Monkey See, Monkey Do

As of today, Luca is 14 months old. He's outgrown lots of his clothes, and he's mastered the art of walking...well almost. He's still pretty wobbely, and bops up and down a lot, and thinks it's funny when he runs away from us.

His new trick is blowing bubbles in the water. We attend swim lessons every Monday (he'll be a pro by the time we get to St. Louis this summer....ha ha) and he's one of the few in the class that actually like getting their faces wet. That's our boy!

Wedding stuff is coming along nicely - I can't believe it's less than 3 months away...yikes!

Diet Coke

I'm all about trying to eat healthy (ahhhh...wedding, 90 days away!), and I've been using the internet to find some new low fat/calorie recipies. This is my latest find. Diet Coke Cake. Yes, it sounds gross, but trust me....it's AMAZING. I made it this weekend for Bruce's 61st B-day. YUM, YUM, YUM. Here it is....

Ingredients
1 Devil's Food or chocolate Cake Mix and 1 can Diet Coke or Coke Zero, or Sprite Zero

Directions
Mix cake mix & coke. Pour into greased 9 x 13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

It's seriously that easy. No butter, no eggs, no oil. It doesn't rise as much as a regular cake, but it tastes so good and only 130 calories. You can also top with whip cream and strawberries. Sigh. If only they sold the fat free whip cream in NZ...

I've got a few other diet coke secret recipies but I'll save those for another time.

Through the alley

We don't live in the flashest of houses - in fact our house is a bit too small, we don't have an attached garage, the bathroom will barely hold two people in it at the same time, and Luca's toys pretty much fill up every nook and cranny. We'll never sell this house - it will be rental one day as it's a bit too small for our 'happily ever after' house... BUT what is really cool about our house, is that there is an alleyway next to our house that leads to the Awapuni neighborhood shops. There's a library branch, a butcher, a dairy (like a 7-11 type of store), a vet, the cheap hairdresser that cuts Luca's hair, a post shop (aka post office), a bakery that sells awesome sandwiches and cookies, a fish n ship shop (which grosses me out), a neighborhood pub (that we keep meaning to visit) and now......drumroll please..... an Indian takeaway resturant. How cool is that?! So very very convienant. It's funny that something like an Indian takeaway shop can make me so happy.

Last night while Luca and I were out on a walk, I saw that it was open and went in to buy a piece of garlic naan....hmmmm, heaven. The prices are way cheaper than the Indian places in town - score. I was bursting at the seams to share my naan with James and tell him the incredible news about the new shop. I couldn't wait to tell him! Guess what? He aparently had known about the shop for 2 days and didn't even tell me. He said he didn't think It'd be that big of a deal to me. Well, obviously, he was wrong. Ha ha.

Everything (well just about everything) we could possibly need is right behind our house just a 5 min walk roundtrip. What a blessing this was when I was on maternity leave, and now that Luca's a bit older we just dash through the alleyway together several times a week.

Pictures from Esplanade Day - yet another council event that I organize for the city. It was today - bad weather, but we had a good time. Luca loved watching the motorbike expo.
Cousins watching the motorcross bikes...

Look who's walking now! He's doing so well...I'd say he's about 50/50 now. Walking and Crawling. Sometimes he looks like Frankenstein and sometimes he looks like a little drunk man when he walks.

My friend Karlyn's Baby shower was last weekend. She's due to have her 2nd baby in 3 weeks. Very exciting stuff. It's like baby-mania right now. All our friends are having or just had one.

Home Ec Lesson #1

Make sure you have an apron on (check it out...that's the cute one I got at the craft fair) Don't get any eggshell into the batter...

Stir it till the lumps go away, pour in the pan.....

Taste it to make sure it tastes okay....
And taste it some more (when I took the spoon away he threw a mighty tantrum!)

Lesson learned - The best part of baking is licking the spoon at the end

Waitangi Day Weekend

Friday was Waitangi Day, a national holiday so everyone had a 3 day weekend (well except me who was organizing a big event in the city square for Waitangi Day). The event turned out well, and Luca and James were once again dragged to yet another free council event. Waitangi day is a day to celebrate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi - an agreement the Europeans came to with the indiginous people of NZ (The Maori Tribes). The agreement has and still does cause lots of contrevorsy (spell?). Picture of pacific island type maori dance...
We had a busy and wonderful weekend. Friday was the festival, Friday night BBQ and Moi and Karyln's house (she's due to have her 2nd baby in 6 weeks!) and then on Saturday we drove to Martinborough to go to the big art n' craft festival. Think small country town, hundreds of stalls, thousands of people, and the hot hot sun. FANTASTIC. Loved it.

Thank goodness we don't have a little girl or else I would have spent a lot more money. Seems like there are a million stalls with gorgeous little girl dresses, little girl sunhats, little girl this, little girl that. As it was we did end up buying a really cool apron for Luca, a necklace for myself, some homebaked ciabatta bread, and a few screen print 'seconds' shirts for Luca. James was really patient pushing Luca through the crowds while I scanned all the stalls as quickly as possible.

After the fair madness we met up with some friends at one of the wineries that also had live Jazz music. Picnic, nice smelly cheese, glasses of Sav Blanc, and 4 kids crawling around in the dirt. We offered to buy an elderly couple a bottle of wine if they'd watch the kids for us, but they just laughed. I don't think they realized we were serious.
But perhaps the coolest part of mini road trip was our suprise stop in Masterton. Luca was being cranky so we found a park on the map that seemed like it would make a good pit stop. Oh, My, Goodness. This wasn't just any ordinary park. It was like a DREAM playground. Probably the best playground we'd ever been to. Seriously. Wooden forts everywhere, slides, a few ziplines, mini trains, etc etc. We ended up stopping there 2x that day. Such a hidden treasure in a dead town in the middle of nowhere. Did I mention the bakery there gave us a free donut with the sandwiches we purchased, and my strawberry milkshake was super cheap? The awesome bakery combined with the sweet kids playground was almost enough to make me want to move to Masterton.

Classic

This week on our doorstep arrived a very exciting package - a brand spankin' new shiny Red Radio Flyer Wagon from Grandma Fran and Grandpa Dennis. This is a classic toy that will remain so for generations. Who knew that the Radio Flyer made so many different types of wagons? You can chose from ATV wheels, deeper seat versions, wagons with wooden guards, wagons with umbrellas, wagons with seats, plastic wagons, metal wagon....etc etc. Of course all these flash options come with a pricetag, so we decieded to go the classic route and get the orginal.


Boy, is it cool. James and his friend spent about 30 mins trying to assemble it (without using the directions of course) and then finally gave in and read the instruction. Guess what?! It is easier using instructions...ha ha!

Then we took Luca for his first spin around the cul-da-sac in his new shiny red wagon.



He reminds me of the Queen of England being pulled in a horse and carriage waving to the commoners - ha ha!



This wagon will be great for Sunday morning walks to the fruit and veggie market! Thanks Grandma Fran and Grandpa Dennis!!!