Adam sits in the back and Grace hands him a chip. He takes the chip and, “Thank you!” Another one, “Thank  you!” and another and another. 

He’s picking up so many new words, like the ones in this video:

Ads helped Pete to plant Heather’s birthday tree while the ladies drank tea, ate cake and gave moral support. When I say helped I mean, used a tiny trowel to add about one entire trowel full of soil to the hole.

Eli and Adam are both sick, and Eli stayed home today. We know how differently our children engage with activities – Grace goes into the zone of figuring it out, building, etc. Eli takes it and invents some imagined story or game around it, and Adam seems to be more like Grace. 

They were playing with the he Jawbones and Adam got entirely engrossed in clipping all the balls onto a piece. Eli, with some help, built a bike and then started a story about the flying bike and it’s boosters and the man on top. 

When you have your brother’s sand in the wheelbarrow: tip, “oh-oh”, and then laugh about it.

A little bit of help to keep the seeds moist

Adam gets his first lesson in carrot peeling 

What our children eat can sometimes be a challenge, but every now and then we really don’t want them eating something…. 

Donné: Eli please don’t eat your snot it’s disgusting 

Eli: It’s not disgusting it tastes so good mom, you should try some

Not really too sure what to answer to that. 

Ice cream is better

(by Grace)

Ever since I did cartflops (cartflops are when you do it on the trampoline and you don’t lift your legs up and fall) I wanted to do cartwheels so much, but when I practiced I didn’t lift my legs and would fall over. One day I saw one friend (Danielle) do a cartwheel I tried and I could.

This is a cartwheel video.

Adam is branching out, learning new skills and finding new ways to give his parents near heart attacks. 

He is having lots of fun on the pink scooter riding around the pool with his siblings, and has now discovered downhill racing… 

A bit more concerning than that is that he keeps going for walks on the wall that runs along the garden path above the pool. It is all good and well for developing balancing skills, but results in parents rushing to make sure they are near while he is casually strolling along the wall. And when you fall, well, that is definitely not good. I was on my way to him after he climbed onto the wall again, but Adam got distracted by Eli singing a song and misstepped, falling to the ground below and sending his mom into a panic. Fortunately he landed really well, rolled into it, and managed to come off with no scrapes or bruises that we can see. Not too sure how we’re going to prevent him from going up there though…. 

Adam is jumping! 18 months today and he is gaining some decent jumping technique 

With the beautiful weather, walks in the park and time to connect with nature are a must 

It was time for the Newberry family sports day, so off we went to start with an early morning trail run through the vineyards. This was Grace’s longest run that I know of and I think it really took quite a bit out of Grace to get through it, but she did. I joined her with Adam on my back, but the pace was easy. 

The grit, the determination 

The preschool race

It’s a beautiful day for an egg and spoon race

The never ending relay race