Freddi you are Six

Our little cheeky chops. How can my tiny baby be six! 

You are now in year was one one at school and you have joined James in scouting by joining beavers! 

Have the best day sweetheart 

Mummy

James you are nine!

 Jamesy Bug today you are nine years old! Only one more year and its double digets!

This last year hasn't been the easiest for you especially with the covid pandemic, the lock downs and of course missing so much school, and Cubs being on zoom. But you have taken it all I you stride and come out the other side. 

You are an awesome little dude and we all love you so much! Freddie absolutely worships the ground you walk on even if you do get a little annoyed with him!

You will be in year five when you go back to school in a few weeks and it's crazy to think you only have two years left in primary school,

Have the best day our little spiderman

Mummy xxx

Victoria Mae Designs Gift Set

I love tea! Yep I love a good cup of Tea and normally have at least three before I take the kids to school on a morning. So when Victoria Mae Designs were looking for brand ambassadors I applied! 

This is the first review out of three for the gift sets I was sent in my first Brand Ambassador box! The second and third will be coming over the next few weeks!

The first set I am going to review is the Teacher tea set. This set is the eight tea bag set and is priced at £7.70, with no gift wrap. However you can add either a paper gift bag or a little box making the price £8.10 and £8.50. 

I love the way this comes presented in the tissue paper, so it wouldn't really need anything added to it when gifting it to your child's teacher.

As it is getting near to the end of the summer term, this would be an ideal gift for your child's teacher or teachers! I know that most mornings I see the teachers on our school doors holding a cuppa while welcoming the children in for the day. 

I love all the teacher quotes on the little tea packets! I know that my own sons teachers would love something like this! 

These are some of my favourites of the bags we received. I know that both my sons will love picking out some of these to gift to their teachers!

I have a fantastic 10% discount code for you. Simply enter victoriahockley at checkout for 10% off each product!

**I am part of the Brand Ambassador Team, so was sent this set free of charge to review. Links are affiliated**

The Great K'nex

The Great K'nex 

James is one of those boys that loves to build models, no matter what it is out of! So when we got the chance to take part in the Great K'nex event we jumped at the chance!

For this review James was sent K'nex Rad Rides £13 and K'nex Battle Bow £24.99. He was thrilled when he saw the Battle Bow set as he had recently done an archery session with his Cubs and he had been asking for an archery set for his birthday (its not till August!)

The first set we built was the Rad Rides. Mummy had wanted to do the Battle Bow, but James wanted to do that one when he had his teacher training day from school! The Rad Rides set contains over 200 pieces and the pieces and be mixed to make up to 12 different vehicles. 

First thing we did was decide which of the cars we were going to build. The kit consists of two bags of parts and a instruction booklet. This kit is aimed at 7 to 12 year olds, James is almost 9, so he is in middle of the age bracket!

You are given instructions for one of the twelve models, with a code to log onto the K'nex website for instructions for other eleven. After looking at the designs, James decided he wanted to build the three wheeler car from the website. 

The first thing we need to do was open the packand separate all the parts. James delegated this job to mummy while he had an after school snack! When ever we are building any models we use a white tea towel to place all the parts on, as we have quite a dark carpet and we didn't want to loose any of the small parts, especially the black ones! 

At first we thought we were going okay as we got the first bit built, we then realised that the instructions had some bits coloured wrong, so we had to look at the shape instead of the colour.

The next bit that we found a bit tricky, was attaching the little orange bits that were clipped onto the yellow bits, James had tonshout for daddy at this point as mummy was getting a bit annoyed with it. Luckily once we had a fresh set of eyes look at it, we knew what we were doing and we got it all clipped into the right place!

Even thought we had a few issues with the build it was so much fun! It was nice to spend some one on one time with James doing something that he enjoyed without Freddie trying to help!

                                   

     

K'nex Battle Bow 

Next it was onto the Battle Bow set. We decided to do this on the day James has a teacher training day from school, as it would give us more time to make it and for James to enjoy it, rather than rushing because we had other stuff on.

This set was so much fun to build and we actually found it much easier than the Rad Ride! We literally had this built in around half an hour.

Again like the Rad Rides, the first thing we did was separate all of the parts and checked against the instructions to make sure everything was there! 

Once we had all the parts sorted out, the instructions were pretty easy to follow. There was a couple of instances where the colour was marked wrong, ie parts were green but instructions said they were black, but over all that didn't really make a difference it was still really easy and quick to build!

As you can see from the pictures below, the bow took shape pretty quickly. It really did take us less than half an hour to build, even with Freddie sat on the sofa offering his opinion on how we should build it every few minutes!

**We were sent these kits free of charge in exchange for this review, all words and pictures are our own**

Siblings March-May

 Wow I didn't realise how behind I had got in my blogging thanks to lockdown and then Easter holidays! So here are my siblings pictures of James and Freddie from March to May!

This picture was taken when we went to South Marine Park in South Shields. 

This was taken one morning before school 

This was taken on mummy's birthday while waiting for nana and gaga to arrive! 

Hopefully I won't get behind again! 

The siblings project February 2021

 And so its February and another month in lockdown three! And its half term so stuck at home with nothing to do except catch up on school work!

This months pictures were taken when we had snow for four days!

Living Arrows 2021 7/52

Welcome to the first post of Living Arrows 2021. This is the fourth year I have taken part in this linky and I love taking part each week! If you haven't heard of the linky before, This was set up by Donna at What the Redhead Said and the name comes from the poem by Kahlil Gibran "You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth" 

Each week I share one photograph of James and one of Freddie and share what they have been up to.

This week we had snow! And lots of it! Boys didn't really like it though as it was too soft to build a snowman 

Living Arrows 2021 6/52

Welcome to the first post of Living Arrows 2021. This is the fourth year I have taken part in this linky and I love taking part each week! If you haven't heard of the linky before, This was set up by Donna at What the Redhead Said and the name comes from the poem by Kahlil Gibran "You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth" 

Each week I share one photograph of James and one of Freddie and share what they have been up to.

This week has been lots of school work!

Living Arrows 2021 5/52

Welcome to the first post of Living Arrows 2021. This is the fourth year I have taken part in this linky and I love taking part each week! If you haven't heard of the linky before, This was set up by Donna at What the Redhead Said and the name comes from the poem by Kahlil Gibran "You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth" 

Each week I share one photograph of James and one of Freddie and share what they have been up to.

This week the boys to part in the City of Newcastle Scouts Winter Weekender!

Siblings Project 2021 January

 Wow how is it already time to start the 2021 siblings project. I can't believe how fast the last year has gone although at time it felt like it was going so slow.

This month's picture was taken when we woke up to snow!

Living Arrows 2021 4/52

Welcome to the first post of Living Arrows 2021. This is the fourth year I have taken part in this linky and I love taking part each week! If you haven't heard of the linky before, This was set up by Donna at What the Redhead Said and the name comes from the poem by Kahlil Gibran "You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth" 

Each week I share one photograph of James and one of Freddie and share what they have been up to.

This has been another week of home school for James and Freddie, we eventually got out for a family walk on Sunday morning. Both boys have been doing really well with their work and getting everything submitted. 

Review: Steril-eeze

Who would have thought this time last year that by March we would be carrying hand sanitiser everywhere we went. I sure didn't! But sure enough just a few short weeks later the pandemic took hold and here we are in 2021 still under strict restrictions. James has had no face to face Cubs since the start of November, I've had no face to face Beavers since 4th November. Everything is being done online!

Before the school closure in March 2020 the boys were washing their hands a lot more than normal and sanitiser was used before they did a lot of activities. Both boys began suffering with bad dry skin on their hands from all the washing and sanitiser. 

Even when Freddie went back for two weeks his hands were so sore, same with James and he was only in for one day! So when they went back in September they both took sanitiser with them that we knew wouldn't agrivate their skin, especially with Freddie and his allergies.

This is where Steril-eeze comes in. They asked 2000+ adults about their sanitiser habits during lockdown one and the effects on their skin. 63% noticed a change in their skin, so even though 98% said they wanted sanitiser to kill viruses and bacteria, 96% said they also wanted something that didn't irritate their skin.

Steril-eeze is a new concept, harnessing the science of Hypochlorous Acid (HOCI) and is scientifically proven to kill 99.99% of harmful viruses and bacteria. It is alcohol free so it doesn't irritate,sting or dry out the skin. It can also be used to sanitise surfaces.

We have been using this for a few weeks now with the boys and not once have they complained of sore hands or had nasty dry patches. 

I love the fact that this can also be used to sanitise surfaces, so if I am at the supermarket I can use it to clean the self scanner, the trolley handle and also my hands. 

I will definitely keep on using Steril-eeze! And I can see it becoming the first thing I pack when I go on any Beaver adventures! 

We are thrilled to be giving away a set of Steril-eeze products, so fill in the form below! Competition is open for seven days!

**We were sent two different sized Steril-eeze products in exchange for this review**

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Living Arrows 2021 3/52

Welcome to the first post of Living Arrows 2021. This is the fourth year I have taken part in this linky and I love taking part each week! If you haven't heard of the linky before, This was set up by Donna at What the Redhead Said and the name comes from the poem by Kahlil Gibran "You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth" 

Each week I share one photograph of James and one of Freddie and share what they have been up to.

Its been another week of home school for the boys and not doing very much.

Review: Twistii

Dark mornings are something I really hate, especially when I have to walk the boys to school. Being a Beaver Leader also means being out in the dark whether that is on camp, running a meeting in the winter or just being at a leaders meeting. Also as the mum of a Cub I would be walking to his meeting drop off and back home as daddy would do the end of meeting pick up.

When face to face scouting went back last September for us, we had to meet outdoors due to the covid policies. One of the things we asked the young people to bring with them was a headtorch. As the nights got darker we would need the extra light from them outside.

Thats where Twistii comes in! Twisti is a USB rechargeable torch you wear on your wrist that allows you to be hands free! It is operated by the button in the middle. One press and the front and back lights come on, press again and the white lights stay on, press a third time and the front and back lights are in flashing warning mode, then when you press for the forth time all the lights go out. The torch moves through 360 degrees so you can point this where its needed!

A full charge of the battery should give you 60+ minutes of front and back lights, 90+ minutes of front lights only and 180+ minutes of warning lights.

The Twistii comes on a snap band which I think is fantastic as it will fit even the smallest of wrists like mine and also James. This also means the Twisting can stand independently!

I was so looking forward to trying this during one of our Beaver sessions, but due to the current circumstances we are currently running all sessions online. However I did test it out on the school run when it was still pretty dark when leaving our house. Then as I wa getting ready to test it on the school run, we were put into national lockdown and only allowed to leave the house for essential shopping.

However this has been tested in our house without the lights on and I absolutely love it! This is such a good idea and I know it will come in so handy in the future when we are allowed to do face to face scouting and camps again!

**We were sent this product free of charge in exchange for this review**

Living Arrows 2021 2/52

Welcome to the first post of Living Arrows 2021. This is the fourth year I have taken part in this linky and I love taking part each week! If you haven't heard of the linky before, This was set up by Donna at What the Redhead Said and the name comes from the poem by Kahlil Gibran "You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth" 

Each week I share one photograph of James and one of Freddie and share what they have been up to.

So last week was meant to be the first the first week back at school after the Christmas holiday. The boys got back for one day before the Prime Minister put the country back into national lockdown. The boys were heartbroken. 

The rest of the week was spent getting to grips with home remote learning online! We did however get some snow which the boys loved!

Living Arrows 2021 1/52

 Welcome to the first post of Living Arrows 2021. This is the fourth year I have taken part in this linky and I love taking part each week! If you haven't heard of the linky before, This was set up by Donna at What the Redhead Said and the name comes from the poem by Kahlil Gibran "You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth" 

Each week I share one photograph of James and one of Freddie and share what they have been up to.

Last week was still school holidays so we spent most of it chilling out at home. James even managed to stay awake to see in new year! Freddie then spent most of New years say in his Red Arrows light suit making us call him Red Ten!