Monday 23 February 2015

Veedubs and Changing Hubs

We started the week off playing with friends again, Moppet played a bit of football...


...we all built some dens out of rolled up newspapers...


...Sprout used them to make a bow and arrow..


...Gruff and Moppet used some left over pipecleaners to make this little guy on a bike to play with...


...they all played some Tetris Jenga...


...Sprout made a crocodile out of a marble run, Gruff made a bracelet with Squidge...


...Moppet made marble runs...


...and they put on a (recycled) joke show :)


Back at home Moppet and Gruff played trains...


...while the boys played gta v.


Sprout made some modified versions of Flappy Bird on code.org...


...they all planted some sunflower seeds and Sprout planted some pepper seeds he'd taken out of the pepper he gave to Squidge's rabbit.


Sprout and Moppet helped each other put an egg in vinegar, and I mentioned what egg shells are made out of and Sprout told me vinegar is an acid and hypothesised that we'd be left with an egg shape with no shell.


We played with a heart science kit, but discovered it had leaky valves and accidentally decorated the curtainswith  'blood'. I showed Sprout with his and my hands how an actual heart valve works.


I made some of this air drying clay http://theimaginationtree.com/2012/12/white-clay-ornaments-tutorial.html as Sprout wanted to make something, but unfortunately his verdict was that "it smells terrible. TERRIBLE." So he went and did something else while Moppet made pretend biscuits with it... 


...and then they all put a thumb print in a little dove made with it for their grandma.


Afterward we all did some tie dying.





Squidge dug out some craft stuff and made a robot out of paper plates and glitter.



Moppet made some thumbprint biscuits.


Gruff and Squidge built the Google Cardboard...


...and we all tried it out. We have iPhones so the Google cardboard apps don't apply, but it worked great with Dive city rollercoaster, The Height, and Dive Zombie.



Sprout watched some Strihyru videos while Gruff, Squidge and Moppet played Skylanders.


We played with some oil and water, and tipped some salt in and watched the lava lamp effect.



The next day Moppet helped Gruff tidy his tool box...


...and Squidge and I played Moshi Monsters memory game while Sprout went out to set up a surprise he's been planning for Squidge.


Sprout spent some time watching Evantube videos, which got him thinking about spy gear, which got him thinking about pigeons and he wondered what their role had been in wartime so we looked it up.


The rest of the day was birthday cake making (me), dishwasher sorting (Sprout) CoD playing (Squidge and me), and Bubble Guppies watching (Gruff and Moppet).
Sprout and I stayed up late to watch some more 10000BC, and he chatted to me about hot wheels, spies, the purpose of shoes, how he felt about hunting for meat vs buying meat, and his thoughts about turning 9 soon.


The next day lots of friends met up for a play at Come Into Play for both their birthdays, it was a really lovely fun afternoon.




Sprout turned 9, and, unprecedentedly, woke us up to go downstairs and start celebrating :)


We all went to Waterworld for the afternoon which was his choice of birthday activity :) He'd also set up a 'Skylander Hunting' surprise for Squidge (like on Skylander boy and girl) where Squidge ended up with Lobstar, it was so sweet and thoughtful :)


He skyped with his grandparents in the evening and they sang him happy birthday :)


We revealed his much awaited Dishonored cake...


...and he wanted to light the candles himself.



He'd also requested pass the parcel :)


We had a trip to EUREKA!, where I haven't been since I was a kid and these three have never been, they all absolutely loved it and want to go back.





Moppet decorated some butterflies.





She changed a wheel.






Moppet and Squidge 'fixed' a car on a ramp with daddy.






Sprout answered some riddles to crack some safe codes.






While we were having lunch Sprout told us about some ancient Egyptians eating children, we were skeptical so looked it up and he was right and we filled in the context.




Moppet and Squidge put a farm picture together.



Sprout interjected some comedy dances (as always!)


They each performed an ultrasound.



Sprout showed me the different parts of the brain that control different senses.


Moppet waved at a dancing skeleton.



They looked up a giant nose (which had been the thing they were excited about all the way there!!!)




Moppet loved looking at the X-rays.


They all completed the climbing wall challenge.


More comedy dancing, this time in infra red.


Spit, burps, bile and poo.


They each decorated some flowers...



A tongue passed its verdict on how tasty they were.


And in all they were worn out by mid afternoon!


We surprised Gruff with a hotel stay over for his birthday, and Moppet pretended to sleep in the cot.



Sprout got his own 'room'.


We also surprised Gruff with a meal at Zizzi...





...at-table entertainment courtesy of DRAWNIMAL...



...Story Cubes...


...and Toca Mini. Oh, and Sprout's perennial drawings of Illuminati Mona Lisa, games of hangman/napkin pictionary/what can you see out of the window :)


And back at the hotel there was much hiding under the beds :)


The main birthday surprise for Gruff, which we saved for the last minute, was tickets to Spring Dub. We ended up staying less time than we'd planned as Moppet went down with a horrible cold, but it was really good while we were there :)






As well as the cars, the kids enjoyed some music played by a guy on a drum kit in a box, it looked fab! http://sgpercussion.co.uk


In the way home Sprout was impressed to see this Zombie Outbreak TacticalResponse  Team van ;)