Photo's as promised plus a birthday

Yesterday Ian turned 9, I have no idea how that happened, seems like yesterday he was just crawling!    He's doing really well at school, the previous day he came first in the maths challenge which he was really proud of.    He's doing his 8 times tables and getting them right too, his brother is 18 months older and doing the same tables, but he doesn't have the same strength in maths that Ian does, he's a reader instead.   
Ian got a fair bit of Lego Ninjago for his birthday, plus a book on snakes and lizards and a brainbox kit.   We also went to Orana Park despite the weather and had a great time.  All the photo's are on my old camera, wasn't prepared to take the DSLR with rain threatening.

First Ninjago present, he loved it.   I will be cutting the mop on his head on the next fine day we have.

Cute wee meercats.

Even cuter otters, I love these wee guys!

A very cheeky kea.   This guy sat on Thomas' head and nibbled his ear.   The sign on the outside warns you he's cheeky and says to move away, but we weren't sure how to do that when he's actually on your head!

Lions doing what they do best between meals

A young (about 6 months old) giraffe, we got to feed them too.

 He had a great day, chose what he wanted for lunch, had visitors, chocolate cake and finally got on the computer at about 3pm!

I got 23 rows done on Thomas' sock yesterday when we got home and our visitors all admired our finished painting.

Dining area after undercoating and cutting in.  Original wallpaper was 1970's vases with flowers in shades of yellow and orange.   It had been covered with beige/salmon/gold random brushstroke thing.

This is how it looks now, nighttime shot so the colour is slightly off, it's less yellow than it looks here.

Our new loo, the old one had a crack in the base from earthquakes and it was peach in colour.  This is so much nicer and we've not had to use a full flush on it yet!

Laundry while I was re-stopping the gib.   The original plasterwork had mostly come off with the old wallpaper.   The old wallpaper was skyblue with little white flowers.

Our new look, the colour is the same as the toilet area, Robin's Egg Blue from Resene.  I still have to put the shelf up on the wall above the washing machine, but it looks so much nicer!

I only need to do a little wallpaper repair work in the lounge now and we're done for a while, plus of course the doors and doorframes and windowframes, but they're not urgent till I open the tin of paint I got.   It's not tinted so won't go funny if left for a while.   I also need to think about what I'll paint the doors in here with.   At the moment they're still skyblue, they're louvred so tend to stand out a bit.  Someone suggested a slightly darker version of the main paint, but I'm thinking maybe slightly lighter with the frame done in the lighter shade as well.   Might have to get a 1litre tin of the same base in white and add it till I'm happy.

Fire is still wrapped up and will be till the flooring is done, hope that's soon, but not too soon as Dh has a trip up north later this week and I'll need his help to shift the bigger bits of furniture.