We're home!

Well there is so much news really, and very little time to write! The real big news is that we moved into our house yesterday; 53 packages were unloaded into our house following a 10 month journey from New Zealand (via Bridgwater, Somerset). Having not had any of our possessions for almost a year, it was wonderful to finally unpack, and for the first time be 'home' since May 10th 2008. Photos and video to follow in the usual style!

Phoebe is doing incredibly still! She is taking more and more feeds from the bottle, and is also starting to breast feed. She took an entire feed from Laura this afternoon which was incredible. They are now increasing the number of feeds that she takes from the bottle as she is gaining strength and the stamina to be able to cope with it. So she's now weighing 2309g (5lbs 1oz) which is awesome; We're blown away by the progress she has made - she feels (and looks) so much like a real baby now. She had her second eye test yesterday and we are awaiting the results from that, so we'll let you know how she goes; They are wanting to see her again in a week, but that is all we know.

Gracie is on wonderful form; She is loving being in her own house and has played so beautifully the last 2 days - I think she is so happy to have all her toys back with her after such a long absence! It's so great to see her really thrive. Tomorrow Laura will walk to church for the first time (as we're now 5 minutes away) and I will lead worship at the 10:45 congregation for the first time - it's going to be a great day. As ever, here are some photos.

Gracie watching some TV while waiting for the furniture to arrive!

We're moving in!

Today Paul went into Vancouver to clear our shipping through customs...it went through without a hitch and our stuff is getting delivered on Friday afternoon! We are feeling very excited that we will finally be in our own home (although living with John and Allyson since we've arrived here has been amazing). It's been almost a year since we have lived in our own home as a family and we feel ready to do so again! Thank you everyone for your prayers.

Both of our gorgeous girls are doing well. Gracie is just adorable at the moment and makes us laugh so much. She has recently started roll-playing with her toys and it is hysterical to listen in to see how she views the world; my favorite is when one of her animals falls on the floor and she says 'oh sweetheart' and gives them a big hug!

Gracie and I went into the hospital this morning and Gracie got to cuddle Phoebe for the first time which was lovely-it lasted for about 45 seconds-but it was still very sweet! The hospital have a free babysitting service for siblings of children in hospital, this is run by volunteers each weekday morning which we have been using. This has been amazing as one of my biggest problems is finding time to see Phoebe but not wanting to be away from Gracie for a long time, I can now go into see Phoebe and take Gracie with me which makes life a little bit easier!

Phoebe is still growing! She now weighs 4lb 10oz. Her weight gain has been so good that the dietitian came to see her and they have cut back on the HMF additive they give tiny babies...this is good news as it just brings us a small step closer to bringer her home! Her second eye exam is going to happen in the next few days. Phoebe will go on a little day trip back to Vancouver by ambulance for this as they don't have all the equipment at Abbortsord hospital.

We'll keep you posted with the results of the eye test in the next couple of days, and we'll get some photos of the new house once we've unpacked over the weekend. God is so faithful to us!

Gracie and I having a picnic at the hospital

Gracie has her first cuddle with Phoebe

A tour of our new house

We've Moved!

Well we finally moved house yesterday from our place in Pt. Chevalier to an amazing converted villa in Mt. Roskill. Our new address is 34 Kings Road, Mt. Roskill, Auckland, 1041. 

We'll show you more photos soon, and of course there will be the obligatory tour of the house video! 

A Tour of the house...

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Tour of the house!

This is our house - we thought it would be nice to show you wher we are living...

Our front yard

The study/music room

and again!!!

Our lovely lounge

More of the lounge!

The lounge from the kitchen

Our Kitchen

House warming party

Last night we had our house warming party- it was good fun and loads of guys came along to help us warm the house! It was fairly tame as far as party's go-no wild antics as far as I know....and as an added bonus we're back in favour with our neighbours for inviting them (long story about letting our grass over grow!) All in all, a great night.

Our new home

I've been asked to put a few more photos up of our new house so here are just a couple i've taken tonight- enjoy!

We're in...

Well, we finally moved in to the new place at the weekend; we're now officially living in the leafy suburb of Point Chevalier - apparently it is one of the up and coming areas of Auckland which is a great thing. We have a beach within a few minutes walk, some beautiful reserves, a couple of nice coffee shops, and some lovely neighbours.

This evening we picked up a lemon tree (with lemons on!) for our patio, and we erected our Cot... very exciting indeed. We will take some photos and a video soon but want to get things a little more sorted first.

We'll get back into the blogging again and will try to keep things flowing steadily; it's been a busy few weeks with little time for sitting at the computer at home.

Love to hear from you - please leave us comments; they are always a pleasure to read!

Moving Update...

Well, we made it out of our flat and we're in limbo at the moment. The move out went well - Elliott and I loaded our Smartbox van in 2 hours which I was pretty impressed with; They will deliver it back to us on Saturday morning at the new house.

Since moving out, I've had tonsillitis which sucks a bit, but i'm on some antibiotics which seem to be doing the job. We'll try and get some pictures of the new place up on the web at the weekend. Ciao

One more sleep to go!

Well, we've made it; We're all packed up and moving out in the morning. We're going to stay with our good friends the Alcocks for a week, and then move into our new house on Saturday the 9th September. Our new contact details are as follows;

Paul & Laura Kingsley-Smith
291a Point Chevalier Road
Point Chevalier
Auckland
+64 9 8452242

Please bear in mind that you won't be able to ring this number until the 9th. Until then, we are uncontactable!! We'll post again from the new house.

Where are we going to be living?

New House

Well after lots of looking, and dreaming of moving out of our apartment, the end is finally in sight. We move out of our small apartment in Grafton on the 1st September, and move on the 8th into a lovely 2 bed detached house in Point Chevalier which is a lovely area close to the sea.

We're extremely excited about really making home here - it's going to be a great place to raise our first child; Laura is already very busy figuring out the things we'll need to buy to make it feel homely - ouch!!!!

We'll try and get a photo soon.

Apartment Update 1

Well the lovely Brazillians didn't get back in touch with us which was such a shame. We were really confident that they would take the apartment - they absolutley loved it. So, we're still waiting for others to come and have a look whilst being very aware that it is quite a bit above the market rate.

We'd really appreciate your continued prayers; Laura is now down to 2 days work a week, which leaves us very little money to save for the baby. We really really need someone to take the apartment off us soon.

Laura has been showing some signs of getting rid of the morning sickness, but whenever she thinks she's cracked it, it hits her again big style! Hopefully she'll be feeling well by the time we get to England (3 Weeks).

We'll write again soon. Lots of love to you all....

Apartment Update...

Well, we had one lovely Brazillian couple have a look around the apartment yesterday, and they seemed very enthusiastic. We are expecting a phone call from them this afternoon. We also just had a phone call twenty minutes ago, and they are popping in in 10 minutes, so we're hoping we'll get this cleared soon. Keep on praying!

Yesterday was a typically busy day for us; I was leading worship morning and evening, and Laura was helping at the creche in he morning - obviously just trying to get in as much practice as she can! Rich & Kath are now back from England which is great - Rich spoke yesterday morning and was very good.

I've also started a new blog - more of a chance for me to share some of my thoughts and ideas about God. I've not posted yet, but i'll get to it very soon.

Apartment for rent...

Well, our landlords have told us we can move out if we can to find new tenants, so the flat is advertised on Trade Me, and at church. We'd really appreciate your prayers that we would find someone to move in - the sooner the better really.

We're contracted till September, so the sooner we get out, the sooner we can live somewhere cheaper. If you want to see the advert, and have a look at where we've been living for the last year click here.

Much Prayer Needed

OK guys, we need to mobilise the prayers among our readers. Laura found out yesterday that her temp job comes to an end this Thursday. We are living in a flat that is very much dependant on 2 incomes - of course with a baby on the way we have planned to move out before the baby comes, but the sooner the better now that her employment is totally up the creak!

We have 3 months left on our contract, but have asked to be released ASAP so that we can get in to something much much cheaper - i've left this with our landlord, but could really use some prayer that they would have favour on us and let us out.

If you could pray that would be absolutely amazing. We'll keep you posted.

New Sofa

Well this story is equally as awesome as the bed, car, and countless donations of money!!!!

As you'll probably know, we moved house little over 3 weeks ago, and for all of that time we have been living sofaless and having to sit on the floor. Now, I don't mind sitting on the floor all that much, but when you are having people over for dinner, it's nice to be able to offer them something more comfortable than a toilet seat!!!

Well, Laura's boss gave her a call on Monday (she owns a very very trendy design store called Eon). The shop has recently had a 3 seater sofa on display, and whilst on display one of its arms got scuffed. They fixed the problem, but because of the high standards of the shop and its trenyness, they are unable to sell it there.

So, guttingly they also didn't have enough space to keep the sofa in their store so she asked Laura if we would like to have it for FREE!!!! It's the same as the above photo!

This really is such an incredible blessing for us; This is a sofa that there is no way we could even consider affording - everything is seriously expensive in the shop, so to get it free really is awesome. The sofa arrives this afternoon which we are very excited about. Once we are furnished, we will do another video tour for all those absent!

God is SO good, and we're SO blessed by the generosity of the people here in New Zealand. If you want to continue praying with us, these are the things we're praying for now....

2 Widescreen TVs (one for us, one for Rich & Kath)
Coffee Table
Bedside Tables
Hi-Fi
Book case
Toaster
More money!!!

The Move!!

Well, finally we are in our new flat and boy was it a mission!!! It was a total nightmare; I honestly never thought that moving house to be quite so stressful!! However, we are in our new place and it rocks!! It is warm, cosy, and cool!!

One of the stressful things (although minor) was that our sofas couldn't fit through the door - due to abnormal size feet and the doorway going straight in to a coridor there was no way of manoevering the things in. Needless to say, we finally gave up, and took a well over due trip to the Transfer Station (The Tip) and got rid of the sofas as well as a load of other junk that we have somehow acumalated in the 3 months that we have been here.

We are now SOFAless which is fairly frustrating!! So last night at home we sat down and spent some time praying; amongst other things, we pleaded for 2 things from God

1. That God would provide us with quality furniture
2. That God would provide us with a quality car (as we don't own one here, and have no way of being able to afford one.

We are faithful that God will answer prayer 1. This morning though I received a phone call in the office from a member of our congregation - he is getting a company car this afternoon with his job, and would there for like to give us the car that he owns... TODAY!!!! How amazing is that! God is so amazing! We feel blessed at this provision (although as I'm writing, Laura still doesn't know as I haven't been able to contact her!) and are more certain that God will provide every need we have.

Please continue to pray with us over the furniture, we really would love something to sit on!!!

Gotta go now, love you all

New House

Well, here is hot off the press news of the day. We are moving!! This time just across the city to a more central location - we will be moving to a part of Auckland called Grafton. We'll be living on the same road that church is on, but about 15 minutes walk away.

It's a new build block, and we are going to be on the 4th floor in a very nice little 2 bedroom apartment. It was literally completed last week so has all mod cons. We have an impared view of the sky tower and a lovely courtyard. We'll put up some pictures in the following weeks.

It's late over here right now, so I'll be off to bed. Love to you all