Living Arrows 2018 33/53

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"

I can't believe we have made it to week 33 already!! We are now over half way through the summer holidays and on the final count down to James turning six, his birthday party and of course the return to school and the start of year two!

So James has spent the last week staying with his Nana and Gaga getting totally spoilt rotten as normal! Mummy and Freddie did crash his trip for one night so mummy could catch up with some of her old friends who she has not seen in years and also so they could meet the boys!

Mummy and Freddie came home on Tuesday on the bus and had a chilled out afternoon. Wednesday we took a walk across to Kingston Park to get Freddie out the house and away from the demands of Peppa Pig on Amazon Prime. 

While we were doing that James had a trip to Warkworth Castle which is near his Nana and Gaga's house. They have passes to get into the castle and James absolutely loves going when he visits!

Thursday we had a Sure Start group on at the local sports field, we didn't actually stay too long as Freddie was not impressed at it being where it was. I think when I told him we were going to Sure Start he thought we were going to be in the room and garden we normally are, not in the local park. We were back home by half past 12 when it only started at 12! James on the other hand had a trip to Alnmouth beach and tea at the local pub!

Friday mummy and Freddie went back across to Kingston Park to get Freddie his nappies, pull ups and dairy free snacks. We then went to Aldi as it had reopened after its refurbishment and got lost in the shop!!

James came home on Saturday lunch time and Freddie was thrilled to see him!! It was impossible to chose one photo of James from his time away so its a collage of him at the beach and out for dinner!

Freddie has just been a little cheese ball as normal when he sees the camera! His photo was taken when he stole my iPad and sat on the sofa!

Customized Canvas with CanvasChamp

Since photography all became digital over the last decade, I have very rarely printed out any photographs of the boys, So the only ones I really have on my wall are ones that were taken at James school last year. So when CanvasChamp got in touch and asked if we would like to review one of their 12x8 canvas prints we jumped at the chance.

We have a few canvas prints at home, but these have all been gifts from family. We have never actually sat down and ordered a canvas print ourselves.

The process of ordering was so easy, it literally only took me ten minutes to do the order. I chose to use a photograph I had taken a few weeks ago when we went from a walk into Newcastle from where we live on outskirts of the city. We were walking along the path on the Town Moor and Freddie was running chasing James. Even though it is from the back, you can tell just how much Freddie idolizes his big brother! I chose to use this picture as it was a beautiful photo of my boys as you can see below.

I ordered this on Saturday 28th July at 8pm and we received it at half past four on 3rd August 2018. I was so impressed with the speed of the delivery from the actual order going through to receiving the finished canvas!

The canvas is absolutely gorgeous! I love the size and the quality of the finished product! Now all I have to do is actually find somewhere in our house to hang it for everyone to see!

**Disclaimer: We received this canvas print free of charge in exchange for this review. All words and pictures are our own!**

Living Arrows 2018 32/53

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"

This week James and Freddie have had some busy days but also some nice quiet chilled out days at home! 

On Monday we went to The Great North Museum to see the Get North 2018 exhibition. We have been to the museum a few times before, but loads of the normal exhibits have been moved out to make way for this big one! We saw some fantastic things like Damien Hirst "Heaven" (the shark in formaldehyde) which James absolutely loved, although he did shout "mummy I can see the sharks butt!" Freddie loved seeing things like The Twirliwoo's boat, The Pontipines House and of course Makka Pakka's Og Pog! We also saw some Postman Pat figures and Wallace and Grommit!

Tuesday we walked across to our local Tesco and Poundland to pick up some nappies and pull ups for Freddie. 

Wednesday we had a quick trip to Aldi to pick up some more fruit as the boys are eating me out of fruit so bad this school holiday!

Thursday we walked across to Kingston Park to go to the playground as it is slightly different to ours. Then we came home and chilled out watching Thomas movies and also Nanny McPhee

Friday was another busy day as we headed up to Tesco first thing and then back via Aldi. Aldi was closing for a few days for refurbishment so we needed to pick up the essentials like milk, bread, Almond milk etc to get us through to it re opening on 9th August!

Saturday was a very busy day as we had the NE1 Motor Show in Newcastle City Center, then later on we had our local fair on the field behind our sports center. 

Our Television - What we watch!

As a busy mum who is not only a stay at home mum, but also a blogger and a web designer  the television can be both a hindrance and also my best friend!! It can distract the kids in the morning when I am running around like a headless chicken trying to get all our things ready for school, playgroup and of course now we are on summer holidays it occupies them while I get us ready to go out for the day. But it can also distract me when I am trying to work when I am home alone! It has got to the stage where I will sometimes take my laptop into the kitchen and work in there with music on via Spotify!

The first thing that I do every morning when I take the kids downstairs is switch on our Television and put it onto Channel 5 for Milkshake. We use Milkshake on a school morning as our clock! I mean they do have a clock on the screen but we tend to use the programmes as our clock. So when Paw Patrol finishes I tell James to go to the toilet, he then comes back downstairs and we put his coat, shoes and bag on then we watch The Floogals. Once The Floogals has finished that is our queue to leave for school.

We bought our television last year (2017) in the Black Friday sales and it is brilliant! It is a Samsung smart television, so we have Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube and YouTube Kids all built in. Plus we have ITV Hub, IPlayer, My5 etc too!

James has recently started to watch Scooby Doo on Amazon Prime but Freddie doesn’t like it very much so we keep Scooby Doo as a treat for James once Freddie is in bed. During the day when James has been at school Freddie loves to watch Peppa Pig and Blaze which is on both Amazon Prime and Netflix.

Having a smart television is just perfect for a family like us, It means we can use catch up television when the kids are in bed or at school/playgroup. Before we got the smart television I would have to use catch up television like IPlayer or ITV Hub on an evening on my iPad. But with Freddie being an early riser and not napping anymore I have to use the evenings to get my work done and then I tend to go to bed and be asleep by nine. So when both Freddie and James are at playgroup and school and Andy is at work the television is mine! So I catch up on things I miss on an evening.

The last few things I have watched on Netflix have been films, my favourite has to be Full Out which is about the American Gymnast Arianna Berlin who missed out on the Olympics due to being injured in a car accident and how she came back to the sport she loved! As a family we last watched Paddington 2 which the boys loved! But we quite often go back to old favourites we have just found on Amazon Prime like Thomas Day of the Diesels and Misty Island Mystery.  

I’m always on the lookout for new programmes or films to watch on Netflix or Amazon Prime so please leave a comment below with your favourite!

**This is a sponsored post in collaboration with https://www.latestdeals.co.uk/**  

Living Arrows 2018 31/53

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"

We had a lovely time visiting my mum and dad for a few days last week.

Nana picked us up on Monday and we got up to their house for lunch time. The boys then went to the park for a while with Nana and Gaga

.

Mummy and the boys took a walk to the next town to pop to the shops. Then later mummy Nana and the boys went back across to Amble in the car and took the boys for a walk around the harbor and James went onto the beach with Nana while mummy tried to keep Freddie awake!

On Wednesday mummy and Nana took Freddie for a long walk around by the river and the village to get him out of the house! 

We came home on Thursday as the boys had their asthma reviews with the nurse which went really well! 

So the first week of the school holidays is now over and only another 5 weeks and one birthday to go!!

Living Arrows 2018 30/53

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"

So the schools are now on holiday! Last week was pretty busy! Freddie had his last two sessions at playgroup for the year and we also had our last session at sure start since the group will not be running in September. Freddie also had his playgroup party and his long awaited hospital appointment.

James had a pretty busy last week of term, with his project outcome presentation. They also did their sponsored sit. They raised a massive £133 for a local charity!

At the weekend we caught a bus into town and had a wander round. We then headed up to nuns moor for pride weekend but nothing was open when we got there and the boys were grumpy so we walked up to Kenton Road to get the bus home. We then spent the afternoon watching Paddington 2!

End of School Review!

Its now July 20th 2018 and it is James last day in year one! I cannot believe how fast this school year has gone! I feel like I have blinked and its over!

Compared to Reception, I really think Year One has been the making of James! I remember his old Reception Teacher saying she thought he just needed the structure of year one learning and she was right! James is not one of those children who benefits from the learning through play that reception is based, He needed to have the structured time table of maths at a certain time and phonics at certain time and he has come on in leaps and bounds.

The main bases of learning for James in this last term has all been towards the National phonics test, sometimes I think there has been too much pressure on the kids as before the test James was coming home exhausted after having two hard phonics sessions a day rather than the one he had been used to.

The homework diary they use for years 1-6 have pages in the back for all the stickers the kids get and boy has James had a lot of stickers! Last year he barely got any, this year he has sometimes had two or three a day!

He has also had Star of the week twice, he's been very proud when he has come home with I his sticker which is given out in assembly by the head teacher, the certificate is then posted home. 

James also came home with an academic achievement certificate from his head teacher a few weeks ago! 

I am so proud of how well James has done this year! Year two is going to be even harder as they will be working towards the key stage one SATs!