Spring is here.Check out my plum blossoms

Pic taken on 12 Sep of my plum tree. Hopefully we get bigger fruit this year. Last year, N kept plucking the fruits before they even had a chance to ripen.

Abel's first trip

This is a super overdue post but I'd just finished collaging the photos. We took our moms and dad and the boys to Waiheke Island in April during the Easter break. We caught one of the catamaran from Half Moon Bay and the journey was 35-40 minutes to the island.

First stop, we went to the market. It has bric-a-brac, pony ride, plant sales, fresh foods, and local artists showing their work. We bought some fabrics and N's kitchen appliances from a lady and then went to check out the foodstalls. The breads just look so inviting!!

Next we went to Stony Batter. I nick name it the Stonehenge of New Zealand :P Of course it is the result of volcanic acitivities long time ago. The walk was about 35 minutes. We had to stop often as N kept going off-course. First to check out the red dust, the rocks, and the sheep poops and cow dungs. I also had close encounter with this sheep that literally was 2 inches away from me while I breastfed A. Luckily Jake lured it away with some potato chips.

After the walk, we were exhausted and it is time to refuel :P We decided to go to Vino Vino for lunch. It overlooks the ocean. The view was stunning. We had the big platter and the steak. Yum...it couldn't be better.

Next, we went to Mudbrick Vineyard. The vineyard has a very well landscaped vegetable garden. There were cabbages, cauliflowers, beans etc. I wonder if the restaurant used the produce in its kitchen. N had a blast running up and down the little hill at the top of the restaurant. We also tasted the wines. A little disappointed we actually had to pay to taste the wine. The wines were alright. I like some of the reds we tried even though I am not a red person.

We also checked out Palm Beach. Dad and I managed to check out a garage sale there. N had loads of fun with the sand and the playground.

After the vineyard, we pretty much ran out of things to do. We actually went to check out the Woolsworth on the island. It's the only supermarket and imagine the monopoly.

We caught the 7 30pm catamaran back to Auckland and phew, Abel did pretty well for his first trip.

Abel -3 months

Here's Abel when he just turned 3 months. His hair started dropping that month. He was very into tracking his mobile and staring at them. He's also making lots of vowel sounds.

Homemade Hummus Pizza

Anyways I attempted to make hummus few weeks back. It was easy except I was overgenerous with my garlic cloves resulting in my hummus being a little spicy. Because it was preservative free, I had to use it up quickly. So here, jake made me a pizza with pita bread. He spreaded the hummus very generously on the pita bread and then put a bit of havarti cheese and finally use the bbq sauce to swirl around the pitta bread. Then it gets into the oven for 5-7 minutes. It is totally fine to do the above without the cheese. Result: it's pretty good. The havarti just added the extra oomph to it.

I don't know whether to be pleased or to be angry. Today one of my apple have gone bad on the bottom, so I decided to carve a star for N to stamp on the paper. After A is down for nap, I got ready and he set out stamping. It wasn't too bad for the work of 2.9 year-old. Then A is crying . I put away the paintbrush and the tray away and went to get him. For 2 minutes I forgot I have left the 2.9year-old to his own device. When I went out, he was clean but had his hands in his art smock. I noticed all his stars were all gone!!!!!!!!!!!! (We were working on a baking sheet type paper)
Me: Where are your stars???!

N: In my hands. (Showing me his purple hands).

He's wiped out all his stars and he'd probably had the best finger/hand painting session in that 2 minutes whilst he was unsupervised!

Art-ing with chalks

Over the winter when the weather is permits, we bring our activities outdoor.
I introduced chalks to N in winter. First he is more interested in asking me to draw pictures for him and he guessing what I drew. When he was ready, he asked for a chalk and started drawing on the tiles. Above he's drawing plates of noodles.

I know what you did last summer

I have been collaging photos. Getting quite sick of collaging. Anyhow, now that I have little kids, going to the beach is always on our agenda whenever the weather is good. N loves going to the beach. He goes there for the playground, for the sand, and he can get dirty without too much nagging from me.

Below, he went there with jake and my dad. He had a ball with all his tools there.

For some reason, N also loves my big white bucket. It is his hat, helmet, bucket, drum, and it is also his boat below??

You might remember we got N a pirate ship in 2009. That thing sat on our lawn after the summer and it gathered lawn clippings and bugs and what not. It was an ugly piece of junk after that. This year, it joined the inorganic collection outside the kerb :P Anyways, below is just a huge drum being cut into 2 that my Fil bought. N had as much fun in it if not more.