A quiet day at home

After the chaos that is Christmas, we spent the day at home doing, well, not a lot really. I've posted a few random bits and pieces below.



For a while Elissa wandered out the back and had a bit of a climb on the new monkey bars. Often though she was just sitting or standing there, looking around and thinking to herself. Some of the nicest shots are when they're not aware you're watching.


This much furious pedalling can only lead to one thing . . . . .




Victory!




Here Isaac is going for some more old fashioned hide-and-seek fun.




This "treat" was bartered for. 10 pieces of rock melon was the exchange rate at the time. Elissa seems happy with the deal.




This looks like a peaceful scene. In reality it includes far more elbows, knees and complaints than may be apparent at first. The kids love climbing over Susanne or myself, but it can get somewhat competitive.



I'm currently way behind with posting stuff here. I've got a bunch of posts half done or more. This one was pretty simple, so I thought I'd at least put something up. My intention is to get the old stuff done over the next week or so, and then not get behind again. What could possibly go wrong?

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.

Surf's up!

Well, it might have been, although I admit it's a little hard to tell from here, about 30 km from the nearest beach*. Regardless, this weekend was the first time there's been proper swimming in the pool this year. I believe feet may have been dangled earlier in the week. The water is about 23 degrees at the moment, fine for Elissa, but a couple of degrees short of Susanne's target temperature.

We kind of have our own mini beach, what with me being so efficient at getting all the work in the yard completed so promptly. Ours has more rocks, gravel and pavers than most beaches, but that's just more interesting terrain for Isaac to go "driving" in. Do we really need to intrude on all this with a clothes line? OK, yes.

I'm still not sure on whether or not we'll have an actual (planned) sand pit in the future. Something has got to go underneath the cubby. It could be just softfall, or a sandpit, or some combination of the two. I don't think a garden or grassed area would be as appreciated or successful. The kids both love playing in the sand, I guess we'll just need to cover it to keep cats and other wildlife out if we decide to go down that route.

Isaac about to re-enact a scene from "Thelma and Louise". Elissa wasn't keen to provide the dolls at this particular point, but Isaac was prepared to make do anyway.

"Her arms come-ed off!" The sad result of not applying enough sunscreen. A lesson in every tragedy.

Any street-cred Isaac may have achieved with the T-Rex T-shirt may be somewhat offset by the beads and Elissa's sunglasses, in my opinion.


* As it turns out, it's almost just over 30 km directly East to Narrabeen beach. While this may be the closest as-the-crow-flies , I'm not sure it'd be the quickest to get to.