Row Row Row Your Boat

Who would have thought that a baby bath would create so many hours of fun! Ashton has used his old baby bath for everything you could imagine lately. But his favourite activity is to turn it into a boat and sing the classic "Row Row Row your boat." So I though I would just share some of the extra verses we have found on our travels and now sing to make the adventure last longer! He loves each verse for its unique sounds and actions. . . he knows them all so well know he is already doing the actions or the sounds before I get to them!

1. Row, row, row your boat

Gently down the stream.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

Life is but a dream.

2. Row, row, row your boat

Gently down the stream.

If you see a crocodile,

Don't forget to scream! Ahh!

3. Rock, rock, rock your boat

Gently to the shore.

If you see a lion,

Don't forget to roar! Rrrr!

4. Row, row, row your boat

Gently down the river.

If you see a polar bear,

Don't forget to shiver! Brrr!

5. Row row row your boat

To the other side

If you see a tiger there

Don't forget to hide!

6. Row row row your boat

carefully through the mist

if you pass a slithery snake

don't forget to hiss! Hisssss!

Ashton and his buddy Darcy going for a row in their boat!

Just taking my ball for a walk!

Ashton's world is rather female! He has A LOT of fabulous male role models around him that he thinks the world of. But when it comes to the people he spends most time with playing etc. It's pretty much girls! The other night we were over playing at Grandma and Papa's house and he found Grandma's pram that she was pushed around in as a baby. (Its very cool). Next thing, we have Ashton walk out into the lounge, very blasé, pushing his soccer ball in the pram.

This is how my little man deals with life surrounded by women! Awesome!

A Polkadotty Party

So I just got to experience another joy of being a Polkadotty Mum! We were invited up to our old play group as one of the boys was going to be celebrating his 3rd birthday. We have been meaning to go back and visit so we happily accepted the invite.

To our surprise. . . (mainly mine), it turned out to be a full blown Polkadots Party! All the songs they sung were Polkadots songs, all the decorations were pictures of The Polkadots, and after nibbles everyone continued to watch The Polkadots on DVD!

I was a little taken back with the whole situation. Blown away that someone had thought to have this as a theme for a party, and also that my picture was on the wall! bahahaha! To everyone else it was nothing. . . There are still a lot of things I am getting used to with all this show biz stuff! Ashton thought nothing of it! Ha ha.

A Little bit of TIME OUT for this WOMEN!

So, I have just returned from one of the most uplifting days ever!!! Today I got to attend the first ever Time Out For Women event to be held here in Auckland. I am buzzing so much that I don't even know where to start in writing about it.

What an amazing opportunity to be able to attend an event with 1500 other LDS women, including the women that are so special to me in my life. To listen to people who are all there to help me to BECOME a better sister, wife, friend, person! And I came out the other end of the day feeling like I could do all of that and more!!!

I would love to write down everything that each and every one of them said, but I would be here all and right now I'm actually quite emotionally drained and feel a migrane coming on! ha ha. I'm not really a cryer... and I cried (with happy tears!) I'm not a hugger... and I volunteered hugs to all the girls I went with (much to their surprise). Just because I was so grateful for everything that they are to me as women and how they support me and make me better! They are so much a part of my journey and I just had to thank them in a way that they knew how much I ment it! I think they got the point! ha ha.

A few quotes that really stood out to me were:

* From Laurel Christensen "Don't be the one person standing in your way!" I have written this on the front of my fridge so that I read it every day!"

* Another was quoted by Hillary Weeks, but I think she was quoting some one else? "We become what we want to be by consistently being what we want to become."

* Then from Virgina Pearse "Don't underestimate the simple, essential 'to dos'."

* From Brad Wilcox, "We get so obsessed with ticking off our lists, that we forget why Heavenly Father gave us the list in the first place!" (Oh I am so that person!)

* And finally from Sheri Dew, "Its easier to motivate someone to do something difficult than it is to something easy." (So true!)

So, I'm home now (and what a perfect home coming it was too...) As I walked up to the house, I could hear Ashton and Kris running to the door with great excitement in their voices "Mummy's home!" What more could I ask for!

Thank you soooo much to the Time Out for Women team for coming to Auckland to share your wonderful presentation with us. It has inspired me to BECOME all that I dream for myself! But you want to know what I'm working on 'Becoming' in the short term... TONED! I'm going to become one toned, hot mumma! YEAH! ;o)

Catching up with Sheri Dew.

Hillary Weeks in action. Singing one of her many inspiring songs!

At the beginning of the day Laurel set us the challenge to take our tote bags with us where ever we went and to see where and how we could take the best photos of us with them. . . So, if you give me a challenge, I will take it! Especially when it involves being crazy and taking photos! Its, like combining my two best talents! ha ha. . . you will see what I mean in the photos to come!

I don't even know what to say to explain this first photo... it was Dionne's idea!

A bit more of a serious photo... a bit boring really! ;o)

There are many uses for tote bags... bibs!

We made sure everyone in Auckland City knew TOFW was in town by taking a photo in the middle of the downtown pedestrian crossing! Awesome!

We surprisingly got recognised as The Polkadots while we were there and were asked if we could take a photo to give to the ladies little girl. She had no idea we were all members of the church and totally surprised to see us all there!

Catching up with Hillary Weeks.

All my gals! I couldn't have asked to spend the day with a better group of ladies! I love you all sooo much and being with you for the day just topped everything off!

Surely part of taking time out means taking a nap!!! With our tote bags for pillows!

A bunch of the ladies from Harbour stake... moving forward in our journey to become... together!

We decided to make a Tote Bag chain!

Yet another use for the tote bags! A baby sling. Laural and Chrislyn get cuddles with Lily-Quinn

I tried to get the whole group to shout "We Love having TIME OUT FOR WOMEN!" But after counting to 3... only I shouted!

Brad Wilcox was jumping for joy that he was back in Auckland!!!

(I just have to add... I'm really good at jumping photos! lol)

Tata Town

Because our life revolves around cars... here is another activity using CARS! I actually really enjoyed creating this Car mat with Ashton! It was like being able to create your own little township.

Using the back of our washing machine box Ashton and I drew out some roads with come crayons. Once we had our road structure in place we filled in the gaps with our local shops etc. We got to put in all of the places we would love to visit, and places we felt were a necessity to every town! We ended up with a Fire Station, Police Station, Supermarket, hospital, Subway! a pet shop, a zoo, and the beach! While a was drawing Ashton was either colouring in the rest of the town, or he was busy cruising the streets of Tata Town!... or visiting the animals in the zoo! Its been lots of fun creating our town together, and we still have room for development!!!

Lets Dig!

Ashton and I have found ourselves with a number of days where nothing was planned and we just got to stay at home! I KNOW! That doesn't happen very often. . . at all! So, with it still being rather wintery, but we were lucky to have a sunny day, I was trying to think of something we could do that would get us out of the house for a while. We decided to DIG!

One of Ashton's favourite Polkadots songs is "Lets Dig" so I thought I would see if he really knew what it meant 'to dig'. We got a big spade and just dug out a little square block in the back yard and turned it out to see what we could find.

Ashton wanted to try everything I was doing, so he had a go at digging with the big spade.

As soon as we opened up the hole Aston spotted heaps of worms wiggling around, he was extremely excited!

Car meet worm... worm meet car!

Doing a bit of mixing and stirring with our digging.

How many toys can I hold at once?

With Ashton's love of cars comes his obsession with holding every single car transport model in the room. It is really rather entertaining watching him place one car at a time into the crook of his arm and then one by one stack down his arm . . . using his chin to secure them in place. I think the most he has managed to hold at once is 8! He will then try to transport them all around while he continues playing. So funny, but very cute too!