"And all that glitters is gold, Only shooting stars break the mold"

After months of discomfort on my poor ears, it seems that Bieber fever in our house has finally passed. Obviously, I have no problem with Opeie listening to what he wants to, we all like what we like and to be fair there are a couple of Bieber tracks that I do actually like myself but when you have been subjected to songs like 'baby' and 'one last lonely girl' on a constant loop, then its nice to have a break. Plus I have a real issue with the boys listening to songs that state that buying a girl diamond rings or anything she desires and this materialistic way of looking at life is the way to build a healthy relationship. I could spend the entire post dissecting popular tracks for inappropriate content for young kids.

Anyway, that ex-Bieber fan of mine has now come full circle and has found his way back to his more rocky roots. Years ago it was all about Thin Lizzy, which I adored and now Opeie has found his way to some new headbanging material. Anyway, enough of my waffle! Here's a few tracks that have made their way to Opeie's iPod and have been entertaining him recently...

After a good rock out, sometimes Opeie just needs something to bust a move to and this track has popped up a lot over the last few months. Although I'm not a fan of the song, I think the video is AMAZING! I love that already Opeie has his own style and taste in music. He's got the most amazing personality and is an absolute joy to be around every day.

Rock on ya'll!

" speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues"

Slight panic this week, half an hour before heading out for Opeie's dance class, the theme was 'trees and flowers' and we hadn't had our usual craft session in preparation. So quickly I raided the craft draw looking for inspiration. Luckily the mention of the word 'trees' meant Opeie shouted out 'I am the Lorax I speak for the trees', it was all the inspiration I needed.

Not my finest of craft activities but with half an hour to complete, it didn't turn out to bad and most importantly it put a smile on Opeie's face.

"Big F little f, F..f..F. Four fluffy feathers on a Fiffer-feffer-feff"

Despite the lengths we go to to teach Opeie about letters and numbers sometimes I think he's a little to young to fully understand. Other times though he surprises me and completely blows me away with what he's picked up. Last week at the end of Opeie's music class, Julie revealed the theme for this week, the letter 'F' and as she reeled off some relevant words Opeie turned to me quite to the point and said 'Like Fox or Feet!'. It really did take me by surprise but it's so nice to know that what we are teaching him is sticking.

So yesterday morning's craft session was all about the letter 'F' and it was clear from the get go that we would be attending Clatterbugs this week as Foxes. If you've read the blog before then you'll know that the Fox makes a regular appearance with our 'fox hunting' posts where we take photos of foxes we spot while out and about. We do own a fox mask that we bought a while back but it's more fun to create something ourselves.

We managed to find all the material we needed to create our masterpieces so we got to it. Opeie's been really unwell this weekend so the activity was partly to try and take his mind off feeling grotty. The Poor little soldier sniffed and coughed his was through our craft session but he was having fun. 

We were making one each, so we made mine which was really simple and then I gave Opeie the option of any famous foxes he might want to create, fox in socks, fantastic mr fox, tails (from sonic), Robin Hood, Mr Todd, but in the end he went for Swiper the fox from Dora the explorer.

Our masks were really quick to make which they needed to be because poorly Opeie soon lost motivation and just wanted to have a cuddle on the sofa with mommy and who could blame him, it's exactly where I wanted to be too.

Sadly Opeie was to poorly to show off his cunning creations this morning so we stayed in the warm with the promise of a foxy dance later when he's feeling up to it. We'll just have to get working on next weeks theme instead.

"Excuse me sir, but might I inquire as to what's going on? "

We always have a good dance when we're in the car, music is a big thing with me and Mrs M, it was our love of music and similar taste that brought us together. We both have quite eclectic taste and we try to introduce lots of different kinds of music to the boys. Today while driving to pick Mrs M up from work we were having our usual 'on the go dance contest' when Opeie started robot dancing, me and Seth obviously saw that as our cue to shake or steel hinges too. It got us on to the conversation of 'what is the best song to do the robot too?" a question that probably crops up daily for most families, right?

We all decided to take it in turns to pick a track and bust a move, Opeie was first up with:

I'm not a big fan of Will i am but i still let my rusty bolts creek, Seth chose something a little more up my street but i had a pretty good idea what he was going to choose. Great song choice Seth:

 And me? well there's only one sure fire track to get me throwing shapes that C3PO would be jealous of:

It doesn't matter where you are or where your going, there's always time to squeeze in a little dance, me and Mrs M can be found quite regularly having a mini dance off when the boys have gone to bed, its great exercise and a great way to shake off the stresses of the day.

If any of you guys can think of another dance I'm sure we could come up with a mini track list to compliment it.