"Cunning... is but the low mimic of wisdom."

This week i heard the postman walking up the path and the sound of a Graze box hitting the floor, We have a few delivered throughout the month as the boys love them and they are something a little more interesting for them to munch on. This weeks box though did more than fill a void between meals. I opened the box and instantly, all the inspiration i needed for our next Fox hunting blog post.

As with all the other Foxy posts weve been collecting pictures of the foxes we find for the last month or so and they seem to pop up all over the place.

At a recent trip to our friend Chris', the word 'Fox' was even used in a game of Scrabble...

Charity shops have been a great resource on this fox hunt with Fox related books and cuddly toys popping up regulary. We brought a great book from a charity shop a few weeks back and inside was a fox on a skateboard, very fitting i thought.

On another trip to our friend Chris' house we popped into a cute little fabric shop, Mrs M being the textile enthusiast did a little shopping for ric rak and other fun bits and i investigated with the boys and we found this lovely fox fabric.

And as we rounded the corner after leaving we spotted a window display with Fox hooks and fox book ends. I wonder what our house would look like if i brought all these fox items we find.

On the day that me and Opeie went out adventuring and wrote our Gruffalo post, Opeie spotted these foxes in the gardening section and shouted 'Fox' really loud when he saw them.

Ive walked past this building loads of times but it wasn't till a week or so ago that i realised that our local services company had a fox for their logo, there's no escaping our sly friend.

While making a bee line for the Lego at the toy shop, Seth spotted Mr Todd staring back at us and shouted 'Fox'. Every time i hear the shout it makes me chuckle that our family fox hunt has become such a big thing, but i love that we have these little personal games that keep us entertained.

Mrs M is a stationary geek so while we were in Paperchase buying some fun bits for Mrs M's mothers day gifts i again heard that load shout from up on my shoulders 'Fox', I'm sure people think were mad but i love it, maybe we are a touch crazy.

And last but not least a wheelie bin, It was actually the first fox we found after our last fox post but as its so glamorous i thought i would leave it till last for you all to enjoy.

Well that was the last until we just had a busy foxy two weeks, so here's the update:

Our recent trip to London secured us four fox sightings at the Museum of childhood...

...and a very cute fox card off Mrs M.

I hate being stuck in traffic but last week it worked out to our advantage when a Fox pulled up along side us. Its these chance sightings that really make this game fun.

I imagine Opeie to end up like that little boy from You've got mail "can you spell cat?" "F..O..X!". While Seth was at one of his medical appointments a couple of weeks back, me and Opeie went adventuring and found our biggest Fox to date...

Fox on a beer bottle a second helping from those fox lovers at graze box and that definitely brings us to the end of what i think is our 5th fox hunt, were getting quite good at this. Until next time you sly lot.

"It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle."

I love it when a new product is released that changes the balance of things in the market or makes it clear that they are there to topple their big named rivals. After being asked to review the new BOOMco Twisted Spinner and giving it a try Ive a feeling that Nerf are in panic mode. Having two boys the need for running about and shooting things at each other was bound to come up at some point. We had always bought Nerf because they monopolised the market. That was until we bought one of the larger guns last year and all it did was chew up and destroy the darts. Absolutely no fear of this happening though with BOOMco.

This product is AMAZING! I knew it from the moment we opened the packaging and fired the first dart as it's got so much power that the dart vanished and we've not seen it since, despite looking Everywhere. The push pull handle to load and fire is far superior to anything else we've played with from a blaster. As I said before the power in the blaster really shocked us so goggles whilst playing is a must. It wasn't until we got outside and played though that we realised the true potential of this great new product.

Last weekend we decided to take the blaster out with us on a picnic with friends and having a huge amount of space meant that we could really see what the blaster was capable of. I'd love to say the boys really enjoyed playing with it but play seemed to be dominated by us over excited adults, especially our friends Chris and Katie who were really getting in to playing with the boys.

The range on the box says up to 70ft and honestly I don't think that was far off the distance we fired it so clearly we were all very impressed. 

I'd have loved to have had another three that day as the quick loading and speedy multiple fire would be great for battle. But while one of us took aim the rest of us waited patiently for a chance to attack.

If blasters and play combat are your thing there really is no product better or at least not one that we've found. Even though the design, load/reload speed and smooth firing are exceptional the thing that really blew me away but is also still confusing me is the stickiness of the smart stick darts to the targets provided. The darts arnt sticky at all yet there is some extreme attraction to whatever material the targets are made from which has been awesome for target practise, again I would love to try out a few of these in a play combat kind of environment to see the targets on the side of the blaster put to their full use.

BOOMco seem to be popping up everywhere at the moment and are at the front of the store in all of our local toy stores and supermarket toy aisles. Clearly the marketing team are doing a great job with this exciting new release and all though many new products come and go once these blasters are played with you're hooked. Effortless and fun play, you won't hear a single negative word said by us. BOOMco are here to stay.

Sadly the boys were left thinking 'when is it our go?'

"Climbing is unadulterated hard labor. The only real pleasure is the satisfaction of going where no man has been before and where few can follow."

Opeie has been so under the weather this weekend so we've barely left the house for the last three days. This afternoon though Opeie decided he wanted a nap late afternoon and me and Seth saw that as a great chance to throw his skateboard and pads in the boot and head over to the park to practise Seth's board skills. I assumed this evenings post was going to be about skateboarding but something else took over this afternoon. We did get a little skate in, but the board and pads soon got left on the floor so that Seth could work on something else...

Since our walk in the woods last week and Seth's failed attempt at climbing a tree he was desperate to give it another try. We were in Ironbridge park and there are some great trees for climbing so it was the perfect spot to give it another go. I loved climbing trees when i was younger so there was no shortage of stories to tell Seth while we climbed from branch to branch. Because of Seth's muscles i need to be so much more careful when doing things like this but as far as I'm concerned as long as he is safe and comfortable i just let him get on with it. Seth always tells me when hes had enough or his legs start to hurt and then he just gets on my back and i carry him to the car. Today we made the most of the time we had just me and him, we can't really do these sorts of things with Opeie at the moment so it was a nice change...

Seth was doing great today but it wasn't long though before he needed to rest his legs so he jumped on my back and we headed back to the car, we hadn't quite had our fill of climbing though so on the way home we made a brief stop at Apley woods to see if our den in the woods was still standing (which shockingly it was) and also to see if there was any trees to shimmy up...

yes the 80's have returned, after our recent visit to see our friends Sam and Jamie sweatbands have become to recent 'must have' with the boys???... Thanks Jamie!

  

we didnt stay long and as we got in the car to head home i recieved a text from Mrs M to let me know that her and Opeie were having a bath (extra adventure time for me and Seth), so we made a slight detour and went investigating in a rapeseed field before heading home for tea, i knew it would be a great chance to get some colourful pictures. It was a great unexpected couple of hours in the sunshine and it was so lovely to hear Seth say 'This is so nice spending a little time just the two of us'.

All celebrate the zombie resurrection..... with excessive amounts of chocolate!!

It seems the older I get the more cynical I get with it. I'm pretty laid back most of the time but certain times during the year this side of me really comes out and this weekend is one of them. I guess you could say I'm a bit of an Easter Scrooge, I love the long weekend, the chance to catch up with friends and relax but as I checked my Facebook account yesterday i was greeted with an array of images of children with excessive amounts of chocolate. The yearly Facebook Easter competition had begun and it was absolutely ridiculous. 'Look how many Easter eggs my child has got' each status was screaming out. Surprisingly I didn't check it again yesterday as the first viewing had enraged me. Probably a little over the top I know but I just think that much chocolate despite being unhealthy is also unnecessary. And I just couldn't let it go, I could have easily gone on a commenting rampage but it was probably a good job I didn't.

Despite my eggstremely over the top Easter rage (haha), We did celebrate zombie resurrection Sunday today instead but without making a huge deal about chocolate and junk. Seth has been going on about a Lego kit for quite sometime, no longer available to buy in the shops so I searched eBay for it in the hope I could find it at a reasonable price. I did track it down for roughly the price it was sold for minus the box and instructions and when it arrived I was debating how to wrap it up for the boys.

We have an abundance of empty plastic eggs from Opeies 'surprise eggs' obsession in the house so as there was no box for the kit I split the Lego pieces into some of the eggs so that we could have a Lego themed egg hunt. It was a bit depressing to see £40 of Lego kit distributed in to 9  half filled small plastic eggs but I knew the boys would love the sentiment and of course the treats inside.

And to go with each egg a rhyming clue leading to the next. Seth being Seth guessed what kit it was by egg 3 but that just made the hunt more exciting because i had left the minifigures until last and he knew exactly who it was he was looking for.

At the end of the hunt there was another surprise, while many children were stuffing their faces yesterday me and Opeie were busy building our next large Lego build as part of the Easter fun. I didn't manage to complete it due to Opeie coming down with chickenpox and needing cuddles so i will write a post about it when it is complete but there maybe a slight clue in the picture below. The Lego Easter egg hunt spurred on a morning of Lego building which was great as Mrs M and Opeie were feeling a little fragile. Not the greatest of Easter weekends over all but as always i surrounded myself with some of the people i care about the most. 

Happy Easter everyone.

 

"And I'm stone in the eyes of your foolishness"

Children can say some strange things sometimes, the boys can come out with all sorts of jibberish when they are playing which can be quite entertaining at times. Despite the crazyness i think that a lot of the things that children say (especially younger children) is ignored and not given the attention it deserves. Both myself and Mrs M are firm believers in getting to the bottom of what Opeie is trying to say no matter how long it takes even if at times it can be quite frustrating. The great thing about being patient and paying attention to what your child is trying to say is that most of the time you will be rewarded by just how intelligent your little one is. Remember the plaster on the wall post?.

Today while heading out for an afternoon in the sun with friends, Mrs M, doing her usual car DJiing asked what we wanted to listen to. Opeie shouted out from the back "on the book". We had absolutely no idea what he was talking about but he was adamant that he wanted to listen to 'on a book'. Feeling a little frustrated with us not knowing the song and asking him if he can sing it to us he then came out with "Heart grows", another piece to this musical puzzle it seemed we would never crack. The only clue we could understand was "screamy rock music". This clue would have probably eluded most people but to us 'screamy rock music' means 'Funeral for a friend' which the boys had been rocking out to earlier in the week.

not getting anywhere with Opeie's clues Mrs M decided to Google the few words we had and surprisingly there it was, I'll be honest I was shocked that we worked it out but again pleasantly surprised at just how much our clever little three year old takes in. I'm not to sure that Mrs M is pleased at the direction the boys music taste is going this week but I think it's important for them to be introduced to music from all genres as music is such a big thing for me and Mrs M.

"on the book" was actually "I'm nothing more than a line in your book"

"heart grows" was "heart breaks and spills"

And the song...

Listen to your children, they are a lot more interesting than you think and are a great source of entertainment!

"One way to get the most out of life is to look upon it as an adventure."

Seth is always letting us know of little things he wants to do, things he wants to create or places he'd like to go. We do our best to fully indulge him when he has these ideas and today's trip to Apley woods ticked another one of those things off his ever growing list. He's become a big fan of Bear Grylls and his need for exciting exploits is growing stronger by the day. So as we investigated the woods today the surrounding area kick started our sense of adventure.

Seth doesn't like walking on the path he prefers to be in the thick of the woods which I love. There was Huge branches everywhere and before we knew it we were building a shack in the woods to protect us from the elements

Seths motivation and excitement for this sort of thing is infectious and watching Opeie get involved copying everything his big brother does is adorable. It was great watching them dragging big branches around.

Our den in the woods started to take shape pretty quickly and Seth was clearly in his element. Seth guided us all the way  explaining that we needed branches with leaves on to go on top so that we were more protected from any rain that might be coming our way. Seth Grylls and little bear were both really proud of what they achieved and rightly so it was a great den.

We then headed off further into the woods when something strange happened. A lady stopped me me and said 'I know you, I read your blog' which I thought was amazing. I always wonder who's reading and to be stopped by someone was really nice so hi Jo and Nerys, if you're reading this it was really nice meeting you. 

Seth fancied having a go at climbing trees but he really struggled bless him so instead I lifted him up on to a tree so he could get a feel for being off the floor. We've got some work to do if the wants to be like his idol.

On the way back to the car Seth wanted to swing by the den to see if anyone was playing in it and also wanted to take a picture himself of his achievement. I think he was feeling pretty proud of what he had accomplished.

As he had the camera in his hand and Opeie as always was happy just standing next to his big brother and holding his hand I took the chance to balance up a fallen tree and gave Seth the chance to use his creative flair with my phone.

Apparently this was Seths action shot.

By the time we had got back to the car we had only been out two hours, yet we had crammed all that adventuring in. I think we'll head there again next week to see if our den had withstood the weather or to see if it is now home to a new group of fellow adventure seekers.