The last week and a half or so started with the return of some summery weather, so we headed to the kids' grandparents' house for a spot of football...
...and Squidge found this stripy spider that he then watched for a while...
...and this gorgeous purple butterfly, and looooooaads of bees :)
Moppet dissected some flowers...
...and Squidge designed this little Lego space rover.
Then they got out lots of old board games and made up their own rules...
...and once we got home Squidge was excited at the arrival of a massive box of caps (the boys have so much fun with these in the back garden!)
Squidge had asked me to get a model eye to put together, and loved doing it, although this one is really fiddly and definitely needs help putting it together. He loved hearing the names of the different parts of the eye and kept asking for them over and over again :)
One of Squidge's favourite things at the moment is giving me a couple of things to put in a story and then snuggling up and listening. So... zombies, tinkerbell, go! Or... Magic car, his blue mohawk, the beach, go! :) So I thought he'd really enjoy story cubes, and I was right. Sprout loved them too! Between us we've done loads of stories using them in the last few days, including an absolutely epic one from Sprout all about a Minecraft server and the goings on in it and in real life surrounding it, it was fab!
After much anticipation the boys and I finally went to see Despicable Me 2, which was hilarious...
...then we went and treated ourselves to lunch afterwards :)
Back at home Sprout wanted to make a chocolate cake ("a big round one I can cut slices out of!")...
...and Squidge made some Dora the Explorer fairy cakes.
One of their home ed groups saw Finn inventing his own version of Monopoly, and to give some idea I overheard this conversation during play...
Sprout: You can't do that now you're in jail.
Sprout's friend: Can I still get the laser?
Sprout: Not while you're in jail, but you can dig through steel.
Meanwhile Moppet enjoyed playing in the play house.
Back at home, Squidge dug out some watercolour paper and oil pastels and drew a spaceship for Gruff as he knows he likes EVE and they sometimes play a bit of it together...
...and here it is, complete with pilots, jellyfish bad guys, blasters, and fire!
Sprout spent his pocket money on the Chima Twin Bike, and found an offer where he got a Speedor free with it too so he was very pleased.
He's fascinated by the human body at the moment, especially heart rate after watching videos (here and here) of Pewdiepie using a heart monitor while playing horror games. Sprout borrowed his grandma's blood pressure monitor which shows one figure for heart rate, which he thought was fun, but he really wanted to be able to keep taking it more easily, so we picked up this pulse monitor watch where you just have to hold your finger on a small plate for a moment to take your pulse. He's played with it lots, finding out different things that increase or decrease his heart rate.
We got him this stethoscope to use with it, and Moppet has been joining in playing doctor :)
We finally renewed our annual passes to Gladstone Pottery Museum, and met up with some friends to reacquaint ourselves with it, watching pots being thrown...
...painting pottery...
...and investigating the stinky Victorian street.
Sprout: "Tam. There's poo in this toilet. Poo!"
They all chose some marbles in the shop and Moppet loved listening to the sound they make when she knocks them together.
Plus we brought home their finished pottery. This is Sprout's...
...Moppet's...
...and Squidge's.
We did another couple of the projects that Squidge has on his list of want-to-do's from the Great Art Attack Stuff book, which were a moving mouth fish card...
...and a springy-legged monster!
We spent a lovely afternoon at the park with friends...
...and another day at their grandparents' house, which we'd scheduled as Sprout wanted a few hours to build the Space Lego train they have there.
I loved watching Moppet playing with the Peek-a-Blocks, methodically picking each one up, looking at what was inside, checking if it made a noise when she shook it, then placing it down behind her :)
Sprout finished the train track and made a start on designing a base to go around it...
...then they all played some Twister!
That night we had tickets to watch As The World Tipped by Wired Aerial Theatre in the park. To say it rained would be an understatement. I've been drier in the bath. It was still amazing. (Actually maybe even more so, there's something about a situation like that where you're choosing to be there that makes it more fun. The children kept choosing to stay so it's all good!)
The boys played this brilliant computer-controlled milk bottle instrument...
...and this bronze flaming gibbon (?) where you controlled the notes with a banana. This was Squidge's favourite one, whereas Sprout loved the milk bottle one.
Smiles all round as the rain tipped in bucketfulls...
...still smiling...
...then when the show started they were mesmerised. Squidge chose to leave about three quarters of the way through as he was just too wet, but Sprout stayed till the end and loved it. (For some idea of the show, the screen you see there is the stage, the picture on it is a film, and the two people you can see 'in' the field are suspended on wires. It was compelling and exciting and thought provoking.
Once home, it was s'mores time with the mini blow torch we'd bought Squidge for cooking with.
Both Sprout and Squidge were really excited to melt the marshmallow like this.
Nom!
While Moppet continued her latest pursuit of putting lots of stickers on her tummy...
...Squidge made a rhubarb crumble and some asparagus, pea, broccoli, courgette and spinach soup.
Saturday was the eagerly-awaited Insomnia i49, which this time had the added attraction of the Minecraft Expo.
Pretty much the first thing we did was the meet and greet with Sky, one of Sprout's absolute favourite YouTubers. While he waited he enjoyed seeing all the statues of other people he likes, including Simon of Yogscast...
...DaveChaos...
...Martyn...
...Yogscast's Sjin...
...and Yogscast's Lewis.
Finally he took his ancient creeper book...
...met Sky...
...and got his autograph.
Woohoo!
The exhibition was way WAY busier than last time (probably due to the three feet or something of snow that was about last time!), but we still managed to do lots of cool stuff...
...watch a presentation by Mythros (which I hadn't expected Sprout to be interested in, but he was engrossed)...
...play in the arcade room (which was an extra cost we hadn't expected but it was very worth it)...
...design their own Minecraft figures...
...watch some 3D printing of Minecraft builds by printcraft, which was extremely cool (and has given me an idea for a couple of surprise Christmas presents!)...
...dress up as Endermen...
...more arcade games...
...pose in the photobooth (sorry, blogger making my photos skewiff again)...
Lewis again...
...and join in the Minecraft parkour tournament, among loads of other things.
We stayed pretty late, and once home Squidge brought his Minecraft character to pick up a pizza...
...then played Super Smash Bros Melee on the vintage Gamecube we picked up at the RetroActive stall.
After those massively busy few days we were all a bit zonked out yesterday so had a pretty quiet day in, making puppets from our hands...
...Squidge arranging flowers that he chose...
...working on his 'ancient' Spiderman book...
...Gruff and Sprout playing Minecraft LAN...
...Squidge drawing some more pictures, including this many-eyed monster...
...these snakes looking after the baby snake in an egg...
...this little robot...
...this Angry Bird...
...and this rainbow :)
...and Sprout finished his Minecraft character from Insomnia. Introducing....The Daemon!
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