She's 2!!

I can't believe my baby turned 2 this week.  She is growing so fast and is the sassiest little red head.  She has such a big vocabulary and talks in full sentences, even if I can't fully understand all of the words she says, I usually know exactly what she is trying to convey.  This little girl is quirky and full of life.  She loves to dance and move her little body, and if there is any sort of music with a good beat playing in the house I can hear her commanding her sister to, "Dance!"

We invited all her cousins around to celebrate with her today, and she had a blast wearing her tutu that Grammy gave her for Christmas and playing her little heart out.  We bought her a little slide for her birthday (with Utah winters being the way they are, something physical for the kids to do indoors is always a winner).  She and Taz have played on the slide non-stop, and it was a big hit with the rest of the kids today too.

Naturally I had to make a her a themed cake, and this year I chose to make her a chicken.  She was a little obsessed with chickens this year and it was the first animal she recognized and would run after yelling, "chicken, chicken,"  Awww, it was cute.  The chicken cake ended up looking a little more like an "Angry Bird" than anything else, but it was still cute.  The body is made out of cake with just a little buttercream frosting over it.  I then rolled some sweetened coconut into the frosting to make it look like feathers.  The eyes are black jellybeans, and the comb, beak and feet are made out of marshmallow fondant (which is really easy to make.)

A fun time was had by all, and little munchkin celebrated in style.  She sang happy birthday to herself along with every one else, and blew her candles out with gusto, even if she didn't understand what was actually going on.  Happy Birthday my lil Punkin!

Oh, and Taz decided that this is her new pose whenever I try to take a photo of her.  Where she got this from....heaven only knows.

Trick or Treat

Our costumes were a huge success and the Tazling was on form tonight.  Where ever she went people asked if she was wearing a wig or not.  We only went trick or treating up the one side and down the other of our street, but that was enough for me.  Every house we went to, Taz gave them a commentary at the top of her voice and without a pause at all, that went something like, "Hi, my names Tamsine but I'm Merida for halloween its just a costume and my dad gave me a green glowstick and my little sister Heidi is one of the naked triplets, thanks for the candy, have a spooky halloween."  It was fantastic.  

Little Miss H was a little trepidatious at first, until she realized that people were putting candy in her bucket.  After the first house she came running up to me with this shocked expression on her face showing me her bucket and said, "Mommy.  Candy."  That was all it took for her to get into the spirit of things.  She was so excited that she was getting candy that she exclaimed "CANDY!" every time she walked past someone.  I had a good laugh.       

Happy Halloween

As a non-native to the USA and growing up in a country that didn't celebrate Halloween, its one of those kinda, little bit, strange but also kind of awesome traditions in this country.  I've never really gotten as into it as my friends here, but this year I'm trying to make a little more effort.  Two reasons for the extra effort: 1st, the munchkins (especially the Tazling) are very excited about the prospect of Trick or Treating and getting (as my child put it this morning) other kids to give me a whole bunch of delicious candy. 2nd, this is the first year I've actually had a house that will get Trick or Treaters, so in an attempt to not get my house egged I am getting a little more into the spirit.

Here is my attempt at decorating my front porch.  I'm assuming I'll get better at this....or not.       

New Zealand Day Nine: Part One

Thursday 16th August:
 
NZ is the home to the Lord of the Rings films, and now the new Hobbit film.  I was so excited that we might get the opportunity to tour the WETA workshop, but alas it was not to be.  Actually, I wasn't prepared to drive from Auckland to Wellington for eight hours with two little kids.  But, happiness and delight, the set of Hobbiton was only a couple of hours away and they did tours there, so we kept Jen's kids out of school for the day and completely got our geek on.  It was so much fun, and made me want to get back onto a film set again.

 Setting out at 8:30am

 Arriving at Matamata Farm and saying "Hi" to the sheep

 Cool old truck the kids enjoyed playing on

On the set

 

 

 

 Bagend with the completely fake Oak tree above it

 

Dancing at the party tree

 

 After the tour Taz got to feed a bottle to the lambs - she was in heaven

Leaving Matamata

We had a quick picnic lunch in the car on the way to our next stop.  Apparently being a geek took its toll on a few of our party.  Good times!

New Zealand Day Eight

Wednesday, 15th August:

We took a drive to North Head Reserve.  It was a system of old military bunkers used up until 1996 when it was turned into a reserve for tourists etc.  It was really cool and had some amazing views of the city of Auckland across the bay.  It reminded me so much of Cape Town.