another sQUIZ:

no kidding, i woke up thinking "i'll do a quiz", and *bam* i found one today at sarah's. i don't really resonate with ron: i would never leave my mates and zip off home. i know, he came back, but *really*.

G'day Ronald Weasley!

You are the strategizer, the one who is loyal and has a sense of humor! Though you can become very jealous at times, you are always loyal to those you care about! You keep your friends and family very close to your heart and will always pack up the courage to protect them at the end, even if it means facing your worst fears!

i am so NOT a strategizer, or even a "strategiser"; and i prefer to think of it as my sense of "humour" rather than humor. the english spelling looks prettier lol.

*whines* i really wanna be hermione. i even took the test twice, but still came out as ron. sheesh.

anyway if ya wanna find your HP identity too, click here .

*blink* bon anniversaire, cheri!!!!!

see, this is mental. it seems like i just wrote you a birthday message, and that was actually a whole year ago!! and now i'm doing it again: writing the message, and getting flashbacks to when you were just a toddler... (i see your *eyeball roll*)

like, whenever we'd return from late night jaunts (you were so portable, the three of us were such party animals) you'd look up at the sky and say, "da moos, da moos" while pointing and gazing at the bright round sphere hanging in the heavens.
and this year you did it again. you kids all went outside and watched, as on the eve of your birthday there was a lunar eclipse.
quite a spectacular birthday present, n'est-ce pas??

love you, love all our crazy texts en français, love our friendship and your movie-lines memory and the fabulous person you are, love that you are the best big brother in the whole wide world, and i love that you and Dad share the same nutty sense of humour!!!

bonne chance, bonne journée, bon anniversaire.

sanguine moments at our place

(snuggling on couch)
moi: so, how was school today? (yeah, one of those clever open ended questions)
R14: i'm just *so* tired.

(phone rings, S9 beats all the other extroverts to answer it)
S9: R14, it's for you. it's Blahblah from the library.

R14: hello? oooh!! really??? (getting rather excited in a nonchalant sorta way) wow!! thanks!!!
(leaps up and exclaims)mum!! i've won the library competition!!! (tiredness has miraculously vanished) puh-leeeeeze can we go in and see what i've won???

moi: (dreaming of trips to paris or at least a sun drenched beach in the pacific) sure, let's go... (drags sorry butt to car, negotiates rush hour traffic, waits in car for twenty minutes in a No Parking Zone cos could not find a park, sends a million texts while waiting for Library Competition Winner to emerge)
R14: (grinning and brandishing a bright blue bag) oooh!!! ive been wanting a $2 shop springy-thingy for a-g-e-s!!!!! Blahblah is my favourite Library Lady!!!
(zips home on cloud nine and opens The Book and makes another stunning recipe, *magic muesli* or some such offering and speedily retires (still really tired, lol) to frilly pink bedroom where homework is ignored and Big Stash of library books are read until some ungodly hour.

no idea about that naff title, i just woke up from a wee nana nap cos *singing* hubby and i are off to cheapie tuesday movies tonight to see...
*drum roll*
the bourne ultimatum.

yep, bourne again.
(that wasn't mine, but i like it so much i'm stealing it)

mystery monday

it's starting to become rather a *mystery* why we ever started these mondays. we're supposed to follow the instructions, but today was rather w.e.t. in The Sunny Bay, so the first two sunshineyellow pieces of paper that we pulled outta the jar were No Can Do cos they entailed rather long walks (in the rain). so we made up our own: go to the pools, buy a Big Block of Choc, and eat it in front of one of our favourite movies...

hmmm, how predictable?! but 'twas a great end to The End of Weekend Clean, which included The Garage (ah no, not the huge garage huck-out, just a bit of moving things around)

woozie aka R14 whizzed home through the raindrops this afternoon and proceeded to open The Book, and found a peachy dessert which went into the oven looking disappointingly like *slops* and came out looking just like the photo in the recipe!!!!!
and i thought it was *delish*...
but i only had one helping, cos we all know:
a minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.

sunshine sophie

meet R14's and my new favourite person. we have made her chocolate cake for countless years but i have lost my Kitchen Muse of recent times and am hoping to regain my enthusiasm since R14 and i went halves in The Destitute Gourmet's latest cooking book at *shine* yesterday.

in the introduction to her first chapter, Sophie Gray says: I came across a fascinating statistic some time ago about household menus. The research revealed that the average household operates on a selection of around 11 recipes. Every year or so, without really being aware of it, we give our particular selection an overhaul, ditching one or two dishes, introducing a couple of new ones but generally sticking to around 11. That seems to be about all the average household can shop for, remember how to make, and coerce the family to try.

hmmm, let's think: roast meat and veggies, tick. vegetable soup, tick. sushi, tick. wedges and chilli beans and sour cream, tick. corn chowder, tick. salad with bacon bits and wedges, tick. pasta and sauce out of a jar, tick. roast chook and veggies, tick. beef or russian stroganoff on rice, tick. toasted sandwiches, tick. make-your-own baked beans or noodles or spaghetti out of a tin, tick.
yeah, that's the first 11 i can think of and that's pretty much our current circuit.
how boring. boring. boring. yep, definitely time for an overhaul.

R14 chose sophie's cooking seminar during the *shine* options yesterday, and came home super-enthused about her Kitchen Muse. and it turns out that sophie's daughter is *not* caught in an eight-year-old-mummy-brings-in-baking-to-my-classroom-timewarp: she is actually the same age as R14 *boggle* and as i flicked through the new book that we got yesterday, i found The Chocolate Cake recipe (my original is handwritten on the inside cover of another of sophie's books, gifted by the dahling rosie who really needs to start a blog about Her Fabulous Life, and it's pretty much unreadable cos is covered in butter and cocoa and various other lickable ingredients) and i read sophie's intoductory words: I believe this recipe is now one of the most frequently made recipes in the country. When people bring their cookbooks to dg (Destitute Gourmet) cooking classes for me to sign, the page with Dana's chocolate cake is always the most splattered and tattered...
tick.

which is why i thought i'd post it here, cos it'll stay pristine, even when my mum prints it off for her recipe file cos she keeps her huge recipe stash in clear plastic wipeable folders, which means she can actually read them.

FOR THE CAKE:
sift all into a large bowl
1 2/3 (that's one and two-thirds, not twelve thirds) c flour
1 1/2 c sugar
2/3 c cocoa
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
throw in
1 1/2 c (trim) milk
100 g melted butter
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
give it a good stir or whang it through your trusty food processor. scrape into a lined cake tin and into the oven (preheated of course) for an hour at 18o celsius. works every time a coconut.
FOR THE ICING/FROSTING:
if you want to know sophie's recipe, you'll have to buy her book lol...
i prefer ganache:
200 ml cream and 200 g chocolate heated together, cooled and spread all over the cake.
or if you Can't Wait, just whang the sliced cake onto individual serving plates and swoosh the hot choc sauce over.
i'll guarantee you'll lick your plate.

and we'll be licking ours too, after we introduce those Two New Recipes to our repertoire.

seas the day

we wandered down to the beach again today,
this time with mum and dad in tow...

there's nothing like an afternoon nap
in such an inspiring spot!

i think we can just see london in the distance...
*waves to greg and em*

The Beach Boys (reprise)

we must go down
to the seas again,
to the lonely sea
and the sky.

... and together we will shine, shine, shine...

our lounge currently resembles a Where's Wally cartoon page:
spot the kids.
it's Kool that all of The Gang have had so much practice at folding and collating pamphlets for their Collective Delivery Run (stuffing precious trees into letter boxes *ouch* but it seems to be the easiest way for kids to earn money that doesn't originally reside in my pocket), cos do you see that beeeee-autiful *shine 07* bag at the front???
it's gonna have a whole swag of *delectable items* popped inside it.
in fact, two hundred and five bags are gonna have a whole swag of *delectable items* popped inside them... before friday.
and then, we'll be ready for shine.
i think.
blink.
pink.

EDIT: *friday update*
wooooo hoooooo!!!!!!!!

mystery monday

today's mystery was more like a *mys* cos it was a flying-visit-mystery between A Fab Morning At Deb's and M5's swimming lesson...
but the lads loved it:
a visit to the dairy.
it was supposed to be *WALK TO THE PARK AND GET HOT CHIPPIES FOR LUNCH or VISIT THE DAIRY* but we didn't have time for the walk...
and what is it about The Dairy that is so alluring???
rows and rows of indecision await you and your gold coin. The Unfriendly Dairy Lady huffs impatiently while you hum and haw between the K-bar and the sour twirl fizzer. And then she goes and re-stacks a shelf while you still decide. And then when you finally make up your mind, your brother has chosen the same lollies as you, and That Won't Do. So you've gotta choose a different combination while The Unfriendly Dairy Lady does her Puffing Billy impersonation, and Mummy patiently suggests all sorts of combinations while surreptitiously jangling the car keys and checking the time.
My friend Nik used to take her kids to a Friendly Dairy Man who would say such things as, "If you buy This and That, you can get an extra one of These, just today..."
That's How To Win Friends and Influence People. There should be a Course available for Friendly Dairy Owners. To turn Unfriendly Dairy Ladies into Nice People.

oh, and here's yesterday's hockey tanty, er game between Hubby and S9:

imaginatively titled: The Weekend

just another hastily jotted Diary Entry:
Saturday: R14 went on a shopping spree with steph and came home with *free* shoes. nope she didn't nick them, steph got some and there was a free-pair-deal going.
D17 and i went to The Lives of Others. wonderful, intense, thought-provoking, did i say intense? i burst into tears at the last line of the movie. D17 treated me to sushi, and i tried your current addiction, Deb, the one with the green dental floss all piled on top. loved it. there's so much added fun for yer buck: i spent half an hour picking the remains outta my pearly-whites.
Daddy took M5 out for a happy meal and a plastic gun. now he feels loved too.
J11 and S9 went to a progressive dinner and indulged a little too much: S9 got dropped home early after he "lost" some of his dinner somewhere unmentionable.
while the lads were out partying, D17 cooked Daddy, R14 and me a delish dinner and then we spent much of the evening surfing channels: the girls were trying to watch The Princess Diaries on tv 3 aka tv SNOW/flicker. the boys were trying to watch a beat-your-opponent-by-crawling-through-a-pig-trough show
*i* said we should watch a dvd... but was outvoted by general consensus. actually no one would give me the remote control. what is it about men and remote controls?

Sunday: chilled. ate all of last night's leftover venison sausies. no, not by myself. D17 went to work. the rest of us took off in The Sardine Tin for the afternoon: starting out with select-your-own berry yoghurt icecreams... we all decided they're even more delish than the ones at pokeno... then we dashed to the Quarry Park to enjoy the *summer weather* YAY the kids posed by rudolph and then we walked up, up, up the hill and did the circuit around the top. yep, walked off all those sausies.
more fave photos from today: me'n'woozie
me'n'Neo er Hubby (gotta love the Self Portraits)
mischievous M5 squirting water
and... the obligatory waterfall shot:
cos we've been quoting this all weekend:
Uh-oh.
Don't tell me.
We're about to go over a huge waterfall.
Yep.
Sharp rocks at the bottom?
Most likely.
Bring it on.
BOOOO-YAHHHHH!!!

"one of these things does not belong here..."

*flashbacks/flashes back to sesame street*
there's something fishy been going on in our ensuite. there are no toddlers in residence, so we really don't need to barricade the drawers. upon enquiry, it transpired that S9 accidentally dropped a clothespeg down the loo and needed to borrow M5's fishing net to retrieve it.
i didn't ask any more...

and on the *family news* front, J11 got 80% in his Grade One Music Theory Exam yesterday, and D17 got an *excellence* in his Conversational French Assessment.
he and i were all set to watch Paris, je t'aime at the local arty fahty cinema tonight, but the last showing was yesterday (what's french for *aaarrrghhhhh*???)
so we'll have to figure out something else for our Evening Out.
and it will *not* be fishing.....
POST SCRIPT:
we watched La French Filme after all:
S9 got Mr Bean's Holiday out (on our last free dvd ticket *claps hands*) and IT'S SET IN *F-R-A-N-C-E*!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
so D17 and i merrily chirped out the translations for the rest of the wanna-be-francophiles, who were mostly buried in M5's tent (yep, it fits in the lounge. well, the lounge just fits around it), rustling their sleeping bags and watching the movie through the keyhole tent door, and wide-eyed-ly seeing if they'd turn into pumpkins when the clock struck twelve...
and this morning the younger two are still squashed inside with their sister, listening avidly to her dramatic rendition of Fantastic Mr Fox.

sharing the love

Once upon a time, there was a quiet little village in the french countryside, whose people believed in tranquilité

woozie aka R14 makes such yummy little chocolates. over the last few weeks, she has spent hours making two hundred little heart chocolates:

melting chocolate and pouring it into heart moulds and waiting for them to set and carefully turning them out onto a plate and ever-so-carefully trimming them (and trying not to lick her fingers, but i've noticed that she has a great vacuum-cleaner-action going on with her mouth and the choc splashes on the bench lol)

they've turned out very pink and girly and delish and they're full of love. she even watched chocolat while creating in the weekend.

and S9 has very patiently helped me wrap each heart in silver foil and pink tulle and tie in a bow with pink organza ribbon, and place each delicately in a wee noodle box for a Take Home Pressie at *shine*, just like the danglies.

these are all solid choc, but if you ask me:
dark chocolate, with gooey peppermint on the inside, that's my favourite...

myself fair lady

i did it! i did it! i did it!
i said that i would do it,
and indeed i did.
i thought that i would rue it;
i doubted i'd do it.
but now i must admit it
that succeed i did.

*hopping and skipping*
over the last few days my blonde blog header has been in various stages of repair and disrepair as i have been scouring the internet in search of Blog Template Code For Blogs With No Headers.
and after much cut-n-pasting and clapping delightedly at Hubby and photobucket and boggling at Helpful Blogs and HTML code pages and adding and subtracting borders here and there, i did it.

voila:
i give you and me the new-look-five-daisies-blog-header
in all its pink textured glory.

*kate the techno geek takes a bow*

chick chat

every couple of weeks for the last three years, R14 and i've had a *mums and daughters* night with our friends april and louise. they live forty minutes away (oh dear, i'm becoming a Small Town Girl) and we've had lots of hot chocs and sharing of hearts over that time.

last night it was louise's turn to organise the fun:
mmmmm, baileys and roasted bananas on the beach...

all snuggling up beside the fire, cold sand underneath us, starry night overhead, the lights of maketu twinkling in the distance, surf crashing metres from our feet.
we love having you girls as our sistas X

mystery monday

S9 put his hand into the mystery monday jar this morning and pulled out:
"Walk around The Historic Village and perhaps buy some gems."
It turns out that we only have $3 for today's mystery, cos we overspent last week!!!
Spot the kiwi(s). Strictly speaking, there's no *s* in the maori language, so the plural of kiwi is kiwi. I know, kate5kiwis is linguistically incorrect, lol. But that's no surprise, cos I prefer to make my own rules.

The lads all had a stationary tractor ride. Then we peeped inside an old garage and found...

a very old fire engine!!
J11 manned the hose and M5 checked the ladder while S9 drove...

We all ran up the hill to the old church: complete with steeple, flanked on either side by native NZ ponga and a norfolk pine tree.

S9 and M5 were astonished and saddened to find a grave of a seventeen year old lad in this old graveyard.


And yes!! We finally made it to the gem shop just before closing, and had long and interesting discussions with the Rock Enthusiast who voluntarily runs the shop on Mondays. He patiently waited while the lads looked around and around, oohing and aahing at the rocks. In the end, each chose a lucky dip and came away with *treasures*. There were seven precious stones in each parcel, which are now all carefully secreted away in little jars here at home. M5 has been informing everyone, "Look! I'm the only one who's got a POWER (paua) SHELL!"

ozzmosis

*warning*
these pictures are not for the faint-hearted...
yep, it's really Hubby and moi, morphed into Ozzy Osbourne and Debbie Harry...
partying on down on saturday night!!!
yeah, slightly dodgey, but hilarious fun.

Ozzy even treated us to his version of *sweet caroline* on karaoke...
ask him for a demo next time ya see him lol

and Blondie??
call me on the line
you can call me call me any anytime
(if i'm not online, in which case you'll have to text first, or just come on over for coffee, k?)

mahvellous muse

Q: WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE PLAYGROUND??
A: to get to the other *slide*
Q: HOW DID THE BUBBLEGUM CROSS THE PLAYGROUND??
A: on the chicken's foot...

for sarah aka marvellous mouse, winner of the sparkly prize from thursday. i know what i said, but i totally couldn't find my muse for the earrings, and when *you* won it, i thought instead of this:
yep, it's for your phone/keyring (i know, how predictable?) but this is oh! so speshal: it has a selection of my fave *pink* beads (cos you're a pinkgirl too) and *look*!!!!! it's got one of your totally delish bags dangling off the end... oh, and the two *bright pink* beads?? that's you and Lovely Daughter.

The Beach Boys

there's something so inspiring and free about taking your lunch to the beach, and clambering up the rocks and just sitting, alone and together, gazing out towards the wild blue yonder,
and going off on your own rock climbing adventures, and then mountaingoating it down to the sand, and running, laughing, down to the water and putting your hands in without soaking your shoes, and getting sunshine in your eyes and wind in your hair and salt up your nose...

how long, how l-o-n-g will i slide...???

(it's a guess the song title/band competition.. not too difficult!!! the prize is *blue* dangly earrings... no googling allowed lol)

while we were waiting for S9 at hockey training this arvo, M5 and i found a Fabulous Slide.
yep, he talked me into having a go too...

wheee-e-e-e-e-eeeee-eee--e-ee-e-eee---

it's all downhill from here!!!!!!!
(*cringe* couldn't resist lol)

Beam me up, Scottie...

Ok, so we're doing a spot of handwriting practice just now (yeah, just checked my temperature lol) and J11, brain-ever-whirring, says:
J11: Mum, do you know that very soon, people won't have to do handwriting because you'll be able to hold something and just move your finger and it'll write for you.
moi: uh-huh?
J11: Yeah, or you'll be able to communicate straight from your brain to someone else's.
moi: *quizzical glance*
J11: (on a roll) You'll just have to tune a radio to the same frequency as your brain waves and then you'll THINK something and the radio waves will communicate it...
moi: *brain boggle* wow...

on the topic of handwriting and home education, it's my long-held-personal opinion that kids will *get it* when they're ready: like walking and talking, reading and writing will follow in each child's right time. but sometimes i get the urge to TEACH THEM STUFF. i know in my heart that our home is not the classroom, and (*carefully tries not to step on people's toes*) much of classroom *teaching* time is actually classroom management. you know: can everyone see mrs mcguzzlefutchit's book? tommy, please move away from jimmy.... eyes this way... please keep your feet still... can everyone still see my book??? etc

it's just that i'm a *trained teacher* (sounds a little bit too much like "trained monkey") so there's a constant internal struggle with the Traditional Classroom Teaching Model, and What Feels Right Here In Our Home With These Children. i do believe that most learning happens by osmosis, the children following their noses and desires, directing their own learning... being out in the big wide spaces... rather than me saying: let's learn about cumulonimbus clouds or whatever this week. conversely, i do think that learning Times Tables is very helpful.

i believe this at the under-thirteen-years level. yeah, i'm a paradox, and our older two kiddos have happily transitioned to The Classroom at age thirteen. maybe the rest of the lads will too, maybe they won't...

i guess i feel confident that education is not something we DO to a child. they're born wired to learn, and it's my job to encourage them in that, providing wonderful learning experiences along the way. and giving them space to t-h-i-n-k and dream about their next invention, while doing something as boring as handwriting practice.

phew, glad i got that out of my system.

mystery monday

when monday rolls around again after such a Wonderful Weekend, we get a serious case of monday-itis. the Big Peeps buzz off to The Fount of Knowledge aka school and the lads'n'i get to sort out the aftermath... wave our magic wands... try to get it all in one sock... or at least find some socks. enter the new plan: *mystery monday*!!!!! which is the incentive we look forward to after two hours of The Big Clean.
today, J11 put his hand in the *mystery monday moutarde jar* and pulled out: "get BK kid-burgers and go for a walk on the beach" (it's gotta have exercise and food and cost under ten bucks) and yep, it's nearly as cool as français friday...

The BWoF

(Birthday Weekend of Fun)
yep, it's the Traditional Self Portrait of 30 year old Leighleigh and twentysomething year old moi (yep, LL, your lush friend louise didn't believe me when i told her my *real* age lol)!!!


truly, the whole weekend was so much fun that i'm completely partied out (that's a World First) and i'm off to bed so if ya wanna read the story and see more pix then click here...

and S9's BIG NEWS is that he scored his team's only *goal* during his First Game of Hockey on Saturday. woot woot!!!!!
oops, Mummy forgot to take the camera. but hey, it was raining so hard we could hardly see him.....

Let Our Worlds Collide

It’s the nature of our society that you and I live in separate worlds. You go off every day to earn a dollar fifty and I hang out with the kids. It’s symbiotic, our lifestyle. And I’m so thankful that we enable each other’s worlds to keep turning. During my youth, my mum and dad insisted that to keep a marriage alive, partners need mutual interests. I really like dancing with you, but that’s on hiatus over the winter. Which is why I love our weekends-for-two. It’s a collision of souls. A catch-up. Time for reconnection. We trip inside our heads and spend the day there. Normality is crazy-busy, complex and with kid-missiles flying everywhere. But this weekend, this oasis, will be a reminder that we are joined by the bonds of love, and nothing can track that.

A Pirate's Life is a Wonderful Life

Yo Ho me hearties, you are crazy nutters, off for a Dress-Up Day.

Come on, join up, and I'll be frank:
unless you do, you'll walk the plank!!!

Give me a career as a buccaneer,

it's a Pirate's life for me!!

readaholix

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
~ Francis Bacon ~

S9, i have been waiting for you to find your groove with books, to choose books you love and really get into them. today my wish came true: what did you do to calm yourself after an ankle injury on the trampoline? you found a pile of *asterix* books and snuggled up for a good snortle.

J11, you are totally the bookaholic. you read a page twice as fast as i do, and you have a photographic memory like D17's: you can find a snippet of info/quote in an instant. if ever we are looking for you, chances are you'll be sitting in the sunshine doing just this, and the whole world opens wide its windows as you explore it, breathe it, live it.

back to the *fuschia*

Leighleigh, I remember my thirtieth with such delight: you and Chantelle played *Elizabeth Arden Spring Spa Day* and gave me the complete makeover for my party, and only a few years later, but in a different lifetime, it's your own thirtieth!!!
I thought I'd give you a peep of your "bright deep pink, elegant, modern, funky" necklace:

it doesn't really count as *unwrapping your present before your birthday* cos even though you won't see it IRL until the weekend (for the BWoF), it's your birthday today!!!!!
(the symbolism is that there are thirty pink beads on either side of the flower)

oh, and it's extremely versatile, it goes with any outfit.. with or without the flower, so you can dress up or dress down lol...

Happy Birthday chick!!!