A lovely mothers day week

I have been extra spoiled this week. Earlier in the week Aarahi took the day off work to just hang out with us. He said I could decide what we did that day. We didn't do anything too exciting, a day shopping where i was treated to a few present. We had a lovely picnic at the park and played on the playground. On our way home we stopped at the baby shop and picked up our new double pram. I love it but it feels like I'm driving a truck or something haha well compared to our nice and compact little stroller. We got home and put on the new dvd we bought. For dinner we had yummy sandwiches made with bread from the breadmaker I got earlier in the day. It was a perfect day!
On saturday we headed out to pick up the new carseat for the new baby. I love it its such a cool colour, kingfisher blue. It will be good for either a girl or boy. Unfortunately they stopped making the pram in the matching colour but I was still determined to have the blue carseat. We did some more shopping, Aarahi bought some new games for his xbox and some new cards for the game we like to play. We had some yummy kebabs for lunch, everything tastes so much better when you are hungry! Later that night we went out to dinner and a place called Chilli Pepper. Lots of people have told us how good it was  but we thought it was pretty average. It was really busy though and had a nice atmosphere but the food wasn't as good as some of the stuff we have had in NZ. Despite Melbourne being the food capital of Australia we are yet to find something that we really really like. I guess we just have to go out more!
Today being Mothers Day I was presented with some pretty charms for my bracelet along with some new slippers which I have been hanging out for! At church the children ran the program which was really really cute they sung their little hearts out and did so well!  We came home and pretty much just blobbed out. Aarahi went to sleep not long after we got home and is still asleep now so he will probably stay there until he goes to work tomorrow morning.
Tomorrow Auron and I are flying home to NZ for a couple of weeks. We are excited to see everyone again. We are especially excited about Elder Matthews coming home and Uncle Khybers baptism ( I can't believe he's 8 already!). This will probably be our last chance to see Uncle TeArai before he leaves on his mission.

Boys will be Boys

Yesterday Aarahi and I went over to our friends Chris and Kim's house. They live about 40mins away so it was a good chance to see how our new car went now that we can actually drive it! yey for having a registration! Chris like Aarahi loves his games so they were pretty happy to see each other. After Lunch Kim and I headed off to the shops and the boys got out their games. They were in their own little world. Didn't even look up when we left, or when we got home either. They were literally still in the same spot they hadn't even gotten up to eat or anything. Needless to say they played for a few hours stopping for 20mins to eat the dinner we made them. It was good for them I think. They are both pretty shy guys so it's good for Kim and I that they get along enough to be able to leave them alone together. I guess ytou don't really have to talk when you play games.

We went to see the Avengers this past Tuesday, it really is an awesome movie! I was particularly taken by the Hulk. We are really blessed with such a easy going baby, we gave him a bag of grapes and he was set for the movie, its probably the 4 or 5th movie he's been to now and weve never had any problem with him.

Earlier this week I bought some carpet cleaning stuff to get some of the grime and stains out of the carpet, it worked so well.....10mins after i had finished cleaning it all up I walked back into the lounge and Auron had tipped and splashed chocolate milk all over the carpet and walls. UGHHHHHH haha sometimes I don't know why I bother! 

Auron loves playing with playdough, especially rolling it out. 

Telling Daddy to be quiet. 

A week full of boredom

Well probably more like 2 weeks of boredom. I've been pretty much couch ridden and my gosh is it BORING.

Auron has been good at putting up with my lack of energy and enthusiasm. He pretty much entertains himself and makes mess. We do lots of sitting down activities like blocks, playdough and drawing. When he's tired he just climbs up on the couch next to me and falls asleep he's so cuuuuuute.

Baby Boo (the yet to be born baby) started its kicking this week, been feeling butterfly flutterings for a little while now but these have been some big boots! I had mixed emotions about it. Relief that now I have some kind of gauge to know how well baby is doing, excitement, and just plain freaked out, I'm not really one of those people that enjoy pregnancy, in reality it actually weirds me out if I think to much about having a human inside of me that eventually will have to come out....not looking forward to that part so much.

We are in the process of actively looking for a new house. I've honestly just been putting it off for the past while as the thought of packing make my stomach turn, but its got to happen, we are out of room a new baby will struggle to fit.

Aarahi had the Young Men over for an activity on Anzac day. He told me they would be here a 'couple' of hours HAHAHAHAHAHAHA 7 hours later I had to tell aarahi to start sending them home! I was sick in bed and just watched DVD's actually probably scared the poor boys the one and only time i came out.  They were have a games day. The lounge and dining room were set up with xbox's playstations etc and junk food galore. Auron thought he was in heaven. He loves company. He spent most of the time with the boys periodically coming to visit me when he wanted me to feed him.

Aarahi bought me a new ipod this week...I no longer have it. Aarahi took it to church and left it on the pew while he took Auron out and when he came back it was gone. Hopefully it turns up.

Gosh didn't we just make the cutest kid ever!

So long Henry

Henry is our car. He is a 1994 Nissan bluebird. We bought him a week or so after we arrived in Australia. It was a bit of an ordeal, being naive and all about buying cars and doing grown up things in general. He was a bit beat up, but ran pretty well. The stereo has never worked, the front passenger side door has tricks to open and lock it but he's been a good car. Slowly he's been dying though. At present my door handle is pretty much broken of, he make a grinding sound whenever you turn left among many other noises, the back light is smashed from when someone rear ended Aarahi, he is also missing his front grill...we lost that on the motorway in Brisbane. We now affectionately call it his "airflow system".
On Saturday we thought it was time for Henry to retire so we headed out to get a new car. We found a pretty black sports wagon...we arn't mentally ready for a people mover yet. We have named the new car Percy. He's a 2008 Holden viva spot wagon. It has a CD player and MP3 point....a big deal when you haven't even had a radio! Plenty of boot space for all the junk that comes with kids etc.
In other news, adjusting to the time difference has been a bit of a mission especially for poor Auron. He didn't even seem too phased when we got to USA but the return change has really hit him and as a result me too. We've had a week of 5am starts, which is pretty bad for a kid who usually sleeps til around 8! One day though he slept from 4pm til 6am straight I had a crappy sleep though because I kept worry that he wasn't breathing or something! that is a long time for him to sleep usually lucky if we get 6 hours straight.
We finally got our tax return back...well part of it. We still need to sort out part of it, but it should be worked out soon enough. We also received a letter in the mail saying Aarahi had been under paid for the majority of last year and that he will be back paid. This is a huge blessing seeing as he has just taken 2 weeks unpaid leave from work.
We really loved our travelling experience, and will definitely be doing it again with kids in tow. We wrote a list of places we want to visit. The list is as follows: New Zealand, a big trip there doing the south island and of corse visiting family, it's always a bit embarrassing when other people have seen more of your country than you have! Japan, South America, Thailand, some pacific island, Switzerland, and I'm sure as time goes on we will add to the list!
Oh I bought a slow cooker this week. Our old one is sitting in Mum's garage (sucks that half our stuff remains in another country). So far weve have some YUMMY corned beef, there have been some intense cravings for this over the past few weeks. Today I made a chicken soup/stew (because I don't like chicken soup). I've jsut finished making some scruptious cheese scones to go along side. Its a perfect chilly day for it. I have many plans for this slow cooker, it was a score at $30! yey for Target homewares sales!!!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Teuila! it's a.....

This year Aarahi and I were thinking about what we would get Teuila for her birthday, and we decided how about a new niece or nephew? So on the 26th of October we will be expecting baby number two.

So the pregnancy details for the first 3 months or so.
Weight gain: like 5 kg's with Auron I gained over 30 so hoping for less this time

Cravings: it changes but mostly veges and anything asian

Morning sickness: More like all day sickness up until I was 11weeks, then Aarahi gave me a blessing and never been sick since, lucky cos we left on holiday a few days later

Feelings: I feel a lot happier about this pregnancy, I'm not too sure why. I think it's a combination of things. One reason I think is because when I found out I was having Auron I was more relieved than anything because we were told I wouldn't be able to fall pregnant naturally. I never enjoyed being pregnant with him and often felt guilty because I should be grateful for being pregnant. Secondly, my body is already ruined so I'm not so concerned about that this time around.

Well that's about it. To those few people that already knew thanks for keeping your mouth's shut it was much appreciated!

Los Angeles

This was our last stop before heading home. We stayed with one of Aarahi's mission companions, his trainer in fact. We arrived late on Wednesday night and were completly shattered so pretty much went straight to bed. On Thursday morning we hit DISNEYLAND!!!!!!!!!! WOW it was so much fun. I had been there once before when I was 12 but I think I enjoyed it more this time. They have done heaps of improvements to the waiting times for rides.
Disney really knows their stuff, everything is done to perfection. What I really liked was the baby nursery which had little old ladies dressed up as nanny's who showed you to a special room to change baby, they had supplies of baby food, nappies, formula, wipes etc. It was particularly cute.
Auron loved to go on the rides, his favourites were the Finding Nemo ride where you go down in a submarine and search around underwater with Nemo and his friends. He also loved the Buzz lightyear ride which is a ride where you ride around in these little carts shooting targets (Aarahi was quite taken by this ride too). I really liked the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. It's a small roller-coaster (no big dips etc) that goes on a trip through pirate territory soooo cool.
The fireworks were spectacular, can't forget that. I also got the corn-dog I had been wanting all holiday, and it lived up to my expectations.
On Friday we hit Laguna Beach for the day. It was a beautiful day, too cold for swimming but nice for just laying in the sun and playing in the sand. After the beach we went to visit the Newport Beach Temple which was beautiful. It's been really cool being able to see so many different temples which are so different to the ones that we have been used to.
On Saturday we just relaxed before we headed into LA to catch our plane back to Melbourne. Auron was awesome on the plane yet again. He fell asleep as soon as the plane took off and we popped him in his little bed and he slept for 8 hours straight then another 3 hour nap later on. We arrived home in Melbourne 9am Monday after leaving LA on Saturday night. I honestly don't want to see another plane for a long time. We did 8 flights in 2 weeks. But in a few weeks we are off home to NZ for a few weeks but that will be enough travelling for us for a LONG time. I'm glad we didn't go with the original plan to fly home  to NZ later this week!

Captain Hook's Ship

The NZ display on It's a Small World ride

The Disney Castle

Doing my drawing at LAguna Beach

Newport Beach Temple

Las Vegas

Oh boy I feel like I'm in sin city or something. It is definitely something different that's for sure. Our hotel is beautiful, our room is huge....the size of your downstairs Ta'ala's. Our view is pretty lame suring the day but at night it's really pretty all lit up with lights etc.
We've eaten at the restaurants at the hotel a few times. Wiremu would have liked it. The had lots of veges and roast. I have been dying for some veges and finally got a HUGE plate full. They do a thing where you fill up your plate with veges and different asian sauces and they cook it all up with either beef or chicken.
Aarahi's cousins have been taking good care of us. His cousin Wendall picked us up from the airport and we went back to his cousin Talbot's for the afternoon to meet his Aunty and Uncle (lovely cute old couple who still call each other pet names).
Today cousin Talbot was our personal chauffer/photographer/tour guide as we ventured out to the famous Las Vegas strip. Oh what a site that was! I dont really know how to describe it. Just crazy crazy crazy. HUGE buildings, billboards with half naked girls on them, the works. There were some pretty cool sights to see though. The water show at the Bellagio was pretty amazing as well as the incredible atrium inside the hotel. We also enjoyed Caesar's Palace. There is so much to take in and there are people EVERYWHERE.
We were lucky enough to be able to go and visit the Las Vegas temple. It was so PRETTY. It is an amazing building, surrounded by huge mountains. It was such a contrast to the strip. We are really glad we had the opportunity to visit.
Later that night we were able to meet cousin Wendall's family. He has a lovely wife and four gorgeous kids. Auron loved playing with the kids and they made him some cool paper snowflakes out of paper which we will take home and hang up in his room.
Wendall took us on a little tour of the strip and downtown Las Vegas on the way back to the hotel. The strip seemed even more crazy at night. There was no way I wanted to get out of the car! It's been such a fun time.