Living Arrows 2018 23/53

Welcome back to another week of Living Arrows hosted by Donna over at What The Redhead Said. If you are new to this then the name of the linky comes from the poem by Kahlil Gibran "You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth"

Last week was half term and we had a brilliant time up at Nana and Gaga's house! It was nana's birthday on the bank holiday Monday so we actually had a BBQ the day before as the weather wasn't looking all that good on the Monday. Freddie actually fell asleep in his pushchair in the garden and only got cereal for his tea! He even crashed at half past five on the Monday so again he missed his tea!

Daddy went home on the Tuesday as he had to go to work on the Wednesday, so mummy, James and Freddie stayed up for another few days!! Mummy was meant to come home on Friday so her and daddy could go out for a meal while the boys stayed at Nana and Gaga's for another night, but that didn't actually happen as one visa went down so we were unable to get money out the bank and two, Freddie actually ended up spending the day in hospital with a raging temperature that wouldn't budge, not drinking, eating or peeing! The poor little man had a nasty throat infection!

Thankfully he is so much better now! It wasn't nice seeing him in hospital so poorly. Before he was ill, We spent a lot of time in the park next to Nana and Gaga's house on the swings and also helping Nana and Gaga with their garden! James took a liking to Gaga's mallet!

Spring Term First Half Term Over!

How fast is this term going!! It only feels like five minutes since we went back after Christmas and now James is on holiday again!

He went back on 8th January so this half term has literally only been five weeks long and he's already had two school trips! 

The first trip was on the second day back after the Christmas holidays and they went to Thornley Woods! James couldn't stop talking about all the carvings on the trees!

The second trip was to Washington Wetlands Centre and again he had a brilliant time!! James thrives on being outdoors! We sent James into school with his school trousers and socks and shoes in a bag but they didn't actually get back to school till just after three o'clock ready for us parents to collect them at quarter past three! He never stopped talking about the trip the whole way home and for the rest of the night!!

Each class does an online blog and James loves sitting down with mummy and looking at all the photographs of the things he has done with his friends!

We are still doing his school reading every night after school and we have only missed a couple of nights when James has been totally exhausted!! Now that Freddie has stopped having a nap, he is in bed much earlier which means mummy gets some quality time with James to do his reading!

His school gives each year group an essential question at the start of term that they have to answer in their project outcome at the end of term! This term the question that Year One has is "What Makes The Earth Special". Last term it was "Fire: Friend or Foe".

When he got his first homework after the Christmas holidays it was a piece of writing and he was struggling quite a bit to start with, but once we put a pencil grip onto his pencil he seemed to do a little bit better. 

This last week of half term has been quite a hard one for James as mummy and daddy have been away for a few days for the funeral of the boys great nanny who we lost at Christmas. So Nana and Gaga have been on school duty with James.


James really seems to have come on in leaps and bounds since he went into year one! Roll on the next half term to see how he goes and of course the outcome of "What Makes The Earth Special"

Things To Do In London With Kids!

So half term is approaching and we are off to visit the in laws in Surrey. Since we have to go via London to their house and we have 4 days to fill while we are down we promised James a day out in London.

James has been obsessed with visiting London ever since they started learning about the Great Fire of London as part of their project at school last term.

Now this is where I got stuck! We have visited London many times as a couple pre kids but we have never actually gone with the kids!

We have a few places on our list to visit like Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and of course Pudding Lane where the great fire started but that is it! So I turned to some of my fellow parent bloggers to get some tips and here's what I got! 

Nikki from https://yorkshirewonders.co.uk/ suggested a visit to Ripley's Believe it or Not. This is somewhere I have always wanted to visit but have never had the time! At the moment the boys are a bit young to visit, but it is definitely somewhere we can go in the future!

Katie from livinglifeourway.com suggested a visit to the Royal Parks if its a dry day! We are definitely going to be in the parks letting the boys have a run and burn off some energy!

Lynsey from https://mummythatsme.com says that the Science Museum is great and has lots of hands on exhibits! This is somewhere we would love to take the kids, but we know how busy it gets and since we will be traveling in from Surrey we probably won't have the time to queue up!

Samantha from  http://www.northeastfamilyfun.co.uk/ says how fun the childrens audio tour of the houses of parliament is! I think James would love something like that, Hopefully we can do it in the future when Freddie is a bit older!

Amy from www.allaboutamummy.co.uk suggested going to the National History Museum! Again this is somewhere we would love to visit but it is always really busy and you normally have to queue to get it! I don't think Freddie would be patient enough to wait!

I have plenty more tips from other parent bloggers that I couldn't fit in this post! There are so many things to do that I didn't have a clue existed! 

Check back in a few weeks to see exactly what we did on our day out in London!

Half Term Holiday - We Survived!

Woo hoo as I write this James is back at nursery on the countdown to Christmas! This week is his nursery rhyme challenge on Wednesday which mummy is really looking toward to. Will be keeping my legs crossed to make sure baby stays put till after its finished!

I'm not going to pretend that the weeks holiday was easy, as it was far from it! Being 36 weeks pregnant with a energetic three year old to entertain was hard work! So much so me & James ended up going to stay with my mum & dad for a few days as after one day of no nursery I was worn out & exhausted!

It was great being able to relax as James only wanted his nana & gaga to play with him! He has them wrapped round his little finger! Whatever he asks for he gets lol! 

On Friday we took a walk to our new aldi, which has only been open a week as we needed to get some fruit. We then came home, had lunch & spent the whole afternoon watching Thomas films till it was bedtime! 

Saturday we got up & went back to aldi to do our weeks shopping. We then went home put it all away then went into town as we needed to get a present for James nursery friends birthday. We also managed to get a present for James to give his baby brother when he's born! We went to a little cafe in granger market for coffee, well latte for daddy & hot chocolate for mummy. Oh and yummy cake which James demolished as we think it will probably be the last weekend we get out just the three of us before baby arrives! 

Sunday James had a birthday party to go to at half past three, so we cooked a roast for lunchtime and chilled out for the day watching football till it was party time. James had a brilliant time at the party which was at the local sports centre near our house in their soft play! 

We also had a major breakthrough over the holidays - James stopped using his potty & started using the toilet instead! He also now asks for the toilet, which is a huge milestone as just a couple of weeks ago he was petrified! Daddy bought him a Jupiter from fireman Sam as a well done present! 

So he's back to nursery! Hope he's having fun and behaving! 

Nursery - First half term over!

So it's half term holidays! James has finished his first few weeks at nursery. Ok the schools here didn't go back till 7th September, so James didn't get his home visit till 14th September, then his induction morning was on 16th September. He then didn't have his first two hour session till the following Thursday.

How has he done? Well after a very shaky start of him being very upset at drop off and not doing too well on his first couple of days at three hours. This last week he has done his full 15 hours and he has absolutely loved it! 

We are still having trouble with him not using the toilet at school, but other than that he has really settled down and has started making some friends. He loves doing painting and drawing, he also loves the sandpit! For a child who hated sand this time last year it's amazing how much he loves the sandpit.

CB bear is still going in with him, but hopefully we will be leaving CB at home soon to look after mummy! 

He gets very grumpy on a weekend when he is not in nursery, so I'm really hoping we don't have too many problems this week with there being no nursery!

Once he goes back after half term there is only three weeks till baby brother is due to arrive!