Big Bang

Today we have been to the Big Bang Science Fair at the NEC. 

It was a free show for all ages who are interested in the sciences. It was crazy-busy, it felt like every school in the midlands were there and sadly some of the kids seemed to be completely wild when allowed away the teachers. A lot of them didn't seem to get the concept of queuing and taking turns, what do schools teach them?! Anyway, the crowds and unruly kids aside we managed to have a good day.  

Squashy really enjoyed the robots, it was a challenge to use the remote controlled robot to pick up a ball into a pot. Squashy won a Hex-Bug! 

Look at that concentration! 

Of course then Momo wanted a go too

There were loads and loads of hands on things for them to have a go of. 

Buttons to press, games to play, 

things to touch and turn and poke, 

perfect for my inquisitive little monkeys! 

They powered robots

Had a go at driving a crane

Cuddled some cool creatures 

And even met a real life astronaut. They asked Momo if he wanted to ask the astronaut, Jon McBride, a question about his time in space. So he asked him 'had he met any aliens?' :) it made him laugh and he said 'no, not in space'! 

There was a lot of experimenting 

It was a good but very full on day, too much to see in one day and also a little too crowded and noisy for some little people (the sling and ear defenders got us through the day) but deffinately worth going, for free, and we look forward to next years.

First seaside of 2014!

We had a last minute awesome trip to the seaside today! Hubby has a job on at  colwyn  Bay in north Wales so we decided to tag along. The sun shone all day and it was beautiful, we spent most of the day on the beach, blissfully happy.

There's not even much to say, just look at the photos. The boys happily did some digging, hunting out treasures, frisbee-Ing, building castles, writing in the sand, fussing every dog that came by, and it was even warm enough to take shoes off for a paddle! 

We met hubby for a nice lunch in a pub that's an old picture house! Then went for a little drive to see Colwyn Castle and suspension bridge. We struggled to park here but luckily that meant we found a little 'secret' beach. The boys thought it was great, exploring where no one else was and we had this gorgeous view. Our plans for the next rainy stuck-at-home day are to find out about the suspension bridge. 

It was a perfect day after a boring, grumpy week and has got me so excited for the summer and wonderful days out ahead :)

Feed the birds

The boys have been playing out in the garden a bit this week and everytime the door is open I can hear lots of birds singing. So this afternoon we sat out on the decking and made some little bird feeders.

Just peanut butter, bird seed and some wool scraps stuck in that they can use to build nests.

Someone was quite proud of them and couldn't wait to hang them up!

I hope we get to see some little birds come and feed on them. 

Pancake Day!

Happy pancake day! We had a flippin' great time making our pancakes. The boys all joined in and I supervised (with my bag of peas!) then they all enjoyed tucking in after they had cooked them.

Stuck in the house

We've been stuck in the house this week thanks to my adventures at the weekend. But it's been a fairly nice week. We've done lots of crafty, homey, relaxing things.

Momo had some fun with his trains. He doesn't play with then as much as he used to, I guess because he is getting older, and so it was lovely to see him back in 'Thomas mode' for a while.

Squashy and I found a website with lots of courses, challenges and work to do called Khan Acadamy. He had been enjoying it, he especially likes the computer programming section and had been working his way through that. 

Peas have featured quite a lot...

With the addition of cake here and there

Josh designed some cross stitch patterns.

He's not done cross stitch since he was in the infants. He used to stitch for his teachers' leaving gifts and cards but never really had any teachers worth crafting for at junior school. Also he's never designed his own pattern before, I was really pleased with the pattern he came up with.

 He says the squared paper hurts his eyes too look at so he overcame it by using the back of the paper so he could just faintly follow the lines without affecting his eyes.

He spent a good while yesterday working on the sewing and I think he will be finished soon. I can't wait to see the result! 

Momo was given a lovely gift of new crayons, they are like little pebbles and really nice to use, with lovely bright colours. He had done lots of pictures this week with them

There's also been a little bit of science and experimenting going on

This is one of Momo's favourite things at the moment, he loves measuring stuff out  and mixing it up.

We've squeezed in some fruit preparation practice!

And Squashy found a website to create his own 'Flappy Bird' game

A couple of the days have been nice enough to get outside so there's been more larking about on the trampoline 

We've watched a couple of films, read lots of books, played a few board games and quizzes and had some lovely visitors.

All in all, it's been a nice week, I think doing as I was told for once and resting has done my knee the world of good and it's been nice to relax a bit with the boys.