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Miss Joy

April 18, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Miss Joy is growing fast! At nearly 8 months, she crawls anywhere she wants to go. She stands up against anything that will support her—or not; she’s always experimenting to see what is solid and what is not. Nearly everything goes in her mouth; you have to find out if it’s edible or not! She has learned to leave the cat alone. That tail is so tempting—but the cat has made sure that Miss Joy knows she is off limits! No scratches, but there were definitely some warning slaps and growls. We’re also treated to a fast-growing repertoire of sounds, as she practices with various syllables. She has the funniest growling cackle that makes us laugh every time she does it. She was sick the last two days with a mysterious fever, which made her quite lethargic. We enjoyed the extra cuddling time, but we’re all thankful today that she’s well again, after a solid night’s sleep. I think I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: We thoroughly enjoy this baby!

I think this first picture was from early March. She was thrilled to find a window she could see out of! She likes being outside better than in the house.

The dishwasher is such fun to explore! I have to take the cutlery basket out and put it out of reach when dishes are drying, or spoons and forks end up strewn all over the floor.

She was tickled one day to find the pea vines in the bathtub planter. Peas are so yummy!She crawled into Esther and Little Miss’s bedroom one day and gave Esther this beautiful grin. See those two little teeth?

Tomatoes are so delicious.

Little Miss asked Esther, “Is it all right if we share germs?”

Mr. Imagination got out the box of games and puzzles one day. It was such fun to climb over and through, and then sit up in!

She found an apple under the table. Mr. Imagination took this first picture. I love it even though it’s blurry. Esther got two more, which are clearer, but I don’t think they’re quite so cute. The poor baby ends up stuck under the table sometimes because she can’t crawl under the benches.

Here are a few video clips we made of her laughing. I love how she laughs so hard sometimes that she loses her balance!

Picnics During Lockdown

April 5, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We decided, to make Sundays a bit more special while we’re on lockdown, to have a picnic by the creek down the hill from our town. We built a small fire and roasted sausages and marshmallows, and then played in the creek with Simon’s kayak and a couple of boats the boys built. When everyone had their fill of the water, we went across the creek and did target practice with Simon’s air rifle, aiming toward a sand dune. We really enjoy having this safe, private place to be outside! It’s within walking distance of our house, and the water is shallow enough there is no danger even if a boat flips.

Miss Joy loves boat rides! I apologize for so many pictures, but I couldn’t decide which of these to leave out.

Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination wading in the creek. That’s the Paparoa Mountains in the background.

Esther wanted the water drained out of the kayak before she got in. It took too long—she gave up waiting!

This is the boat Mr. Intellectual built. It’s nearly unsinkable, at least on this kind of water.

The willow trees near the creek were covered with these big aphids!

The trees were also swarming with bumblebees and wasps. I found out how hard it is to get a picture of an insect. Esther did better, though.

I tried out the kayak—fun!

These boys rocked the boat…

…and these two rode the waves from it!

When we went across to shoot the air rifle, Miss Joy discovered something new—sand! She was thrilled to have something new to investigate.

Simon really wanted me to try shooting. It turns out that I’m a pretty good aim when I can lean on something like this…but not when I have to hold the air rifle up myself!

Simon likes to give everyone a turn shooting.

The previous pictures were all from last week, when it was cloudy and cool. This week, it was sunny and warm. This was the view up the river as we walked down to the creek.

We pass this row of trees on our way up. It was such a beautiful day today!

Here are a few video clips I put together from our afternoon at the creek.

Videos of the Children

January 22, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The boys were using their forge one day, and Esther took some video clips to send to a little boy who had just broken his leg. She put the best ones together here so Grandma can get an idea of what they are doing.

These are just a few cute video clips of what Miss Joy was doing in the latter part of December. We’re enjoying her so much!

She had just found her feet when I took this video, and while I was taking it she got her toes into her mouth for the first time! That was three weeks ago; now, every time she’s on her back her hands go to her toes–until she decides to roll over and get moving.

Miss Joy, 3 Months

December 7, 2019 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

These first two pictures were taken when Miss Joy was 2 1/2 months old, in early November.

This is her 3-month picture! She loves to taste everything she can get her hands on. When she’s laying down, both hands are up, with one almost always tucked behind her head, as here, while the other tries to stuff something into her mouth.

Her first time in the Bumbo. She likes being able to look around!

She is such a happy baby! She smiles and laughs a lot.

A week ago, I got out this toy that she was given. She likes to chew on it when she can get it into her mouth. That takes a lot of hard work, though.

We had to redo her passport photo for her NZ passport. Here are a couple of the failed attempts.

Little Miss is loving having a live doll to play with!Just for Grandma—a couple of video clips.

October 2019 Photos

November 9, 2019 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

Here are the last of my photos from October! This year is almost over already—how can that be?

One more bubble picture, from when that was the fad. This is Mr. Imagination.

Gayle and all the children except Miss Joy went fishing one Saturday. They didn’t catch anything except a blackberry vine, and they lost some hooks and the handle of a reel—but they had fun!

Little Miss wanted to dress her baby sister one morning, so I let her try. She discovered it’s a little harder than dressing a doll! Mr. Imagination helped her.

The cow and calf enjoyed the sunshine a few days after the calf was born during a rainy spell.

The boys were trying to make a stack of people. Mr. Sweetie climbed onto Mr. Diligence’s shoulders, but when Mr. Imagination got on, the stack collapsed.

Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination made these fish out of silly putty. The fish are playing with a ball, and the top of the frame is the sea.

Simon bought a new backpack, and Mr. Diligence wanted to try it out. He got Little Miss to climb in, and gave her a ride. She loved it!

This enormous dump truck is used in mining, likely coal mining. It is not licensed for using on the road, so they had to haul it this way.

Mr. Imagination was quite impressed with the length of this potato sprout when he helped his daddy plant potatoes a few weeks ago!

We enjoy watching episodes of MasterChef together, and Mr. Imagination has been inspired to create pretty food. This was a “dessert” he made one morning. He has pieces of banana and orange, and he made a sauce with mashed bananas and cream.

Miss Joy at a little over two months. She lives up to her name most of the time, and is a joy to have in the family. As I type this, she is sleeping snuggled up on my chest.

Some friends gave us a praying mantis egg case. We were fascinated to watch the baby insects hatch! Esther took a video of it, then sped it up 8 times.

Boys’ Fun

September 21, 2019 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The boys have been having fun blowing bubbles lately. They have made some pretty big ones with dish soap on a plate! Mr. Diligence blew this bubble one day. See the other camera focused on it?

Just after I snapped the picture above, Mr. Imagination pressed the button to take a picture—just as the bubble popped! The result was this next picture, which he was tickled to have gotten.

A few days later, he took this picture, of Mr. Sweetie blowing a bubble.

One evening while we had family worship, these three clowns all pretended to be falling asleep. This is Simon, Mr. Diligence, and Mr. Sweetie.
When you have a lot of boys living in your house, you are going to have a lot of roughhousing. Our boys have invented this game of wrestling on the couch. The goal is to stay on the couch longer than anyone else.

This wasn’t exactly fun, nor was it boys. I’ll put it in here, though. One Sunday afternoon a couple of weeks ago, some of us came home early so I could rest. Mr. Imagination and Little Miss went out to play, and got quite muddy. Esther found Little Miss looking like this and grabbed a picture before administering a bath.

Dead Boring Concert 2019

August 31, 2019 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Because of the imminent arrival of our new baby, we were not all able to go to this year’s Dead Boring Concert (Dead Boring is the homeschool writing group we were part of in Canterbury before we moved here to the Coast). However, since Esther has her full license now, she was able to take four of her brothers over to it. They sang two songs and performed a skit.

The first song was, “I Am Thine, O Lord.”

Their second song was, “I Have Decided,” and Mr. Intellectual narrated the story behind the song.

They named their skit “A Gift for the King.” It is based on an old story. One morning a few weeks ago, Mr. Intellectual and Mr. Diligence came up with the idea. They told Simon about it when he got home from work that evening, and asked him if he could play the part of a guard. He immediately came up with an even better idea; he wanted to be the one bringing the gift, and when he acted out his idea, we were all in stitches at his goofy accent and what he called his gift! He did make one mistake when they performed the skit on the day; at the end, instead of saying he wanted a goose from the king, he intended to say he wanted a REAL goose. At the very end, they were throwing candy out over the audience for the children.

The Austin

January 19, 2019 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

Simon’s boss was given a 1953 Austin a month or so ago, and he didn’t want yet another old car to restore, so he gave it to Simon. Such a car must be stored under cover in this climate, so Simon went to town and bought supplies to build a carport for it. He and his brothers have been busily building.

The car came home a day or two later:

The boys played around with it but couldn’t get it going until a friend who loves vintage cars came over one evening. With his help, they got it to start. The next morning, I got a video of Simon starting it himself. Several days after that, the car had to be moved so firewood could be put in our carport (his wasn’t ready yet). The car is so small it would have been easy to push—but no, of course Simon had to start it and see if it would go! He got it to go forward, but can’t get it in reverse yet without stalling it. He also can’t run it more than a couple of minutes because the radiator isn’t hooked up.

Boats

January 16, 2019 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Mr. Intellectual continues to work on his strip canoe. He finally got all the strips glued together, and has been working on sanding it. It’s beautiful! Here it is nearly finished, and then with the last strip in place and part of the sanding done.

Meanwhile, the boys have been enjoying their barrel boat. Here it is after the first use, when they went down the Grey River.

This was the day they used it next, when we went down to the creek below our town with some friends to spend a Sunday afternoon in the water. They punted up and down the creek a number of times, but then that got boring, so they decided to sink it. The only way they could get it to sink was to take the plug out of the end and let it fill up with water—and even that took a long time!

Then, they used it on Christmas Day on a lake—I’ll publish a post in a few weeks about that. The most recent time they used it, Simon took Esther and one of her friends, and our two little boys, down the Grey River. They sunk it, and now they have to rebuild the motor—or dry it out, or something. It ended up quite dented, as you can see in this photo that Mr. Intellectual took to show someone.

Dead Boring Concert 2018

November 14, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Even though we have moved away from Canterbury, we were still able to participate in this year’s Dead Boring Concert with our old homeschool group. The children wanted to perform a skit this year, so they enlisted the help of friends from here so they would have enough people to fill all the roles. Here are videos of all the numbers our family did.