Monday 7 July 2014

Dinosaurs and caterpillars

Today was one of those mornings where everything seemed to go well!  Arthur had spent yesterday with Daddy watching dinosaur movies as he was very tired from a busy day of swimming and taking part in a local carnival the day before.  So he was very keen to play with dinosaurs, so I got the old washing up bowl, filled it with a bit of mud and the toy dinosaurs and a couple of weeds to act as trees etc, and left them to play in the garden whilst I pottered around digging weeds.

Alyssa soon got bored and decided to try and help me for a little bit, before running in to get the chalks and drawing on our recycled slate chalk boards.  I have been thinking of setting up a grab and go garden box to keep by the back door filled with garden fun such as bubbles and chalk, as well as this I also have some old baking trays and spoons already in the garden for 'mud kitchen' style play.  Which Arthur ended up using with his dinosaurs and a bun tray to make cakes and eat them.

Soon it was snack time, with fresh peas in the garden, the AJ's found them hard to resist with cries of more please over and over until we had run out of ready ones.  Then, whilst looking at our other vegetables growing, including the lovely orange/yellow flowers of our courgette plants, Alyssa made a small noise and when I looked she was holding a green caterpillar in her hands.  I managed to save it from her, as she was very enthusiastic with it, and wanted to keep holding it, and let Arthur have a quick hold, before popping it in a jar with some leaves and putting it in a safe place, hoping for a chrysalis to appear as we 'grow' our own butterfly.  Apparently, according to Grandad,  it's a cabbage white caterpillar, we did have a white butterfly hovering around our vegetable patch, I wonder if that was its mummy.

 
Dinosaur small world

Cooking with dinosaurs

Fun with chalk

Time for peas!

Arthur holds a caterpillar

Cosy in his new home

   
Mummy??







Tuesday 1 July 2014

Frontroom Festival!!!

So it's festival season here, with Glastonbury just finished, and highlights all over the television, so I decided to give the AJ's a mini taste of festival fun. I put the pop up play tents into the front room, and Arthur's camping chair, put the highlights on the telly, and set up our little bubble machine.  I dressed the AJ's in some festival style clothes, mainly shorts, t-shirts and wellies, adding some funky flower lays and some face paints from the dress up box, and then let the music and bubbles flow.

It was great fun chasing the bubbles around and watching Arthur practice his dance moves and awesome air guitar to the music, they also both enjoyed waving hello and goodbye and going back and forth to the tent.  Soon though the bubbles ran dry, the music ended and Alyssa grew tired.  Whilst she was napping in bed I let Arthur outside to experience the other thing festivals are famous for, especially Glastonbury....MUD!!!

We don't really have a proper mud patch for him to play in, so I used some oil cloth, sprayed it with water and put some mud on it, then let Arthur go wild, stamping, squelching squerching.  Whilst using some of these words he sudeenly said "we're going on a bear hunt!" It's amazing how literature can just creep in anywhere.  Once he had finished playing, he decided he wanted to clean the mat, which he thoroughly enjoyed as well as soaking mummy at the same time!  Good job it was a freezing cold day.

Playing with the tents!

Festival outfit!

Dancing in the bubbles!!

Getting stuck in!


A bit muddy!


Cleaning up!

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