All (road) signs point to a good birthday

It was the boys joint birthday party last weekend, Mahe's 5th and Kai's 7th, although their actual birthday's aren't until this weekend.  Kai wanted a lego party, which was pretty straightforward at least, Mahe wanted a road sign party.  That took a little bit longer to come up with, but I think he was pleased with what we came up with.

I got hold of a lot of small orange "traffic" cones from the dollar shop, I printed out road sign pictures and stuck them to the cones, and then added some hat elastic; party themed hats, that double as traffic toys later.

I borrowed some road signs from Mahe's daycare, and printed some out, and then used these for a treasure hunt.  Perfect for children who aren't reading yet, as they could go from one sign to the next find the next clue (a printed picture of the next road sign to look for) before finding the treasure under yet another traffic cone.

A decorated paper bag served as a Pinata, with a dead end sign marked on it (Mahe's favorite sign, although we don't actually have them here in NZ).

The cake was the easiest item of all, a road sign with a number on it?  Simple, a speed sign, although you don't often see 5km an hour signs!

New Home

No, not for me, but for the blog.  Have quite a bit to share with you, but that will have to wait until later.....

Poorly sick

So far this winter, we haven't been suffering too much with the old coughs and colds and all everything else that usually does the rounds. Until, that is, about three weeks ago.  The most hedeous cough seems to have set up camp in various family members and is showing no signs of moving on.

Io had thought that we were getting to the end of it, everyone had had it, and all that seemed to be left was one of those annoying tickly coughs that strike just as you're drifting off to sleep, and I was the only one effected by that.  (Well almost, I was probably waking most of the family up too).  Then yesterday, I came back from a party with the girls (my kids have a much busier social life than I do) to find that Mahe just wasn't himself.

I checked his temperature and it was sitting at 39.5, a little too high for my liking.  It depends who you talk to, should you give them something to bring it down or not?  He was quite miserable with it, so I decided a dose of pamol was the best bet.  Unusually though, that did nothing, so a quick borrowed bottle of nuerofen later, and a bit of alternating, and it was finally down.

Of course, having four children, that's never the end of the story, and now big brother Kai also has the high temp and is feeling sorry for himself.  I'm hopeful it won't last long, and that the rest of us don't get it, but I'm not new to this....... Roll on summer and an end to the winter bugs!

Four children

One of the most difficult things about having four children, is getting a photo like this one.  The chances of getting them all looking the same way, all at the same time, is so slim..... apparently it gets easier.  Actually I do have an earlier one that this, when Anja, my youngest, was about six months. It is the only one of the four of them at that age though.

Of course I'm not totally serious, there are plenty of things that are "hard" about having four children.  Affording anything would rank pretty high, and while it might get easier to get pictures of all four of them together, I'm under no illusions that the amount they cost is going to get easier as they get older.  That's not really the point though, you make do and manage on what you can, because, well, that's just what you do. 

When you say to people that you have four children, often the response that you get, is along the likes of wow, how do you manage that, I'm tired enough with just 1/2/3.  The thing is, they often seem to forget that I've been there too, and believe me, I was just as tired with my 1,2 or 3, when that's all I'd got.

There are times when it's tiring, so tiring, looking after small children takes it out of you enough, but if one is sick, and another just wakes up in the night, it isn't long  before you find that you're completely drained.  But, that's not the point either.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that four is easier than a smaller amount, or not completely easier, it's just that some aspects of it are, which helps over all.  You have more idea of what you're doing, and you care less about doing things as they "should" be done, and do them the way that is right for you.

Having four kids is fantastic. I always wanted four, and now that I have them, it's fantastic.  Seeing them play together, interact together, and just become their own little people is so amazing.  Yes it's hard work, yes it's tiring, but much more than anything else, it's so much fun.

Taking photo's though? That's never so easy, and so often the end result is much much more like this: