Welcome to 2013!

Our new year kicked off with a coffee & cake week. This term we have a few outings lined up, so be sure to check the calendar to see where we'll be.

At the end of last year, we sadly farewelled Jo W & Julia from the team.  There were flowers, small gifts, and quite a few tears!
Jo has been a part of the team for about 5 years and her friendliness and amazing design skills will be sorely missed. Jo and her family moved to Pakuranga at the beginning of this year. Now that Nathan has started school and Sophie is in kindy she'll be doing more Graphic Design work from home. She said she'll come and visit us again though as WMums has been very special to her over the years.
Julia re-joined our team when she moved back from Melbourne. But did you know, that Catherine & Julia started this mothers group back when they had their first children, and before it was even named WM. So we've been lucky enough to have her for about 7 years in total. We will miss Julia on our team, but she needed to focus her time on running Mainly Music. As you may have noticed, she hasn't gone 'far' and we're blessed to have her help out with things from time to time (Thanks Julia!).

At the end of 2012, Lisa C joined Jo P & I on our team.  We want to extend a HUGE welcome to you, Lisa! We are so excited to have her on board, and love the chance to have fresh input and new ideas.

On that note, remember if you have any ideas or suggestions, please feel free to let us know (email, txt, phone etc). We love having feedback from you all, and this is what helps us to shape this group to better serve you.

Christmas & New Years seems to get people thinking about their life from a slightly bigger perspective. Some people are brave enough to make resolutions too. This year, I've been thinking about something a little different. I love having that long break. 31st Dec gives way to the 1st Jan...  With it, something often shifts in our thinking.  It's just a date change though, and often in the middle of a week. What is it that clicks our minds over into 'new' things? We tend to stop and take stock of things. We look behind to assess where we've come from. Maybe we decide on things we want to change, do better. But we also look ahead; wonder about what God has in store for us.

It occurred to me, that year ends are really a gift. They have the ability to give us fresh starts, fresh hope and the chance to learn new things. I found myself feeling thankful that God saw fit to package our 'time' into seasons, months, weeks and days. No matter how a day (week, month, year etc) goes, we can choose to start over. We can use those moments in time to make changes and choose to move forward. What a blessing to start each day fresh with our kids! And kids are so great at waking up with a clean slate aren't they? We could learn a lot from them.

I am thankful for this gift of new beginnings...

Welcome Baby Mattea!

Mattea Vyvyan arrived on the 30th Oct at 4.15am. What a little darling! She weighed in at 7lb 14oz (3.55kg).

A huge congratulations to you both, Jo & Reesh! We hope you have a special time introducing Mattea to your world! We all enjoyed stealing cuddles with her today.

Welcome Baby Amelia!

Amelia Joyce arrived on Sat 27th Oct at 2.08am weighing in at 8lb 13oz (3997g). She is simply adorable!

A huge congratulations to you, Amy & Steve! We hope you all have a special time settling Amelia into your family, and we're looking forward to having cuddles with her.

Think Pink Morning Tea!!

Yummy! We love these opportunities to go a bit spesh and have some gorgeous food!

Last week our theme was Think Pink (for The Breast Cancer Foundation) where we gave a donation for the lovely pink food. White (well Pink, actually) Chocolate Mud Cake, gorgeous cupcakes, coconut ice, fudge, marshmallows, lammington... All washed down with a real coffee or hot chocolate.

It was fun to see all the pink clothing everywhere, and even a pink pair of slippers was spotted. Cute!

Congratulations, girls, you gave $82.80!!! Awesome stuff! It is so great to be able to give to a great cause like this that effects so many Kiwi women. We look forward to doing this again next year too!

Blue Morning Tea

We had a 'lovely' blue morning tea on Tuesday...  It certainly tasted great, but I have to say I'm looking forward to our Think Pink morning tea next term! 

Cupcakes, Melting Moments, Star Biscuits, Lollies and REAL coffee all made for a sweet indulgence.  And the best thing?  We got together another $46.20 for the Community Garden Project in Maradi, Niger!  So with the $50 that we previously sponsored, we're almost at $100.00.

Well done girls!

Wai Walk for Niger?

The Start Line of the 2km

Wow - what a turnout! About 80 people participated, and a good 60% of those were families. Familes from WonderMums, along with those from Kiddy Winks, MBC and our community all got together and walked 2km carrying their water (wai is Maori for water ie, 'Water' walk for Niger).  Others walked 5km and some even 11km.

Walkers, then a picnic finish!

Why did we do this?  In Niger, people are dying. Far too many people. And simply because they don't have water. Parents carry grief for children who died way before their time. It really is heartrending.

We feel truly lucky that we 'happened' to be born in a country with loads of fresh water. We want our children to realise this is a huge privilege not shared by everyone around the globe. So this was a chance for our kids to get actively involved in 'doing' something that will help these families in Niger. 

I am so proud of all the kids who did this walk today. They were excited to be doing something as a group, and the older ones were really proud to be doing something to help kids who have no clean water to drink.

So far $50 sponsorship has been given by WonderMums!  Awesome stuff!  We are really hoping that as a group we would be able to donate $100 towards this awesome cause. We still have till the 7th of Oct to collect sponsorship/donation. 

Very excited kids!

World Vision is running the Maradi Community Vegetable Gardening Project in Niger. The direct beneficiaries are 560 women and men farmers. In total though, this will benefit 4200 people, 1,470 of which are just children.  Amazing isn't it!  Did you know that 50% of the population does not have access to safe drinking water, with 44% of children under-5 years being underweight? Those are scary percentages...

One of the main reasons for this project is this:  "Producing horticultural crops such as fruits and vegetables for cash and food, other than their staple grains, should become a more sustainable mechanism to reduce dependency on continuous food aid distribution when available water is appropriately managed and used.  Shifting the situation from perennial food insecure communities into producers of food that will relieve malnutrition levels and provide available cash to households to access other basic needs has potential in Niger."

The picture on the left is the project area in Maradi.  The picture on the right is an example of what this will look like upon completion. This is another project World Vision has finished in Mali.

Messy Play!

It just goes against the 'Mummy' grain, doesn't it. Putting out a whole lot of gloopy, messy, sloppy stuff and then encouraging our littlies to actually play in it! Eww! They do love it, though! The Mummies secretly love it too. ;)

We prepared an ice excavation block, slime, gloop, cloud dough, and textured playdough. The kids were very interested in exploring all this weird stuff (probably wondering if their mummies had gone nuts!). Some were hesitant, but it was great seeing them all get into it with a bit of encouragement.

These things are REALLY easy to do at home too. You can find the recipies on our Messy Play tab at the top.

For more photos, see the album.