Invasion of the superheroes

Ben is currently in the midst of a full fledge superhero obsession. Thanks to a collection of costumes from the toy library and Nana's packages Ben has been able to channel his superhero powers into Superman, Spiderman and Batman. He is taking the town by storm!

Erin's homemade cards

I have been playing with paper my entire life. I have an entire dresser full of paper products in California and a large craft table with buckets of supplies here in New Zealand. I don't always get as much time to play with my paper toys as I'd like, but I always enjoy the time I do get. I was recently inspired by some new colorful card stock and have been so excited about the latest crop of cards. I've dappled in the sales of my cards, but have mainly

kept it a hobby.

After the latest output of cards I realized that I had enough in my stock pile to share some of the recent creations with the outside world. I was very excited this afternoon when I went into Jumping Tangents and Cathie and Kimberley decided to buy all 22 of the cards I had in my bag. Thanks gals for continuing to encourage my creative streak.

Summer

We were finally blessed with some real summer days, a month after the official start of the season. What fun it was to take advantage of some of the great outdoor activities in Wanaka.

Above are photos from our family hike up above Diamond Lake. Dan and I were very impressed with Ben's effort, a child who normally doesn't like walking at all. The boys traded off riding in the buggy for the first part, but Ben really rose to the challenge when we had him climbing up 153 steep steps to reach the look out point. There was definitely some whining, but all in all we were impressed and are very excited to think about future family hikes.

The photo above is the boys in the inflatable boat cruising around by Fisherman's Beach. Our house was so hot that we retreated to the lake for a picnic dinner.

Chickyboom, The Rocking Rolling Roost

The package lady arrived today, to the screaming delight of my children. Inside the box from Grampa was a new game called Chickboom. Ben and I tested out our skills while Josh was sleeping. (Earlier Josh was using the game as a runway for his airplane and pretending it was a make the tower crash over game, instead of a game of balance). Looks like we might be playing this game quite a lot!

Favorite Books of 2009

I love reading and cannot imagine my life without books. So I've added up all the books I've read for the year (40) and made a list of my top picks. Can't wait to see what makes next year's list.

Best Memoir:
The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan

Best Fiction:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Best Nonfiction:
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Best NZ Nonfiction:
Island of the Lost by Joan Druett

Best NZ Fiction:
Containment by Vanda Symon
and Magpie Hall by Rachael King

Best Historical Fiction:
Suite Francais by Irene Nemirovsky

Happy Birthday Josh

Celebrating Josh's 2nd birthday. It was a simple family day, with all the necessary ingredients: waffles, presents, a nap, fairy bread, pass the parcel and of course, birthday cake.

Kiwi Christmas

We decided to embrace the Kiwi spirit this year and do up a typical New Zealand Christmas. First order of business, rent a bach, check. Second, order up some sunshine, check. Third, spend a low key day hanging outside and playing at the beach, check. Fourth, bbq some dinner and drink some local wine, check. I'm not sure we'll ever have another Christmas that low key. We missed our families, but thoroughly enjoyed the relaxed week we had outside of Nelson. I'm starting to think a summer Christmas isn't such a bad idea after all.