it's that lady on my knickers

"Mummy! Look! It's that lady on your knickers!"
(she means WonderWoman. I have WonderWoman pants.)
Yesterday was a Dungeons and Dragons/ Lego day. I built a Lego spacecraft of some kind, we built a Megabloks Moshi Monster thing (Mega Bloks are pretty crappy compared to Lego, but it's a cute kit, and was on special offer) and we put together Bee's new Lego Darth Vader watch. She's been periodically announcing that it's "Darth Vader one o'clock" or "Darth Vader past three" all day.

I also made my little mini At-At (I have resigned myself to the fact that I'll probably never own THE Lego At-At) and I am actually mega excited right now, because my wonderful lovely Bestest has bought me the Lego VW Camper I've been mooning over for the last 18 months! Eeeek!!! I'm a very lucky girl indeed.

And today, we've been finishing off our rocks for the February Love Project, and I released my first one into the wild, tonight. Wonder if it'll still be there in the morning?

Bee: Mummy, will you get me a Valentine's card for Love Day?

Me: Yes, of course. I always do, because I love you.

Bee: Great. So I'd like a Darth Maul one please. But it has to be a Love Day card which says Valentines on it, and a picture of Darth Maul, OK?

    This random cat totally photobombed my origami swan photo.

Getting drunk on rum and attempting to follow complicated YouTube origami tutorials at 2am is not recommended. You know, just for the record. I used this tutorial for the awesome heart-bat. It probably would have turned out better without the rum, but the attempt may have been less amusing.

making snakes, starting projects, and spending a fortune in the oxfam bookshop

GIANT CONNECT 4!!! And the discs look like massive fruit polos!! We were quite excited by this.

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Today, we were making snakes at home-ed group, in honour of the new Chinese year of the snake. We did paper spiral snakes, and cuddly toy snakes made from old socks. Bee's creation was epic! She even did most of the sewing herself (I started her off and tied the knots).

We then missed our bus home - as we do nearly every week - so we had a mooch around the local charity shops and I accidentally bought about a million books in Oxfam. So many books, in fact, that we had to buy a cheap overnight-bag-trolley thingummy from another charity shop because I realised we couldn't actually carry them all home!

I also visited a (very overpriced) craft shop to buy supplies for my new project. I think I'm going to start with my favourite character: Han Solo. I am slightly intimidated by the scale of the project (14 characters to make!!) but if I don't make a start, then I'm guaranteed to fail!

And we had lunch in the cafe we often stop in (where a very sweet young man always flirts with me, which I enjoy because it reminds me that I'm young!) and read some of the new books together. Bee's reading has improved considerably since last week, despite not having done any at all... not even Reading Eggs!




We've been so busy being sociable, lately, that we've only really had time for bedtime stories, which are usually "big books" that I read *to* her, rather than "little books" she practices reading with me.

I was reminded of an important part of the learning process, which my Bestest refers to as "percolation". Whenever Bee learns something new - or goes through an intense period of focus on learning a new skill - she'll suddenly back off from it completely (and sometimes claims she doesn't know how to do whatever it is at all) and turn her attention to something else. During this period, all the new ideas and skills gently settle-in and fall into place, in the background of her mind.

Then, after a certain period of time, she'll surprise me by having it all worked out! Whatever skill or idea it was has settled down, put out roots, and found some context. It's germinated.

Minds are mysterious and awesome treasure-troves, aren't they? Though admittedly mine is mostly full of Lego, unicorns, and boobies.

love bats

I love this idea for Valentine's Day!

three moments

We made the paper bird at home-ed group. Cute, isn't he?

Here are a few other nice paper bird ideas I found...
All Things Paper
Spoonful
Fabewelous (a bit more complex!)