good morning saturday

[saundra]

are we all still in bed i woke late
its bright /cear here
of shopping later
so everybody have a good weekend

[pollR78]

morning Saundra and everyone else

I woke just before 6 but lay in bed for ages, then decided to get up and have a shower so am now having my rice krispies and a coffee Amy is still snoozing!

Busy day today, Amy has swimming lesson at 11, then lunch and off to visit my aunt & uncle who live very close but just never get round to visiting but have their Christmas card to deliver! We are then off to a local church who have a little service and then a procession up to the town centre to see the Christmas lights go on - Unless it rains and we will do something else!

Hope everyone has a lovely day

xxx

[JoM]

Good morning! It's sunny here but the paths are still damp after last night's rain.

I'm all ready to go out but I'm waiting for a call from Sky first. Our switchover order from Virgin to them for our phone line and broadband still hasn't been sorted but he said he'd call around 9am to put the order through....oh phone...back in a bit

[tonicha]

Morning everyone

Another gorgeous morning

Pootling in the house after Mr Martin and Tom has just texted to say he's taking us out to dinner tonight So chicken and chips it is

Hope you all have a good day, whatever the weather xx

[Kaz]

Morning everyone We slept in a bit, it was 8.30 when the dogs 'asked' to go out

Just made Harry and Mick bacon rolls - I had rice cakes lol - and we'll be getting ready to go out soon. Harry wants to buy a few Christmas pressies and some cards

Saundra enjoy your shopping xx

Ton, have a great meal out

Jo I hope you get your cable sorted

Poll does Amy like swimming? Mine all had lessons too

Right, better get on! Have a lovely Saturday everyone xxxx

[Weka]

Good morning all

Gosh I've missed you all. It's been soooooooooooooooo busy here lately. Firstly I would like to say a big thank you Di for sorting me out a couple of weeks ago with a near chocolate ball disaster. I'm now up to needing to make a third batch. They are very yummy.

Oliver is going to be (so he says) in a christmas parade tomorrow with his creche. See this is how long since i've been here. maybe I should just write a dear diary thread. Any way, the long and the short is, Oliver will now (probably) never be a kindy boy due to govt funding changes and sessions changing from 2.5 hour sessions to 6 hour sessions as they get more money from the govt, but it means less kids can go to Kindy. Oliver is very upset about this. He's waited a year already to get to the top of the waiting list and has got close a number of times, only to have older kids ring up and slot in ahead of him. c'est la vie. So the admin lady at kindy, spelt all this out to me and we ran a few leavers reports to see when he was likely to get a spot now, and the answer was Nov, next year. so I prompltly said thankyou, and raced out and looked around as much as I could and put his name down at places from daycares to creches which tbh i've never felt comfortable with. and as luck would have it, he got a spot at 2 creches, so he goes to one on monday and wednesday, and the other on friday. then next term he starts at a montessori 3 mornings a week. and I think that will be his preschool before school option. if and when we ever get a kindy call up, i will judge it then. So i've been very busy getting that all sorted and him settled in.

in the meantime...... It turns out that our little missy may be gifted. I'm still not sure if and how that applies yet. I'm just rolling with it and seeing where we end up. So after the inital assessment, she now goes to small poppies once a week, on the other side of auckland. So far she is loving it, even if the initial few sessions have been really mucked up. Her teacher she is supposed to have has just handed in her notice as she is to sick to continue. poor thing. I think she is one of the main reasons Missy was looking forward to this. I'm also having major problems with her Kindy and it is all to do with funding. She is funded for 5 sessions a week at kindy by the govt. You would think being able to get an exclusion for one session wouldn't be a problem. Apparently for all the other small poppy with kindy mum's, it hasn't been a problem. Unless of course you are us, and you go to our kindy. Our teachers are adament that she doesn't qualify for the exclusion, and after the 3 months govt grace period when the funding is in jeopardy, we will have to either give up kindy or small poppies. She starts school in 6 months time, and I can just imagine going through this all again, as she will miss one morning a week to go.

And then there's school. I have to enroll her somewhere soon. She has her name down on the one we are in zone for. but from talking to mums in the community, they are not very good at catering for gifted children. we are flat bang in the middle of 2 primary schools. the other school does have a gifted program, but we are out of zone, and the walk is not one that they will ever be able to do on their own, as it is through a park then across a busy road at shops with no crossing. the distances to both schools are the same. the other is a safe walk the whole way. So I have no idea what to do there.

Then there's been the hippy work, but we have now finished that completely for the year. and she will get her certificate next week.

Finally got some action going in the bathroom, and I was up there painting this afternoon.

The wood for the deck is now weathering in our backyard

I've managed to dig over 6 garden beds, still got 2 to go.

Went to the doctor 2 weeks ago for a test, and got a call back yesterday. that's never good, but it's just a wait and see. Still have to get the blood test done. I was going to do it that day, until I saw that she was testing (amongst others) vit B, and I had had a berocca not so long ago so didn't want to skew the results. Next window of opportunity is next wednesday.

Went to the denstist last wednesday. I had been for a checkup in august and needed 2 fillings done. It has taken this long to find a child free gap that coincided with opening hours. Thank goodness for creche. I've had a sore jaw since then though, but it is getting better.

I'm sure there are a gazillion other things going on as well, but well, that's enough to put in one post.

I'm definitely feeling like "mum's taxi service" on some days, as I literally change over children at lunchtime.

phew....

hope you have all been well.

[JoM]

Back...the order has been placed again, but when I look at the tracker it's already saying on the new order that there's been a delay with the order for the phone line and that was where we hit problems with the previous orders, thanks to the incompetence at Virgin. We'll see how this one goes....

Have a lovely shopping trip with Harry, Kaz xx

I've got some running around to do today as I've not really been out to the shops this week. There're a few bits I need from shops in one town, then I want to go to a village nearby where there's a Mr Simms sweet shop as I saw that they stocked boxes of coffee creams when I was in there with Joe a couple of months ago and if they've still got them I want a box for the boys to give to my Mom, she loves coffee creams and they're a rarity in boxes of chocs now. I also need to go to Tesco...which is in another town.

Have a great day everyone!

[pollR78]

Kaz you are very good, you made bacon rolls and didnt eat any? I would happily eat a bacon roll right now!

Yeah she loves her swimming lessons, she has been going for just over a year and is in the top group, just needs to improve, she can swim but keeps stopping - the teach them to swim under water first so all new to me! She also started swimming at school this week so I think that is 10 weeks, typical over the cold part of winter!

Oh it is raining here so we are going to the shops instead of the church/light switch on, Amy does love shopping - more than me I think!!

xx

[Kaz]

Wow you have been busy!!!! It's lovely to see you

All the kindy/crèche stuff will sort itself out, Im sure! That's fab about Missy being gifted, although in some ways it is almost like trying to find the right education for a child with SN like my Harry - schools cater for the majority ie the norm and children at extremes of either sort are not easy for the system to place. I know you'll get her what she needs Welcome back

Jo I hope you get all your bits done, and the cable sorted eventually

Poll that's fab about the swimming I don't eat pork so although I love the smell of them bacon rolls aren't a temptation for me

[JoM]

I'd join you with a bacon roll Poll

That's good that Amy loves her swimming. When Joe was at juniors, it was only Year 3 who did swimming - it was a new thing brought in that year - and they went all year, but by the time that 60 of them were changed and in the pool it was nearly time for them to get out again! They didn't really achieve anything in school lessons. When Tom was at juniors they went for a term every year before it was another year group's turn. We took both for lessons at the leisure centre on Saturdays though so that we knew they could swim.