Monthly Archives: September 2017
Eli’s knight party
Eli is turning 5 on Wednesday and to celebrate we had a knight party. We went through many different party options through the year (which I think he started talking about just after Christmas), but finally settled on the knight party.
Ser Eli
Everyone got a personalised (hand made) shield and sword. The shields I cut out of 6mm plywood. The swords are a PVC inspection T and some 20mm conduit covered with a piece of pool noodle.
The PVC pipe inside the pool noodle give the sword….well…quite a bit more punch. Luckily we had shields too.
The knights (and the one princess) had to storm the dragon’s castle. First shoot a water balloon with the giant slingshot (which took some engineering to put together – a little finicky to load, but overall a success).
Climb the ladder to scale the wall, then up the tree and over the monkey rope.
From the monkey rope it was down to the rope swing to cross the moat, and then down to the dragon himself (to pop a balloon and start again). A super big thank you to Marguerite who made the dragon head for us.
We had a ring for throwing arrow darts through
There was lots of general sword fighting, with Steven taking on the little knights
And other adults needing to defend themselves
Eli also took some time to settle on his cake, but when Donné suggested that he could cut off the dragon’s head, then he was all in.
Hiding inside the dragon was some dragon treasure
At the end we rounded things up with a few rounds of “jousting” (also known as sword fighting while riding on dads’ shoulders’)
Knight lollies and flaming arrow marshmallows
The Knight Family Drennan’s (who really couldn’t quite all get it together to look at the camera at the same time for this photo).
Everyone had lots of fun, and we definitely enjoyed the party. Thank you to everyone who came, for all the gifts for Eli, and for joining in the fun.
Dragon cake
Eli had a knight’s birthday party today. There are lots of photos to process, but here is a sneak peak – his dragon cake! We had fun making it, and we’re really happy with how it all came out.
Dangling
We put up a rope swing for the children and in preparation for Eli’s birthday party next weekend. That had me climbing trees and practicing my knot tying abilities (amongst others) while balancing on a branch.
The children are loving it
Handiwork
Eli has been learning to sew, knit, and crochet and is coming home with amazing things, like this handbag that he made. It is his design and made entirely by him, and he is very proud of it.
Muscle training
Ads is working on his core strength
And general body toning
Thorn among the roses
Eli was the only boy in his class who cracked a nod to Hannah’s birthday party. He seemed to have a good time, but was definitely looking for some boy company at one point. He’s become much more “boyish” over the last 6 months or so, and definitely wants to spend more time playing with the boys.
Enjoying pass the parcel
Sparkle bunny
Every time we leave home or come back into our street, Adam says, “Sparkle bunny.” One of the free ranging bunnies is happy for Adam to feed it and give it a little bit of love, so he has grown very fond of Sparkles (apparently that is the bunny’s name).
Plum trees
One of my highlights from this weekend was walking through the plum orchards on Lourensford during our spring family day and welcoming of the new school head. They are in full bloom and absolutely stunning (but unfortunately I didn’t have a camera with me!)
(Thanks Chloe for the photo)
Also, with Friday being Arbour Day we happened to have bought our own plum trees which we planted today, along with some strawberries. Grace and Eli are excited about expanding the food garden so that if they’re hungry they can just go outside and get some food.