More Blog Catch Up

Daniel has struggled to jump for a long time. I think part of it is fear, but also part of it is tightness in his back. Over the past couple of months Daniel has started to grow in confidence in jumping properly, both jumping into the pool and jumping on the ground. Here he is when he started to work out how to jump properly.

Eliza pulls the best surprised face. I just love it!

Eliza has also started to pick up bags, say 'bye Mummy' and walk off. She's pretty cute.

Both kids just love jumping on James and I. When we are doing stretches on the ground the kids can't help but come and climb on us. Probably not the best for our backs but it does always produce many laughs.

Jump on Daddy!

One of Daniel's birthday presents was a fishing set. Eliza has enjoyed playing with it too. She gets very excited when she catches something.

Look at what I caught!

We had some friends come around for lunch and Laura and Dave brought bubbles for the kids to play with. Daniel just loves playing with them. He enjoys making the bubbles, catching the bubbles, popping the bubbles, all of it. It's great to watch the pure joy of a child over a simple thing.

Chasing bubbles

He was so proud to catch a bubble on the bubble maker

Making bubbles

Daniel has been asking to do painting a lot lately. Mostly because of us painting the carport and house. Once I got organised and made some more cornflour paint, I set up for Daniel and Eliza to paint. A big step for me to have Eliza try painting as I don't like mess and don't really trust that she won't keep the paint out of her mouth. She did very well though, and so did Daniel.

 Eliza got stuck into her first painting. She did well with holding the brush and only occasionally felt the paint with her hand.

Daniel painted his first picture of the family. It was very cool to see!

He had painted 3 people and I asked him what he was painting and he said 'My Mummy, Daniel, Eliza. Oh, I need to do my Daddy' and he started to paint James. It was very cute to see and I was very proud of him.
 

Daddy, Daniel, Eliza and Mummy

They were very focussed with their painting.

Eliza did her first painting, and then kinda lost interest.

 Daniel lasted longer.

I then put Eliza down for a nap and did some stenciling with Daniel. He really enjoyed making trains and was interested to see how it worked out.

He then asked for me to paint with him. I asked him what he wanted to paint and he said 'the house'. I told him no, that just Mummy and Daddy are painting the house. He said that he wanted to paint a house with me, so we did. I said each step that I was doing and he decided to copy me. It was very cool to watch him learning.
-Red square
-Blue triangle on top
-Green squares inside for windows
-Yellow rectangle for a door with a red door handle
-Yellow sun (which Daniel decided to do green)

My house and Daniel's house

Whilst James was at Camp Kedron, we went to visit him at camp and then went to Bicentennial Park with everyone. The kids enjoyed running around on the grass and Daniel liked riding his bike. It's a great place and will be awesome to go to as they both grow up.

Running through the trees

Cuddles

Hugging trees

Eliza's cheese

Riding around fountains

Running time

The kiddies also came down with sickness so I gave them a treat of watching Play School in the afternoon. They were so cute sitting on their couch together.

Eliza has started to jump too... well, do the jumping action, even though her feet don't tend to leave the ground.

Eliza and Daniel have been playing together a lot. They get along pretty well together which is great to see. 
Eliza has started to pull Daniel around on the bike, a big effort and pretty slowly but it's still fun.

Daniel decided to try and do Eliza's hair.

 They both enjoy cheering on the Swannies with their flags.

For Grayma's birthday we had everyone come around to our place. The kids had fun riding their bikes around outside.

Of course there was cake to be had and candles to blow out.

I do love my Grandma and the kids love their Grayma. She is a good one. 89 years young.

James has been working with Daniel to watch a ball the whole time to catch it. He has started to do it well.

At Chiro, Daniel is given a sticker at the end of the session for being well behaved. Eliza was given a sticker for the first time and she was so excited by it. She just kept saying 'Wow!'. It was so gorgeous and joyful.

While Eliza has her morning nap, Daniel and I have been doing some of his different craft activities. It has been fun being creative with him and he has enjoyed it.

Making playdough animals

Felt dinosaurs

Daniel's dinosaur picture

We have been redoing our front fence (well, our builder is redoing it but we have oiled the fence beams). Daniel was very keen to help James move the beams.

 Daniel has also been loving doing puzzles. I love that he is so keen on them and will happily sit there doing different puzzles on his own.

 Daniel is continuing to grow up (of course) but with that comes sadness as he changes. My little guy who used to say 'Naniel' now says 'Daniel'. 

When I get Eliza up from her cot, Daniel tends to like climbing into it and having a play. We like to sing '2 cheeky monkeys...' but also just jumping, falling, hugging is also high up on the list.

 As Eliza's walking has increased, she has found that our light switches are low in the house. We have re-entered the fun of lights being switched on and off repeatedly.

 We had Oscar stay with us over a weekend because Mum and Dad were still away on their holiday and Jens and Howie had a wedding at the Hunter Valley. It was a lot of fun having the 3 kids together and they played pretty well together.
They enjoyed baths.

I outsourced bedtime story time to Oscar which was very sweet to watch. His reading is so good!

Daniel and Oscar enjoyed doing puzzles together.

We had a combined 3rd birthday party with Daniel's mothers' group which was really nice. The weather was perfect for a play in the park. The kids enjoyed riding their bikes, playing on the equipment, running around on the grass, and eating cake.

Our 3 year olds

The cake was a success

Ems loved it

Mums and bubs

 They are a great group of kids and an awesome group of mums!

At lunch we enjoyed seeing Nana and Poppy again after their big holiday. The kids were happy to see them again.