Our family's life in New Zealand
Mr. Imagination has been working hard to tame his budgies. Now that the weather is cool and we don’t want the windows open all the time, he lets them fly every morning. Reepicheap has become quite tame, and anyone can put a hand in front of him and pick him up. Jewel is still more timid, but Mr. Imagination has been able to get her to sit on his hand quite often lately. All the children enjoy both birds, and I found a lot of pictures on both my phone and camera!
As I looked through our photos from May, I found a lot that featured Mr. Imagination! He has been very busy. This is a picture he drew on the whiteboard one day.
More of his weaponry! He likes to test his knives by seeing if they will shave, but he ran out of hair on his arm so he got a brother to test it. The hatchet is made from rebar! The crossbow really shoots.
One day, he let Reepicheep watch him practice his math facts. The bird was fascinated with the pictures moving across the screen!
Reepicheep is getting quite tame. All the children enjoy playing with him.
I happened to notice some videos in a folder from October recently, and when I watched them to see what they were remembered that I had wanted to share them. So, here’s a little glimpse into the life and thoughts of Mr. Imagination! By the way, the background music is Gayle singing to Little Miss as he bathed her! He had no idea that he would end up being recorded, and said I’d have to put a disclaimer on. And, I do apologize for the way these fade out in places. Our living room isn’t very light at night, and the camera has a hard time with that.
My computer finally seems to be fixed. We had to send it back in to be worked on again in late June, and when we got it back and set up again, we ran into the same problem as before. I had to install updates one at a time, because it wasn’t handling more than that. Suddenly, the same problem appeared that we had before, with the computer demanding the product key for Windows 8. We uninstalled the update I had just installed, but nothing changed. I contacted the company—again. However, a day or so later, after a couple more restarts, the demand for that key disappeared! The computer is working perfectly again. What a relief. So, maybe I’ll get back to more regular posting…or maybe not. No promises. Anyway, here are pictures for Grandma of the two littlest during June.
Little Miss asked for some yogurt in her bowl. Then, she stepped in it! What a terrible catastrophe!
Little Miss and Mr. Imagination reading stories together.
Mr. Imagination was pretending to be a gorilla.
Little Miss took ashes out of the coal range, and then tried to clean up her mess!
She’s all girl! She likes pretty dresses.
Looking at pictures with big sister.
Playing at Dead Boring (homeschool group).
Esther’s boss gave the little ones a toy lawn mower. Little Miss claims it for her own.
Helping Esther make snickerdoodles.
Time to share the rest of the pictures from March. I think they’ve aged long enough now. More to the point, life is starting to slow down just a bit for the winter. Not that it ever slows down much, but anyway…. I think all I have left to process is apples for apple butter, and tomatoes. I need to pick tomatoes tomorrow, and see what the chickens who won’t stay out of the garden have left for us.
Mr. Imagination wants to dictate a story for Grandma.
“One time, me and J goed up in a tree. Then we goed up in another tree. Then I got stuck. Then I climbed up some more. Then I got stuck again. And then I climbed up some more and then I got up to the top. I climbed down. There were these strange marching sounds and here came Ja, marching, and here came S, and E, and M, walking. And everyone came and didn’t see N. And then, J came down and then all the people was gone. And then I climbed down the rest. And then I heard some more marching sounds. And then I climbed up to the top and then there was these bad marching sounds and here came a blackbird, marching. I came forward and caught it and I ate it for my supper. The end.” (I’ve changed the names to just initials.)
And, he has another story:”One time, J and Ja goed up the tall tree, which I could touch the top of. And then, I goed up the top of the tree and then I fell down and I broke my neckbone and I climbed up again and I tried not to break my neckbone and then I broke it again. And then I goed down to the creek and then I saw a frog jump up. It was big and I ate it for my supper. The end.”
And another: “One time, me and J goed up to the top of the big tree, which I could touch the top of. I climbed up and I hit my climber bone and then I fell down and I broke my knucklebone and then J came down and then I just went and touched the top of the tree. And then a snake came and then I killed it. And a squirrel came after the snake and the squirrel ate the snake all up. Then another snake came as I was going to the house and I killed it by stepping on it. I speared it. Then I chopped its head off and it wiggled and I chopped another piece of it off and then it wiggled again and I picked it up and I chopped it again and I set it down and ran off to the house. The end.”
By the way, all three stories are purely imaginary. This four-year-old has never broken a bone, or seen a snake or a squirrel, and he rarely climbs a tree. He’s awfully cute, though!
As always, this has been a busy summer-you can probably tell how busy I am by the frequency (or lack thereof) of posting! Today, we are on our way home from a weekend in Timaru, so while the battery holds out I’ll try to get a few posts ready to upload when we get home. Esther installed a program for me (Windows Live Writer) that is wonderful. You write your blog post and get the pictures the way you want them, offline, and then publish whenever you can! As I write, we’re driving through very flat farming country just south of Ashburton. There are large flat paddocks stretching away from the highway in both directions, and a railroad parallels the highway to my left. I’m seeing nicely manicured shelterbelts (hedges), and now a plantation of pine trees. There is a lot of dairy in this area, and some sheep. We see a lot of enormous stacks of giant square bales of hay, and irrigation rigs are everywhere. We passed one center-pivot irrigation rig with 18 sections a little while ago! I should have had Gayle push the odometer to measure its length, but didn’t think of it in time.
Anyway, here are a bunch of pictures of my younger children, from February. Little Miss loves to eat. She discovered the room, behind the garage, where we keep fruit (it’s cooler than anywhere else), and if someone leaves the door open she helps herself—usually to three items at once. She holds one in her right hand to eat, and clutches the other two to her chest with her left hand for later. Here, she had an apricot—what a yummy mess! It looks like Mr. Imagination had one, too.
Mr. Intellectual and Mr. Diligence on their bikes.
I found this whiteboard at a secondhand shop, and we hung it in the kitchen beside where we do school. Mr. Imagination loves to draw on it. This is a picture of him; the top circle is his forehead.
Mr. Diligence eating a picnic lunch.
The hose was leaking, and Mr. Imagination and Little Miss had great fun playing in the puddle!
Mr. Sweetie considering how to do the cleaning!
Little Miss was worried that she might have to have a haircut, too!
The wheel turns! For several days, she spent a lot of time turning it!
Flyswatter in one hand and a peach in the other—she’s all set!
Mr. Imagination made hollyhock dolls for awhile.
Little Miss loves to draw, too. Thankfully, she sticks with the whiteboard, although she uses pencils as well as whiteboard markers.
One day, the two littlest boys made suits of armor and weapons by stapling together scrap paper.
Mr. Imagination woke up early one morning, but by 7:00 he was asleep again on my chair!
She did it! Little Miss figured out how to get a cloth over her head. She worked on that trick for a long time.
One morning after a rain, Little Miss found a puddle just her size and had fun stepping in it.
She also thought it was fun washing her hands and feet in the milk in the cat dish. Mom was not impressed (and neither was the cat!).
Little Miss is a Daddy’s girl! She wants to be with Daddy whenever she can be. Just before I took this picture, I saw her standing there with her hand on his back, watching intently.
Mr. Sweetie took this one.
Everyone likes to play with Little Miss. One evening, she was “throwing” a ball and chasing it, to the great delight of everyone. Another time, Mr. Handyman brought her into the house in a bucket. She frequently gets bucket rides. This picture with a ball was taken on her birthday.
Mr. Imagination didn’t finish his breakfast, a pancake with applesauce, cut up into bite-sized pieces. Little Miss found it and ate about half, then scattered the rest across the floor.
Mr. Imagination found this dress in the closet one day and badly wanted Little Miss to wear it. The boys love seeing her dressed in really girly clothes.
While I was shelling peas one day, Mr. Sweetie got the camera and took some pictures of the two little ones. This is what I was enjoying watching while I shelled the peas.
That turkey is as big as she is! Mr. Inventor thought it was pretty cute to see her investigating the turkeys. He said she walked right up to them.
While we were eating outside where it was cooler one evening, she stuck her foot in Daddy’s plate. That wasn’t what she wanted to do!
One day, she spent half an hour or more sitting on this box, playing with her empty pill bottle and one or two other things.
After I emptied a jar of yogurt, she took it and the spoon and cleaned out more!
I found a number of pictures of or taken by Mr. Imagination on my memory card when I went through it today, so I decided to give him his own post.
One morning during dishes, while I was reading aloud, he climbed into this tub and spent several minutes totally engrossed in his own little world. I took several pictures, and he never seemed to notice. 
He took this picture, of me helping Mr. Sweetie with school, one morning.
Either he or Mr. Sweetie took this picture, of Mr. Inventor and Mr. Diligence working on a lawn mower.
Mr. Sweetie took quite a series of pictures of Mr. Imagination being funny.
Apparently, they took turns with the camera!
No pictures with this post; it’s hard to get a picture of something invisible.
Mr. Imagination came in the house while I was cooking supper, cuddling something in his hand. He told me he had a baby kitten. I asked him where he found it. “Out in the paddock.”
“Did the mommy cat leave it?”
“It was in another cave.”
I asked what color it was. “Blue.”
I asked if it had to have a bottle or if it could drink out of a dish. “It still needs a bottle.” I pretended to give him a bottle, and he pretended to feed it to the kitten, making sucking noises with his mouth. Then, after he told me there were actually three kittens, I told him that after you feed a tiny kitten you have to wash its bottom with a warm wet cloth to help it poo. I thought that might faze him, but obviously it’s no problem with an invisible kitten!
The next problem was where to put the kittens to sleep. He wanted to put them under a light to keep them warm, like we do with chicks, turkeys and ducklings. I told him that kittens just need a hot water bottle with a clean dry cloth over it in a box. “Where is the clean cloth?” I told him to see if there was a pretend one on the coal range—sure enough, there was! “Where is the hot water bottle?” I pretended to give him one, and help him fill it, and then he found a pretend box.
Now he had the problem of where to put his kittens. I suggested in a quiet corner of his bedroom, so he trotted off—but was soon back. The kittens had woke up! I told him to take them back, but “Mew! Mew! They will wait for me!” I suggested putting them on my rocking chair in the kitchen. “Oh, yes. They will not wait for me there!”
Then, when I called everyone to the table for supper, he brought his kittens along and started “feeding” them. A shred of meat went to the kittens…and into his mouth. A bit of bread—“They like the inside bread”—went to the kittens…and into his mouth.
I think he’s forgotten them now, an hour later, but it was awfully cute while it went on. I love being able to play along with him like that. It’s an easy way to connect with a three-year-old, and I don’t even have to stop what I’m doing to play with him. He is so much fun!
These two little boys are a lot of fun! Mr. Sweetie just turned six, and Mr. Imagination is three and a half, and they add a lot of enjoyment to our lives. We are so thankful to have them. Mr. Diligent was already nearly four when Mr. Sweetie was born, our biggest gap between children, and we were wondering if there would be anymore babies. Here are a few glimpses into what the two of them have been up to lately.
I got a package in the mail one day, and Mr. Sweetie turned the packaging into a hat!
When Mr. Sweetie was done with it, Mr. Imagination took it over.
Mr. Inventor made a robot mask out of a piece of cardboard packaging from another parcel, and Mr. Sweetie dressed up!
Mr. Sweetie helped Esther make the pavlova for his birthday a week or so ago.
Mr. Imagination made a bed for himself and his baby, and I tucked Little Miss in with him. She loved it! She adores her big brothers.
