"One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak."

I'm determined to take full advantage of this glorious weather we've had over the last few weeks and with Seth being off now too there's even more reason to get out and about and soak up some vitamin D. Before Mrs M left for work she put the words Carding mill valley in the boys heads so thanks to that there was nowhere else we would be. It was a beautiful morning and after packing a lunch we piled in to the car and headed to our destination (but not without grabbing the usual bulk of toys).

Being up, dressed and ready for action to drop Mrs M at the train station is great as like this morning when we arrived at Carding Mill it was quiet and peaceful, there was only one other car on the car park... Bliss! Seth wanted to head straight towards the waterfall as he had never been before, I knew it was going to be quite a struggle for Seth because of his muscles but I don't ever want to hold him back. With plenty of patience, long stops and a bit of carrying I got the boys there safely and from the look on Seth's face it was well worth the wait.

I'd never ventured any further than the waterfall but Seth being the adventurer that he is insisted we climb to the top. This part was a little more difficult and it meant I had to carry one of them up and sit them somewhere safely while I went back for the other. When we got to the top we spotted a small flat piece of land for our picnic that was next to the stream running down to the waterfall. It was such a beautiful spot and gave us the chance to cool our feet off in the cold water.

After messing around for a while, chatting about everything and nothing and hunnting for grasshoppers we headed back in the direction of the car throwing rocks in the stream a long the way. The boys were clearly shattered but we still managed to stop for a game of frisbee before heading home.

Within five minutes they were both asleep in the back of the car and because of the heat I felt like I could have joined them. I really hope this weather carries on because its beginning to shape our summer holidays perfectly.

"Cause I just done me some talking to the sun And I said I didn't like the way he got things done Sleeping on the job Oh, raindrops keep fallin' on my head Keep a-fallin"

It's week two of our year long (if i can keep it up) project inspired by our friend Chris over at Gingerjamphoto and this weekend so far has been pretty grim. We spent the morning in due to the heavy rain and our failed attempts of afternoon skateboarding were quickly stopped thanks to thunder and lightening, good old British weather.

So this weeks LEGO picture is a homage to our drizzly day. Typical though that as we left our visit from Auntie Lottie's this evening to head home the sun can out and we had a couple of hours of scorching weather, lets hope that tomorrow shows us a bit of that glorious sunshine.

Previous posts:

Week 1

"He has terrible tusks, and terrible claws, And terrible teeth in his terrible jaws."

I feel a little bad sometimes when Seth sees the things that me and Opeie have got up to on the blog. We're always together so obviously we get up to all sorts. Seth missed out on our second Gruffalo hunt a couple of weeks ago at Wyre forest so as it was the first day of the school holiday yesterday (yey), that's where we started. I'm shattered after an eventful day so I'm going to be lazy and not write much about today. Instead, a series of pictures (you can make your own story up).

 A great start to the summer holidays but it has made me realise i need get a list sorted of things to do over the holidays as there may be some wasted mornings making decisions (we can be a little indecisive at times).

"Hey, I just met you, And this is crazy, But here's my number, So call me, maybe!"

Opeie tends to have many imaginary phone conversations during the week. Usually it is Nanny Roo that gets all of the weekly gossip unbeknown to her, but yesterday it was our friend Katie who was deep in conversation while she was supposed to be at work. The conversation was hilarious and ended with a one sided in depth discussion about the time she inserted an ice-cream into our good friends bottom following a Minifigure we made of her the weekend and some photos they sent us.

Personally I think it is ridiculous to give a child a mobile phone too young but at the ripe old age of 3 I thought he was ready for the commitment. So we sat down together and discussed what it was he wanted from his new handset (it was like an immature sales pitch from a car phone warehouse representative).

What do you want it to look like?... LEGO! , colour?... Pink! (No problem). Everything is awesome!!! Okay??? Spinney things! Well I can never say he doesn't know what he wants. So I got to work while Opeie created me the handset I've been pining after for years, guess I won't be needing that upgrade now and we can keep in contact wherever we go (as long as it's in the house).

"Then toads and beetles, bees and bugs, Brother snails and sister slugs, Uncle ant and earwig aunt Clap and cheer and chant this chant."

If your children have a keen sense of adventure and curiosity and you are creative in your parenting then you can find all the fun you need on your doorstep or rather in your garden. It was another glorious day in sunny Shropshire and a chance discovery of a magnifying glass we thought we had lost a while back kick started an afternoon of discovery and learning.

I asked Opeie what he wanted to go searching for and he said 'bugs', so with magnifying glass in hand we began our investigation into the greener areas of our lovely garden. It really is amazing what you can find when you are really looking and with every different species found there was more excitement from our little adventurer.

When it comes to creepy crawlies Seth is pretty much frightened of everything but Opeie is so different, he thinks everything is 'cute' and if I catch spiders in glasses in the house he has to kiss the glass before saying his goodbyes and setting them free, so as you can imagine our bug hunt this afternoon was lots of fun.

We searched the ground, found webs high up, a colony of worker ants in one of the compost bins and some big fat slugs in the other compost bin that Opeie calls the 'smelly bin'. And with most of the things we found Opeie either picked them up or was happy to have them running over his hands. I don't want Opeie to be frightened of anything so i try and treat all bugs and spiders as friends.

Opeie was fascinated by the snails and we lay on our tummies and watched them for ages before Opeie picked them up to have a closer look. Our garden seems to be some sort of meeting ground for all of Shropshires snail community I've never seen so many hiding under all our bushes and plants.

We even spotted a very rare breed of snail too later in the day...

I try and get Opeie to do some sort of writing during each day and i try to keep the theme of the words relevant to keep him motivated, so in keeping with our mornings fun I wrote down some of the things we had found for Opeie to write also while I hung out the washing to dry. He was so proud of himself when he had finished and called me over to show off his work. His handwriting is coming along great and we 're so proud of the way he is progressing.

When mommy got home from work we continued our day of Entomology (thanks Google, hahaha) with some relevant literature. Superworm and The Hungry Caterpillar were part of today's reading, read beautifully by mommy. A fitting end to a creepy crawly yet creatively cute day of fun learning.