Virtuoso?

I know that I'm incredibly biased, but I've come to the conclusion that Eli can turn his hand to just about anything he puts his mind to. The other day he told me that he wanted to play the piano, so off he went to the keyboard to recite some of his own original scores...here are some videos of parts of his performance.



Eli had a great time making music on the keyboard, but maybe a real piano might be a more appropriate instrument for him at the moment, because all of those buttons above the keys turned out to be far too enticing, even when the outcome of pressing them came as a bit of a shock (you'll see what I mean towards the end of this second video).

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...

The boys in blue.

I recently bought a blue checkered shirt. Now I don't normally wear, or even like, checks, but I think Eli's love of blue may be getting the better of me these days. Suffice to say, I thought that Eli would strongly approve of my shirt selection...and he did, well sort of.

The first day I wore my new shirt Eli got really cross with me and demanded that I 'take it off!'.Not being one to be pushed around and told what to do by a boy of less than three (well, not too often), I told Eli that I was not going to take my shirt off just because he didn't like it. After some loud protests from Eli I eventually learnt from him (after he'd calmed down a little bit and was able to speak again) that he actually just wanted to be wearing his blue checkered shirt too! For those with an eye for detail, you may have noticed that Eli wore a blue checkered shirt on Christmas Day. Even though it was a real fight for me to keep him in it on that day, coupled with the fact that he hadn't worn it since then, he just wanted it on to compliment my new shirt. So, on it went.

We then decided that it would be a good idea to document our blue shirts, so I grabbed the camera and got Eli to strike some poses with me. I realise that using the auto-timing option and putting the camera on a tripod would have been the best way to do this, but I didn't have the luxury of being able to do that, so I just held the camera at arm's length and snapped away. At first I had Eli sitting on my lap, but after a few shots I convinced him to stand behind me...and then before long he was climbing up onto my shoulders.




Considering the challenging photographic set up, I think we came up with some pretty good shots...at least until Eli started strangling me and digging his fingers into my face!

Camping at Flat Rock.

Eli obviously loves the great outdoors, so when the chance to go camping with our friends Jeff and Addie arose, we jumped at the chance. We ventured south to Flat Rock Tent Park, which is a quiet beachfront camping spot just north of Ballina, in northern New South Wales. Neither Eli nor Addie (who is 7 days his junior) had been camping before and they were both very excited about the prospect of sleeping in a tent at the beach.

As soon as we arrived we pitched our tents. Although Jeff and I tried hard to document the assistance that Eli and Addie gave us, the best I could come up with was some hasty shots of two little monkeys running in and out of incomplete dome tents. To their credit they did stop still and 'help' for a little while and Eli was particularly keen on hammering tent pegs into the ground (irrespective of their position or proximity to the tents). We managed to get the tents up just as a shower of rain swept through...Jeff and I were hoping that it wasn't an omen.



After establishing our campsite and escaping the rain, we headed down the road to Ballina for a spot of river fishing. Eli quickly got into the swing of things and was intrigued with how the bait (green prawns) goes on the hook and how to cast the line and then reel it in again. Before long he was doing it all pretty much by himself (but don't believe him when he tells you that he also put the bait on the hook - I wouldn't let him do that!). Unfortunately, we only had one really big bite (the one that got away) and didn't pull in any fish, but even as we left the fishing spot Eli was proclaiming that "maybe we'll catch a big one next time".



Our next adventure was to explore the beach at Flat Rock. In fact, Eli and Addie dragged us absolutely everywhere, from the top of the dunes to the beach and the waves and then to the rock pools (and yes, this text is only here to provide an excuse for me to post my 'arty' shots of the dunes and rock pools).



Inspired by the winter olympics, Eli enjoyed climbing the dunes and then 'skiing' back down them.



Eli and Addie quickly got wet in the rock pools thanks to Eli's tendency to run, jump, splash and dive whenever he's in the proximity of water (no matter how shallow it is).



Our fun at the rock pools was suddenly interrupted by another heavy downpour. Eli's response was to run off down the beach (back towards camp) and Addie, Jeff and I followed after him. He ended up so far in front of us that he ran past the exit from the beach, so he then had to do some backtracking.



Even after getting soaked through, the kids kept their spirits up, although Eli and Addie both look a little bit unsure as to whether they should smile or shiver in this photo.



After a nice warm shower and an early dinner, we had two knackered little campers on our hands. So we read some stories and then retreated to our tents for bedtime. Addie was out like a light and Eli seemed tired and restful, so I tucked him in and then left the tent, because going to bed at 7:30pm is just a little bit early for me. All was going well until I walked past our tent about 15 minutes later and there, sitting on the grass under the fly but outside of the tent, was an innocent looking Eli. He wasn't scared or upset or anything like that, I guess he was just expressing his capacity to unzip tents and sit listening to the conversation that Jeff and I had been having. Once I bustled him back into the tent he claimed that he wasn't tired, but once he lay his head down it wasn't long before he was asleep.

Thankfully, after Eli's false start, both he and Addie slept well and woke bright and happy on Sunday morning. After a quick breakfast we headed back to the beach and rock pools, where Eli and Addie enjoyed some more splashing and the added excitement of an incoming tide. In these next photos they are waiting for a wave to come into their pool...



We had a good chance to have an even better look around the rock pools in the sunlight (thankfully the rainy weather had moved on) and we spotted snails, limpets, crabs, sea anemones (red and white ones), sea squirts, starfish, sea cucumbers and lots of small fish...



As always, Eli was pretty gung-ho when it came to interacting with all of the critters. He started the morning off by picking snails off the rocks and dropping them into the sea anemones (to watch the tentacles close), before very enthusiastically embracing (quite literally) the sea cucumber I spotted. Addie watched on from a safe distance while Eli got the sea cucumber to squirt water and then I brought an end to the game by moving Eli along before he squeezed too hard (nobody wants to be covered in cuvierian tubules). Eli also enjoyed holding a small starfish we found.




All in all, it was a great camping trip and we had two very happy campers by the end of the weekend. Eli put in one last leap on the sand dunes before we packed up our tents and headed home (via another beach where we had good fun getting knocked over by the waves). I don't think it will be too long before we head off for another camping adventure...

The Harvest.

After a nice wet Christmas period, Eli and I came back home and happily got stuck into harvesting some of our garden vegies. We'd been enjoying lettuce since November, but hadn't sampled the carrots. Eli was pretty excited about pulling them out of the ground and seeing how big they were... and I needed to remain vigilant to ensure that he didn't pull up the whole vegie patch in one go.



Eli also couldn't wait to get stuck into the produce, so I washed off some carrots out in the garden and he tucked in...



This has become a bit of a routine for us now - whenever we're out in the backyard (usually between cricket or soccer hit outs), we'll dig out a couple of carrots, wash them off and eat them right then and there. Eli's pretty happy with this scenario, but only if he gets to eat the biggest carrot we pull up...