Garlic

My first garlic harvest.

Tree

Fully decorated Solstice Tree.

Solstice Morning

Opening cloth-wrapped presents.

Making Ornaments

Last week we all took some time to work on making ornaments for the Solstice Tree together. We mainly used items found at the beach - shells, little rocks, sea glass,
bits of driftwood, beads and ribbons.



Loren displays a string of paper cranes - part if the Solstice decorations this year.

Solstice Tree

In progress last week. We declared it finished this weekend and spent some time working on decorations.

In the Tall Grass

We took a walk Friday morning. Ended up watching them install the new Plunket building - which arrived on the back of a truck! We sat I'm the Tall grass and watched and Sebastian picked so many dandelions.

Sebastian The Pirate

... holding his telescope (a roll of contact paper) and his gold dubloons (some Mardi Gras coins) and wearing his pirate hat. The couch was our pirate ship, decorated with fairy lights for Solstice, of course.

Rainbow Heart

Sebastian proudly showing me and Loren the rainbow heart activity when we picked him up from Montessori Preschool last week.

Face Paint

Rainbow Dash cutie mark face paint, done by Tutu.

Bath Time

On the swing

In the back garden. Spring is here and we ate getting outside more. I was happy to see Sebastian making good use of his home made tree swing this morning.

Helping

Sebastian helping me make Loren's birthday cake. The most important step: licking the spoon.

Down the Big Slide

Going down the big slide with Daddy at Aotea Lagoon last weekend.

Sprouting Kumera

The kumera I am sprouting is looking just about ready for Spring to arrive. The thing is reminding me of the giant tree in Laputa.

Painting

Painting on silk with Tutu. According to Tutu, he saw a silk scarf she had just pinned up to work on and said "Oh! Is that for me?" How could she resist?

Stow Away

Sebastian curled up in Tutu's suitcase this morning. Tutu and Grandpa are off to Hawaii tomorrow. And we head out on our holiday to Rarotonga tomorrow.

A Basket Full of Stars

  We made these star decorations for Matariki. Sebastian had to check them out before we hung them from the ceiling. Here he is very carefully selecting stars from the basket and stacking them up on his table.

Happy Birthday Boy

  He blew out the candles three times, because he kept wanting us to light them again. 

 Sebastian turned three today, and this was the first year he really could grasp the concept of a birthday. He's been excited about it for months. He's been giving all his stuffed animals birthday cards. And he's already picked out what birthday cake he wants... for the next ten birthdays. (This one was strawberry cake with chocolate frosting.)

Birthday Waffles

Sebastian helping me blow out the candle on my birthday waffles yesterday.

Massaging The Kale

"And now I will do the foot massage!"

As you can see, he really got onto it. And then of course had no interest in eating it.

Da Menu

After watching Daddy play Dominion with friends last weekend, Sebastian asked "Can you show me how to play Da Menu?"

After confirming he meant Dominion, Loren agreed to show him after bath time. And he did. They were at it for probably half an hour before Sebastian started losing focus.

Air Bender

  Lately Sebastian and I have been watching a lot of Avatar: The Last Air Bender, a kid appropriate show that Loren and I like and already had in our collection. So the other day Sebastian decided he was Ang, an Air Bender, and I was a Fire Bender. We did a lot of make believe on that theme, and then in the evening, he noticed the clothes hanger pole, the one he had insisted on pulling out of his closet a few days ago.

(On that occasion, he started pulling on the pole and asked for my help. I said "no, I think it should stay there" and walked away. He got it out on his own. Later, I noticed a few items he has mysteriously gotten down from a high shelf in the nursery. The next morning he proudly told me "I fished that down with my fishing pole!" and gave me a demonstration with the clothes hanger pole.)

  So he grabbed the pole and said "this is my glider!" He very carefully carried it around like Ang carries his glider in Avitar. It was a vast improvement over his previous use for the pole!

  The next morning, I had gotten up before him. He came wandering out into the dinning room where I was, carrying the pole, and announced:

"I'm still that air bender and this is still my glider! "
 

New Ball

    Me and Sebastian went to the park to play with his new ball this morning. We were going to play in the grassy field, but the nearby skate park was empty so I said we could play in it. He had do much fun throwing the ball around in there, seeing how it bounced off the ramps at different angles.





  You can also get a pretty good look at his new favourite shoes. These "shark boots" are wool lined. Great for the cooler months.

First Day

Here's Sebastian, with his backpack on, ready for his first drop off visit to preschool. It was only one hour. Next week he starts "for real" - three hours a day!

Hello

Recently Sebastian and I went out to lunch. Outside the cafe, Sebastian climbed into a coin operated ride shaped like a car. Then he started chatting away to the elf figure in the seat next to him.

"Hi. Hi. Hi. Can I drive? Can I drive?"

I had to pretend to be the elf and give him permission to drive before he would touch the steering wheel.

Easter Eggs

Sebastian peeling an Easter Egg with such concentration. An activity he enjoyed almost as much as hiding and finding the eggs. And look at those blue hands! He took a hands on approach to egg dyeing.

Book Worm

Sebastian loves books these days. And so does his new "book worm" his grandparents got for him yesterday.

Aftermath

The aftermath of playing withSebastian this evening. We played Dance Party, which involves throwing all the couch cushions and pillows on the floor and dancing around while lilistening to music. Sebastian picks the music. He has his own CD player and access to our CD collection. Then we played dress up which led to him pulling out all of my scarves for his stuffed animals to wear.

Gruffalo Zebra

"Mamma, I'm a gruffalo AND a zebra!"

This is how Sebastian dressed for Playcentre yesterday. He's been really interested in dress up lately. The shoes are his and he's been insisting on wearing them everywhere lately. The zebra costume belongs to our Playcentre but he got so attached to it in Wednesday that it ended up coming home with us "to be washed and returned!" was the official story but really I just couldn't get him to take the thing off.

On Holiday

Sebastian and Loren playing on the bike racks at Waitangi Park.

Look here's some cute photos

   The mobile app I was using to update this blog on my phone stopped working. I'm downloading a new one right now, but in the mean time I've gotten behind on my mini-posts. So to make up for it, here's some cute photos of Sebastian playing hide in the space between his old cot mattress (now used as a floor cushion) and its fitted sheet.

    New hair cut courtesy of our friend Ange. I swear his eyes look even bigger now. We were playing that the mattress and cover were a pita bread, and he was the filling! He's really getting into imaginative play right now, which is so much fun.

      He discovered my nail polish a couple weeks ago. He's put I don't know how many layers of polish on his nails and mine since then. He can be very careful with it, when he tries, even wiping the excess polish off the brush on the inside of the bottle.

    He kept wanting me to take pictures of him when he was completely covered up with the sheet, and then he wanted to look at them. I don't know why he found that so fascinating.