sewing machine to sew the Oscar night themed costume.  The sewing machine stopped working and so a kind friend lent me hers in my hour of need, to finish the Oscar (literally) costume.

There's been a few surprises in the garden.  A lovely Solomon's Seal lily, a very pretty little Aquilegia, lots of blue bells, a couple of good clumps of Chatman Island lilies and a crazy number of other lilies have come up in the weirdest place - right where we were intending to dig a drain!  There is only one rose bush (apart from some carpet roses) which is rather nice growing up through a small maple.

Until next time...