MOTAT

So, we went to Motat, thanks in part to Bree, and her mum, who provided us with the free ticket to go. It's a pretty awesome place, though the weather was awful, and Sienna was grumpy, so we didn't see it all. Highlights were the mirromaze, the whisper dishes, the simulator ride, which Maddie declined to ride, but was truly awesome, and the tram ride. Denver watched the driver like a hawk on the return trip, trying to work out how he rang the bell. When we stopped, we asked him, turns out it was with his foot. Then he let Denver and Sienna ring the bell, much to their delight! Here are some pics.

Into the future, one slow stumble at a time.

So finally New Zealand has caught up with the rest of the planet, and Whitcoulls has finally released an eBook site. I cannot tell you how exciting this is for Maddie and I, who have been dreaming, drooling, desiring a Kindle ever since we heard the term eBook.
However, Amazon is still pretending NZ doesn't exist, and won't market the very sexy Kindle here, but Whitcoulls does have an alternative for those of us who can't even hope to afford any device that has a little *i* in front of it, the Kobo . In white or black, with a variety of font types and sizes, and 100 free books included (it holds up to a thousand), it's almost as cute as a Kindle, and will set you back $295, a still angst worthy price for those of us with  a lot more sense than cents.
At the moment, as I do with any purchase over three figures, I'm waxing lyrical about how I can't afford it, that I can wait until the price drops or a windfall happens, but once I'm done with that, I'll be wrenching our reluctant, battered credit card from the Mr's wallet, and buying us a Kobo.

Until then, check this out. You can download the eReader application to your computer. Once downloaded you get five books (we got Alice in Wonderland, The Grimm Brothers Fairy Tales, Huckleberry Finn, Bram stokers Dracula, and Sherlock Holmes). Then you can browse other available titles, all ready to download for much less than you would pay for the actual books. The site doesn't have a whole lot yet, but Maddie and I already have our eye on a couple of titles, one of which isn't released physically for another two weeks. They also have  a FREE classics section, where you can download titles like Jane Eyre, Moby Dick, War and Peace, to your PC for FREE! FREE! I downloaded Siddhartha. When you open the book a little book mark will appear showing you where you are up to. It's very cute.

Gingerbread Men

I saw these in the supermarket on Sunday and thought they looked fun. I'm not a huge ginger fan, so usually when we make these type of biscuits we do shortbread. The recipe is easy, and they even give you a cookie cutter, but only one colour (white) icing, so we used our other icing gels.

Kyla decided to make a Justin Bieber one (of course).

Denver and Sienna just had loads of fun decorating, and Madi made a Sue Sylvester cookie.

(Notice red tracksuit, white trim)

Oh, and the eating of course!!!

Ky's Pics

Kyla took off with my camera this afternoon. Here's what I found on my memory card.

Picture Perfect

Bieber Fever

Ever since a certain celebrity hit our shores a couple of weeks ago, a strange illness has overtaken our household, called Bieber Fever. (Maddie would like it to be known she has not had, or ever intends to have said fever). Kyla has, at last count, 22 pictures of him in her room, and spends most of her time listening to his CD, googling pictures of him, or staring at his videos on YouTube with this faraway expression. I had no idea it has also hit miss Sienna.

When I asked her about her picture she said, 'Its Justin Bieber. I love him.' Oh, right. Then she wanted to write his name, so I wrote each letter and she did her best to copy them.

Bathtime for Gilby

Gilby thinks, Hey hose! Cool! I love the hose. Squirt me!

Gilby thinks, Um, hang on, this wasn't how I imagined it.

Gilby thinks, Wash away my dignity too, while you're at it.

Gilby thinks, Hey, maybe if I distract them I can escape.

Freedom!

Beados

A couple of weeks ago Sienna was given some Beados as one of her birthday presents. She had always admred Kyla's set, so she was very excited to get her very own. It was a Disney Princess themed kit, and over the course of a weekend, she worked her way through the whole kit, one crown, castle, princess at a time.

Having finished the kit, she declared it necessary to go buy more beados, so she spent some of her birthday money on a new kit, puppy themed :)