Grace has had her sleep companion, Monkey, for a long time, and somewhere along the line we bought a pig, named Oinky, as a spare Monkey-like cuddle toy (Oinky is the same size, style and squishy-ness as Monkey). Grace never really took to Oinky and Monkey is going strong.

Eli on the other hand has become quite fond of Oinky, and now holds on to Oinky as his sleep companion. But he doesn’t call him Oinky, he calls his pig, “Monk,” which he has picked up from Grace’s Monkey. So now we have a monkey name Monkey and a pig named Monkey.

Cuddle time with “Monk”

Grampa and Eli getting some cuddle time watching TV together in their pyjamas

One of Eli’s birthday gifts was a hammock from Gogo and Gramps and us…although Grace is spending more time in it than Eli. It is a Lycra hammock, which we saw at our friends the Fredricks. We followed these instructions for tying up the hammock, and after drilling some holes it was quick and easy to put up. Grace is loving playing in it like a jungle gym (she likes to go from one level to the other – it is folded into three layers), and Eli loves being swung, rolled and bounced around.

Our Lycra hammock

Grace shows us her hammock tricks

I still can’t quite believe it, Eli is two. It feels like he is still little, but he’s not, he is growing and becoming a little man.

Father God, may you bless Eli in the year ahead. Reveal your great love to him and may he see you filling the world around him.

From us Eli got a three wheel scooter, a helmet, and a set of dismantle/rebuild toys which comes with a toy electric screwdriver. He loves the build & play toys and spends lots of time screwing and unscrewing them, and saying “Zzzz” for the sound of the screwdriver (which is also the sound he makes for real power tools).

Sissie is there to help (and to play with the toys herself)

We had a fun party today which went really well, but I’ll post those photos tomorrow.

The day before the party….is full of preparation work, like making yummy treats

I think one of the most challenging things about a move is establishing a new rhythm – the flow of a day and how it fits together to make everything function well. We seem to have the breakfast and school run working well in the morning, but I’m not sure that anything else has quite settled into a rhythm yet.

Establishing that daily flow is definitely being hampered by things like the pool people working on the pool, us painting cupboards in the evenings, preparing for Eli’s birthday on Saturday, the general long list of things that need to be done to make this our home, and just figuring out simple things like how we manage our grocery shopping.

I rely on that rhythm to get my work flow right, it helps our kids pace themselves, and brings sanity to Donné’s day.

I know the rhythm will come, but right now it feels more like a topsy turvy downhill roll – it’s fun, but at the end of the day we’re all a bit tired. Overall though, given all the things that are going on, and a reasonably big life change, I think we’re doing pretty well.

Yesterday we heard a frog in the garden, but it went quite when Donné looked around for it. Then last night, this frog (and friends) get really loud…loud like monkeys in the garden….loud enough to disturb sleep.

This morning I spotted a frog in the pool and fished it out with the net. Looking at it, it looked more like a toad, and after a brief internet search about noisy toads, it turns out that this is a Raucous toad – which is very aptly named.

The Raucous toad from our pool (one of the two I fished out), around about the length of a palm

They really do make quite a bit of noise (which fortunately only seems to be during the breeding season), and you can get an idea of what they sound like by listening to this toady sound file.

And he clocks in at 13.8kg just before his 2nd birthday

Show him a camera, or phone, or even a power brick (which I guess could look a bit like a phone), and he’ll say, “Cheese!”