Children

Little Children’s Fun

June 15, 2019 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The little children got their legos back last week, after a month or so without them. When there is a dispute about legos, I take them away for a month—I refuse to arbitrate disputes such as, “He took my piece!” or “She has my man!” If they can’t work out these problems without my input, they don’t need to play with those toys. They have a lot more fun when they only have them periodically, anyway. This time, Simon remembered a website we used to use, which has plans for all sorts of lego creations. He got me to help him find it, and they printed out several different things to build. Little Miss is delighted with her train!

Mr. Imagination chose an airplane, and with help from a friend, got it put together.

Here are a couple of pictures that I asked Esther to take with her camera in March, when we were visiting friends in Canterbury. The children were playing on the hills and in the creek on the farm, and found these geckos. They had a lot of fun with them!

May 2019 Photos

June 1, 2019 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

Can you believe the first of June has arrived already? This year is flying past!

Here is the canoe the boys have built. Mr. Intellectual worked on the epoxy a day or two at the beginning of the month, then pulled it out of the garage into the sunshine to get the epoxy dry. With the cold, wet weather we’re having, it’s been next to impossible to work on this project.

One morning while her brothers did school, Little Miss played, “Going to a Conference.” She took all her dolls along. Here, she had been singing, pretending to be in a meeting; later they went to a bedroom (she carried all four at once) for lunch, and then went to the hallway to “sleep at Katie’s house.”

The boys noticed a pear tree across the road, beside where the cow grazes, with pears littering the ground under it. They asked the owner of the property if we could have the pears, and he gave them to us, so Gayle and the younger boys picked them all up one Saturday. We made a couple of large pans of pear/cranberry crumble–yum! Mr. Imagination and Little Miss helped me peel and cut up the pears for it.

When I placed an order recently for schoolbooks, I added the last two Pleasant Valley Farm picture books to the order for Esther. When they came, she showed them to these two, and they jumped up and down and squealed in glee–they love those books!

One day this week, we noticed a 20-foot shipping container being loaded into this truck! We had never seen that done before. Notice the rain falling heavily in this photo? That was the story of our week. For five days straight, we had torrential rains, for a total, here, of nearly 10 inches.

Mr. Imagination took this picture of a digger he is building. He loves to put things together.

Little Miss apparently brought a wasp in the house on her hair one day. It stung her just below the eye. She screamed for a good while. The next day, when I took this photo, it had swollen some, but not as bad as I thought it might. We had put plantain on as quickly as possible–it really helps!

I guess Mr. Sweetie was quite impressed by the way his milk foamed one day! I have several boys who love foamed milk (Esther found a foamer at a secondhand shop recently), but our milk often won’t foam.

This was our living room one evening this month. Simon and Mr. Diligence were listening to an audio book on Simon’s phone (which is only used as an audiobook player, by the way!). It looks like Mr. Sweetie was trying to listen in, as well. These boys are addicted to audiobooks.

My artist, Mr. Imagination, with the horse he made from marbles one day.

Children—March 2019

April 13, 2019 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

I took quite a few pictures of the children in March! Here, we were doing a science experiment about camouflage. I bought some M&Ms, and they crumpled colored papers in three of the colors of the candies. Then, we put equal amounts of each of seven or eight colors of candy in the basket with the paper, and they were to see how many of each they could easily find in a minute. After counting and recording their results, of course, came the best part—eating them!

Mr. Imagination and Little Miss were playing with the marbles one day and made pictures with them. I let Mr. Imagination take photos of their cats. The first is his, the second is hers, and they made the third together.

The little boys asked for a box that came in the mail, one day, and they cut it up to make swords and shields. Little Miss wanted her own set, and struck this “fierce” pose when she wanted her picture taken.

Little Miss badly wants her hair to be braided now. She hardly has enough, but she loves the results when I take the time for it! (She just saw me writing this and said, “That was when I had long hair.” Now she wants me to braid her hair again!)

Mr. Imagination was picking up leaves to “start a campfire” one day, with Little Miss and Mr. Sweetie watching him.

Last year, Simon gave Little Miss some cosmos plants for her birthday. This year, Esther bought her some seeds, so I started several plants. I couldn’t believe how huge they grew! She has loved having her own flowers to pick, although she can’t reach very many.

While I was in the garden with the camera, I grabbed this picture of our marigolds. I haven’t grown many flowers in the past, but have decided it’s fun to have a few scattered among the vegetables.

Projects

July 8, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Our big project for the past month and a half or so has been clearing the land across the road, as I described last week. A few other things have happened in that time, though.

Mr. Intellectual decided he wanted to build a canoe. He took these two sheets of roofing iron and hammered them flat, then riveted them together. He’s been working, when he has a free moment, on crimping down the edges so they won’t be sharp. I’m not sure how he’s planning to waterproof the seam and the ends.

Mr. Diligence needed a way to organize and protect his drill bits, so he built this box.

One evening, a few months after one of the burners on this hob quit working, I was standing beside it finishing cooking the meal. Suddenly I saw a flash of light out of the corner of my eye, and simultaneously felt pain in my eye. With no idea what had happened, I quickly got some cold water from the sink in case I had been burned, and was very relieved to find out I could still see from both eyes. After some investigation, I discovered that the light that turned on to show that a burner was turned on had blown and the cover hit my eyelid (thank God for quick reflexes that close your eye when something is coming toward it!). We had bought a gas hob from a friend after the electric one started going out, and I had been wondering how long it would be till it was installed—it happened the evening the stove blew up on me! I am thoroughly enjoying having a gas hob for the first time since we moved to New Zealand (it’s what I always had in Michigan). It is supplied by a 9 kg (20 lb) cylinder, so we can replace it ourselves. The first cylinder lasted about 3 weeks.

Mr. Diligence found this box one evening, and made “hair” on top of it. It took several tries, but I finally got a picture of him facing me in it.

Children, May 2018

June 9, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I took a lot of pictures of my children in May. I braided Little Miss’s hair for the first time! It’ll be awhile before I do it again, though. Her hair is still so short!

Grizzly on top of Mr. Imagination.

After Mr. Intellectual built a bridge for his engineering course one day, Mr. Sweetie built his own version.

Little Miss wanted me to take a picture of her with her baby.

Esther tormenting Goofball.

When we were in Canterbury a few weeks ago, we stopped for a few minutes at Gore Bay. I tried to get a print-worthy picture of the children. The light was wrong, though. In person, this was lovely, but a camera just can’t pick up what the human eye can.

And then, I got these goofy faces!

We tried again at Hurunui Mouth, with a bribe of some feijoas for cooperation. This one turned out decent.

I think we’ll try again sometime.

And, one last picture. This is one Simon needed taken for his apprenticeship. He was supposed to have a picture of himself in his safety gear for doing a job. The job he chose to illustrate involved welding, so here he is decked out for that.

Spring!

September 17, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Spring is here! Some days sure don’t feel like it, but more days are warm than a month ago, and the grass is growing.

The first garden work was done in mid-August. Simon took the rotary hoe (rototiller) through part of the garden, after I showed him what needed done. It broke after he got some done, though, so he tore it apart and took one part to a local man to get a replacement shaft made. We picked up the finished piece the day I took Simon to Christchurch to get his Learner’s Licence; that night, Simon and Mr. Diligence stayed up till midnight putting the rotary hoe back together. He felt like he had to do it because he was leaving home a couple of days later and wouldn’t have another chance!

This is the lemon tree right outside my kitchen window. So beautiful!

Esther babysat the day I took Simon to Christchurch. She sent the boys outside for a break at one point during school. They started wrestling, and Little Miss was telling them to stop!

When it didn’t work to order them to stop, she tried to manually separate them!

May 2017

June 11, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

And the rest of the pictures from May! This is a fairly common sight in the morning; here Mr. Inventor is doing his typing lesson while his cat keeps him company, and Mr. Sweetie is trying to get himself started on his Math in a cozy spot in front of the fire.

After a heavy rain, the underground cistern overflowed, so Mr. Imagination and Little Miss had great fun playing in the puddle one morning. Great fun, that is, until she got muddy—see the picture below! Then, she was done. Because the cistern was overflowing, and we had no need for the water, I let the boys pump it out to the duck pond. They forgot to turn the pump off at bedtime, though, and Esther discovered it sucking air the next afternoon when we were away! Oops. It’s refilled now, though. Quite a contrast to a few months ago, when we were saving water in every way we could. We’re so thankful for rain!

Mr. Sweetie was playing with a candle one day. The wick was long enough he was able to get it to curl around like this, and he wanted to take a picture of it.

On chilly days, the fire is a main focal point.

I’m not sure what these two were up to. They made a line of the Childcraft books along the hallway. And the blankets wrapped around them? I don’t have a clue!

Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination again.

Strange People

May 14, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We had some very strange-looking people in our house this evening. First, this apparition appeared:

He wouldn’t tell us his name, but we think maybe it was Mr. Imagination. Sure sounded like his giggle, anyway! Then, a little while later, this one showed up in the kitchen:

Later, after we ate, we were treated to a sword-swallowing show. I’ll let you catch a brief glimpse of Mr. Inventor’s skills.

Happy Days

May 7, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

This is just a collection of random pictures of happy times over the past couple of months—pictures I never found a spot for before. Mr. Imagination was so happy to have puddles to splash in! This was one of our first rains in March, and was some of the first puddles he had the opportunity to play in for a couple of years.

All these lovely people, plus a few more, slept and ate at our house for a day and a half! We really enjoyed that weekend. One family had lived with us for two and a half months; they had to fly back to America a couple of days after the picture was taken, and the other family had come to say goodbye to them.

Mr. Intellectual was doing a science experiment, with help from Mr. Inventor and Esther. It had something to do with how pulleys work.

A friend came one day to say goodbye before she goes to America for a year. She loves children, and spent a lot of the day with the little ones. You can see how Little Miss loved her!

I believe this is a cup of hot chocolate from the friend in the picture above. Think Little Miss likes it?

We were given a big box of clothes, and Mr. Inventor had great fun dressing up and trying to look as ridiculous as possible! (And now I notice a cat enjoying the box!)

I came out of the bedroom after praying with Gayle at bedtime one night, and found that, not only had the boys not gone to bed, Mr. Inventor was busy tying Mr. Diligence up!

When we happen to have a Sunday afternoon at home, Daddy sometimes plays a game with the children. They love it!

Kubb

February 27, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We have learned a new game this year. It’s very fun, everyone can be involved, and it gets people outside and active. Win, win! This game is called Kubb, and apparently originated in Sweden—possibly as far back as Viking times. Basically, you throw batons to try to knock over pieces of 2x4s, while avoiding a larger piece of wood set up in the center. It’s very easy to make the game—just get yourself a length of 2×4, a length of 1-inch dowel, and a chunk of 4×4. Read the rules on the Wikipedia page here. We’ve learned that Mr. Inventor is the man to have on your team; he almost invariably wins. This game is addictive. I’ve found that you want to keep going, hoping against hope that eventually you’ll actually hit a target! Here are pictures of the game we played together last week.