Sydney side, Kilpatrick guide, Princess pride

Most would say 'time flies'. I say it disappears. If it wasn't for the fact that I have a little boy who is growing & changing every day then I would seriously be asking who stole the last 6 months of my life! It's not that I don't have memories, I do, they just seem to be past day dreams, not reality.

Reflecting on these "day dreams" I will try to give you a little update on life of late with the Hill Whanau...

Little Nathy is a darling who we ALL adore, he even has Uncle Justy on his cute little side. I think Nathy gets the "replacement cat" cuddle that Justus used to try and pry out of Keelia. Although Nathy smiles at all of us when we enter a room, Keelia is definitely his favourite face. He is besotted with her and doesn't even seem to mind the million crushing "cuddles" he receives from her. A regular occurrence in the morning is the both of them watching Playschool on the beanbag cuddled up together. Yeah, yeah I know what you're thinking... tv is bad for them... but Playschool isn't really tv is it? Actually I should stop Keelia from watching it then maybe she'll stop pestering me to make all these wonderfully creative things out of toilet rolls and cellophane!!

Backing up a bit - just before Christmas we disappeared up north for a lovely holiday in Sydney. Family friends had lent us their very nice house (& pool) to stay in while they were back in NZ. It would have been a very relaxing holiday had it not been for us killing their goldfish on our 2nd day and then breaking their air conditioning! Not really our fault, but I assure you, it still felt like it was! Amongst our adventures in the city of Sydney we managed to visit Hillsong and CCC, as well as getting in some mall rat time. However, our biggest effort was devoted to eating lots of fabulous food. We all loved the time away up there, especially once we conquered the complex traffic system!

After arriving home in the early hours of Christmas Eve, we headed straight into Christmas then began our build up to the arrival of the Kilpatricks - all 3 of them (yay for that!) It was nice to catch up, even in the midst of 40deg heat which forced us to hole up in our family room under the one air conditioner. The heat saw Laura decide to sleep on the couch under the aircon unit while Glen & Sam stayed up til 4am playing Wii (what else do boys do when it's too hot to sleep?) When we did manage to venture out Sam took the opportunity to teach Keelia some Southside moves and Laura got in some good practice for her future baby endeavours with Nathy. Although one time he did want more than practice and she wasn't yet fully equipped!

We also took Keelia for her first haircut. For too many reasons to list, we decided the long hair had to go! So off to the hairdressers she happily went (anything to look like Charli-Rose) and there she happily sat (mostly) while her hair was cut & layered. Goodbye to our little sweet baby girl, and hello to our grown up 3 year old!

Furthering her make over, daddy recently busted out the nail polish to add finishing touches to one of the many princess outfits rotated to wear that day. In order to achieve the finishing touches to these princess pampers I have to patiently untangle her many "jewelleries" and put them on her EVERY single morning and then another 4 times each day.

On a side note, it's not just Keelia's appearance that is maturing, so is her knowledge of 'issues'. Over lunch recently with my princess I got grilled about my past jobs...
K: "so Mum, before you had me & Nathy, what did you do?"
M: "worked for Harvey Norman"
K: "so you didn't work to help the poor kiddies like daddy does?"
M: "um, no"
K: "why did you work for HN?"
M: "ah... to help them make lots of money (??)"
K: "but why would you do that when you could help the poor kiddies instead?"
M: "well...um... how's your lunch sweetie?"
If only she was that concerned about the injustice of me cleaning up her messy toys!! :o)

For those of you missing us madly, there is less than 6 weeks til we are back in NZ. And since I am there for a whole calendar month (1-31 March), there will be plenty of time for lots of personal catch ups. Glen will only be in NZ for the wedding weekend (Mum & John are finally getting hitched!) but will fly back later to speak at eCamp over Easter.

So there is the Hilldown for another wee while. Keep in contact and send us lots of emails cause we all love to read them.

God bless.