Christmas Gifts for Boys

So it's coming up to christmas and this year my gift guide is for boys! Since my pair are now five and eight, we are into getting them things that they can play with either together or on their own! This year this guide is in collaboration with Buzz Retail who have very kindly sent us a few things that the boys can play with together or apart!

First up we have Air Ball! Now this is something I think the boys are going to love! 

This can be played with on most floorings, the ball creates an air bubble underneath it, so its not actually on the ground it is actually hovering above!! 

I think the boys are going to have so much fun playing with this! Everytime one of them has a birthday they end up kicking balloons around the lounge and kitchen, so i think this is going to be a game changer as all we will need to do is keep replacing the batteries! This takes 4AA batteries which are not included!

This is currently retailing at £15.00 and can be purchased here

Next up we have Buzzing Stickerz.

Like most kids, James and Freddie adore stickers! I find them stuck all over the house when they get kids magazines containing them! In fact I still have Peppa Pig and Ben and Holly stickers stuck to the washing machine from when James was about three or four!

This kit can create over 180 3D holographic and metallic stickers! I can see this giving them hours of fun over the Christmas holidays especially if we are still in a high tier and not able to see nana and gaga!

This is currently retailing for £15.00 and can be purchased here

Next up we have Micro Jet!

This is aimed at ages 8 plus, so it is more something that James can play with , although I have a feeling Freddie will be trying to chase it!

James has been asking us for the last couple of years if he can have a drone, so I think this will be the next best thing for him till he is a bit older and can get an actual drone or he goes off the idea!

The drone itsself is rechargeable, but he remote takes 3AA batteries! I cant wait to see what the boys make of this come Christmas

This currently retails at £40.00 and can be purchased here!

And Finally we have Buzz Snow!

This is a polymer powder that when it is hydrated it looks and feels just like real snow except it never actually melts!

What we love about this is that it is eco friendly and non toxic making it safe for children and animals!

It expands to 100x its original size and will last up to two and a half weeks before it dehydrates and returns to its powder form ready to be hydrated and used again!

Where we live, we rarely get much snow, so something like this I can see giving the boys hours of fun, especially if we are stuck at home a lot over the school holidays!

This currently retails at £15.00 and can be purchased here!

Living Arrows 2020 Week 48/52

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.

So last week we had Freddie's fifth birthday! He had an absolutely brilliant day! He had a Red Arrows themed cake! Red Arrow themed cookies and to top it off he had a personalised video message from Red Ten - Squadron Leader Adam Collins

James has been loving his virtual Cub sessions and even took part in a virtual camp at the weekend along with mum and Freddie! We watched a movie and James did some zoom crafting!

Freddie you are Five!

How is it your fifth birthday already gorgeous boy!

It really seems like yesterday that James was in reception and we were celebrating your first birthday and now it's you in reception! 

This last year has seen you attempt the soya ladder and pass steps one and two! You then sadly failed at step three twice! 

You are now sharing a bedroom with James, or well you are meant to. You still find your way in to mummy's bed or mummy into yours most nights!

You still love you cow Moo and sleep with it every night! 

You absolutely love going to school and have some lovely little friends. Two of which have siblings in James class. 

It's been a strange year with the Coronavirus lockdown, this gave us so much time together as a family safely locked away in our house. 

During this time you developed a love of the Red Arrows and you like nothing more than watching them on YouTube and telling us you are going to be Red 10! 

Happy birthday our gorgeous Freddie Bear

We love you so much xx

Living Arrows 2020 Week 46/52

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.

Last week James had his first Cubs session on zoom. He seemed to really enjoy it from what I could hear. He also got Star of the Day at school on Wednesday

Freddie was also back to school after his two week isolation which included the half term holiday.

Living Arrows 2020 Week 45/52

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.

So this week has been crazy with Freddie being at home and James in school. Andy has been trying to not be on the phone a couple of days when he started at 8am so he could watch Freddie while I dropped James off and similar in the afternoon he's tried to take his break around the time I was leaving to pick James up, just so Freddie wasn't sat on his own!

This was also the week where the second lockdown started and The Scout Association had to stop all face to face meetings again. Luckily we managed to get all the Thursday groups to meet earlier in the week so none of the kids lost out on this week's meetings. James is pretty grumpy about the fact he will not have face to face Cubs for a few weeks. James also received his Chief Scout Bronze Award this week. During the big lockdown earlier in the year, James threw himself into finishing all the badges at Beavers that he had already started as he wanted to get his award. He was one of three members who gained it during the lockdown!

Living Arrows 2020 week 44/52

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.

So this week was half term. We had planned Monday as a quiet day since James had been hiking over the weekend, however it turned pretty manic as at lunchtime mummy received an email from school about Covid cases and until a text message came later on we had no idea which one of the boys the letter was actually about. It ended up being Freddie so he was then in isolation for the rest of the school holiday.

James was pretty grumpy as with Freddie in isolation and daddy working we could not even go out for a walk. Luckily Freddie has had no signs and has been perfectly fine so he will be back to school next week 

#ACEit Challenge with Britmums

 With two boys now in full time primary school, I'm having to wash ten plain white polo shirts a week! And with having one boy in reception class his white tops are coming home pretty dirty every day!

We are now seven weeks into term and the polo shirts that were white at the start of term are now a nice shade of pale grey and I am refusing to buy any more shirts unless I absolutely have too! With James a few years ago I had to replace some of his shirts at the Christmas holidays as they were not only a nice shade of grey, but also stained from him playing with paint!

This is where Ace Ultra for whites comes in! It is specifically formulated to help brighten dull whites, It's gentle on delicate clothes, It tackles germs and odours, including viruses! This means not only do your clothes smell cleaner, they actually are cleaner! Something even more important in the current climate! Its concentrated, making it among the most affordable ways to keep white clothes looking bright!

Here you can see the boys polo tops after being worn and washed for seven weeks! They definitely do not look like they did when they came out of the packets when I bought them in the summer holidays!

The tops had a lovely grey tinge to them and the odd food mark or pen mark! Both my boys are notorious for taking their jumpers off in the classroom for no reason at all lol!

This was how the  polo tops when they came out the washing machine! They definitely looked a lot whiter and they certainly smelt good!  The next challenge was to see how they were when they came out of the tumble dryer.

And they are out of the tumble dryer! And wow the difference in the colour is amazing! These shirts were virtually grey after being worn for seven weeks and washed every weekend! We will definitely keep on using Ace Ultra for whites on the boys school tops! Especially given the current situation with another lockdown looming!

**This post is an entry for the #ACEit Challenge sponsored by Ace. Get ideas on how to wash whites, treat stains and laundry like a boss with tips from the Ace Site!**

The Siblings Project 2020 - October

 Wow its really October already! This year has gone so fast, but at other times it feels like it has gone so slowly!

This months picture was taken during the school half term holiday. The boys were playing with James connect four game. Literally seconds after the picture was taken James won and Freddie tipped the counters all over the floor!

Living Arrows 2020 Week 37/52

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 it was James first day back at school since the 18th of March! He was quite excited about going back, but a little bit apprehensive about all the changes.

Freddie went to stay with nana and gaga for the night as he does not start reception till the 14th September. Poor kid threw such a tantrum outside the gate because he wanted to go now and not wait another week!! But he did see his two best friends as they were dropping off their older siblings who are in James class!

Living Arrows 2020 Week 36/52

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 James has been spending some time with his Nana and Gaga. Normally in the Easter holidays and May half term James will spend a couple of days visiting without mummy and Freddie, before we come and join him for a few days. But obviously with the Covid19 situation this year, neither of those trips to their house happened. So we decided with the fact he has ended up with seven weeks for his summer holiday he could go up for a few days the last week of his holidays. He has had a great time!!

Freddie has had a quiet week at home with mummy, while daddy has been working. We had to wait in one day for a parcel being collected for daddy and we also took a trip to tesco which was Freddie's first time there since the start of March!! We have also spent a lot of time playing with his wooden trains!

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 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!

University Prep Work all Parents Need to Sort for Their Kids

Seeing your child go to university and enter into higher education is really a proud moment for a lot of parents, and this is something that it’s definitely best to prepare for moving forward. Try to make sure you do as much as possible to make the most of this right now, and you need to get the best possible outcome for your child. 

Taking the plunge into university life can be a daunting prospect for a lot of people, and the more you can do to help your child have a better time at university, the better. There are loads of great things that will help you to play a part in this, and trying to get things right is so important. There are a lot of factors that you need to think about when trying to get things sorted for their kids. 

Save Money

It is important to remember that university is an expensive endeavour for a lot of people, and, while there is typically government support available, this is also means-tested. You need to make sure you try to save up and put aside money as much as possible, and it is a great way of being able to ensure that the process is less expensive. In fact, you might even be in a position to help pay for your child to go to university without having to rely on a student loan, and this is important to think about..

Visit Different Institutions

You also need to think about the different ideas you can keep in mind when it comes to choosing the right university. Now, you need to remember that this is not your decision to make, it’s your childs. There are a lot of things that play a part in helping you with this, and you are going to need to work on the best ways of being able to take things to the next level with this. Try to do what you can to factor this in, and try to give them a diverse range of universities to visit and check out, as this is going to make it far easier for them to make a decision, and will allow you to get a feel for a place before actually committing to it. 

Find the Right Accommodation

The right accommodation choices can also be a big part of this and it is important to make the right kind of decision here as well. There are a lot of things that play a role in helping with your making these choices, and you need to speak with your child about whether they would prefer to be housed in halls of residence, or if student studio apartments would be the kind of thing that interests them a little more.

There are a lot of things that you need to think about when it comes to improving your kid’s

university experience. And this is why it is so important to make sure you take the time to

improve things for the future, and spend time coming up with some of the best ideas you can

that will help to improve your child’s experience of going to uni. 

**Collaborative Post**

Living Arrows 2020 Week 27/52

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 started with mummy going into school to drop medication off for Freddie as he was due back.

James had a great online virtual Beavers session. We are now running joint with the Cubs so we learned about the Japanese star festival Tanabata. He was set homework to make a Tanzaku. Since daddy had a week off work James decided he was going to come and help in the garden!