#ReasonsToBeCheerful Harvest Festival, Going Retro and Breeding Giants #R2BC

The autumn lurgy has struck me down for the last few days so I need to focus on the positive stuff to lift me back up! Although in some respects being forced to take it easy is positive thing...
1) Harvest Festival
For the first time since my son changed schools I made it to his harvest festival. With it being his last year at primary school I am trying to get to as many events as possible. It was a fabulous celebration with songs from years 1-6 in our wonderful Parish Church:

2) Geek!

My son let me buy his school book token off him and I used it to start my new collection of Dr Who Mr Men books. Of course I had to start with my Doctor:

3) Blasts from the Past

On Sunday I had no energy at all and I needed to spend virtually all day lying down in bed. Luckily I had Amazon TV (Affiliate link)  films to stop me going stir crazy. I went back in time to watch old favourites including Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, Dirty Dancing, Footloose and the Bodyguard. Nothing quite like a bit of Alan Rickman to make me feel better:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Running and Dr Who #R2BC

The hop is still being hosted by the lovely Jo at Ojo's World and she is doing a great job this month at encouraging us all to share the happiness posts. So here are mine for this week:

1) Parkrun

We finally got a South Lakes Parkrun and typically it rained! But it was amazing to be part of history in the making at a debut run and my son was amazing. Hopefully once he starts his fell running training at the Helm Hill Runners he will learn how to run faster and better - leaving me in his wake..

2) Dr Who

My children and I were all very happy that Dr Who featured at the Comic Arts Festival this weekend. My son had 2 visits as his school went during the week and he travelled back in time to see the dinosaurs being wiped out apparently! I was just chuffed to get in a T.A.R.D.I.S.:

 3) School Trips

The Lakes International Comic Arts Festival

We had fun this weekend when the Comic Arts Festival had a Dr Who section at the library:

I wasn't going to let my children have all the fun:

My son was chuffed to meet a dalek even if it was just a cardboard cut out:

Reasons to be Cheerful Week 10 - 2014 #R2BC

This is my first week back as host for a month as Jo at Ojosworld held the reins for February. She did a great job so thanks Jo! Now to my reasons for this week..

1) Blue skies

We had a couple of back to back lovely days when we were able to walk around on our normal activities . It makes such a difference to your mood when the sky is this colour:

2) Operation House

On Saturday my son couldn't find the movie he wanted so I said that the kids had to help sort out our DVD collection to reunite all the orphan movies into their correct boxes. It meant that for a change our movies are looking incredibly neat and I've been able to recycle some plastic drawers out of the sitting room. How long will our films stay like this:

With the arrival of a stranger to measure blinds for kids' rooms I had a mad dash to make the front room and landing visitor friendly. OK so its not perfect but its a million times better! I have signed up to 40 bags in 40 days so hopefully this will keep momentum rolling..

3) A trip to the National Media Museum

With it being a Skylander special week we went as a 3 generation for our first visit to the National Media Museum in Bradford. Here are a couple of sneak pics as to why it made me smile:

"Fezzes are cool"

"Exterminate!"

4) Sport Relief

With the date of our Team Honk relay leg fast approaching receiving some goodies from Sainsburys was well timed:

Why are you smiling? Please join in the hop and grab the badge if you would like:

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Getting the hang of Pinterest

Pinterest is one of those addictive social media sites that can inspire you and hopefully draw traffic to your site. I seem to have cracked this with a couple of styles of pin:

1) Something to do with Dr Who:

2) A recipe:

3) Mention Minecraft:

4) Cute animal photos:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Week 48, year 3 #R2BC

Whilst Michelle is taking some time away from Reasons to be Cheerful she had kindly let me host the linky for the month of November. This is my last week then I am handing over to the lovely Ojo's World. So here are my reasons this week:

1) Dr Who at 50!

OK yes I am geek and I am raising my children to be geeks so we have loved all the hype around the 50th anniversary of Dr Who! We all just love the programme and there were plenty of in jokes for all of us in the anniversary special:

2) Proud Mummy

My daughter passed her bikeability award at school meaning she should now be safe on her bike! I've already written more about this early in the week. My children are now also featured in a properly published book!

3) Operation Tween Bedroom

Tonight I sold the last piece of surplus furniture from my daughter's bedroom. She and I have put all the pieces she wants into the right places and it looks so much bigger! It does look like we may need another trip to Ikea to get some more Trofast storage units but now its a case of getting her possessions one box at a time down from the loft and putting them away... 

4) Getting Fit!

I wrote yesterday about the fact that I finally feel that my running is coming together! Its a real major reason to be cheerful that I seem to have suddenly upped my game and I am on a roll. I am able to say hi to people as I run so I still have some potential too! The fact that whilst running this week I had a close encounter with a wren is also another reason to smile!

So please join in and tell us why you are smiling this week:

Toy Review: Dr Who Playset

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We are big Dr Who fans in this house so when I was offered a chance to review a new Dr Who Cold War Playset and characters I jumped at the chance. Then I had my daughter asking every day if the parcel had arrived! When it did she was very keen to rip open the packaging:

We were out and about at the time so the characters got a chance to admire Windermere:

The Playset came with the armour-less Ice Warrior (top) and the armoured one was separate. My daughter wasn't sure that the size of the armour would be big enough for the unprotected one.

That night I had to construct the Playset itself. I don't have a good track record on these and the fasteners went flying but eventually it was done:

It clearly is the inside of the Russian submarine from the TV episode complete with TARDIS:

The set is around £9.99 which is a reasonable price. It's not able to cope with robust play but perfect for acting out scenes from the show. We just need to acquire the right size Doctor and Clara to fit it from the 3.75 inch range. Our current Doctors are from a slightly larger series... However the ice warriors are the perfect size:

My daughter has found that the characters can be neatly stored in the missile silo too! A good fun set for recreating scenes from this episode. You would need to add a second character for about £6.99 but I think my daughter will get hours of fun from it. Just watch that it doesn't need reassembly too often from rough play...

The other item we received was River Song's future sonic screwdriver from her encounter with the 10th Doctor. All fans need at least one screwdriver and this is the funkiest looking:

Not only does it look good it has sound effects and lights up:

This is something my children have argued over which is a good sign of a popular toy. Again these are around £9.99 so not too expensive.

My daughter has definitely given these the thumbs up and quickly took them all to her room. I think they are all a great addition to any dedicated child Whovian's collection. Think that someone will be wanting more from this range for her birthday...

Reasons to be Cheerful Week 17 #R2BC

Michelle is feeling like Pollyana this week and has found reasons to smile even when things are making her feel sad. Here are the reasons I am smiling this week:

1) My big boy

He had his first St George's Day as a Beaver Scout this week:

He looks so grown up and proud of himself! Not such a little boy any more.

2) 3 years of blipping

I celebrated 3 years on the blipfoto photo sharing web site this week.

It's been such fun on their and this week got into the Spotlight for my anniversary blip.

3) My girl

After last week's Gollum my daughter did her own interpretation of the weeping angels from Dr Who:

She has such a great imagination!

Don't blink!

One for Dr Who fans:

 

 

 

The Educational Value of TV

It is amazing what my children have picked up from watching certain programmes on the TV. Yes some of what they watch appears to have no educational value whatsoever but they have learnt an amazing amount about history and art. 

Like many families we love Horrible Histories my children have been brought up from an early age to have a keen interest in history and the way this show is presented is perfect for them. They love singing along to the show especially the Kings and Queens song:

Such a fun and catchy way to learn English monarchs. Its a show I don't mind them watching over and over again.

Amazingly The Sarah Jane Adventures introduced them to the Mona Lisa:

And the show Leonardo is a fictual account of Leornado da Vinci's teenage years with amazing inventions and art.

Then there was an episode of Dr Who that introduced them to Vincent van Gogh:

They can now recognise some of his paintings such as sunflowers:

We are going to be visiting Paris in the summer and the children at age 9 & 6 are really excited about the thought of going to the art gallery that they saw on the television to see van Gogh's paintings. They also want to go and see the Mona Lisa (hope they aren't as disappointed as I was by her size!

What have your children learned from watching television?