Off to Africa...

Nikki is a huge fan of Andy's Wild Adventures on cbeebies. He doesn't get much TV, since I avoid most of the nonsense programs they seem to think toddlers enjoy and stick to dvds - often in other languages.

This program, despite the annoying theme music and humour, is usually watched multiple times every day. The core 5-7 minutes is a very informative nature program with real footage of the animals in their natural habitat. Nikki can't get enough.

Recently, he has been going to Africa in his car (my laundry basket) several times a day. He put an empty loo roll tube on his wrist for the 'gizmo' Andy uses, which we later decorated with a couple of bits of coloured paper to give it a screen and a button. We turned another empty tube into a telescope.

His imagination has been going wild - he has spent a lot of time swimming with hippos, watching elephants, playing with baboons...

An Olympic Day Out

I applied for tickets to the Olympics when they first came out, but wasn't given any. Once it was possible to actually buy any tickets, the prices had tripled and the cheapest (about £60/seat if I remember rightly) were gone in a flash. When I looked to buy for events that I would have enjoyed watching, the cheapest available tickets were £170! Not a chance!

It turns out that it was probably for the best - security checks meant you had to be there 2 hours before the time slot for your ticket. It would have been a very long and expensive day out.

We decided to go to one of the free events - the women's marathon swim in Hyde Park. For the cost of the train fare and a picnic lunch, we got to experience a little bit of the atmosphere and see GB miss out on a medal by less than a second. 

The night before, I made Nikki a new cape. The old felt one is going to be recycled, since it is really too hot and heavy to wear for the designed purpose of running around in. So, in a fit of patriotism, I made this:

Team GB Cape

What made it a peaceful and enjoyable day out for all is that Nicholas was not confined to a seat for the 2 hour race - my mum kept our spot and watched the race and we ran in the park with Uncle Harry until the swimmers were getting near, returning to watch them go past (the only bit Nikki was interested in).

Chasing Uncle Harry in Hyde Park

We went into the venue shop in the park and met one of the mascots.

 We also got to see a gold medal, as one of our rowers was doing a photo signing - unfortunately we were just behind the last people allowed to actually meet him.

Before we went home, we had to check out the gold post box in Westminster. 

 

Superhero Cape

For the street party on Saturday, I decided Nikki needed something patriotic to wear... on Friday night!

This is what I whipped up for him:

I wrote in more detail about how I made it here.

Little Tiger

To celebrate World Book Day, there was face painting at playgroup today. Nikki chose to be a tiger and was incredibly patient while he was being made up. Unfortunately I forgot my camera, so of course he rubbed his eye on the way home and smeared the paint off his cheek. You can get the idea, though!

Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!