Happy Birthday Elle

Photo taken by the very talented Kimberley Farthing

Elle turned 12 on Tuesday.  12 I say!  How did that happen?  When did that happen?  How am I suddenly the mother of a 12 year old?  Wasn't it just yesterday that we brought her home from the hospital on a cold and stormy night?  Wasn't it just the other day that she had her first day at kindergarten?  People always said to me when she was a baby to "enjoy the moment because they grow up too fast" - it surely didn't seem that way when there were endless nappies to change and clothes to wash and sleepless nights.  But now it feels like I blinked and I missed it all and now here she is, no longer my little girl but a beautiful, mature young lady.

She'll be taller than me soon - but lucky for her she inherited skinny genes from somewhere so she'll never be fatter than me :)  We won't ever share clothes but maybe shoes.  I love that she talks to me about everything.  If she's got a question - she asks it, no matter what the topic!  I hope that never changes. I think about when I was 12 and how different I was from her.  She is so confident and out going.  I'm glad she didn't inherit my shyness.  She is my number one shopping buddy.  No matter what we're shopping for she'll come along happily - so long as we can spend 10 minutes or so in BLING or DIVA.  I love her gentle nature and her soft spirit.  I love that she cries if she sees me crying.  I love the fact that even though Ryan can be her worst enemy, she will protect him no matter what.  I love that she is honest and pure and always tries to do what is right.  I love that when she thinks she has done something wrong she comes and talks to me about it - and it usually turns out she hasn't done anything wrong at all!

On Saturday I booked tickets to America for me and her to go to conference with Mum and Dad in October.  How fun will that be?

One day old at Waikato Hopital.  We called her frog legs.

Easter and ANZAC all rolled into one

Easter was super late this year - infact it was so late in the month that we all got ripped off on holiday pay from work because ANZAC day, April 25th, fell on Easter Monday.
The weekend mainly involved eating.way.too.much.  We started off with our traditional hot cross bun making competition.  Dad was the judge and I have to say that I think he was biased in his judging.  He chose Mum's buns even though they had no raisins!  haha.  Oh well, the proof was in the eating - I also made CUSTARD BUNS which were all gobbled up in no time.

The buns.  Please disregard messy kitchen in the background.

On Sunday we had a lovely Easter lunch of chicken salad croissants and delectable desserts.  The idea was for everyone to make a dessert they had never made before.  It was quite fun but I was rather disappointed in mine.  It was a recipe I had wanted to try for a long time and was quite tricky as it involved making your own pasty, caramel and ganache all from scratch!  So while I think I executed the recipe perfectly, it just wasn't that nice.  It looked great though - so here's a picture.

First and last time I will be making Dorie Greenspans chocolate peanut caramel tart

On Monday we headed off to Memorial Park to watch Elle lay a wreath on behalf of her school for ANZAC day.  It was pouring with rain but it somehow seemed quite fitting to make a little sacrifice to stand in the rain for an hour to honor those who sacrificed so much for our country and our freedom.

Elle and the head boy Malachi Leslie.  These two were born a few weeks apart and we
have photos of them together as babies.  I made the wreath.

Royal Wedding

For as long as I can remember, Crystal has said that she will have a Royal Wedding Party when Prince William gets married.  (this is after she moved on from thinking she would be his bride) haha
Since she's just had a baby I volunteered to host the festivities at my house.  Nakita made awesomely posh invites, Kelly and I made a 3 tier wedding cake, we drank from tea cups, ate cucumber sandwiches and scones with jam & cream, wore tiaras, facinators and gloves, giggled and cheered, waved British flags and stayed up til 12:30 to watch THE kiss which turned into 2 kisses! 

Dad

We were at The Night Glow when Crystal phoned me to say an e-mail had come from Dad asking us to watch conference in the morning.  We knew it meant something was going to happen cos we recieved the same e-mail last year when Dad was called to the 8th Quorom of the Seventy as an Area Authority.
We woke up early and watched it live with Paul and Nakita.  We were suprised to hear Dad released as an area authority and then even more suprised to hear him called to the First Quorom of the 70 as a General Authority.  It was so cool to see him walk up to the stand and take his seat with the other members of the quorom.  It is a stand I have looked at every General Conference since I was a little girl - and now OUR Dad sits there!

He has been called for the next 13 years until he turns 70.  Their first assignment is to the Phillipines.  They leave August 1st and while we are sad that they are leaving we are so excited for this new calling.  They have already had some amazing experiences and I know that they will have many more.

Thankfully they get to come home every Christmas for a month to see us all.  And they will get to visit Wade's family every 6 months when they go to conference.  We are saving all our money so we can visit them as often as possible - which will probably not be very often but we will try!

Baby Mann

Baby Preston Samuel Mann arrived on March 26th at 5:25 in the afternoon.  Its a hard thing to watch your sister endure pain and exhaustion but Crystal was awesome and I was proud to be a part of the arrival of my new nephew.

We weren't really asleep - we were just being silly while Crystal was having a nap
(AFTER the epidural kicked in of course!)



Ryan hanging out with his new cousin



Elle loves looking after Preston - only 2 more years til she can legally look after him by herself!







Koromatua School Triathlon

Elle and Ryan had their school triathlon a couple of weeks ago and it was a great day.  Training began a few weeks before both at school and at home.

Elle competed individually, completing a course which involved 6kms of cycling, 2 kms of running and 1 km of swimming.  She was awesome - it was a tough course but she kept on going and kept a really good pace.  She came 5th for her age group.

Ryan was the swimmer for his team and they came 1st for their age group!  He swam 1km in no time - using his favourite stroke - breast stroke.  The week before he had represented Koromatua School at the Waipa Inter-school swimming sports in Te Awamutu.  He placed third in his heat and 5th in the final!  Yay Ryan. 

The cousins:  Sarsha, Logan, Maddy, Elle & Ryan

So Proud of This Girl:

Elle was chosen to be Head Girl of her school a couple of weeks ago.  It feels like just yesterday I was dropping her off for her first day of school.  If you'd told me back then that she would one day be the Head Girl I would have laughed.  She was so quiet and shy and HATED school.  After her first week she came home, rolled up into the foetal position on the couch and cried herself to sleep.  She stopped eating too.  It was quite horrific really.  She cried every day for months and it broke my heart.

But I guess somewhere along the way she learned to like school and grew out of her shyness.

After filling out an application and having a staff and student vote, Elle was chosen to be a House Leader.  Then a week later she called me from school to tell me they had announced she was head girl. 
She has lots of responsibilities to fulfill and we know she will do a great job of being a leader and an example to the other students.  In fact, I've already seen her in action.  I was at school during lunch time the other day to drop something off and a little 5 year old came up to Elle and told her she had no friends.  So Elle went and found some friends for her.  cute.