Grace always loves an audience, so she enjoyed having Stephan and Izelle over today so that she could show them all the things she can do: riding her bike around the pool and down the garden track, doing monkey bars, and teaching Izelle how to make loom bands.

Donné was busy explaining to Eli that Gogo and Gramps are going to be leaving tomorrow. He took this slightly the wrong way and thought that they needed to pack their bags right now and go….so he decided to be a little helper.

Throw things into the bag and push down as hard as possible

Grace and Eli getting in their share of media devices for the day

Part of our night time routine is for me to say prayers with Grace. Eli is now officially no longer getting milk at night, so he is now also joining us for prayers. He can’t quite say, “prayers” yet, and so he says something which sounds more like, “bears”. One of the things that I ask every night is what they would like to say thank you for. Eli, knowing that it is prayer time, says, “Bears, bears!” Grace has now cottoned onto this too and also says she would like to say thank you for bears.

So every night we say thank you for the bears.

Things have warmed up a bit and the noisy toads are back and making even more eggs.

We managed to catch two pairs who were busy laying toad eggs (lots and lots of toad eggs), as well as a 5th loaner. Off they all went to the water at the end of the street, and the evenings have become much quieter.

I really love how caring Grace is for Eli. They definitely have their prickly moments (like when he pulls her hair and laughs about it), but overall they are quite fond of each other. Grace is very protective and usually willing to share to make sure that “baba” is taken care of. She even comes to his defence when he is in trouble and being disciplined (which has its challenges).

Would you like some chicken baba?

Today was a pool day, with the Baker’s joining us for a splash. Grace and Eli are now getting used to the colder water (or the water is warming up a bit), and both of them are loving spending time in the water. Grace at least gets out to warm up a bit when she can’t control the shivers any more, but Eli just wants to keep going – no matter how blue his lips are turning.

Ben and Liam didn’t seem to be too convinced that the cold water was a good idea, but Liam did end up taking an unintended dip.

Ready to embark

Ooh, yummy, what a delicious cinnamon bun Aunty Donné has made

Some splashing fun

Tonight was Eli’s first night without milk, not because it wasn’t available, but because he chose not to have when given the chance….and was grumpy later when he couldn’t have. We’ve been shifting his pre-bed feed around as part of the weaning process. He was having milk before going to sleep, and we have now shifted it to before bath time to remove the bed time relationship. Tonight he didn’t want to drink before his bath, so we explained what was going to happen, but he stuck with his choice. It did take him a long time to go to sleep, and lots of asking for milk, so we’ll see what happens tomorrow. If he refuses again, then this might be the end for night time milk.