Quick Wit

Scene: TV dinner -The KFC "the pigeons called" ad comes on...

Lion turns to Dragon and announces "Dragon, the pigeons called, they want their dinner back".  Dragon doesn't skip a beat..."Lion, the pigs called, they want their head back".  I just about snorted my dinner out my nose.  That kid is developing a quick wit which is getting him into a lot of trouble.  It's hard to explain to a 4 year old when it is "quick wit" and when it is "smart mouthing".  For instance, if you are getting in trouble and you give one of your jibes to your mother... that'll get you in a whole lot of trouble.  If you are mucking around with your brother exchanging good natured barbs... all's fair.

Now for a little "Out & About with Clan Mctavish"

It comforts me that we are not the only family that does this with cheerios...

He had a whole row, this was the only one he didn't find to pull back off

Although having the ladies sitting in front of us at church giggling at my kids as I whisper sharply to them "DON'T lick'n'stick, just eat them" was not one of our finer family moments.

Don't be fooled.  He's not really this civilised.

While we were out he decided to be like all the trendies and sit and read his book at the cafe with his snacks, babycino and his water.  He fitted right in, he was just with his uncool parents, a major flaw in his social image.

"oof, oof"

Lion found a puddle of water on one of the seats outside his classroom and started blowing it towards the end of the seat to watch it drain off... Monkey misunderstood what was going on and started woofing and slurping the water up.  I am running with the theory that the seats were really clean from all the rain that we've had lately... right?

Hugging the dinosaurs at the "Zoo"

We took a little trip to the Zoo, otherwise known as the Museum of Tropical Queensland (MTQ) with our friends.  The kids love it, it's all very hands on and although some of the exhibits have been there since forever, the kids see it all as new every time.

This was the ONLY was Monkey would get close to this dino.

It's "the zoo with the dinosaurs in it" to my kids and that is always a thrill.  There is also a fantastic display of the HMS Pandora and general North Queensland displays of wildlife and stuff.

We HAVE to take this photo every time.

Dragon & Monkey with the fantastic introduction to the A is for Animals exhibition

The current attraction is A is for Animals, showcasing animals involvement in wars (past and present).  I loved it!  I particularly loved the artworks and the photography on display but the kids liked the more interactive bits with the cockatoo that talked to you and the puzzles and games where they could get hands-on.

Monkey tried very hard to dress himself, he seemed satisfied with this result.

Lion with his sculpture of a man wearing a kilt.

Sunday School had an art gallery exhibition on Sunday. They had been learning about Creation and we went to see the creations that they had made.

Lion with his painting of... I'll have to check with him again, I can't remember.

Dragon (standing on a chair) with his painting of a desert with a red squiggly road and a sunset and a tree.

Dragon's sculpture of Monkey

Extreme Lounge Room Sports

Lion has often said he wants to be a monster truck driver but I'm getting worried when the monster truck is part of the line up and a TRAIN is doing the jumping.  I don't think there was a proper risk assessment for this jump.

My plan is to be back blogging more often (than even BEFORE I was sick) so I don't have to do massive catch ups on our life like this... but I think it's going to take me a while to get back into any sort of pattern.  I am setting aside some time each day to write the Yasi story but because I'm not writing it in order it's making it hard to post the next bit but I'll get there... I promise!

Sunday Snapshot

This week was fun.  We had a blast playing at a new playground, we went to the aquarium, we did lots of stuff but before I cover any of that I want to head waaaay back here... June 2nd, Dragon started displaying minor serial killer tendencies... I meant to come back to that because it was kinda cute... in a potential serial killer way.  He was enjoying the freedom of being able to play with his brothers big boy Lego all by himself and not being subjected to the rules of the all-powerful-Lego-lord (APLL. Okay, it's not what Lion calls himself but it's the message he sends).  I think the most passionate the APLL gets about any of his rules is when they involve his minifigs... which head goes with which body, what hat/helmet/hair they wear, how many you may play with at a time.  Dragon was mixing and matching to his hearts content.  Then he appeared beside me.  "Hey, Mum! Wanna see my c'lecshun?" "uh, yeah, okay..."

Yep, he had beheaded a whole bunch of minifigs and put their heads in a tiny little Tupperware keyring.  His C'lecshun.  That's totally normal, right? All kids collect the heads of they prey at some point in their lives... right?

*****

Like I said, our week was busy.  We started with a public holiday for the local show and spent that searching for and buying a new TV a little sooner than we had intended (ours was analogue and the analogue signal is switched of here next year so we figured we had time... but we got too used to the digital channels we got through the set top box and when that packed it in we figured we might as well move to digital sooner rather than later).  The next day the boys and I roped in a girl from church to help us get along to a special exhibit at the Museum...

Miss A was my extra set of eyes, ears, arms to help me tackle school holidays at MTQ.  That dinosaur in the picture above is always there, our local museum has a standing exhibit about our local dinosaurs but for these holidays they did a special hands on one for the kids.  There were dress ups...

Monkey thought the pith helmet was his style.. as long as you didn't try to put it on his head, it is a hat after all and he is NOT a  fan of hats.

They had a BIG pit where you could dress up and pretend to dig for dinosaur bones...

Lion is pointing on his chart to the bone he has unearthed from the pit of rubber sand.  I think he could have played here all day but one of the staff came in and made the call that something was about to happen...

This guy came out for a stroll around.  There is a man inside him, standing upright in his midsection with his legs strapped to the dino's legs... knowing that, being able to see the legs, still did not help Dragon feel at ALL comfortable with the idea of a massive dinosaur roaming the museum.  So he cuddled me.  Now there were STACKS of kids there who would have been thrilled to have the dino come really close, most just got to pat it stretching out over the ropes.

The dino came over to Dragon and I and moved in close... real close...

So close that I had to duck down so that I didn't get hit.  Then the dino put his face to my face and opened his mouth and roared!  Dragon was just a little freaked out by that.  Sam was a bit proud of his mum for standing up to the massive dinosaur.

We also did all the usual stuff like go into the usual hands on section and put Dragon's head on a fruit platter...

Eventually we dragged the kids away from there and took them to the classiest Scottish restaurant I know of.

I don't remember Wednesday, I am sure it happened... I just don't remember what we did.

Thursday we met up with some friends at a newly re-opened park.  It was ripe with photo ops... except for the two daycare centres that turned up... and the two playgroups that were there... plus the twelve kids my two friends and I were there with.  This park was so great that we will be going back with less kids and a camera to have some fun.  My sweet land Dragon found a water Dragon to play with...

There were castles to be protected...

I told him to look mean... instead he went for grumpy/bored.  Still he's the cutest castle guard I've seen!

Then there was this swing...

That's my little Lion in the middle...

And that's him upside down in the middle... I was kind of relieved he was wedged in between two older girls.

So, that was our morning at the park.

One other thing I caught on camera this week was my Monkey playing happily by himself...

And removing every single tissue from the box.  Hey, I got 5 minutes of quiet as he 'played' happily.

Sorry for the dodgy photos, lots are from my phone because I let the camera batteries die and didn't have any fresh ones charged.  We went for quantity over quality for our photos this week ☺

MTQ

This was weeks ago (16/4/08) but the silly computer lost it, it's formatting was all silly, and it just was annoying me. It is now found, sort of fixed and ready to read!

Off we strolled to MTQ today. We had built it up for Lion that we were going to see the spider exhibit that we thought was running. We got there and I asked the girl at the counter and it was only for the week of the school holidays. What about the southerners that come up north for their holidays??? I am sure they want to know what sort of creepy crawlies are under their motel room beds. Oh well, we had also promised dinosaurs and mummy McT knew that there would always be dinosaurs. (They are the same dinosaurs that were there when she was little)


















First thing we did was put the kids in shackles. That kept them out of trouble and we quite enjoyed our quiet stroll around the museum.

Unfortunately that isn’t how it works and they just pulled their heads out of the holes and followed us ran off. Although they do have two places where you can try out the realistic leg irons and neither of them would be in that. Perhaps they really did think that we would just leave them there.























Lion was a little nervous pretending to feed the hypsolophodontid dinosaur, just wait lion, they get bigger…


















He was willing to give this one a hug.



















Dragon would give it a quick pat on the head and then run off again, it was bigger than him after all.



















Then they got even bigger…



















Lion didn’t want to go anywhere near this one for the photo, it is suspended over one section of the museum with a viewing platform on the next level. Wolf told Lion to say “No dino, you can’t eat me!” Dragon started waggling his chubby little finger at the dinosaur saying “No, no, no, no” Lion could only point, and he didn’t want to stick his finger out too far just in case the dinosaur didn’t listen to him.

Then we went and watched the demonstration of one of the Bounty guns being fired. Wolf got to help, he was the guy that packed everything down tight. He got to wear a fetching red tie around his head and received a certificate. Lion was a little wary of the cannon and wouldn’t sit in the front row even though we were the first there and refused to get up with the cannon for a photo so mummy had to hold him while one of the lovely volunteers took a photo of all of us. Dragon spent the whole performance desperate to get up on the stage to help Wolf.











































As with all the best museums there is heaps of stuff for the kids to touch and feel and destroy play with so they found Wolf’s likeness immortalized forever,
























Lion held the world in the palms of his hands (we got a photo with him looking at the camera and pointing to Australia but I thought this one was more interesting)






















We put their heads on a platter, we tested how fast we can all throw balls, mummy and Lion did some harmonograph drawings, we explored the rainforest up close, we went through a suburban scene and found snakes and spiders and bugs and butterflies and birds and frogs. We had a great time, we left feeling VERY tired and we don’t have to have nightmares from seeing too many great big horrible spiders.

What a day!