Mr Hoot Came To Stay

Last year we had the class toy come and stay with us, Bluey. This year we got to look after Mr Hoot for the weekend. Unfortunately the weekend we got him, we didn't have a very free weekend so we couldn't go on any big adventures with him (like we did with Bluey to the Blue Mountains) so Mr Hoot had to tag along for the weekend to the different activities we tend to do most weekends, with the exception of Uncle Howie's birthday lunch. Here are the photos we took of Mr Hoot's weekend.

Mr Hoot had the same dinner as us - Hamburgers

Daniel made Mr Hoot a bed and had his cousin sleep with him

Mr Hoot FaceTimed Tim and Rach

Mr Hoot met Chilli

Mr Hoot got checked with Mr Clicky at Chiro

Mr Hoot helped draw Uncle Howie's birthday card

He got to be in the birthday cake photo

He got to sing Happy Birthday

And help blow out the candles

Uncle Howie is showing his age!

The next day Mr Hoot helped with the shopping

And did the lawn mowing with Daddy

Then he came to church and sang with Daniel

And finished the weekend with time on the Jumping Castle at the After Party

 Daniel had to write about his time with Mr Hoot for school. Here is his writing.

Good work Daniel. I hope Mr Hoot had a great weekend with you! 

Piano progress

Each Thursday morning Daniel and I are still sitting down to do piano lessons. I have no clue if I am teaching him well, or teaching him properly but I am doing my best and I am happy with how he is going so I guess that can't be a bad thing. 

He is really proud of himself too and loves being able to play new songs, especially ones that he knows. The challenge is having him play by looking at the music, not just by ear once he has learnt the song. The other challenge is for him to do piano practice but I think that will always be a challenge. It's not that he doesn't like practicing, it's that he doesn't think about it and chooses to play games instead.

This week, to try and build up his knowledge of notes and reading the music, instead of playing by ear, I made some flash cards with the notes he has already learnt as well as a treble clef and a base clef to identify which hand to play with. We played games with them, he had to jump onto the different notes when I said them, had to put them in order to play the start of a scale, etc. He seemed to really enjoy this and showed me that he has more knowledge of the notes than I thought because he relies so much on playing by ear. Will see how that goes with using these cards and try and work out how to build upon this idea as he enjoyed being up and moving around too, not just sitting at the piano.

Anyway, here are some videos of his piano playing over the last couple of months.
Mary had a Little Lamb is the first song that Daniel has played using both hands. He has been so excited to used both hands at the same time! This is the first week that he learnt the base for the song.

Here he is playing the same song after a week of practicing it. It does show that practice definitely helps!

Here he is playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, which Eliza worked out is also the ABC song.

And we have also started to do the C Scale. He was very happy to learn it the first week. Since then we have been working on making notes flow too as you play them.

So from my perspective I'm happy with how he is going. Will see what we decide to do next year with his piano lessons, if I continue to teach him or if we outsource.
 

Lollipops

For being brave at the dentist the kids were gifted a voucher to go to Lollipops Playland. This was great, although when you read the fine print, you could only use one voucher per family. That could be a very expensive adventure only having 1 kid get in for free. Instead, while Eliza was at preschool and Daniel was at school I took Alexander to Lollipops. 

Boy oh boy, that place is huge! It's a playground on steroids! Alexander was a little overwhelmed by it I think but he did have a blast exploring it and playing. He preferred me to be with him for the different parts. He climbed up the tunnels by himself.

See if you can spot Alexander in there photos

But... he wasn't so keen to come down by himself so I had to go up to him and we both came down the slide. So fun! Once was enough for Alexander though.

Then he wanted to go into the ball space. We played with the balls being blown up in the air and hovering. He loved it! So much excitement.

We then collected a bundle of balls and took them up to the shooting level. With a bit of help, Alexander was able to hit the target. Again, so much excitement when he did (even when he didn't actually hit the target but he thought he did).

 He then had a turn on the jumping castle and going down the inflatable slide.

Then he was so excited because the teacup ride was started. It was the 1 thing he wanted to go on since we arrived but it was only running at set times. He hopped straight in and loved going on it, spinning round and round.

We then went back into the ball space for Alexander to play with the floating balls again and shoot some more targets. He just loved this space!

I loved seeing his face with the air blowing up into it. Too funny!

When leaving Alexander was excited to be given a lollypop to have in the car.

This was a really fun adventure with him. Will have to go back. Would love to take the other 2 too but it really does become pricey when you have all 3 going there.

It's All In The Name 'Alexander'

Alexander has shown a lot of interest in drawing pictures of people, particularly of him and Daddy. But he hasn't been very keen to do writing. For Father's Day, he 'wrote' his name in the birthday book by drawing some lines for each letter. But when making a card for his friend Emma, Alexander wanted to write his name. He asked me if I could help him. 

I did letter by letter. Some I drew a starting dot and finish dot (like with A, x) others I told him to draw a line (l) and others I did some dots for him to follow. He did a awesome job with it!

Well done Bubba! Great practice for next year at preschool. 

Speaking about being ready for preschool, Alexander is so ready to start. He loves to sit and draw a picture in the mornings.

Bike Riding at Bicentennial Park

Since Daniel has been confident with riding his bike, James has had the dream of taking him to Bicentennial Park to go for a big bike ride. I've kinda spoiled that plan by saying that I wanted to come too because it sounded fun. Now that Eliza is confident on her bike we decided to give it a go. James and I don't have bikes at the moment, and even if we did we wouldn't have been able to get them there because we don't have a bike rack for the car so instead we hired 2 bikes for 2 hours. We also got a Weehoo for Alexander to go in - basically a seat that goes behind James' bike and he can pedal along too. So fun!

It was great fun riding around with the kids and a beautiful day for it. Alexander did well helping Daddy pedal (although him leaning side to side apparently made it a bit tricky to balance).

We decided to head to the shipwrecks lookout. We stopped at some lookout towers along the way.

I do love me a spiral staircase!

We rode over bridges

and through the gorgeous parkland.

I was very proud of how Eliza did on her bike because this would have been the biggest ride she had done. She wasn't confident to wave to me though as she rode past.

I loved how much Alexander enjoyed the weehoo. James definitely made it fun too by riding fast at times. Alexander's giggle is just the best!

We made it to the shipwreck lookout and spotted as many ships as we could and also had a morning tea break.

Then we headed back via a little playground where the kids played on the 'road'.

We headed back to the bike hire place and returned our bikes. 

What a fun day! I'm glad James held off going until all of us could go. And the weehoo was just perfect for Alexander. I think he would have been a bit bored just sitting in a chair so I'm glad that he could pedal and be more involved. We will definitely do it again.

Playing for GWS and end of AFL season

Daniel's AFL season has now come to a close and what a great time it has been. The Auskick program has been a wonderful time for him to continue to grow and develop his skills and knowledge of AFL. It has also provided him the opportunity to play at the SCG and then he was able to play at the GWS vs Western Bulldogs final. Very exciting considering the Western Bulldogs are his 2nd favourite team. Unfortuantely James and I weren't able to go to the game because of being at a gig for preschool but Poppy kindly stepped in to take him for us. 

Daniel had a great time running around on the field again. This time both teams playing together were from his club so it ran a bit better. Daniel was wearing the GWS outfit (which Brendan kindly sent me a photo of).

The outfit was a bit big this time but that didn't stop him.

He even made it into the Auskick photos.

He even managed to score another goal on the ground! I love watching the reaction of the kids after he scored it, so much excitement! 

Yet another special experience for him through doing Auskick that he will remember for a while. This club has been great! When we were decided whether to play for Pennant Hills or for Hornsby/Berowra, we really wanted to go Pennant Hills because it is the more local one, however, their training was on Thursday nights. We have family dinners on Thursday nights so I wanted to prioritised that so we went for the Sunday morning sessions and then next year we can move to Pennant Hills if both offered Thursday nights. Now, I don't think we will move. We have loved the way that Hornsby/Berowra Eagles works and runs. It is very easy to get to the ground on a Sunday morning, probably much the same time to get to Penno with all the traffic. Brendan has been lovely and so supportive and encouraging. It has been lovely to be able to be involved each Sunday morning. We have just generally been happy with this club. So we have decided that next year we will stay at the Eagles. Next year Daniel will be playing in the Under 8s group.

The group of Auskickers have been great too! Again, helping with coaching them has meant that I got to know some of the kiddies and see them grow in their skills.

We had their presentation day and Daniel (as with all the Auskickers) received a medal.

Brendan kindly gave me one too for my efforts in coaching.

What a great footy season! I'm glad that he followed his love of AFL instead of the pull to play soccer with school friends. Looking forward to next year.