Science at Home - Ribbit Ribbit , it's a tad pole exhibit

Gerald our garden frog seems to have left us a rather unexpected gift.... The other day Pauly noticed some tadpoles in the paddling pool , which is in our neighbours garden whilst feeding the rabbits. 

I mentioned it at work and one if the girls got very excited and asked me to put some in the air tight tub she quickly passed me. So, yesterday before work I filled the tub with about 50 tadpoles only to find the boys at the back door eagerly waiting to see the specimens . 

Opeie assumed they were fish, 

or "fish-eees" as he excitedly shouts- anything in water with a tail , is a fish, according to Opeie .

Seth asked if we could get some tadpoles of our own for the garden , which I agreed to as his excitement and smiles were hard to say no to , and lets be honest tadpoles aren't a big ask ! 

So today, after work , we put on our wellies , and headed out into the garden. 

Opeie however was more interested in the Lolly pop he had, as he'd never had one before .  Seth was excited as he had never seen tadpoles up close before . 

I asked the boys where they thought the tadpoles would feel happiest , and after a long hard thought Seth decided on a round plastic Garden bucket . 

I asked Seth how he thought tadpoles grow into frogs , and he looked closely and realised some had started to sprout legs . We then thought about how best to make it easy for the grown frogs to be able to get out of they plastic pond . 

I explained to Seth about tadpoles needing rain / or stream / spring water as they couldn't survive in tap water . He asked why can't survive in it, why do we drink it ?! Good question my boy , but lets not get political on the blog just yet. We spent the next 10 minutes looking for rain water in the garden and surprisingly found a lot, mostly in the old hanging baskets . 

Finally we rehoused the tadpoles into their new home and they seem happy , especially since Pauly moved them into the shade. 

I will keep you up dated with tadpole news! 

"I think all great innovations are built on rejections."

 I think that it was only fair that i get Seth to write this review, the truth being that i really didn't enjoy playing with it. maybe i have become a bit of a building material snob but i just wasn't happy with anything that i made and i sat playing with Seth for quite some time. I'm the sort of builder that gets an image in my head of what i want the finished piece to look like and this was never going to happen with plus plus. I found only having one shape very restricting. It would have been unfair of me to write the review when it is aimed at children so i will hand you over to Seth who surprisingly didn't agree with me at all....

"Hi it's Seth, when we ordered the pirate dress up we were sent some Plus Plus too by the nice lady at The Toadstool. I had never seen it before and I was excited about playing with it. When I opened the box I thought it was good and I wanted to build lots of objects. I told Pauly I was broken and needed him to make a key to wind me up. I had fun making spaceships. I thought they connected really good. Then we made a pair if glasses which was funny.

Pauly made an Incredible Hulk and a Muno (from Yo Gabba Gabba). I wish they made curved bits so that I could make some different things. Opeie likes to empty them out all over the sofa and then we have to save the pieces from getting lost. I also wish there was gold and silver pieces. The pieces were really easy to connect together which was good because sometimes i find some building things hard to do. I will play with these loads."

"Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun."

Well it's been another glorious day in Shropshire and as usual we've made the most of it trying to keep out and about. It was lovely this morning being on a blanket in the garden at 8am reading a book while the boys played at the water table, but if there's any truth in what the met office is currently saying about tomorrow's weather we'll be lucky to get any sunshine! Got to stay positive though! Today while we were out in the car we spotted some rapeseed fields from the road and headed over to find somewhere to park for some quick photos.

I love the colour of the fields and couldn't wait to get snapping surrounded by all that yellow. Family photos are so important to me no matter how trivial the situation may be (like pulling up at the side of the road), I want the boys to have great memories of growing up because I don't have as many as I would have liked. I want them to look at old photos and think 'growing up was amazing'.

Opeie was excited by all the yellow flowers but that could be because of his new love of curious George and the man with the yellow hat. We will definitely be on the lookout for Sunflower and Poppy fields next.

"Well, life on the farm is kinda laid back, Ain't much an old country boy like me can't hack, It's early to rise, early in the sack, Thank God, I'm A Country Boy"

A few weeks back we had a phone call from Auntie Lotty asking if we wanted to come over and see them which was really nice, the weather wasn't great but uncle Aaron (who is a farmer) had asked if Seth wanted to go on a tractor ride? obviously he jumped at the chance so after picking Lotty up we headed over to a friend of Aaron's farm. Seth and Mrs M went off in the tractor and me and Opeie stopped with Lotty in the warm and chatted. I have no idea what happened during that tractor trip or what they go up to and waiting for Mrs M to write the post could mean waiting till in to the next century so i though i would just have a post with picutes that she had taken.

I think you can make your own minds up whether Seth had fun. Thanks uncle Aaron.

"It is better to have burnt and lost, then never to have barbecued at all"

The sun being out makes all the difference to everything. The weather has been terrible this week and with Opeie and Mrs M being unwell we haven't done much and because of that i had no motivation to write a post. Today has been a great day though and has really made up for the eventless week we have had. After Seth's Tae kwon do class today we had a potter around the shops (where i found a Dr Seuss book for 5p, Amazing!) before heading to the park, both me and Mrs M had left our phones at home though so no way of getting any shots. After the park we did a little 'Meat run' as we decided today was going to be our first BBQ of the year (finally). I love a good BBQ and after cremating some sausages(it wouldn't be right if i didn't overcook something)...

And masking the taste with the good stuff...

We sat down to eat. I love being able to just sit out in the garden and enjoy the weather and the boys love chasing each other about.  I'm yet to get round to any of the weeding in the garden and i will continue to use our 'British weather' as an excuse for as long as i can get away with it.

After food Mrs M decided it was time to clean or pirate water table off ready for the (fingers crossed) great weather that is hopefully on its way. Opeie loves the water table so it was nice for them to finally get to play with it. We should really have put it in the shed after last summer but it had remained turned upside down on our garden table (which also should have been in the shed) all through the winter. Being made by Little Tykes though it made no difference because it scrubbed up like new and apart from a little fading the boys were happy and getting wet withing half an hour. This is the third summer we've had it and it's still going strong.

This year we decided that the pirates needed a Nemesis so Seth went off in to the house looking for suitable archenemies, he came back soon after clutching our Nuby Octopus which i thought fit in great. He may look cute but this smiley tentacle wielding bully managed to kidnap and hold Spider-man against his will.

It's been months since Opeie last had a dummy, he was never really that interested in them so our dummy case served as a great holding cell for our friendly neighbourhood Spider-man and could be suspended from the mast making their story that little more dramatic.

Spider-man was soon rescued though by the jolly pirates, the pirate table kept the boys occupied all the way up until we went out, we literally had to drag Opeie away from it. I think it will get loads of use again this summer (weather permitting).

Late afternoon we headed over to see Auntie Lotty for a few hours to make the most of the last bit of sunshine for the day. we went to the park, had a rolling down the hill contest and played an epic game of Ackee 1.2.3. It was a great end to a fun afternoon with the boys and Lotty had a great time too which is always good. Its lovely knowing we have such great family round the corner.

 Hopefully today's weather is the start of things to come (but i wont hold my breath). More importantly the sunshine has given me reason to start writing again.