Three times 3!

It's true, Eli is now three years old...and boy have we celebrated!

We first enjoyed a dual birthday celebration with our good friend (and frequent blog co-conspirator) Addie at the end of March, which actually kicked off three weeks of celebrations over three major events. Eli and I are very lucky to have great friends like Jeff, Paige, Addie and Ashford, for not only were we treated to a great party with all the trimmings, but Paige had once again gone the extra yards to create a cake for Eli (and a matching one, with considerably less blue food colouring for Addie). As you can see from this photo, Eli was suitably impressed with his blue and green fish cake!



Never one to get his hands or clothes dirty and finding himself without the necessary silverware, Eli then entertained everyone with his take on how to eat cake. For those of you playing at home, the answer is no, I did not teach him to do this (but I must admit that I do like the fact that he likes to keep himself clean).



Addie foolishly agreed to give Eli some big birthday cuddles towards the end of the day...good thing she doesn't mind Eli's notorious 'tackle cuddles'. Notice his low hold, just under the rib cage like all good tacklers, in order to maximise the effectiveness of his tackle... Eli and Addie repeated this over and over and over again until I finally put a stop to it - I didn't want the birthday boy to injure the birthday girl!



After surviving the great birthday celebration down the coast and following a few days of recovery at work/daycare, we then headed up to Noosa for Easter and Eli's actual birthday (April 4). Having Easter Sunday and Eli's birthday falling on the same day was a bit much (I think Easter eggs and birthday presents on the same day made Eli feel, somewhat ironically, that all of his Christmases had come at once!). Needless to say, I am very glad that the timing of Easter moves from year to year. Having said that, Eli handled the day very well.

We started with the now customary Easter egg/chocolate bunny/little chicken/snake hunt. The Easter bunny knows his audience well and had distributed equal quantities of Alora- and Eli-friendly treats throughout the front yard of the Noosa house. It was very interesting to see the different approaches to the hunt. Eli took off like a sprinter, acting like it was a time trial and he had to collect everything within a set (and very short) time. Alora was a much more circumspect egg hunter and she didn't skip any of her treats (Eli, in his mad rush, missed a few on the first pass).



Eli didn't quite know what to do with his incredible stash of chickens, snakes (of the jube variety) and bunnies, but after three years in the chocolate-eating wilderness, he was thrilled that the Easter Bunny had sought out about a dozen gluten and nut free chocolate bunnies for him to enjoy. The look on his face when he tucked into his first bunny was just priceless...



After some breakfast (not solely consisting of chocolate) Eli decided to take us to the sandbank. It turns out that now that he's a big boy he can drive us there in Grandad's boat... We had our typical fun on the sandbank and Eli even created a new 'game' which involved jumping off the back of the boat and into the shallow water...



Once back on dry land it was time for the second phase of celebrations. Eli quickly tore into his birthday gifts...



It was then time for some lunch and another birthday cake (not themed this time, but freshly baked with Eli, Alora and Grandpop's help).



After a shorter than appropriate wait after lunch we were ready to hit the sandbank again...here's a few shots prior to our departure.



Eli's new game at the sandbank that afternoon revolved around running and diving onto the sand, although he soon stopped doing that once we found a prawn floundering around in a small puddle. We decided to scoop him up and release him into the deeper water and Eli was only too willing to handle the delicate operation himself. Alora was considerably less keen, but equally excited that we'd rescued the prawn.



Re-telling the stories of Sunday April 4 has been exhausting...which really makes me wonder how we survived doing all of these things! I guess chocolate-fuelled adrenalin goes a long way.

After spending a great four day weekend at Noosa with the extended family, we came back home to prepare for the final celebration of Eli's three week birthday Odyssey. That's right, on Sunday April 11 we brought the curtain down on Eli's celebrations by having a bunch of friends and family over for a bbq. Here are a couple of photos from the beginning of the day - a birthday hardened Eli amidst a pile of balloons and then one of Uncle Tyden facilitating some 'dancing madness' in the form of Eli's trademark circle running. For those of you that have seen it, you'll know what I mean.



The highlight of the day was Grandma's blue dinosaur birthday cake. Eli was very impressed and he proudly declared that he was going to eat the dinosaur's head all up! I'm happy to announce that some of the head still remains - goodness knows what would have happened if Eli had consumed the whole head in one sitting.



All in all I think we've had a successful, albeit tiring, birthday festival. Just in case I forget, I'd ask all of you to please remind me not to even consider celebrating Eli's birthday across four separate occassions next year...