Living Arrows 2020 Week 34/52

Welcome to Living Arrows 2020! This is the third 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 during the previous week

This week was very quiet as we had a busy week coming up! Mostly we just stayed at home and watched Disney Plus!

James you are Eight!

 Happy Birthday James!

Today you are Eight! I really cannot believe you are already turning eight! It really does not seem five minutes since you were turning one and now you are this tall, handsome young man. 

You have grown up so much this last year and have totally flourished at Beavers. In a couple of weeks you will be starting Cubs and you are so excited! 

This last few months have been probably the toughest and strangest you will probably ever live through. The sudden closure of school and the shut down of Beavers really knocked you for six. But I am so proud of how you have handled it all! You coped so well with the online scouting and made me so proud when you completed your Bronze award! 

You are now sharing a bedroom with Freddie and even though he annoys you most of the time, I am so proud of how you look after him. The lockdown has definitely made you two closer!

Happy birthday James

All my love 

Mummy

The Siblings Project 2020 - August

 We are a little behind with posting this months Siblings Project pictures. Even though the boys are on summer holidays I rarely have any time to myself and have got behind in my blog schedule!

Anyways this months pictures were taken when we had a few hours out at Alnwick Garden on our first post Covid trip out. The boys had a fantastic time, James loved the Poison Garden and Freddie was obsessed with the fountains!

Finding A New Car For Your Family - Buying Advice

 **Collaborative Post**

Finding A New Car For Your Family - Buying Advice

Pexels - CC0 License

When finding a new car for our family, it can take time to figure out what it is that you need. Do you require a sporty hatchback

for your suburban living, or are you more interested in a powerful 4x4?

Furthermore, how will you use it? Someone living in rural environments

may convince themselves that the 4x4 is the way to go, while only ever using it on

flat roads to perform the school run.

A car isn’t a car. It’s a long-term financial investment, a morning experience during the commute, and a means in which you can feel peace of mind, knowing that your family are safe while travelling within it. This means that any new car must conform to all of your standards, otherwise you’re likely to feel unhappy or even tired behind the wheel.

But how can you find a new car for your family, and what buying advice could we give to bring you towards a better result each time? Let us explore those answers, together:

Finding The Best Offers

It’s important to consider your budget to start with, because ‘the perfect car’ will always be tied to how much you pay for it. It’s worth checking out these Audi Q2 motability offers to see just how affordable even the best vehicles are provided you use financing options or other concessions for purchase. This can help you understand just how wide your options may be, which in turn helps you approach a higher standard looking for the best deal. A good place to start, then.

Understanding Your Current (And Future) Needs

What needs do you have for your family car? Do you often use it to travel long distances for familial holidays? Do you perform the school run? Do you live in a mountainous or rural area, one with plenty of pot-holes? How comfortable are you behind the wheel of a new vehicle type? Is it likely that you’ll be asked to drive your neighbour’s kids to school when the new year rolls around, and vice versa?  Predicting your future needs from your current situation and what requirements could develop will help you be more precise in your vehicle search. That’s a good place to start.

Safety Is Essential

Safety is, of course, essential. It’s very important to ensure that your car will protect your family, but more than that, that you feel safe and comfortable while driving it. This is why many parents prefer to opt for larger people carriers, or those with great handling, as this helps them maintain more of a presence on the road. Safety can also mean ensuring that it has room for your booster seats, or that when you pack to go on holiday, you can do so safely without jam-packing your suitcases on top of your children’s laps.

With this advice, we hope you can more easily find the perfect car for your family. This, in turn, will help you transport them more safely, and with more confidence.

Review of Who Hides Here? Footprints In The Forest by RachelCoverdale

Over the last few years we have reviewed numerous books by the author Rachel Coverdale. The last being the story of Robberty Bobberty and his friends back in March 2020 

And now we have been reading the latest installment in the "Who Hides Here?" series Who Hides Here? Footprints In the Forest.

       

We've had this book a few weeks now and it's taken me awhile to get around to finishing this review as the boys kept stealing the book and taking it to their bedroom. In fact James had it hidden under his pillows! Then he took it to Nana's house to read and ended up leaving it there till we went back to her house a couple of weeks later!

James is at the age now where he can sit and read the book himself, where as Freddie likes nothing more than curling up on the sofa with a grown up and a book!

The boys both really love the Who Hides Here books as it teaches them about different animals and where you would find them! For example in the Footprints In the Forest book, you meet a fox, a rabbit, a badger and many more animals!

        

I especially like the activities at the back of the book which includes matching the animals to their footprints and a spot the difference!

Again this book has been illustrated by Shelly Oyston and her drawings of the animals are fantastic and really bring them to life!

As this book is about animals in a forest Rachel has included a copy of the countryside code which is a brilliant idea!!

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

Living Arrows Week 2020 33/52

Welcome to Living Arrows 2020! This is the third 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 during the previous week.

This week the boys have been to see Nana and Gaga again for a couple of days. James needed to get his eyes tested as he was overdue a sight test due to the Covid19 Lockdown and since we could not get a child's appointment at our local optician in Newcastle we had to go to their branch in Morpeth, So Freddie got left with Gaga while mummy and nana took James to his eye test. Nana stayed in the car while we were in. Mummy was so impressed with how it all worked and James was a superstar and not phased at all by all the staff wearing PPE.

Freddie has turned into such a tinker! He loves posting things out of our letter box or if we have the door open he throws things out. He has also taken to throwing things out of the upstairs windows! We have a 10cm window restrictor on the boys bedroom window, but that does not stop the little tinker opening the window and throwing out his megablocks!

Living Arrows 2020 Week 32/52

Welcome to Living Arrows 2020! This is the third 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 during the previous week.

This week we spent at home. We watched lots of classic movies on Disney + and mummy even introduced James to Ducktails! 

On Saturday mummy got James out of the house and into tesco for the first time since start of March! He needed to choose a lunch box for school and we went with minions! 

Living Arrows 2020 Week 31/52

Living Arrows Week 30/52

Welcome to Living Arrows 2020! This is the third 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 during the previous week.

The boys were still at nana and gaga's and I rejoined them on Wednesday night. We had some really lovely weather so many trips to the beach. On Saturday James and mummy went to a socially distanced bbq that our group scout leader hosted. James loved meeting his two dogs!