In the tradition of all good birthdays, Ruby was spoilt rotten from about a week before her birthday to several weeks afterwards ...
Fairies, glitter AND stickers! What more could a girl want?
'Uncle G' brought back a present from his Mum and Dad in England ... an instant hit! Hair ties and hair clips!
Some for Ruby, some for Leah ...
And some sisterly help ...
Shame about the self-painted face! Please concentrate on the pretty clip!
Grandpa and Gillian sent some cool packages to unwrap!
The 'make silly faces when in front of a camera' trait is obviously genetic.
Mia the cat was very quick to avail herself of the nice, warm, comfy crepe paper!
THEN ... we went on holiday. Before the madness of 'a different house every night' began, we hired a bach in Taupo for two nights just for ourselves. It had a fabulous playground!
Complete with a tree hut (anyone home??!)
and a trampoline. I think I can ...
I think I can ...
I think I can ...
I'm sure I can ...
I CAN!!
There was a see-saw ... someone very clever had recycled parts from an old exercise machine ... Owen was definitely working out on the see-saw!
This is Ruby being a statue. Note Eeyore and Rosie watching in the background!
There was also a very friendly pig called Wilbur!
Our first stop was with Toni, Dave, Jack and Olly. They had a huge present for Ruby! Ruby got a small attack of the 'shy' (note the knee!)
But a FAIRY colouring pack soon overcame the shyness!
Aunty Toni had given free reign to her girly side and made chocolate birthday flower cupcakes! Delicious!
We had lots of fun time at Toni and Dave's house, as we'd arrived a day earlier than expected after Nana's house suffered an unexpected visit from a puking bug. This is Olly showing Owen how to really play the guitar!
Owen worked hard and got there in the end.
But then Olly started busting out the really clever rock moves and left Owen in his musical dust!
Meanwhile, behind the rockabilly twins, Ruby had found a squishy blue thing to play with and was quietly engrossed in figuring out what it could do and what it felt like!
At one point, there was a loud shout from Leah "SNAILS! SNAILS!" from the bedroom. Mummy raced in, expecting Leah to have found snails on the window or even in the room, such was the excitement in her voice. But no! She had discovered she could DRAW them! She was so delighted with her ability to draw snails that we HAD to take a picture!
Then she had a go on paper and was carefully telling us "dis one daddy snail, dis one mummy snail, dis one sister snail ..."
One morning we woke up complaining that it seemed super cold ... looked out the window and there was snow! Turned out we picked "the coldest weekend in Wellington history" to visit!! But that record has since been broken and Wellington got a real proper dumping of snow. Still - it was amazing to look out the window and see snow so close (our rellies in the UK and Denver will laugh themselves silly at this, but it was a novelty for us!)
Then we moved on to Debra and Chris' house ... and whaddya know? There were presents and cake there too!!
The very definition of happy kids ... mmm, cake!
After taking a few photos, we realised that the last time we'd stayed with Debra and Chris, Ruby had been about Leah's age and wearing the exact same jumper that Leah now had on ... here's Ruby!
Yes, seriously, that is Ruby. Spot the hair colour. Leah's blonde.
The part Owen loves best about visiting Debra and Chris - late night jamming and music discussioning with Chris
We had a great afternoon/evening with Cathy, JP, Eleanor and Rosamund. The girls got their own table to eat dinner on.
The big girls discovered a shared fairy/butterfly interest.
Leah indulged her ice cream interest,
and Mummy indulged her baby interest ... Rosamund was VERY interested in dinner!
We spent an afternoon in a cafe with Marnie and David. There was a playground but boyyyyy, it was cold! Lucky we'd been shopping before our trip, and bought some 'Wellington clothes' for the girls! Funnily enough, we've now been using them in Auckland. It is Cold. Cold. Cold!
Then we went and stayed with Marty, Tree and Rianna ... guess what?! MORE cake! Rianna baked this one. Leah particularly enjoyed it!
Don't forget the ice creams! (yes, it's cold outside, Mum, but that's got nothing to do with eating ice cream!)
The girls just loved hanging out with Rianna. Here they are having a story read to them post-bath, pre-bed.
Owen found a new friend in Holly. If you look carefully you can see a big black dog!
Then we were off to Nana's house. They quickly discovered the joy of a warm fire on a cold evening! Even "Look Mum, Clifford is warming up his bum!"
And there were MORE presents!
Their cousin Phoenix quickly got into the game of making yourself some big ears!
Ooh - stickers!
Nothing like snuggling up to Clifford after a long day!
The discovery that Nana's brush was 'gentle' led to a new interest in having ponytails. Here is Leah's very first. My little blonde baby!
On our way home we dropped in to visit Anna's Aunty Judy and Uncle Eddie. The girls quickly found a new buddy!
Miss confident decided to make her own way back.
Aw, ewes guys are just silly!
We hadn't long been back in Auckland, in fact, we hadn't even made it home, before we found our favourite Aunty Hannah and Uncle Gareth in a cafe and took them off to a playground!
Leah finally paid Gareth back a couple of the several thousand 'pushes on a swing' she owes him!
But quickly discovered an empty swing was much easier to push!
More presents! The flash completely takes them away, but the girls are looking at stars being thrown over the walls and roof by this very cool lamp! Ruby now turns it off at night so she can sleep because "it's sooo beautiful I have to keep looking at it and I can't go to sleep!"
We had a wonderful holiday - thanks everyone who had us to stay or visit!
All too soon we were home, the holiday was over and ...
All too soon we were home, the holiday was over and ...
then...
Ruby started school!!
