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There are quite a lot of nice photos from outings we did during the week and over the weekend so I have kept them in separate posts. Have a look immediately after this post or click on the links below:
Friday, 27 April 2012
More Spring Holidays
Most kids are back at school already but Daniel and I were lucky to have
Nicholas' company for an extra week. The theme of the week was rest
and relaxation. We spent a lot of time pottering around at home. We
also had a couple of playdates including a swimming get together at The
Roehampton Club with one of Nick's friends from school, Rory, and his
brothers. I am sad to say that it's all over and back to school but
Nicholas seems quite excited!
There are quite a lot of nice photos from outings we did during the week and over the weekend so I have kept them in separate posts. Have a look immediately after this post or click on the links below:
There are quite a lot of nice photos from outings we did during the week and over the weekend so I have kept them in separate posts. Have a look immediately after this post or click on the links below:
Natural History Museum
Nicholas LOVES visiting the Natural History Museum and his favourite section is the dinosaurs. It always amazes me what he remembers from previous trips and how he manages to find his way around the myriad of rooms and passages. Every time we go, the boys notice different things, have different questions and take different things away from it all. I was very surprised by Nicholas' questions about whether the dinosaurs are real, why the dinosaurs are dead, how they make the dead dinosaurs move, how they got the bones out of the bodies etc. Does this mean that last time he actually thought this T-Rex was real and alive?
Nicholas has started showing an interest in buying things when we are in a shop. Since he has been learning about money at school I decided to give him a chance to choose something from the dinosaur store and pay for it himself. He settled on two dino-digs - "One for me and one for my little brother" he told the cashier - what a sweet sweet son I have. The boys spent a lot of the next day digging away but I think it is still going to take a while before we extract all those bones!
We always visit two or three sections of the museum depending on everyone's energy levels. This time the boys' second choice was the bird hall. Nicholas started off asking questions like how they make the birds stand so still for so long followed by hundreds of questions related to the birds' mortality. He also seemed horrified that that the dodos were extinct because the sailors ate them all. We always seem to end off in the Earth section to see the volcano and earthquake exhibits. This time we were also lucky to stumble upon on special mineral display with a wonderfully informative guide. I couldn't resist getting some rocks to take home for the boys. I gave Nicholas £6 and told him that he had to share it equally with Daniel and they could each choose some rocks. They came away with 2 minerals: Quartz (makes watches tick), Fluorite (found in toothpaste) and 2 stones: Tigers Eye (from South Africa) and Leopard Skin Stone (from Zimbabwe). When we got home they had a great time investigating the minerals and rocks with the USB microscope that Uncle Pete kindly gave to them when he visited the other day!
National Gallery
One of our favourite outings is to go to St Martin in the Fields to see the LMA orchestra in action. It's probably the most suitable classical music setup we've found for kids. The focus was on Mozart's Jupiter Symphony this time. As usual the boys loved every minute of it especially getting up close with the musicians and their instruments afterwards. Since the National Gallery is across the road we always take the opportunity for a stroll through the gallery as well. This time we just wandered around without an agenda, which was really nice, it was great fun discussing the some of the paintings with the boys. Uncle Pete always joins us for our musical outings. The boys adore him. He is one of those people that are like family to us here in our home away from home!
Inspired by our visit to London and the art that we saw at the National Gallery, we decided to do some painting a couple of days later. I wasn't in the mood for actual paint so I decided to experiment with food colouring and ear buds. First we tried to paint those white coated chocolate eggs, typical Easter treats from SA, because we didn't get to paint eggs this year. Unfortunately it didn't really work as they got all melty but that didn't detract from the enjoyment of decorating and eating them. Next I suggested some skyline art. The end results were stunning I thought (unfortunately the colours have faded so they are not as impressive now as they were then)!
Inspired by our visit to London and the art that we saw at the National Gallery, we decided to do some painting a couple of days later. I wasn't in the mood for actual paint so I decided to experiment with food colouring and ear buds. First we tried to paint those white coated chocolate eggs, typical Easter treats from SA, because we didn't get to paint eggs this year. Unfortunately it didn't really work as they got all melty but that didn't detract from the enjoyment of decorating and eating them. Next I suggested some skyline art. The end results were stunning I thought (unfortunately the colours have faded so they are not as impressive now as they were then)!
Richmond Park
On Sunday morning there was a brief break in the rain so we took the
boys' bikes and went to Richmond Park. It was great fun going for a
bike ride in such a lovely setting and exploring around the edge of the
pond and playing in the forest. I am sure I said it before, it is
really great watching the boys play out in nature with no agenda and no
time pressure, they had an absolute ball!
Monday, 23 April 2012
Sunday, 22 April 2012
Dad turns 36!
It was Dad's birthday on Wednesday. It's never easy celebrating a birthday on a school/work day so we saved all the treats for the weekend. We had to have pancakes for breakfast as usual. The boys also wanted to bake a cake and with a bit of encouragement they decided on a carrot cake this year. I took a step back and let them do the decorating all on their own. A splendid effort I thought!
Saturday, 21 April 2012
Sneak Preview
My famous last words: No winter in the Northern Hemisphere would be complete without a wintersport trip! This winter was no exception. We spent the second week of the spring holidays in Les Arcs in France. Loads of people questioned our sense in going in search of snow so late in the season but if you go high, then that's the best time to go in our opinion, as it means it is not so cold and you usually end up with blue skies all week. Not this time though, it dumped down a lot, but that meant fresh powder snow most days so we can't really complain. All in all it was a totally awesome holiday. As usual it's taking me ages to sort through all the photos and video clips. In the meantime here are a few photos taken just before we came home ...
And if, like me, you fancy a trip down the memory lane of our wintersport trips since we've had kids check out these links:
And if, like me, you fancy a trip down the memory lane of our wintersport trips since we've had kids check out these links:
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