Pow, pow and erm Splash!

After reading blueyonders blog which i love as she has got a wonderful outlook on family life i read her rubber band gun tutorial and showed it to my boys and partner, they loved the idea so off we went to the wood shop and my youngest eyes filled with delight as he looked around at washers, bits of wood and door locks!, he was amazed that his pocket money could buy loads of things to make from the woodworkers, a lot more than spending it on one toy in town. I was thrilled at this news as you can imagine. So with our wood and glue we went in search of rubber bands, this is crazy but at our local shops there was none to be found, but the great man from the cheaper market shop came to our rescue as he had thrown out loads the day before, we got a great stash of them and went home. The boys sanded the cut wood pieces even though they insisted they wouldn't get splinters if they left them! yeah right!

The boys happily chatting and sanding, the eldest in front of pic decided to make a cross bow out of pieces of laminate flooring and to my surprise made one all by himself and it worked really well.

Chris the youngest waiting for his daddy to nail the wood together "how long will it take". After waiting for the glue to dry and asking every few minutes "is it ready yet?" and me explaining to the boys how wonderful it is to spend £3.00 on wood etc and make 3 rubber band guns that they could have endless fun with rather than spending more money on one toy that will be put in a toy box forgotten for the rest of time to them, they were finally ready. We set up a cardboard target for them to fire at and away they went, they played in the garden laughing and praising each other (something that rarely goes on) for hours, oh the joy!

Then disaster, i should of seen it coming really,Chris was on a chair (a big leather heavy chair i might add) behind the target (this also was large so no chance of him being hit) when his biggest brother went to get his bands and bumped into the target which in turn knocked the chair and Chris over right into the pond! He came out looking like a swamp monster, wet through dripping in pond weed with his gun held up above his head - the only thing apart from his head that was dry! Quick rush to the bath and antiseptic on his grazes, he bashed up his arm and side pretty badly on the rocks.

Here he is after his hot chocolate showing me his grazes (note the dry rubber band gun on the sofa!) He was still cheery though even though in his words "i nearly drowned to death, but i save my gun". Now a week later all band are lost over next doors fence, in the bushes full of spiders- i wont be getting those! and up the hoover probably!