"I Will Be Haunted By My Actions Forever, Hoot Hoot!"

 It was a lovely build up to Halloween this year, For once Popes knew exactly what he wanted to dress up as and we had plenty of time to make the things that he needed. It's been all about Owl House over the last few weeks so he decided he wanted to dress as Golden guard. The mask and props meant there was plenty of need for fun sewing activities, which has been our favourite thing to do together now for quite some time.

I had big plans for what I wanted to make for my costume but that went out the window because of other craft things that I had going on, so I decided to work with what we had going on around the house and went with 'zombie hockey player'. 

Popes decided he wanted to do my make up so I lay on the floor and let him go wild, I think he nailed it. Hotdogs and excessive sugar at our friends, a little sweet swapping and a spooky woodland walk and that pretty much summed up a perfect all hallows eve. For me, this will always be my favourite time of year.

“The more I know about people, the more I love zombies.”

It's almost Halloween so what better time to stick the Popes and Twink zombie video on here. We are having so much fun making these videos and making random puppets is definitely keeping us out of trouble... for now.

You can also find Popes and Twink on Instagram: @popesandtwink

"We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones."

 

                                                                       Day 1... (part 2)

With another 4 weeks of national lockdown starting now, I'm feeling like the only way through this is back to daily activities concentrating on creativity. The creative lockdown project really helped to keep us in a Calm and focused headspace while the whole world was falling apart. So for the next 4 weeks our home-ed will be focussing solely on a variety of creative activities base on a word of the day. It's been a really tough month emotionally and I think we both want to be feeling better about the path that we are on. I'm kicking off our project with our LEGO Halloween build for this year, an explosion of black and orange.

Stay safe people and keep on creating.

"I want to run towards something. Not away."

Autumn is by far my favourite time of year, Unlike most I'm a big fan of the temperature drop, Ive always had a thing about my coat going on, making our outdoor adventures that little more cosy. And who doesn't love the colours on the trees, that autumn change is pretty magical. For the boys it's an exciting time of year because we get to go up the loft and start bringing down those end of year decorations. It's always so nice to transform the house and make it that little more interesting and of course that always includes some spooky LEGO building. We were all wrapped up one evening with hot chocolates making Halloween characters and a big sign for the wall in The LEGO room.

Opeie requested we build a witches house another evening and despite not feeling in a creative mood we stuck with it and it all turned out pretty lovely. The LEGO building really got us into the build up to halloween festivities.

With the decorations out and the house feeling a little more spooky we were pretty excited about the fun that was going to be had. Pumpkin carving at home and maybe a spooky party.

Then at the last minute our plans changed and a couple of days before the big spooky celebration we found ourselves driving down to the Cornish coast to Boscastle to for a few nights away. With a mass of negativity starting to muscle its way into our lives at home I think we were both really needing to get away for a bit.

Halloween ended up being an awesome day at Tintagel, adventuring around Merlins cave, Stomping up some big hills and finding waterfalls, perfection.

Happy Halloween ya'll.

"Clothes make a statement, Costumes tell a story."

If you could be anything, what would you be?  hmmmm.... a LEGO minifigure! was how the start of a conversation went with me and Opeie recently. He then went on to explain his reasoning. "I can build my house to look however I want", "I could fly in a spaceship and I could ride a dinosaur!". Come to think of it, I'd love to be a minifigure myself, it would be amazing. And then that awesome email came through, 'can we send you a LEGO Ninjago dress up costume?'... being a blogger is the best. I won't lie, when I clicked on the link and saw the Deluxe Lloyd costume by Disguise, I was a little jealous. Jakks Pacific have designed these children's costumes perfectly. To look at, they are like scaled down versions of the costumes you see at LEGO events and around the parks, which the kids always love.

With Kai, Lloyd, Jay and Nya to choose from these are a must for any child interested in the world of Spinjitsu. Opeie couldn't wait to transform himself into Lloyd and everything about becoming a LEGO minifigure was as exciting as he imagined it would be, that was until he attempted to open a LEGO packet to start building his Ninjago Ninja bike chase kit. It turns out those LEGO clawed hands aren't great for opening up those packets, but Opeie didn't let that stop him. 

Opeie attempted to build the kit in full suit but eventually gave in and slid the mask back. The boys love the Ninjago LEGO kits so being able to be a ninja while he built was a lot of fun for him. 

There was a moment at Halloween where I thought there was going to be tears. We had been asking Seth for weeks if he wanted a costume and he had just shrugged his shoulders and not really shown any interest. When all hallows eve was upon us though it was a different story and when Opeie ran out to go trick or treating with his friends on our street, Seth didn't look happy. The trousers on the Lloyd costume were slightly too big for Opeie so for safety reasons we thought it best to not wear them walking the streets in the dark. I asked Seth if he wanted to try the costume on and it fit perfectly, so we had a happy two boys carving pumpkins and doing Halloween crafty with their friends.

"Would you do it for a Scooby Snack?"

Like a true old timer, I have just been standing outside the house talking to my neighbour about how we never did anything for Halloween as children. I don't EVER remember going trick or treating or decorating the house and as we stood there draping spooky lights over our hanging baskets and getting things ready for the kids to carve pumpkins and make Halloween spiders, I thought how much this time of year has changed since way back then. I do love decorating the inside of the house every year, the boys get excited and it is one of the many things that I look forward to doing as a family each year.

The shops are getting better each year making it easier to pick up decorations etc but the one thing I don't like (and it may make me sound like a grumpy old man), is the costumes aimed at young children. Do children of the boys age really need to look like half of their face is missing or that one of their limbs has clumsily dropped off.  last year I asked the little girl that lives next door what she was dressing up as and she said "zombie red riding hood with blood dripping from my eyes!" Ewww!

Thankfully the boys aren't really into the 'Frightening' side of Halloween and Opeie went for a full on cute approach to the All Hallows' Eve celebrations after a fun package arrived through the post last week. Scooby Doo was one of my favourite shows as a kid (until that scrappy appeared anyway) and I can't believe he's still going strong, but even more crazy is that he has now been immortalised in my favourite brick and has even starred in his own LEGO movie too! Clearly the lovable pooch is here to stay. Opeie has been keeping his awesomeness alive this week by virtually living in a Rubies Scooby Doo costume that he got for Halloween. 

Mini Scooby Doo has been everywhere with me and surprisingly has been great entertainment for the older folk in the supermarkets. He's been making people smile everywhere we've been, especially because of the mini Scooby Doo he's been carrying under his arm too. There's no surprise at all that because of this new Scooby skin that he has acquired, it has been a pretty Scooby Doo heavy kind of a week, Episodes, Books, LEGO and Magazines. It's been touch and go a few times whether we were actually going to get him out of the suit for bed.

Part of me is a little jealous that I can't just dress up as a character I love and pop to the supermarket to get bread, I guess I'll just have to continue being his less interesting side kick. Whatever you've  dressed up as this year, I hope you've had an amazing Halloween.

"Better three hours too soon than a minute too late."

Just a quick post tonight as there are lots of things I need to be doing. In keeping with our Halloween craft this month, we decided to make a Halloween clock to teach Opeie how to tell the time. I concentrate so much on reading, writing, and Maths when we're not creating fun things that I forget sometimes about the simple things that are really important. I have no idea when I was taught to tell the time but Seth informed me today that he didn't learn to tell the time until he was 7 so it's good to start covering it now.

We made the clock using two paper plates, some card for the hands and one of those gold folding clippy things (I have no idea what they are called). We then decorated the face using foam numbers and glow in the dark Halloween stickers. The clock is now stuck on the window of the lounge doors and at different points of the day I tell Opeie the time and he adjusts the clock, he'll have this down in no time! The great extra is that by putting the value of each number in 5-minute blocks around the edge, we can also cover his 5 times tables too! Extra points for making Maths fun!!!

"Use your imagination, not to scare yourself to death but to inspire yourself to life"

It's got to that time of year again where we go into a craft frenzy. There is something so satisfying about decorating the house for Halloween and Christmas and we couldn't wait this year to get going with the spooky fun. Halloween is so much more fun when you have children and I like to think we take full advantage of these cold wet autumn days by filling them with fun activities. Me and Opeie have been researching fun Halloween craft ideas and while out doors hunting for branches, leaves and pine cones to make an Autumn wreath for the front door, we also decided that we wanted to create monster wreaths for the doors inside the house. We wanted to make a fluffy monster wreath and speant a week popping into charity shops looking for something suitable to cut up for cheap. We had no luck and was feeling pretty deflated until I was searching for one of Opeie's toys under his bed and found a huge box of pompoms and lollipop sticks, BINGO!

We cut out a big cardboard ring, fired up the glue gun and started sticking. With lots of bright coloured fluffy pompoms to choose from, Opeie was thouroughly enjoying the craft activity, sitting outside despite the cold. There was a few moments where there was a freak gust of wind and he was chasing pompoms around the street but it just added to the fun as he ran around laughing. With the cardboard ring completely covered and looking very bright and fluffy, we added big polystyrene balls for eyes and some black teeth covered in green slime and Hey Presto! our monster wreath was complete.

Not 100% happy with what we had achieved though and eager to continue our fun Halloween activities, Opeie opted for another wreath because apparently there are alot more doors in the house to decorate. We looked around the house for something else colourful and found a basket full of Play doh lids that I had saved while cleaning out the boys room a while back.I had no idea at the time what I was going to use them for or why I was even saving them but the bright colours sucked me in like some sort of magpie.

I had already cut out a second cardboard ring (clearly I knew he would want to make a second one before he did), so the glue gun made another of his weekly appearences and we got sticking. Im not sure my parents would have let me use a glue gun at the age of 5 (I could just imagine myself pretending I had Han Solo's blaster and making a mess everywhere), but Opeie is calm, loves craft and is really responsible so the gluing was left up to him. Opeie made some lovely bloodshot eyes and mad fangs from lollipop sticks and in no time at all , another door in the house was looking fabulous.

Weve got so many ideas planned for the school holiday with Seth that the house is going to be filled with lots of spooky things. The great thing is, when they all come down, theres no need to feel sad as we can start on the Christmas decorations then! being a dad is AMAZING!

“ Mind is the battery cell, Intelligence is the switch ”

When i first started writing the blog i would say yes to all manner of craft challenges from companies as we loved receiving packages of random craft items. As the years have gone by though the yes' got less and less, it's been a good 6 months since the last one so when we received an email to take part in the Energizer’s Re-imagination Challenge, I asked the boys what they thought and they jumped at the chance. Energizer has re-imagined the battery category with the world’s first battery made out of 4% recycled battery material and their aim is for the EcoAdvanced battery to be made from 40% recycled battery material by 2025, Which i think is amazing when you think of all the batteries that get thrown.

I explained the challenge to the boys and this weekend while Mrs M had a bit of quiet time after a busy week, me and the troops crept out into the garden with our wooden crate of random objects to upcycle. Our first plan was to use EVERYTHING to create one huge sculpture but as we chatted about it Seth said that he didn't feel like it was upcycling unless it was something we were going to use regularly. 

Seth took the brief as 'we're not allowed to use anything but the things in the box' and while i disappeared looking for a paintbrush for the boys to use with the acrylics, Seth used his initiative and used the scissors to chop up the sponges for him and Opeie to use. Seth's upcycling plan was to turn the CD'S in to coasters for the house using the Acrylic paints...

Me... I threw caution to the wind with Seth's 'we're not allowed to use anything but the things in the box' and got the electric sander out as i had my eye on the wooden crate that the delivery came in. We had been doing a little upcycling already over the last few weeks when i got hold of some pallets and decided to make some garden furniture (unfinished at the moment), but more importantly the boys dinosaur excavation pit. The upcycled dig site turned out great. Opeie keeps leaving his dinosaurs scattered about thogh so i thought the crate would be perfect for storing them in. I sanded it down and went looking for the left over paint so it matched the pit.

Opeie used his upcycling time to create an alien using sponges, paper plates and pipe cleaners, followed by a kite made from a scarf, an interesting use of the items sent to us.

It was clear from the look of concentration on Seth's face that he was really in to our afternoon activity and his upcycled coasters ended up looking amazing. Sitting outside in the sunshine creating is definitely one of my favourite things to do wit the boys, it's quality family time.

There is still plenty of items left for another craft session and we've already discussed the next transformation of the spirit decanter into a dark and creepy bottle of elixir for our Halloween celebration decorations so watch this space.

Who'd have thought it, all this fun from a pack of batteries and we didn't even have to use them to power anything up.

"Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble."

All has been quiet on the blog over the last week and may be for another week or so as I'm in LEGO mode at the moment, We're building something big (all will be revealed soon) and also building lots of little things for some lovely people to say thank you. Because of these addictive bricks taking up so much of my time i managed to skip a Halloween post so i thought i better do a little catch up.

On the build up to Halloween Opeie informed me that he wanted to do some spooky themed painting so we had a fun afternoon painting skulls, spiders, ghosts, bats and pumpkins.

 

 After our trip to the pumpkin patch a few weeks back we had four pumpkins to carve, Opeie requested a 'Mickey Mouse' first which me and Mrs M attempted (apologies for the quality of the pic)...

And on Halloween we were invited around to out friend Tabiitha's for a pumpkin carving session, It was great to hang out with friends and stab fruit together.

If I'm honest I'm not a huge fan of Halloween (said like a Halloween scrooge). Spooky craft sessions are great but that's where it ends for me. The thing i find most irritating is the door being knocked late at night, usually by kids who clearly havent made the effort with their costume and are just wearing a black bag with some fake blood on their cheek (i guess that makes me a spooky costume snob but I'm fine with that). We did however leave some lollipops by the front door for our doorstep visitors. Surprisingly though the door was only knocked once but as we were eating we looked at each other and neither of us made the slightest effort to go to the door (like i said.. 'Scrooge). I hope you all had a fun Halloween.

"Hooray for Peter Pumpkinhead"

As a family we have many annual traditions, an array of things that we look forward to throughout the year. I think it's so important as a family to have these special and personal things that we do. It's a way of bringing us together, especially with all the other things going on in our lives.

One of our yearly traditions is picking pumpkins at Essington fruit farm, When the temperature starts to drop that's when i start looking forward to our Halloween trip. I remember the first visit like it was yesterday travelling by tractor up to the Pumpkin patch, Opeie was 7 months old and when i looked back at the pictures a minute ago i was reminded just how little Seth was. It was cold but a lovely sunny day and we laughed and joked around in the field studying each pumpkin so that we could be sure to make the perfect selection

We missed the following year as the weather had been so awful, the crops had been rained off. Last year though it was all go and we were stomping through the pumpkin patch once more. What we didn't realise last year though was that we were not supposed to be in the field, we just made our own way and helped ourselves, oops. I love having these things to look forward to every year and the boys get so excited, It's nice to think these special family outings are giving them great lifelong memories.

So its that time of year again and last weekend seemed like the perfect time to head out on our yearly hunt for something big and orange to stick a knife it. Opeie was a little more excited this year too being that bit older. When we arrived at the farm we couldn't believe how busy it was. There was a country fare on and there were cars and people everywhere. They always have amazing carved pumpkins on show but this year they had the artists there so you could watch them at work.

The queue for the tractor ride up to the pumpkin field was insanely long so we decided to venture up to the pumpkin patch on foot. When we reached the field as always we were greeted by masses of the Halloween fruit ready for the taking...

We had our usual muck about, or should i say, Me and Mrs M as usual were acting like children...

But we were there on serious business and our 3 and 8 year old children informed us of that. Time to pick our pumpkins. picking the right pumpkin is a big decision and one not to be taken lightly. I cant wait to get carving this week.

Our Pumpkin picking session was cut a little short when a tired Opeie fell over in the field and got prickles in his hand, bless him, we were all getting a little cold though so we waited for the tractor to take us back. This years pumpkin picking adventure was complete, now time to let our creative juices run wild.

On the drive home i had a song stuck in my head inspired by the day. A CD I had bought when i was about 14 (wow 20 years ago that's crazy). I'll leave you with the song i was humming all the way home and i hope you have fun carving your pumpkins...