"I find your lack of Christmas cheer disturbing"

It's that magical time of year again, everyone is prepping for the big day and the streets and shopping centres are bringing out the baubles and glitter. As exciting as this time of year is there is also another huge event celebrating its enormous build up. Star Wars the force awakens is soon to hit the cinemas and even though I saw the excitement and crowds building up when the last 3 movies were released I'm still surprised at just how huge Star Wars is. With the two countdowns looming over us like a fully equipped Deathstar it seemed only right for someone to somehow combine the two.

There's that old joke every year about people being bought gordy Christmas jumpers that are begrudgingly worn to make a family member happy, thanks to Numskull though you can wear your Christmas jumper with style (you just need to sway that Nan or distant Aunt in the right direction), With the release of the official Star Wars Christmas jumper range. I thought I would finally get to model something for a review for once but Opeie his eyes on it as soon as it was out of the package and  informed me that he would be modeling this Christmas AT-AT jumper because its apparently a perfect fit.

Ill be looking forward to Christmas dinner even more now dressed in the height of force fashion

Star Wars not your thing? there is an awesome Dr Who Cyberman Christmas jumper too (and its on sale). For more fun Christmas jumpers check out Yellow Bulldog.

"You know us crazy kids. We'll do anything crazy to our hair."

After hitting the Micro-scooters with some serious force a few days back, we got home and Opeie removed his helmet only to be greeted by the craziest, sweatiest mess I've ever been lucky enough to witness. We do some serious whizzing about so i wasn't at all surprised to see that soggy shrubbery gracing his adorable head, especially after the lovely weather we have been having. 

The sweaty hair kick started 10 minutes of crazy hair do's before jumping in the bath...

The Wolverine:

The Gangster:

The 90s teenager:

The ......?

and Opeie's favourite, The Punk Rocker.

 

Its times like this that i really miss my own hair.

"Prepare to fire all cannons. And be alert. Where there is Kenobi, you will always find Skywalker not far behind."

With the release of Star Wars VII - The force awakens just around the corner, LEGO as expected have gone all out with their kits to compliment the movie and all its new characters. Aside from the force awakens kits they have also released a series or classic characters in the larger scale 'buildable' kits. For me personally this style of LEGO iis more of a display piece as the creative aspect and after build play is limited but for display purposes these builds are awesome to look at. Opeie loves them, having less and larger pieces means that he can build something quite large in no time at all (perfect for those younger builders that are thinking BIG.).

With Darth Vader, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jango Fett, Luke Skywalker, Commander Cody and General Grievous in the line up, the full collection would look great displayed together. Obi-Wan is fully articulated and me and the boys had lots of fun taking him through an intense yoga routine...

It's always important to warm up first!

 And Stretch!!

One to make the men cringe (note that LEGO has allowed every bit of modesty to be covered).

 Now you are just showing off!

General Grievous is not as posable as Obi-Wan but to be fair does he really need to be? what a cool looking figure. General Grievous is a pretty huge figure which we love as he towers over most of the other creations on our shelf, a real show piece.

Opeie pointed out that we had the minifigure versions of both characters so the boys had some fun battling larger versions of themselves.

 The recent LEGO Star Wars releases are shaping up to be a pretty amazing collection and with Star Wars being LEGO's best selling theme and The Force Awakens set to be the top grossing film of 2016 I think these kits will be really sought after in years to come.

 

'The product was provided by LEGO GmbH without any obligation in regards to the content of the review’

"Magnetism, as you recall from physics class, is a powerful force that causes certain items to be attracted to refrigerators."

Being able to stay home and teach Opeie is a dream come true, I craved this for so long but I used to get a little anxious at the thought of it. would I be any good?, what if I end up holding him back? and how will i know what and when to teach him? It turns out though that if you have a curious child who is always asking questions then it makes things pretty easy.

We recently watched the Postman pat movie, firstly if you are a parent that hasn't been subjected to it yet then do everything you can to steer clear, it is an utter load of tripe! But... it did give us the starting block for a fun lesson in magnetism. At the end of the film one of the characters lifts up a wrapped package and points it at a robot. us older folk would understand what it was as it was a horseshoe shaped package. Opeie was confused though and wondered how the robot knew it was a magnet and was being pulled apart by it. Cue a morning of activities all based around what manets are attracted too and how they work. 

Opeie being the clever boy that he is jumped straight in with his scientific hypothesis 'magnets stick to shiny things!'

To start with we needed a collection of items so we could determine what sorts of things actually were attracted, so we searched all the messy draws (we've all got them) and looked through the 'bits and bobs' boxes in the boys room until we had a fun selection.

We take our science very seriously at the Gifts from the Pirates HQ and made sure we documented our findings clearly. I asked Opeie to smile if he thought the item would be attracted to the magnet and pull a sad face if it wasn't going to. What do you know, Opeie was right, Golf balls aren't magnetic.

It was interesting going through all of the items and seeing that Opeie knew exactly what he was talking about. He laughed at the plastic and rubber items knowing full well that they were not going to stick to anything. When he saw something shiny coming though the excitement started...

(i used to stick my tongue out like that when i was concentrating too!)

 Our excited little scientist ploughed through all the items in no time, he was correct with most of his choices but was confused by the plastic cat ball which stuck to the magnet straight away. It seemed like everything he believed was being tested, why was this happening? After a long deliberation and a full examination of the item in question, Opeie came to the very intelligent conclusion that the magnet was in fact attracted to the small steel bell inside.

Feeling confident Opeie went off looking for places to stick his magnet but was feeling deflated when his hypothesis was shattered. While trying to connect the magnet with the carpet bars joining the flooring to the kitchen. Much to his disappointment, Not all shiny things are magnetic! Its important to be wrong at times, it keeps you grounded. I'm not sure how much that applies to a three year old though.

After we had completed our collection of items it was time for a couple of fun games. I fetched a jar of water from the kitchen and asked Opeie if he could get out a small steel marble i had dropped inside. Of course his first instinct was to dunk his hand in. I explained that he couldn't get his hand wet and he looked really confused. I slyly nudged the the magnet with my elbow and he soon got the hint...

I tried the next game using the ball and magnet through the table but we were using a children's science magnet, which wasn't very strong so i fetched one of the boys canvas' from the wall in their room. Opeie sat underneath and controlled the steel marble from below which he thought was loads of fun. After we had finished i placed a a spanner up top and attached the magnet below "wow that's cool" said and excited little scientist.

Well i may not have enjoyed the film (seriously its bloody awful) but something good came out of Postman Pat and his x-factor style singing robots, hell bent on world postal domination. Maybe if we watch some Fireman Sam we can have an activity based on the theory of relativity.

"When 900 years you reach, look as good, you will not."

 
Seth is very excited today because he is going out for dinner with William (his best friend), William's brother Matthew and their parents as a birthday celebration for Williams 6th. When these boys are at school they are inseperable and can be seen walking about with their arms round each other pretending to be a  two headed monster.

If you have been reading the blog for a while then you know that William is Star Wars mad so much so that i dont think he likes anything else and is forever filling seth's head with his Jedi nonesense. (yes I'm not really a fan, especially of the clone wars its just annoying) that in mind and views aside we still had to find a fitting present for the young padawan.

Back in June it was Matthew's birthday and Seth was invited to his party, Obviously another Star Wars Geek we brought him a 13" Chewbacca figure that i had spotted...

Chewbacca went down a treat and we were told by Matthew that it goes everywhere with him, including the toilet. (well wookiee's have to tinkle too).

Me and Seth were discussing what to get William for his birthday and we came to the decision that Chewbacca should never be left on his own so i went on a mission to get hold of his human counterpart Han Solo. After a couple of weeks of looking i found him and he began his journey to our home from the states.

Seth loved the figure so hopefully William will love it too, Seth asked if we could get him a little something else so we decided to get him some Top Trumps too (Star Wars of course). Seth loves playing Top Trumps so im sure he will be loking forward to playing with William.

we didn't have any appropriate wrapping paper so Seth told me to cut up one of his Clone Wars annuals and use the pages as in his words "I'm not really a fan of Clone Wars" (it was like music to my ears). Didn't turn out as nice as when we wrapped Matthews present but still looked great.

We were going to go shopping for a fun Star Wars card for William but Seth said he wanted to make him one so he picked a few of his figures and sat down to draw (i bet you can guess who they are).

Happy birthday Chicken Nugget we hope you have a great day with lots of great (star wars) toys.

"Why do we fall, sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up"

After a chat in the school playground one afternoon with Williams mom Vicky (Seth's best friend) we decided to start taking Seth to a Taekwondo class. We had talked about sending him to Karate or something similar mainly to boost his confidence and give him a good social life outside of school, it was an added bonus finding out that William went to this class as we knew that it would keep him motivated.

I'll be honest its not my cup of tea at all but Seth really enjoys himself while he is there and the lessons are just long enough for him not to be exhausted. Seth has a rare muscle condition and we assumed that there would only be so far that he would be able to go but Excalibur Martial Arts have been amazing at making sure that Seth is able to join in and he is not expected to do things that the other children seem to find easier.

I say all this but Seth doesn't let anything bother him. He is a very confident, happy and extremely affectionate little boy and were so proud of the way he is turning out.

Saturday is no longer called Saturday in our house it's Taekwondo day, although for a short time the weekdays didn't have names either, he just called them 'William days'. Seth loves seeing William and his brother Matthew at the classes every week and even though they get very excited and have a run about before class as soon as Mr McGinley starts talking, the look on their faces is all business.

Most weeks im quite shocked by some of the things that seth does, he kicks higher than i ever thought he could and when i show him the pictures i have taken he gets a very satisfied look upon his face. He is definitely getting more confident which is what we hoped for.

Mr McGinley's children also attend different classes of his and Mrs McGinley is always there too and their a lovely bunch and easy to talk to which is great for when your sitting watching. Seth's favorite parts so far include punching through 2 blocks that are slotted together (i think he felt pretty tough after that) and a padded man shaped suit with foot and hand straps that Mr McGinley wore while the children attacked him, after that class Seth asked me if when we got home could i masking tape pillows to my arms, legs and torso so we could scrap (I'm quite sure Mrs M wouldn't be very happy if i started strapping the bedding to myself).

A few weeks back Seth had his first grading and was really excited that he moved from his white starter belt up to a single purple stripe. The first 3 belts arn't official Taekwondo belts but i think its great that these have been introduced for the younger children as its great for easing them in to the grading system as im sure they get a lot more intense as the the grades get higher.

It turns out that Mr McGinley is also a bit of a Star Wars geek (just what i needed, more influence from the dreaded force). On a recent Summer event for the class he was dressed as Obi Wan Kenobi and guess what Seth was dressed as...

I really hope that Seth sticks with his classes as its really doing him the world of good physically and mentally. Its a great weekly add on for Seth's physio which we do with him at home every day.

I'm quite sure that Opeie will want to do what his big brother is doing when he is older and if he does then that's great although i think i would like to sway him more towards music and learning an instrument, I always thought it would be cute if we learnt one together but we'll see. 

Who knows, if Seth keeps it up maybe we'll see him at a future olympics???