Happy 2nd Birthday Freddie

Happy second birthday our darling boy.

Today you turn two years old and it has literally been the fastest two years of my life!

It really does not seem five minutes since you were this tiny newborn sleeping on my chest and now you are this tall, blonde haired, blue eyed, cheeky little boy.

Your speech is not as good at two as James was, but then you spend a lot of time with kids where as James was around adults a lot more!

Your favourite words to shout are up there and look! If you see a dog you will shout dog and the same if you are a cat! You adore our neighbours dog Archie and you try your best to say his name when you see him!

You are starting to wear some 2-3 clothes, but the majority are 18-24. You wear a size 4 pull up and a size 6+ nappy at night. 

You absolutely adore your big brother and you hate taking him to school as you miss him so much. You got to go in and see him last week and boy did you enjoy it! As soon as you saw him you went running over to cuddle him. Your favourite part of the day has to be when James comes home from school as you have your partner in crime back and you have someone to play with!

We have also taken the side off your cot and turned it into a bed, and so far you have taken to it pretty well! The first couple of nights it did take a few hours to get you to settle but you seem to have cracked it and you are definitely sleeping so much better which means so are mummy and daddy!

We have so many plans for the next year. We are going to Surrey in February to see Nanny and Pappy, we are also hoping to spend a day in London sightseeing with you and James as James has been doing about the Great fire of London at school so he is desperate to go and see all the sights! and then our first family holiday later in the year which I know you and James will love!!

You were the jigsaw piece which completed our family Freddie Bear and we all love you so much.

Happy birthday my gorgeous boy

Love always 

Mummy 

xxx

Cuddleroar Review

Bathing a wriggling toddler can be such a nightmare! Especially when it comes to getting them out and dry!! Freddie is about to turn two and so getting him in and out of the bath can me fun! Especially when it comes to the getting out part as normally mummy or daddy ends up soaking wet!!

So when the lovely people at Cuddledry got in touch and asked if we would like to review the Cuddleroar towel with Freddie we jumped at the chance!!

When the towel first arrived Freddie couldn't wait to put it on actually over the top of his clothes!

What mummy loves about the towel is  the fact it contains bamboo fibre and cotton, meaning its silky soft and 60% more absorbent than just cotton on its own! It also has a super absorbent cosy hood to dry hair and keep warmth in! Its from walking to age three, but as we discovered it actually still fits our five year old James as well and he is pretty tall for his age! And of course it is super fluffy and cosy!!

Freddie loves bath time and even though he has the super cosy Cuddleroar, he still hates getting out the bath, but it definitely stops us having a naked toddler running around the house as when using a normal generic bath towel on Freddie he normally manages to squirm out of it and run around naked! But since the Cuddleroar has the press stud on the hood to keep the towel on, he can still run around but he is running around with a towel still on!

I wish we had invested in one of these when James was tiny as he was definitely a runner after bath time too!

The Cuddleroar is available

to purchase direct from Cuddledry for £34.99 and can also be found on Amazon!

Kinetic Rock Review

James is your typical boy who loves anything construction related. In fact his school teacher in reception said if James could have spent all day in the construction area of the class room he would have been happiest! So you can imagine how excited mummy was when the lovely people at Spin Master offered to send us one of their Kinetic Rock kits for my construction mad boy to try out!

We saved the Kinetic Rock set for James to try out after his first week back at school and boy was he thrilled when he saw it! We also made sure it came out at little brothers nap time to save little fingers trying steal it! It also gave James some one on one time to play with mummy and daddy!

 

The set is absolutely amazing with a dumper truck and a rock crusher, which Andy says reminds him of an old fashioned mincer, the set really is brilliant! It also has a tool and a rock mould! 

James was absolutely fascinated with the feel of the rock! His favourite part definitely seemed to be putting the rock into the crusher! When he was younger he was definitely not a fan of sensory play, even when he was in nursery he hated getting messy! I think now at five years old he is the perfect age to get sensory play out of this kit!

The rock feels really gritty, as it is made with real rock, it is however very sticky so does stick to everything! We got the out in our kitchen floor which is tiles thank goodness! 

If I have anything negative at all about the set it is the fact there is not that much kinetic rock actually in the set, so I am already eyeing up some extra on Amazon! Plus there is extra construction vehicles available too!

Overall I am absolutely thrilled with the set and so is James! I can see this set being played with very often especially when little brother is asleep!

Disclaimer: We were sent this set free of charge in exchange for this honest review, all words and opinions are our own!

James First 100 High Frequency Words Challenge

James has just finished his Reception year at school, and one of the things he has struggled with has been his High Frequency Words.

The guidelines for Reception say that the children should know 100 words by the end of the school year, James however is only on the second set of the 100. 

He is such a stubborn boy and the words he has, he does know, its just he messes around when you are trying to go through them with him!

So mummy has found all the words he should know by now and I have printed them out and cut them out and James is going to learn these over the summer!

Check back in September to see how we did on our challenge!

We found the words on this website: http://www.highfrequencywords.org

Improving Fine Motor Skills.

Fine motor skills is something we have found this year James has struggled with, This is why he seems to hate writing so much! 

Mummy is on a mission this summer holiday to improve James fine motor skills so when he goes back to school come September he will hopefully not struggle to hold his pencil!

Pintrest has a lot of posts on fine motor skills and how to improve them. I have started spending free time on an evening searching for little things that will help James and so far I have made him two little games.

The first game is threading straw beads onto pipe cleaners. The bits of straws have been cut into beads of different sizes to be threaded onto pipe cleaners. 

The second game is similar but instead of using pipe cleaners, its a piece of wool. I'm hoping that these games will help James.

I'm also looking into making him some threading games, where he has to thread a piece of wool through holes to make patterns on shapes.

I have also made him some writing practice sheets, I'm really hoping to get him wanting to write over the summer but I'm literally not holding my breath due to his stubbornness!

This is a link to my board on Pintrest https://www.pinterest.co.uk/victoriahockley/fine-motor-skills/ so if you have any more ideas of ways I can help James leave a comment below!