They're still growing

I took some more pictures of the kids for the continuing collage I've been doing. I'm going to have to come up with a better way of displaying them soon, as they're getting too wide to view at a reasonable resolution.


Elissa has certainly grown. You've got to love the "Princess Liar" T-shirt. Believe it or not, I had nothing to do with the purchase of that shirt. One day soon enough she'll understand the reference. She already knows who R2-D2 and C3-PO are. Not because they're my favourite characters, (they're not), but I do have two large figurines of these two (the 20-30 cm size) which she has played with.


Isaac has probably had more of a spurt, which is probably not surprising considering his age. It's a little hard to tell what's a real spurt, and what's simply the variation in time periods between photo's. I'm simply too lazybusy to make them exactly the same time apart each time, but in hindsight, I've been reasonably consistent.

Blast off

We made a rocket. Well, technically it's not a rocket, but it is a ballistic missile, of sorts. To see a successful launch, have a look at the movie below.



The original inspiration was Lego. We were playing with the Lego as normal, when Elissa asked if we could build a "real" rocket for people to go up in. I explained that we couldn't build one that big, but that we could probably build a little one. I meant to do it last weekend, but never got around to it. This weekend, when Elissa requested we "make sumfing" I thought we'd give it a go. Below is a complete launch, including countdown.


You'll notice just before launch, the second-to-last "engine" breaks, which is why the rocket didn't get much height.


To the right is the rocket itself. It's just 2½ toilet rolls and some duct tape. As the saying goes; "when the going gets tough, the tough get duct tape."




To the Left is the propulsion system, shown running at 17% of maximum power.


The breakage problem is caused by the fact that there is a sharp lip on a reinforcing ring inside the tube which the rubber bands are stretched over on each launch, resulting in a fairly limited lifetime. I have plans for a spring-driven replacement, which will be more durable, and lend itself to further enhancements, including the addition of a parachute.

A couple of quotes from footage not shown above:

"Everyone will see that rocket won't they? Wow, that was quick! "

"Everyone will think it is a real rocket."

Who says you need explosives to have fun?

Books and boards

Isaac seems to have become rather particular about what he's reading. He typically has 10 - 15 minutes worth of books before going to bed. With Elissa, it used to be a cup of milk with her books, but that's not possible with Isaac. I have to give him his milk in between his bath and reading, as he just bats the cup away once we're in the seat next the books. I try putting it away and bringing it back once we're settled and have read a couple of books, he still swipes it away and points at the next book.

He also knows exactly when he's had enough of a particular title and is ready to move on. There are a couple of books at the moment which I can only get about 60-80% through before he closes it and pushes it away, pointing to it's intended replacement. Attempting to re-open it and finish only results in more grunting and pointing. Occasionally he'll feign interest, grab it again, only to throw/drop it aside and again point at the one he wants now.

It's funny to think that it was only a few weeks ago we were discussing that it seemed to us that Isaac may not have been as interested in reading as we remembered Elissa being at the same age. Apart from the fact that my memory cannot be trusted at the best of times, our concern was unfounded. He'll now regularly trot forwards and back from us to a book shelf/pile (of which there are now a few to choose from around the house) with book after book.

We took the kids for a quick trip up to a new shopping centre not far from home. Outside one of the play areas they've got a large wall set up as a blackboard with buckets of chalk and dusters for the kids to use as they see fit. They both seemed to enjoy it.


This was just a trip to the shops, do we didn't take the "proper" camera. It's times like this that the phone camera is quite handy, and for a quick snap it does a reasonable job. I didn't get any pictures of them in the playground, as we were too buys playing and such. Not taking enough pictures isn't something I lose a lot of sleep over.