Tuesday 21 May 2013

Reading! Photos! Boxes! Little Moments of Joy


Just a random bits-and-pieces week here this week, no big trips out just a few days pottering about doing things that interested them all. I love these kinds of weeks and often, like this week, find that they bring some of the most exciting and joyful moments.

Following Squidge noticing a big pink truck on the motorway we looked them up and found that the owner of the haulage company had started painting some of them pink as it is his daughter's favourite colour, which Squidge thought was cool.

Sprout has spent some time playing Fragment and Burn Pixel Wood, more time playing Robot Unicorn Attack determinedly trying to better his scores and level up, and contemplating the process of advertising after Nerd Cubed mentioned that he buys Old Spice so that they keep making adverts, which he pointed out is the opposite of their intention. (As an aside, I was amused when googling for the Old Spice link that their heading is 'Body wash, Deoderant and Other Man Fresheners' o.O )

Moppet has even been playing a few games - she loves Talking John on my phone (and throws her head back laughing when the little blue dudes do their maniacal laughter!), Cause and Effect Sensory Light Box in the iPad, and Kneebouncers too.

Squidge found my bag of nail varnish from back in the days where I actually had time to do my nails, and decided he'd like rainbow nails. Sprout joined in with robot nails too.


Meanwhile, Moppet brushed her tiny covering of hair :)


B&Q Kids Can Do It class saw Sprout building a wishing well, and me discovering that he is far better at drilling self tapping screws in than I am. Here he is demonstrating that the two part wood glue that he attached the roof ridge with is so strong that you can pick the whole thing up by it and nothing falls off.


And here he is wearing his wishing well to walk back to the car. Ahem. 


Back at home, they invented a game outside that involved glasses of water, hollow pipe insulation, watering cans, and had levels, power ups and puzzles. It was way out of my league and they had loads of fun (and got rather wet).


Squidge is still chefing, as evidenced by this two ingredient pizza that he mixed, rolled and topped, and the huge amount of batch cooking that he did with me too!


After having a bit of a reorganise in his room, Squidge rediscovered his puppets and put on a little show for us.


Another trip to Apedale saw them excited to see thousands of tadpoles in the pond... 


...and happy to sit in the tree blowing bubbles :)


We got the boys a skate ramp for their burgeoning scooter skills, and after we brought it in from the rain Moppet started using it as a slide (accompanied by shrieks of laughter!). I just love this picture of Squidge gently protecting her, the look on his face is so sweet :)


This isn't a clear photo but I've included it because Sprout got a little boardgame about the film Epic, which has some little question cards about nature if you land on certain spaces, and... HE READ THEM. It's been such an exciting couple of weeks seeing glimpses of his blossoming reading skills, from reading things out from windows as he was installing a program on the PC, to reading me a sentence off the screen at the start of a film and asking me why they were saying that, to this - "When do leaves fall from the trees?" No teaching, no coercion, just a boy living a life surrounded by words and working our how to use them for his own ends :)


`Boxes. Boxes. And more boxes. )There's a whole pile of them just out of shot) Oh, and bubblewrap. We got a delivery so that was the afternoon sorted - building trains, dens, ramps, assault courses, sliding down the skate ramp in little boxes, and hiding in boxes pretending to be parcels and jumping out to surprise Gruff.


Sprout's started taking part in a photo a day challenge that has a weekly theme. Last week was 'Adjectives beginning with F', which he just caught the end of with Floating (rhododendrons in the bathroom sink)...


...Flowing (taken at Bramshall Park)...


...and Flaming (hand sanitiser set alight - he did start off drawing a flower/stem/leaf outline with it, but once lit it took on a somewhat, erm... phallic appearance, which he thought was hilarious but maybe not quite appropriate to be shared, so he glooped some more sanitiser on and saved people's blushes!)


This week was 'Openings', for which he took the following...






Later in the week we popped over to their grandparents' house as the Blue Tits had laid 9 eggs in the nest box so the boys wanted to see them on camera. Squidge squealed with excitement as he watched the female keep fluffing herself up and settling on the eggs.


While we were there Squidge checked on the courgette plants that had been planted in the soil that he improved with sand last week, and he built some sandcastles too.


We'd picked up Hydro Strike and a My First Scalextric at the charity shop, so they had a play with those too. Hydro Strike was hilarious...


...and Scalextric was a huge hit, Sprout loved seeing how quickly he could get the car to spin off the track.


They both got a tiny little greenhouse and planted some cress seeds in them; Squidge wants to grow some to eat and Sprout wants to leave it growing indefinitely and see what happens.


We transported their new skate ramp over to their grandparent's house so there's actually space for it, and Sprout very competently screwed it together once we were there...


...while Moppet toddled round happily and splashed in some really muddy puddles...


...then they put it at the bottom of the bank to increase the adrenaline factor!


I was just saying to Gruff the other day that it was funny that Moppet has a toy landline phone but hasn't ever seen anyone use a real one, but today she discovered the one at her grandparents' house, and was right in there chattering away in no time. It reminded me of a photo I have from when I was a few months older than she is and I'd called 999 not knowing what it was, and my mum took a photo not realising who I was on the phone to... I can still remember the mild panic I felt now!


I was very excited this week when Moppet signed 'happy'! This obviously isn't a picture of that (I'm not *that* quick on the shutter release!) but of her trying on the rather large sunglasses her grandma bought her.


Amidst the continued gloomy rain there was a sunny day, which we were lucky enough to spend with friends at The Brampton, bouncing...


...swinging...


...playing in the sandpit, eating sausage rolls, and finally trying on old fashioned hats at the Victorian street scene.


When we got home Gruff was working on his van and cleaning up after himself, and Squidge decided he'd like to wash the car, so after explaining to me exactly what he wanted to do, he did so and then proudly showed us the results of his work.


I picked up some ziplock bags and some cheapie hair gel while I was shopping, put one into the other, added some glitter, and voila - one squishy sparkly baby toy!


The weekend saw Finn's weekly class (and my realisation that I hadn't blogged in over a week!), where he built a butterfly house...


...while Squidge relaxed in his favourite cafe chair...


...and Moppet toddled round happily inspecting wallpaper samples for stroke-ability.


And this is a photo of Fly, just because we so rarely get a photo where she's not a streak of speed! Isn't she beautiful? :)







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