Tree up early!

Look, I know we're early and I'm sure this will backfire horribly (because Eli already thinks that Christmas is upon us and we've still got more than a month to go!), but since Grandma Susan is here at the moment, we thought it would be fun to whack the Christmas tree up now.

First we had to head to the shops to get some decorations - we didn't have many last year - and Eli was very excited to cruise around looking for all of the blue, and often extremely delicate, decorations he could find. Thankfully we didn't break anything and we ended up with a blue-dominated, but not excessively blue, collection.

As soon as we got back home, Eli was into Christmas tree construction mode...



Once the tree was up, Eli was straight into the decorations. On my prompting, he posed for an 'icicle earring' photo, but it wasn't long before he just wanted all of the decorations on the tree.



Grandma Susan and I couldn't keep up with the pace at which he was delivering decorations to the tree, but we eventually got all of the decorations up (aside from a few that didn't come with hooks). Eli was so enamoured with the blue icicle decorations that we bought that he composed a short song...



The finishing touches to the tree included some fairy lights and the hanging of the remaining balls (I had to make a second trip to the shops to get these last few items).



As you can imagine, Eli really loves the tree and declares, quite often as he walks past it, "I love our Christmas tree!". I just hope that he'll still love it after a month and a bit of waiting for Christmas day. I thought I'd finish this post with just a few of my 'arty' shots of the tree at nighttime...

The new blue Mongoose!

After bike week at Eli's daycare centre a few months ago, I decided that Eli was probably ready to graduate from his red tricycle to a 'big boy bike' with trainer wheels. When I put this to him recently, he agreed heartily, on the proviso that his new bike would be blue.

Since we've got Grandma Susan visiting at the moment, I thought it would be good to get a new bike for Eli now (an early Christmas present from me) and after some searching, we were lucky enough to happen across a suitably sized, and suitably blue, mongoose 16".



I wanted to get a bike that Eli will be able to use for quite a while and I think he'll really enjoy it. So far his 'rides' have been restricted to the garage, but I'm sure we'll soon be out and about on the local bike paths...I think the next task for me will be to dust off my bike too.

As you can see from the video below, Eli is already a competent rider - here he turns the sharp corner in the garage with just one hand on the handlebars...much to my chagrin. And yes, I'm already fearing how his fearless attitude and unconstrained gusto for life will manifested itself out on the bike paths.

Making the most of the rainwater tank

All of that rain in October has our rainwater tank full to overflowing. So, now that the weather is warming up, we've started using the water (and not just for growing our tadpoles). On hot days Eli loves running through the hose or sprinkler...and I have to admit that I enjoy hosing him too.






Like all good hose sessions out our place, things got a little out of hand (but enjoyable so) once Eli picked up the hose and started wielding it...Grandma Susan and I made hasty retreats out of the range of his attacks.



This session, out in our front yard, came to an abrupt end, as Eli thought it would be funny to spray water onto the road and towards some unsuspecting pedestrians...thankfully, but disturbingly at times, I can read his mind, so I turned the tap off before he sprayed a family that were passing by...

A future Socceroo?

For the past four weeks Eli and I have been attending a 'Soccer for Juniors' program at a local school. The goal (pardon the pun) is to get kids interested in soccer and to develop some of the skills that will help them down the track. Eli's class was supposed to be a class for 3 year olds, but there weren't enough youngsters enrolled, so the 3s and 4s got rolled into one class. Despite some size and age differences, those of you that know Eli well will appreciate that he certainly holds his own.

Here are some videos of Eli weaving through some obstacles before burying the ball in the back of the net. He even easily beat me (and I used to fancy myself as I bit of a goal keeper)...



Overall it is a really fun course and Eli has learnt how to trap, dribble and pass (NB these are legitimate soccering terms not toddler ones). Not sure if he's destined for greatness, but he kicks well and enjoys a run on a Sunday morning (and so do I), so I think it's been well worth the investment.

Some notes on raising tadpoles...

We've been raising some tadpoles (of the striped marsh frog, Limnodynastes peronii) for the last few weeks, rescued from our front pond after one of the heavy downpours and subsequent peaks in frog activities in late October.

Eli and I have really enjoyed watching them zoom around the tank and feed on the 'lettuce ice-cubes' that we've cooked up for them.



Since we collected two egg masses, we've got a lot of hungry mouths to feed and we soon found that the tank wasn't big enough (and that I had to change the water every day!). So, to mark the move of the tadpoles from the tank to their new lodgings (Eli's blue clam shell swimming pool), Eli and decided to get some footage of his favourite waterproof Hot Wheels car in with the tadpoles. You'll notice in the video that I found this activity more exciting than Eli did...I guess I'm still a boy at heart too.

NB. I should stress that no animals were harmed in the filming of this video.



The tadpoles are now getting used to their new lodgings and some are celebrating with the arrival of tiny hind legs...and I'm really enjoying the fact that I don't have to fish them out and change their water every single day. We haven't got any more adventures planned for the tadpoles at the moment, but after filling the clam shell, Eli was wanting to set up his car track and launch some of his cars in...I decided that we shouldn't do that.

What boys do when the rain won't stop.

October was wet. Very wet. Rainfall records were broken and opportunities for fun outside were seriously down on what Eli and I had hoped for (and are used to). Not to be deterred (and because necessity is the mother of invention), we looked for new ways to entertain ourselves.

On one particularly wet and miserable Saturday, we started playing with some of Eli's matchbox cars and a track with a loop that he got last Christmas. Before long we were setting up car jump challenges for Eli's favourite blue car. The first challenge required his car to jump through a red diamond (a flaming ring of fire, whilst tempting, was deemed to contravene the saftey regulations that I've instituted for the living room). Eli was in charge of releasing the car at the top of the track, perched up on our couch and I was the vehicle retrieval crew/cinematographer positioned at the bottom of the jump zone.



Here are some shots of Eli's car mid-flight, with an expectant starter (Eli) perched on the couch watching the action unfold...



Not content with just one diamond, Eli soon pushed the envelope (and my skills as an engineer) as we advanced to even more daring jump challenges. This one pictured below, with a series of diamonds to negotiate, was not quite as easy and certainly more prone to accidents, which occassionally excited, but generally disappointed, Eli (like all 3.5 year olds, he loves to win and doesn't tolerate failures very well).



After some slightly teary disappointments (but spectacular crashes from my angle), Eli much prefered this softer option, whereby the car would fly through the red diamond before landing between the legs of one of his favourite soft toys...



Armed with some additional building materials, when then constructed a blue structure for the car to jump through (after making it through the red diamond). Eli liked this jump challenge a lot, both because of the colour and the vastly improved success rate (I think he reckons that I might just be cut out to become an engineer).



To finish off the session, we had a lights out spectacular, with the only light being Eli's torch, perched on top of the blue structure we'd made...not great video or photographic viewing (so I'm not posting it here), but it was pretty good fun.

After all of these engineering and death-defying stunts, it turned out that we'd spent the whole day inside and didn't go completely bonkers (which was certainly on the cards at the start of the day). I'll have to keep this sort of thing in mind (and swat up on my engineering) just in case this rain keeps falling...