Sunday Afternoon with Spencer

Josh and Spencer are becoming good buddies. Today Spencer joined us for an afternoon out at the lagoon expending HUGE amounts of energy at the park, on their scooters, running and chasing one another, and then doing the exercise circuit set up around the water's edge. Oh to have their energy !

Art on the Classroom Wall

All the boys in the class had to make a cover for a story they were writing about a mystery trip to the zoo. Here are all their works - and of course, Joshua's own work proudly displayed on the board.

Happy Birthday Aunty Jellybean

This is Jennine. Jennine used to babysit Georgia & LouLou when they lived in Wellington and we are so lucky to have inherited her since Sarah and the girls returned to Auckland. She suggested to Joshua that he call her 'Aunty Jellybean' and the name has simply 'stuck'.

Jennine is truly divine with Joshua and they have heaps of fun! Jennine has already warned/told us not to be surprised if we come home one evening and find the 2 of them laying on the trampoline asleep under the stars ! She does some really fun, quirky things with him, almost like a Fairy Godmother who waves her magic wand and they both get whisked away on some crazy idea or adventure !

And a double-whammy for us is that Jennine works in the office at school so every now and then we go and surprise her with a visit. Today was a BIG day because Jennine was having a birthday so we made her a batch of gingernuts and a bag of other little goodies ... Joshua crept in under her desk and them popped up singing 'Happy Birthday Aunty Jellybean".

Thank you for coming into our lives Aunty Jellybean.

Surprise - look what we made !

Happy Birthday Aunty Jellybean

Special Tackle Training with Wattie

Gosh, it is getting a bit more serious. Tonight Richard Watt (or more commonly known in NZ rugby as Wattie) who used to play First 5/8th for Wellington and is now the Poneke Coach for the Premiers agreed to give a 1-hour special training session for the little Mustangs to ensure that they knew how to tackle properly and safely - gosh he is a BIG man! Josh trying to pull Noa over !

School Swim Champs are only a few weeks away ...

This term the boys have been swimming every Tuesday morning and are divided into squads according to their expertise in the water. In the Years 1-3 the boys 'volunteer' to compete in the school swimming champs so you can imagine how few are putting their hands up! So ... Mummy has volunteered Joshua - and sold it to Joshua by telling him that his teacher, Mrs Bell, would really love to see him compete (that is true actually)!

Josh was certainly not keen on the thought at the beginning but has now embraced it and, in fact, the other night asked if we could go down to the pool to practise! Joshua is competing in the 25xmetre freestyle and 25xmetre backstroke. His backstroke style is actually very good ... however, his freestyle needs some work though !!

So we took Spencer down to the pool as well and practised both our diving and our swimming. It is amazing how much more determined Joshua is when he is competing against another buddy, albeit in a friendly way, as opposed to swimming with us.

Pushing off to commence his 25xmetre length of freestyle

We had some very funny and 'interesting' diving moments !

And then there is ALWAYS time for fooling around and having fun in the water!

Music ... and Cards

As you all know, Joshua does The Listening Program 5 days out of 7 where he listens to classical music through a special headphone set. As Josh is such an active young boy, it is always difficult to try to get him to sit quietly without any talking and simply listen to the music. Tonight we came up with a brain-wave - let's play cards!

Daddy knows a great many card games (learned from playing cards enroute to boarding school with his brothers and playing at home with his Mum in particular). So Daddy has now been teaching Josh how to play Two's & Eight's and Beat your Neighbour - and tonight they ended up building a card house - such fun !! And the bonus - the time passed so quickly and all 6 music tracks were completed in no time at all!

At one point, Joshua said to Huddy ... "look and learn Huddy"

The House of Cards - don't breathe out anyone!

The Master of the House !

Street Art ... literally!

On the way home from town we saw a rather colourful man standing by the bay with pots of paint. We pulled over and got out and he called out to Josh ... "hey, do you want to come and paint me?". He was a university student doing a study on art and self expression (!!) and was standing simply in thermal underwear and asking people to have some fun and paint him.

Well Josh didn't hesitate. Only embarrassment was that the height of Joshua and his painting arm was such that the part of his anatomy that was painted was from the waist down - it was a cool day and as Josh loaded his brush with paint and applied it, you could almost see the young guy take a deep breath as the cold paint 'hit' the very thin cover of underwear he had on !

I had to very 'casually' suggest to Josh that he paint from the back ! I almost had to drag Josh away - he was getting right into it !

Happy Birthday Yusei

Yusei had a real 'boysie' party at Laser Strike - 3 games of laser force and then unlimited play on the different game machines for 1 hour. Why is it that boys simply love anything game related, mechanical, technical, h-fi ??? What surprises me even more is their simple aptitude for it all - it just comes naturally to them, they instinctively know what to do !

And then more fun in the car on the way home emptying out their 'goodie' bags - you would be amazed at how much fun they can have with a simple balloon !

Mud ... glorious Mud

And for those of you who didn't believe me about the mud, take a look at these photos ! And now you wonder why Mummy wishes there was a fire hose at the grounds so that I could hose Joshua down BEFORE he gets in my car ! Maia and Josh 'dancing' in the mud - just lovely - NOT !
The finished 'look' !!

Perfect day for Rugby

After a few days of relentless rain, we awoke to a gorgeous Saturday morning - sunny, still, brilliant blue skies but rather brisk - perfect conditions for a game of footy! The Mustangs played against the Warriors, another Poneke team, and both teams had a fast running game and simply loved the soft ground and, dare I say it, the mud - oh the mud !!

There they go, the Mustangs galloping along !

Looks like the 2 referees are chasing Josh !

3 cheers for the ref; 3 cheers for the other team;

and then the usual Mustang chant ... "what's the name of our team - THE MUSTANGS"

And the after-match report from the Coach ....

"Joshua Turnbull played only the first half today and worked hard as usual. His best play was yet another fast straight run that put the Warriors on the back foot and scrambling to get back - this led directly to a Mustang try as support players were able to run off Joshua"

Monkey Business

When Joshua does his listening programme every day, he needs to sit quietly with his headphones on and listen to the music - without any visual stimuli or noise - so it was a godsend to receive a Mosaic sticker set from Uncle Mark & Aunty Juliet, cousins Olivia and Jack. This is the first set of 4 pictures that Josh has completed - all to the tunes of classical music !!

Friday Night Ritual

It is now a 'given' that every Friday I collect both Joshua and Spencer from school, bring them home for afternoon tea and a play-date and then take them both to rugby training. Although they play for different teams, they both train at the same park. Joshua has never been one to idly chat about his day very much, but with the 2 of them in the car chatting, it is amazing what Mummy learns - they both feed off one another and you wouldn't believe what they share !!
Joshua has never been one to simply build a track - whether it be for cars or trains - along flat on the floor. His vision has always been 3D and before he starts anything you can see him scanning the space he has and then planning what he is going to build - and the trickier and higher the better.

And tonight the weather was so foul that rugby practice was done inside the clubrooms which were almost as cold as outside ! Mummy thinks this is going to be a 'long' rugby season and is already thinking of buying some thermals that cover the entire body !

School Art & Projects

There is always a bright splash of colour on the walls in Joshua's classroom and it is quite inspiring to see just how creative some children are and how uninhibited they are in expressing themselves through colour and picture. Joshua enjoys his art but doesn't really doodle nor spend much time on painting or drawing - his pictures are usually put together 'lickety-split'. But hey, beauty lies in the eye of the beholder !

Joshua's explanation of the above art - well on the left is a car of the future, very bubble-like and apparently very fast ! The pictures in the middle and to the right are all about Sponge-Bob Square Pants, that porous yellow fella that lives in a pineapple under the sea !!

Joshua's class is looking at the individual and community commitment to keeping our planet 'green', fresh and clean and are studying in depth the various ways we can all help to recycle and reuse.

Father-Son Book Breakfast

This morning Scots Prep School invited all the Daddys to join their sons from years 1-3 for an early breakfast at 7.45am. They put on fresh coffee and croissants and all the Daddys were then invited into their son's classroom and the boys chose a book to read quietly to their Dads. Joshua chose to read Dr Seuss "My Nest is Best" which was quite a long book and apparently read it all quickly and fluently and had some lovely little inflections in his voice.

Daddy just loved it .... and again, Scots need to be congratulated on just how well they 'do things'.

PS Josh, Daddy told me tonight how very proud he was of you today. He loved coming to school with you and you made him feel very special. Because you usually read to me, it was also such a wonderful surprise for Daddy to hear you read so well.

A recipe for 2 active boys

Ingredients:
2 x active boys and 1 x very active golden retriever.

Method:
Throw boys and dog in back of car; drive to Rimutaka State Forest Park; disembark and head into the forest taking the 4 x kilometer loop track; start them off running; keep them entertained by setting a treasure hunt for them to find lollies along the way where they had to back-track their steps, climb trees and skid down a bank to the stream - all at a reasonably fast pace; give retriever a lovely swim in the stream; return to car with 2 quieter boys by this stage and head to the swimming pool; encourage them to climb onto the inflatable and play for over an hour in the water, the more active the better; bring them home, give them dinner and let them play basketball and tennis on the WII sport for half-an-hour.

Result:
2 x tired boys, both happy to go to bed and ZZZzzzzzzz.

Run boys, run ...

Those treasure hunt fairies left some great candy treats in the forest this time !

These 2 boys were a laugh-a-minute

Playing basketball on WII is hot work - the boys needed to strip down !