Island Adventures

On our second day at Bribie we walked to Scoopy's for lunch and the kids had a play in the park.  Freya was excited to find a tree that she could climb.  Not one to be left out Eli wanted in on the action too and was rather impressed with himself sitting up in the tree like a big kid!

Later that afternoon we decided to have a final play on the beach before heading back to Brisbane.  Eli became obsessed with the idea of getting on a boat and a kind man allowed us to borrow his two little kayak's for Freya and Eli to have a play with.  They safely paddled around in a small ocean pool and had a blast!

Beach Cousins

 

 

It's not easy to get these three together in one photo!  We went to Bribie for a couple of days and Freya & Keily became a little duo whilst Eli had a firm preference to hang out with me.  While the girls splashed in the ocean Eli asked over and over for me to 'stuck, eeze!'  (stuck please).  That was Eli's way of  asking me to bury his feet.  He would then make his flying noise which also turns out to be some kind of super power noise as he would make a great display of breaking free.   

The Kitchen Sink

 

Today Freya and Eli played together at the kitchen sink for ages.  Eli loves to fill cups of water and empty it into the sink.  Freya proudly took up the role of ensuring the sink didn't overflow and fetched bath toys to add to the fun.   For as much as they often drive each other batty it's also clear that they are also starting to develop more of a friendship with each other, they are starting to play together more purposefully as Eli grows older.  Those moments are so lovely to watch.

Freya then went on to do the washing up, proudly telling me that she had done the washing up 'for the very first time'.  I can only hope her interest in doing the dishes lasts!

Visiting Prep

Freya's kindy went on an excursion to visit a prep class today and they were each buddied with a child from prep for the morning.  First they went to a music lesson with the prep class and then they came back for some morning tea followed by a range of free play activities.  Freya and her buddy decided to do some drawing and Freya loved using a dinosour stencil.   It amused me to no end as I saw the look of mild horror on Freya's face when her new friend gave her a drawing.  Usually Freya would be delighted at such a gift but I could almost see the internal struggle between wanting to reciprocate the kind act and wanting to keep the dinosaur picture that she was drawing for herself.  In the end she quickly grabbed another piece of paper, whipped up a quick picture of a rainbow and handed that across before going back to finish her own picture.  It all made me laugh and laugh!

A photographer is born...

Freya has decided she would like to make a photobook about the adventures of her plush toy dogs.  At the moment she is a little bit obsessed with dogs!  I asked her if she wanted to take all of the photos of the dogs so that it could be a book of her photos or if she wanted me to take them so that she was in the book with them.  She decided that she would like a mix of both.  So we went downstairs with our camera's to start her little project and before we knew it Eli had taken possession of the point and shoot camera while I was taking a photo of Freya and her dogs watering the strawberries.

It soon became apparent that Eli was not going to hand that camera back without a fight!

I think that I witnessed Eli fall in love with photography.  It was amazing how quickly he seemed to figure out how to get his subject into the frame and take a photo.  He was particularly fond of looking at his feet through the display screen.  He has also quickly taken to the ethos that the camera must go everywhere with you.  In moments that made me more than a little anxious about the safety of my camera he carted it onto the trampoline with him, down the backyard, up into their play fort.  Everywhere Eli went the camera went too.  Below are some of the photos he took.  The world as viewed by Eli!