Chopsticks

The boys love visiting Siana and Amaya. They found their match where imaginative play is concerned that's for sure. In case you're wondering: it's not a trampoline it's a pirate ship and the sea is very stormy!

And they enjoy Rotchana's delicious cooking as much as I do

especially because it means they get to use chopsticks!

Big Bang

Nicholas is still extremely curious about space so it follows that Usborne - See Inside Space is one of his favourite books. On the first page it explores the Big Bang Theory (How do we know? What was there before? Why did it happen? Who actually saw it?). It's definitely not easy to answer all his questions!

That was the background. Now for the actual story. The other day a Jehova's Witness came to the door, and as Nicholas gets very excited when someone knocks at the door, there he was at my side when I opened it. The sly woman stuffed her magazine (a lovely colourful magazine) into his hands and told him it was about all all the things that God created. He proceeded to page through it while she carried on with her sales pitch. When he got to a page about space he exclaimed 'Look! God even made the big bang!'. It made us both laugh!

Conflict of interest

This photo shows why the boys are crazy about play dough and why I am not that keen on it. You can also see, from the look on their faces, that they are not very impressed with me because I told them to tidy up. Generally they are very good about cleaning up after them but not always!

Green fingers

Almost exactly a month ago we planted our veggie seeds. The boys were very enthusiastic about the whole process right from choosing what to grow, to preparing the pots and planting the seeds to watering them regularly. As you can imagine excitement ran high when the little plants started appearing. We decided to take a different approach to last year - instead of sowing the whole packet of seeds we only sowed double the amount we wanted - not sure if that was a good idea or not now!

I'll give a description of our current situation mainly for my records. Our lettuce is flourishing - the boys love picking a few leaves for a salad every few days - and they actually eat it too, believe it or not (the tomatos, cucumber, olives, feta and other nice things we add to the salad is what gets them tempted though). As the beans came up they got eaten (only 1 out of 6 have survived). We've got 4 healthy courgette plants (wondering if any of the others will still make an appearence). None of the peppers have sprouted yet (not sure if they usually take this long). Lots of little tomato plants have come up and seem to be doing well (although they are quite slow at growing). Tomorrow we're going to fill in the gaps and see if we have better luck second time around (or maybe I should just get some established plants from the nursery). Our strawberries are looking excellent with a lot of little strawbs and some new flowers too (the strawberry planter and all the little strawberry plants were my mother's day present). Oh and our herbs are doing fine too (mint, basil, thyme, coriander and parsley). We also tried some flower seeds in the window box and the hanging basket but I'm not convinced that the teeny tiny plants are actually going to grow (might just end up getting little established plants instead). And that's the story of our vegetable garden (we love it even though it is so small)!

Fun in the Forest

It seems silly to keep posting about Forest School but the truth of the matter is that we always have so much fun and I usually end up taking photos. So I've decided to collect a few Forest School episodes into one post. It's always based in the same part of the forest and it always takes the same format but every week there's a different theme. 'Forest' is now one of Daniel's favourite words and he is is always on the look out for dinosaurs lurking in the trees!

Building a shelter and doing some cooking

Dinosaur Treasure Hunt

Collecting things with different sizes, shapes and textures

We're going on a bear huntMaking a nature mobile

Dino Golf

We discovered dinosaur golf on the A3 very close to our house. The boys absolutely loved it - mini golf and dinosaurs cleverly weaved together - what more could a little boy ask for. In my opinion, it is one of the best putt-putt courses I've ever come across, dinosaurs aside. A couple of the holes are inside a cave with waterfalls all around, and there in the dark hides a loud and scary cave man. Danny still talks about the 'boogy man' and Nicholas can't wait to go back again!

Nicholas was in such high spirits afterwards he even agreed to go on the bungee trampoline. And guess what, mom was right, he absolutely loved it. Just after he turned 3 he went on one in Joburg and the guy shot him far too high and ever since then he has been a bit wary of them. Not anymore!