At Last They Arrive

We waited and waited and waited for our 20 boxes from the UK to arrive. They took longer than we expected and we were all starting to get very impatient!

On a positive, it was nice to get everything else unpacked and mostly put away before they arrived, however turning up the day before Emily's birthday party was not ideal! We were still very excited though and the girls just couldn't wait to open up a box.

I decided we were only opening a box at a time and everything out of the box had to have a home before we were allowed to open another one! I had a list of pretty much everything that was in each box so the girls had to pick very carefully which box was going to be opened first!

But not before a few photos..... (I just wish we had one of all the boxes lined up in our Taunton home - that would have been cool - but we were too stressed at the time!)

And here we go.... box number 4 was chosen to be the first...

Out came the Christmas Reindeers...

Out came Marie, Toulouse and Berlioz from The Aristocats...

And out came Patch, Lucky and Rolly from 101 Dalmatians...

And out came a lot of other stuff!!!! Aghhhhh...... now that was fun!

After unpacking all the boxes from storage and then having to open all of these boxes, 'Can we open another box?' was said more often than 'Can we have something to eat?' I heard it 10 times a day and there were even a few tears when all the boxes were open and Emily was still asking 2 days later, only to be told (again) that we had opened them all! She was devastated! I too was devastated that I didn't end up bringing back our awesome grater! It was on the list to pack, because it was the best grater ever... but it somehow got left behind with all the boxing and giving and throwing and packing and leaving that was going on! Oh well!

The Over-sized Polar Fleece

I'm sure there aren't too many kindy kids who actually fit into their first school jumper during term 1 and our Leilani is no different! Here she is ready for her second week at school... in her over sized polar fleece! Luckily she didn't care!

Emily wasn't missing out on photo time! She is such a good little girl, and is very proud of her big sister Lani who goes to school now! They always give each other big cuddles and kisses when we have to say goodbye of a morning. It makes me smile.

Only Summer Can Bring So Much Beach Fun!

It's a shame it's not still summer, but we're lucky to have photos to remind us of what it's like - which is easy to forget during these cold winter months!

Here we are back in February. Grandma, Grandad and I took the kids to the beach one warm summer evening for a play, swim and fish and chips. We played, I think Locke swam but we didn't eat our chips until we got back home! (Everyone was too sandy!)

This is the only photo I got of Locke and Zak - they were too busy to sit still for a photo!!!!