Blogtober Day Four

Day Four and the prompt I am using is "On the Shelf!" 

Shelves are something we don't really have in our house. In fact the only two that we have in the whole entire house are in the kitchen and bathroom!

Our kitchen shelves are basically a dumping ground for keeping things out of Freddie's way like scissors, sellotape, and the all important name labels for naming school and scouting stuff!!

The ones in the bathroom however are where all the Child's Farm bath stuff is kept! We have been Brand Ambassadors for them for around three years now and we absolutely love the products! Using the shelving unit to store them is perfect as they take over at least two shelves!

We have shampoo, conditioner, 2 in 1 shampoo and conditioner, hair and body wash, bubble bath and our trusty 3 in one swim, which is shampoo, conditioner and body wash! This was a life saver when we went on holiday last year as it meant I only had to pack one product for us and the boys for washing our hair and body after a day in the pool or on the beach!

There are a few other bits on there like adult shampoo and body wash, but I definitely prefer using the Child's Farm stuff as it smells much nicer and it is much kinder to skin!

Don't the shelves look pretty with all the bright colours!!

Blogtober Day Three

Today the prompt I am using is "Organised Chaos!" This is definitely my life! 

Life with two boys is definitely chaos but it is mostly organised! On a daily basis I have to be organised for what the kids need to take with them to school and nursery! 

James has started taking pack lunches to school now that he has started in year three so that needs to be made the night before to save time the next morning! He also has to take a large water bottle, his reading book and his homework diary. Then on a Wednesday you have to add in his swimming kit as Wednesday is year three swimming day at a local pool. 

Freddie does not need to take that much with him to nursery bar a spare set of clothes which is kept in his bad. He also has a draw string bag on his peg with an extra set of clothes in. We did this because of his allergies in case he came into contact with his allergens aka wheat he would get a bad stomach quite quickly.

When the boys are in school and nursery I have three hours without Freddie to get all my blogging and web design done plus doing food shopping, washing cooking etc. 

And life is about to become even more hectic as I am taking over our local Beaver Colony after the October half term holiday, so I will be needing to allocate at least one of my three hour sessions a week to planning the sessions plus the actual meeting on a Thursday night!

So yes my life is definitely Organised Chaos!

Blogtober Day Two

Welcome to day two of Blogtober 2019! Today the prompt I am using is "I blog, therefor I am..."

So yes I blog, but what do I consider myself? Well I don't think I am a full time blogger, more along the lines of part time blogger, full time mum and  part time web designer. 

I only have fifteen hours a week child free while Freddie is attending the local nursery at the primary school, and in that fifteen hours I have to fit in household jobs and  preparing meals for the evening along with doing blogging, website work and food shopping! Occasionally I will boot up the laptop once the kids are in bed and do an hour or two of work then, but more often than not I am so exhausted I tend to crash out!!

And soon I will have to add in preparing Beaver sessions as I am currently getting my DBS check done to take over the running of our local Beaver colony that James currently attends!

So that is what I consider myself in the blogging world!

Blogtober Day One

And so October has started and its time for Blogtober! Last year I totally did not even attempt blogging everyday in October, Probably because we spent a week of the month in Majorca and I knew I would not have the time to schedule posts!

This year though I have no excuses as I have 15 hours a week to dedicate to blogging while Freddie is at nursery and James is at school!

This year I am using a mixture of prompts from places and also including my normal monthly post of siblings and my weekly post of Living Arrows!

So today I am telling you all about ME!

My name is Victoria, but everyone calls me Vicki or Vic, but my dad is the only one who really calls me Victoria!

I was born in April 1985 so that makes me 34 years old! And yes I think I actually look my age now, especially since having James and Freddie

I've been married to Andy for eight years and we have been together for eleven years!

We live in a suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne and bought our house four years years ago!

We have two boys, James who is seven and in year three at school and Freddie who is almost four and has just started the nursery at James primary school!. 

In our eleven years together, me and Andy have lived in eight homes together, Three down in Surrey and the rest up here in the North East! Twice living with my parents!

We have no pets although James is desperate for a dog or a cat! He changes his mind on a daily basis! Both boys are not too keen on little dogs so I have no idea what we will eventually get, but it wont be until Freddie is at least six!!!

So this is all about me!!

Living Arrows 2019 39/52

Welcome to Living Arrows post 2019! 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 post one photo of James and one photo of Freddie and share what they have been up to that week!

This week we got the kit list for James upcoming school residential trip to Kielder, which he is so looking forward too! A few of his friends are apprehensive about it, but I think for James as he's already done two nights away with Beavers he will be fine! He is already so excited! Mummy is about to finish labelling all the stuff he needs to take with him.They are only away for one night but the kit list is crazy with the amount of clothing! Mummy is going to use her zip lock bag trick and pack each set of clothing into one to make it easier on James so he's not having to root around in his bag for clothes.

Freddie has had a brilliant week at nursery. Everyone has now joined his class and he is making lots of new friends. He is already starting to leave mummy at the classroom door which is something that James never did. And he is already starting to leave his Moo at home, where as James took CB everyday of nursery for the whole year! His favourite activities seem to be playing in the water and painting! A few times last week he was collected minus his jumper has they had to take it off as he had soaked it!

We sadly finished the week on a heartbreaking note with the death of a little girl in the boys  school as the result of a hit and run on the road behind our house. The local community has really pulled together to support the family. 

An Update On Freddie's Allergies

Freddie was diagnosed with Non Ige allergies to Dairy, Soya and Wheat back in May and has been under the dietitian team since November 2018. He has been suffering issues since he was around six months old and it took us till he was two and a half to actually see the general paediatrics at our local hospital, who were the ones that referred him to the dietitian team. 

When he went to the hospital allergy clinic back in May, he was actually discharged by the registrar with no plans. When we went to see his new dietitian back in July she was not happy that he had been discharged and decided she wanted him to go back, but this time she wanted him to see the actual consultant. 

So the first week of James being back at school, Freddie's dietitian was going to be at a meeting that the consultant was going to be at and she spoke to her about Freddie. That evening I got a phone call from the dietitian saying the consultant was calling him back in on an urgent appointment. One week later and I got the appointment in the post for the following week. 

The appointment was last Friday afternoon and it went really well. They did all the skin prick tests that he should have had back in May and they all came back negative to the Ige Allergies or to put it into non medical terms  - they came back negative for immediate reactions which we were thrilled with. 

We now know for certain his allergies are the non Ige variety or delayed reaction. Now we are waiting for an appointment with a senior dietitian to start the slow process of trying to reintroduce dairy into his diet. Even if we could get it so he could tolerate milk in cooked food it would be brilliant. 

I will do another update once we have had this appointment and what the process is going to be. At the moment we are only looking to reintroduce milk. I think it will be a long process to add in soya and maybe wheat in the next few years. 

Beavers update for James

So James turned 7 about a month ago and I really thought it was time I did an update on how he is doing in Beavers.

So in September 2018 James joined our local Beavers Colony and I have to say it was the best thing for him we could have done. He has come right out of his shell.

In March 2019 he did his first overnight stay with Beavers and gained his stage 1 nights away badge. Last week he did another night away, so I am expecting the stage two badge to appear soon.

                         

 

In total in his first year he gained eleven activity badges, five staged activity badges and three challenge badges.

There are six challenge badges to be gained and when you have them all you are awarded your Bronze award which is the highest award in Beavers.

Logging into his profile on the online Scout manager I can see he has almost completed two more challenge badges and a couple of activity badges!

Before he even went back to his meetings for the new term he took part in a Beavers sports day where he tried lots of different sports including Bell Boating which has earned him the stage 1 Time on the Water badge.

If anyone was to ask me if I would recommend putting their child into Beavers I would certainly say yes do it! James absolutely adores it and really looks forward to his weekly meetings and really misses it when it is off for school holidays.

We already have Freddie's name down on the waiting list to join when he is approaching six and he's not even four yet!

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