Spicey is awesome and gentle with Grace and Eli. Even when Eli literally lies on top of him (or dives on top of him), he just carries on and is happy when someone gives him some stokes. And he is always around, part of the action.

Fizzers and cuddles

Spicey catching up on some TV

Eli’s love for phones includes trying to take pictures of other people while saying, “Cheese”….or just saying “cheese” while Donné takes pictures of him.

Grace has Monkey, her well loved, well protected (by us) soft toy monkey. He is just the right size for cuddling while sleeping. He is also one of the very few reasons that Grace will wake up in the middle of the night calling, “Where’s monkey?!?” when she has misplaced him in her bed or dropped him out of it.

A long time ago, when we realised how important Monkey is to her, we went hunting for a backup. We didn’t find any more monkeys at that stage, but we did find a pink pig which we thought might work. Oinky the pig came home with us, but has never had the star power that Monkey does – at the end of the day, Grace wants to sleep with Monkey, only Monkey.

But don’t fear, Oinky’s tale has a happy ending – Oinky has found his place as Eli’s sleep companion.

Eli got hold of the glasses somewhere backstage at Vida, and the black mark on his arm is a Vida “tattoo” (stamp with directions to Vida)

If Grace does it, then Eli follows – Donné says he is one going on five. Like Lego, he is not content to play with the Duplo, no, he wants to play with the tiny Lego which his big sister builds with….even if he’s not quite strong enough to get it to go together.

Enjoying the little pieces, and the fun car that they make

And if she lies down on the jungle gym, well, look who is quick to follow

Grace wanted to do sand art while we were busy painting the table and at the time it felt like that was going to be a problem, so we said to her, “Would you like to watch some more TV?” She bursts into tears and says, “I don’t want to watch TV, because it will make my brain vrot!”

Well, how can we argue with that? Especially seen as I say, “If you watch too much TV it will vrot your brain.” So sand art it was, which actually really wasn’t a hassle at all. I’m glad that she makes constructive choices, even when we’re suggesting something mind numbing.

First start with an old table, the one that used to be Donné’s desk as a student, and is now our dining room table.

Apply Annie Sloan paint…

…with helper

And then you have a new table

This paint is awesome, and super easy (no prep work), and addictive….hmmm, what’s next?

These are Eli’s two favourite words at the moment….”up” whenever he wants to go up, and “Grace!” just about whenever. Part of the bed time routine is a hug goodnight from Grace, and tonight after I gave Eli a hug he puts up his head and calls out, “Gace, Gace!” waiting for his goodnight hug.

Donné turned 36 today – what I’m calling it her “All Gold” birthday. It was a relaxed day together, with some friends joining us for tea and cake in the afternoon. Grace has been stuck on getting Donné a bath sponge for her birthday, so she finally got the sponge which Grace chose for her, along a sand art card, bookmark and home made wrapping paper that Grace made for her. When I got out of bed this morning Grace was sitting at the table, industriously working at a sand art card for mom.

Donné also got some Annie Sloan paints for redoing our dining room table and the kitchen cupboards in our new house, so she is excited to get painting.

Family birthday “couch” photo

Donné made herself a pig-in-the-mud cake