14/52 - oh, eli!

Lily

Her first home-reader. The Goats.

Pretty sure it won't be on any best-seller lists, and okay, the vocabulary was pretty very limited but still...

watching my daughter slowly, carefully read her own way through her very first book was every shade of awesome.

This flourishing reader thing? It's magical. It's just taken me by surprise, how amazing it would be to watch it unfurl. She is like a heat-seeking missile searching out the written word in all it's forms and I just love to watch her embrace the world of literacy!

PS Readings of The Goats shall be taking place at our home, 7pm, all this week. Tickets available via Ticketek.

Eli 

Lucky me, got to be 'parent helper' at Eli's playschool this week.

He was thrilled to have me there and it was lovely to see how comfortably he has fitted himself into this new world of school. I am sure having the most caring and creative teacher in the world helps too (Amber!). 

I loved seeing him hang out with his buddies, follow the school routine and in a myriad of other ways show me what a big boy he has become.

Best of all was him telling me a dozen times how much he loved having me there with him :)

He is stepping out.... watch out world!

Miles

Ready to celebrate the first birthday of his best buddy, Blake, he was also pretty fascinated 

with the colourful pinata!

Mark

Whipping up a batch of Banana, Berry and Coconut pancakes, as is his Saturday morning routine... 

Yummm - thanks, honey!

Project 52: A portrait of my family, once a week, every week, in 2013.

 More highlights from the week that was...

A beautiful sensory experience with dinosaurs at Playschool

Nothing quite like coming home from the gym to find the family engaged in a little pre-bed craft activity (making a
water fountain, apparently).

Lately, she has been offering to do 'babysitting'. Of course, I quickly accept!! She takes Miles and hauls him around the house and garden. They giggle and play and enjoy their flourishing bond. How lovely it is to have a mini-mama! Having a big enough age gap to witness this kind of relationship is just so cool.

 

Breakfast

We decided to play a fun little April Fool's prank by dying the milk Blue. The
kids gave us some serious side-eye at this bizarre circumstance, whilst we
giggled away. Oh, the things parent's do to amuse themselves!

Eli helps pick the first bounty from our vegie patch - a lovely bunch of kale that
was quickly made into kale chips and eaten in a jiffy!

Love our little weekly school-snack bake-up together. My taste-tester takes his task seriously!

So many beautiful moments with E this week but this was the highlight... 

His beloved Bee went AWOL a few months ago. Bee slowly moved from 'misplaced' to apparently 'lost for good'. Eli asked about him every now and then but I had no idea what happened, and secretly planned to buy a replacement for his birthday. Then we got a surprise from awesome Uncle Iain! They had discovered Bee hiding under the bed from our stay on January 1st!!! Iain kindly posted him back with an adorable note of explanation from Bee as to his absence. These beautiful expressions pretty much explain Eli's utter surprise and glee... and Bee has not left his side since. Welcome back, Bee!

The moment of recognition... 'Mama!! It's Bee!!!'