Walking with Dinosaurs - The Arena Spectacular

At the weekend, we were lucky enough to be able to take Harry (aged 4) to watch Walking With Dinosaurs - The Arena Spectacular at Birmingham NIA. Originally we had intended to take Mia as well (nearly 2), but fortunately some willing babysitters meant that we were able to enjoy the show without worrying about a fidgety toddler!

I was still a little unsure about taking Harry. I was aware that the show could be quite intense, and I was a bit worried as to how he might react. Fortunately my misgivings were completely unfounded, and Harry absolutely loved it, as did Ram and I.

Walking With Dinosaurs - The Arena Spectacular is based upon the BBC television series. The arena show originated in Australia in 2007 and has played across the world since. An actor playing the part of a paleontologist takes the audience through a 200 million year history of the Earth, covering the Cretaceous, Jurassic and Triassic periods. You are introduced to the different environments in each period, the climate, the vegetation, and of course the dinosaurs.

The show features ten large dinosaurs, five suit dinosaurs and five baby dinosaur puppets. The dinosaurs are life size, and some of them really are enormous. Having the narrator on stage at the same time really helps to show the scale.

I was absolutely amazed at the spectacular appearance of the dinosaurs. They roam around the stage in such a lifelike fashion. Although several do fight, there is very little real violence and it's usually more about posturing. There are also some touching moments of tenderness between mother and baby dinosaurs. The show is aimed at families, and even when the great T-Rex makes an appearance there is some humour there to dilute the dramatic tension.

The staging of the show really is fantastic. I loved watching the Pterodactyl swoop through the sky, and it was fascinating to watch the smaller suit dinosaurs darting about. The scenery, although simple, really brought the different periods to life - from stark rocky landscapes to lush vegetation. The narration was perfectly pitched, being both informative and yet still simple enough for children to understand. Harry loved learning some new facts about his favourite dinosaurs, and repeating them back to us. There was a fair amount of chatter in the audience, but that didn't impact upon the show (it was definitely loud enough to drown out any audience noise) and in my eyes was a reflection of just how much people were enjoying it.

I would say that as advertised the show is suitable for children aged three and up. It's not just that it's a bit noisy and intense (which it is!) but young children don't always have the attention span or the interest to keep them going for even the short periods between actually seeing the dinosaurs. There were plenty of children in the audience from around Harry's age, and they were all enjoying it. Free earplugs for children are available upon request.

The show is expensive to stage, and this is reflected in the ticket prices. We sat fairly near the front, but plenty of cheaper tickets are available and I would imagine that the view from higher up would be just as spectacular. There are also video screens showing details in close-up. The show lasts about an hour and a half with an interval.

We received complimentary press tickets for the show.

Felt name picture - Harry

It seems like a very long time ago that I blogged about the felt name picture that I made for Mia. I was (and still am) very proud of it, and it sits on her windowsill. As I wrote in that post, one of my next projects was to make a felt name picture for Harry too. I actually made the felt letters at the time, and then they and the blank frame ended up together in a plastic project bag and were forgotten about. I found them again when I was looking for a frame for my washi tape frame project, and it was only a quick job to finish off the entire name picture.

As I mentioned in the washi tape frame post, underneath it's just a cheap wooden frame from Ikea (Ram). Instead of glass it has thick plastic, which is obviously better when I'm making something for the children's rooms. The letters are cut out from felt and sewn together. I chose a font that I liked in Word (in this case emboldened Bookman Old Style, which is the font that I use in pictures on this blog) and brought them up on the screen in the size that I wanted, then traced through onto paper to make a template to cut around. Cutting out the letters was rather fiddly, you do need some very sharp scissors.


Then the letters are just glued to a plain cotton background fabric and inserted inside the frame. I'm really pleased with how it turned out, perhaps it does look a little busy but it's bright and cheerful and Harry loves it. I'm so glad that I finally got round to finishing it for him!

Here is the felt name frame that I made for Mia:

The walk to pre-school

In January Harry started a new pre-school. His old one was moving sites, and it made sense to move him to one nearer our house, where he will meet children that he will be going to school with.

It's about a mile away, and every day since he started there we have walked in, or rather he goes on his scooter while I push Mia in the pushchair. Now that the clocks have changed, I've been trying to pick him up on foot as well. He's a rather reluctant walker, but when he does start school I'd like us to walk there and back, so I want to build up his stamina a bit before September.

It takes us about 20 minutes to get there, I make him jump off the scooter for the last bit along a main road. I'm really enjoying these walks. Because Mia is in the pushchair she is out of the way, and she's pretty happy to just sit there (unfortunately on the way home is a different story!). It means that I get a nice opportunity to have a bit of a chat with Harry without needing to entertain Mia at the same time.

He's sometimes a bit clingy when I drop him off at pre-school, so we talk about all the fun things that he's going to do that afternoon, and what his favourite activities are. Recently we've started playing a new game, which is based on the weather that day. If it's sunny then we pretend we're walking through the desert. We've not played that one much lately, instead we've been pretending to walk through Antartica and under the sea. We talk about the things that we can see, and when we approach a road, instead of saying "are there any cars coming?" I'll ask if there are any camels, or penguins, or sharks coming.

These last few months before he starts school are passing so quickly, and it's all making me feel a bit soppy!

Coffee filter chromatography

My Dad was a chemistry teacher, and when I was little he used to take us into his classroom during the holidays to do some simple science experiments. One of my favourites was coffee filter chromatography, and remembering how much I enjoyed it I decided to have a go with Harry. Of course the science behind it went completely over his head, but he loved seeing 'what's inside felt tip pens' and keeps requesting to do it over and over!

It is so quick and easy to do, all you need are some white coffee filters (affiliate link), felt tip pens in a variety of colours and a glass of water. If your child is impatient then I'd recommend having a practice by yourself first, as some pens work better than others. In particular it's generally the darker colours that give the best results. Basically, you are separating out the different components of the ink in the felt tip pen.

Cut the coffee filters into strips as long as you can make them. Using the felt tip pen make a largish blob about halfway down. Then dip one end of the strip into the glass of water and wait for the water to soak up towards the pen mark. As the water reaches the colour it will begin to spread out and hopefully the different inks in the pen will spread out in a nice flared pattern, with the lighter colours at the top. Place it onto some kitchen roll to dry out.

You can experiment with different types of pen and try different types of marks to see which ones give the most interesting results. You could also try using several different coloured pens on the same piece of coffee filter. Here are some of our prettiest papers:

It's not just about losing weight...

On the 1st of January this year I started dieting. I didn't have a huge amount to lose, but since having Mia the weight had been gradually creeping on. I used a calorie counting app on my phone, and we re-joined the gym. By sticking strictly to my daily calorie limit, the weight came off steadily and fairly rapidly. I'm not going to go into the figures as weight is so individual, but about a month ago I reached my goal weight. I lost around 11lbs, returning to the weight that I was before having children. As a bonus, all that time at the gym means that I've also pretty much regained my pre-baby fitness levels.

My husband has been dieting too and he's also doing really well, he's now firmly below his own goal weight. As part of our new healthy eating regime I cut down our portions at dinner, took out a lot of the extra cheese that I use in cooking, and stopped doing so much baking and evening snacking.

It's brilliant, and I'm so happy that I've lost the weight. I am definitely slimmer, I can fit back into clothes that I had pushed to the back of the wardrobe, and I've even braved the gym in leggings. I don't think I'll ever lose my wobbly tummy though, unfortunately between the two children my poor old stomach muscles were  left pretty battered!

But now I think the really hard bit has begun- maintaining the weight that I am now. I've already started eating more now that I'm not in 'diet mode' and a couple of cakes have emerged from the oven this week. Of course the more sweet things that you eat the more you crave them, and as you eat more your stomach gets larger and so you feel that you need to eat more. I know how easy it would be for me to put it all back on again.

I'm hoping that if I continue to go to the gym (I have to, it costs enough!) and keep weighing myself regularly I'll be able to keep an eye on things and cut back for a week or so if I notice the weight piling on.

How do you maintain your weight, do you have any tips for me?

Washi tape frame

I knew that it wouldn't be long before everything plain that I owned was decorated with washi tape! Next up was this washi tape covered picture frame.

After making my washi tape butterfly box I've been looking around for inspiration, and I found a plain Ikea picture frame which is part of a project which has been forgotten for a while. These Ram frames are very cheap in Ikea, I bought them a little while ago but I'm sure they were only a couple of pounds for a pack of three. They are completely unfinished though, and they only have thick plastic instead of glass.


Covering things with washi tape is very easy, because if you make a mistake you can simply pull it off and start again, even reusing the same piece of tape. You need to do a bit of planning if you are using tape with stripes on, to make sure that they stripes all go the way that you want them to. I decided that I wanted the outer edges of the frame covered with washi tape, but I didn't need the inner edges to be covered.

I used two different tapes to cover it - thicker tape with stripes and thinner plain tape. I was really pleased with it! Next was to find something to go inside the frame and it turned out to be this Felt Name Picture - Harry.

Easter Egg hunting

I have very fond memories of the Easter Egg hunts organised for us when we were little (and not so little) by my parents, and so it is definitely something that I'll be doing each year for my children.

I have decided that I won't be starting an Easter Bunny tradition; he seems to have morphed into something akin to Father Christmas, bringing not just chocolate eggs but also baskets full of presents. Instead I took the children to Asda and let Harry choose his own Easter Egg, so he is very clear where it has come from!

Because of the differences in age and ability between Harry (4) and Mia (22 months), this year I organised two Easter Egg hunts. The first was aimed more at Harry. I took all the Easter Eggs that I had for them, both from us and other family members, and made them the grand prize. Then I put together a series of clues which I hid around the house in plastic Easter Eggs leading to the eggs. Last year I drew a picture of where to find the next clue, this year I stepped it up a bit and wrote out a proper clue, things like "Is it morning yet?" which led to his Groclock, or "Socks on!" which is one of Mia's favourite phrases at the moment and led to her sock drawer. He caught on pretty quickly and loved looking for the clues.

For the second Easter Egg hunt Harry and I hid tiny chocolate eggs around his bedroom and they used small baskets which we made at toddler group to collect the eggs in. Harry was really keen to help Mia find the eggs, and he helped me to make some arrows on pieces of paper to point to where the eggs were. Of course she didn't pay much attention to the arrows, but once she realised what she was looking for she was charging about grabbing eggs, including ones from Harry's basket to his dismay!

Finally, this year I decided that there was no point sitting around and waiting in vain for someone to buy me an Easter Egg, so on our trip to Asda I treated myself to one just for me. The first time I have had my own proper Easter Egg in ages!

Did you do an Easter Egg hunt yesterday?