"Forget the past; look forward to the future, for the best things are yet to come."

Day 113:

Every year for as long as I can remember my birthday has always felt like just another day of the week, this year was different though. There was a feeling in the air that I wasn't expecting on the build up and as it got closer I felt myself feeling all warm inside. Opeie had been busy doing some top secret prep for weeks and my unexpected warm fuzzy birthday feeling was definitely coming from their excitement. By the time the big day came today I felt like I had already had my birthday twice over because of the first two days of the three day celebrations.

You know you are on to a winner when not only do. you receive a thoughtful toy from your childhood but also new patches for that magical toy (which are always battered because of their age). And Opeie couldn't be any cuter, knowing exactly what to get me because he is so bloody awesome. By the time we were ready to head out I was feeling like a princess.

As we drove out of the road to start our journey to Lake Vyrnwy, I spotted pictures of myself all over the place, Opeie had clearly been having a blast getting ready for today. I liked to think that everyone one on our road thought I was a young dad but now they all know that I'm a crusty 40-year-old.

Lake Vyrnwy was a little busier than we expected but we found a quiet spot to have a picnic and a good stomp while Opeie took photos for his next comic. On the way home all I could think about was that delicious looking backed cheese cake that Opeie had made. Today was perfection, it was so nice to have a clear head for a few days. Hopefully next year the world will seem a little calmer. 

"Don't ever, never say we're through, We gon boogaloo"

Day 112:

Day 2 of the birthday celebrations has been awesome and I'm feeling so loved. It's a shame I don't turn 40 every weekend.  I woke up to coffee and breakfast in bed again, more lovely presents and then we backed up the car to the river in Jackfield, opened the boot, dropped the seats and lay in the back drawing. I feel like Ive already had my birthday twice over and its not until tomorrow. I've been treated like a princess. I'm currently banished upstairs and I'm not allowed to go downstairs until tomorrow, I have no idea what those lovelies are up to.

I was so chill today that I didn't even think to get my phone out to take a picture, so here's a song instead.  

"Be Excellent to each other, and Party on Dudes!"

Day 8:

It will no doubt be one of the weirdest birthdays that Opeie is going to experience with everything that's going on in the world at the moment but I wanted him to feel just as special when he woke up this morning. Its crazy that 9 years have flown by this quickly and although I clearly didn't envision us spending it in isolation, he's had a pretty lovely day. Despite the current situation the only thing that was missing was him being able to spend it with his friends. As I write this though I can hear him downstairs playing online with his besties, So I'm pretty thankful for technology today.

Also I'm looking forward to the cake.

"The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough."

I love the build up to the boys birthdays, I get so excited about all the prepping. When I asked Opeie what he wanted to do for his birthday this year, that little beetle lover of mine wanted nothing more than to take his friends to the butterfly farm in Stratford-upon-avon, after a very exciting visit last year. Our previous visit was one of those days out that will stay with him for a long long time and that was all down to the interesting and very well educated staff. So it was no surprise really that he would want to go again and share the magic with his friends.

Our previous visit was a dreary and wet day but this time the sun was out and it was amazing to see the difference in the butterflies as they seemed so much more active with the sun shining through the roof. One of the things I love most about the butterfly farm is that the excitement begins as soon as you walk through the doors to the butterfly area. Within a minute each of the kids had a new friend land on them and that was pretty much all they needed to kick start an amazing visit.

One thing that always sticks out when visiting is the interesting and friendly staff that work there.  These guys are so full of amazing informative information and from a home education point of view this is priceless. Mark took us through all of the stages of a butterflies life cycle, pointed out lots of different types of butterflies and answered every question we could throw at him. This visit was a little more exciting too as the kids were able to handle the giant stick insects, millipede's and other fun creatures from the Mini beasts area.

I could spend hours at the butterfly farm, happily sat on a bench with a sketch book, doodling as people walk around in awe of all the beautiful butterflies fluttering by. Being able to bring Opeie's friends along too was a lovely experience for him as many of our visits to various places has just been the 2 of us, so it was nice to share the fun that we have with other Home-Ed children. If you are out for a day trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon then we cant recommend the Butterfly farm enough. I'm sure it wont be long before Opeie wants to visit again. Another truly amazing visit to a place that's full of magic.

"I'll stop wearing black when they make a darker color"

7 years feels like it has gone by in the blink of an eye. One minute I'm watching that amazing boy of mine make his dramatic entrance in to the world, the next I'm celebrating his 7th birthday. As quickly as it has gone though, that time has been packed full of amazing experiences that have made him the most amazing human being. I have never been more connected to another person and knowing that I have taught him how to read and write etc through his homeschooling is such an amazing feeling, he has taught me so much about myself though too.

You always hope as a parent that you can introduce your little ones to the things that you love yourself, and these things become an interest to them. Sometimes though they take the things that you love and then take that passion one step further. Music has always been a huge thing for me, for as far back as I can remember and I'd say Ive got a pretty eclectic taste. This passion for music has become a big thing with Opeie too, In fact I'd say big chunks of his days revolve around it. If he's not listening to it he's singing to himself, and has now started drumming lessons so that he can play like the artists that he looks up to like Andy Hurley or Travis barker.

It was inevitable that we would eventually get to the point where I could introduce him to one of the things that I loved to do most growing up. Any chance I could get to go to a gig, I was there and over the years I have seen so many amazing bands from all sorts of music genres. As we use Spotify to play all of our music, we are always receiving emails letting us know when our favourite artists are playing locally. When an email came through letting us know that Fall out boy were playing in Birmingham we were so excited. Although I was a little apprehensive about taking a 6-year-old  to a rock gig, they were playing the evening before his birthday, it seemed like an opportunity not to be missed. 

There was so much excitement during the days building up to the gig but on the day that excitement turned to anxiety and Opeie was really worried about being in an arena with so many people (he's never been great in places with lots of people). We headed up to Birmingham a couple of hours early though and pottered about, hitting coffee shops and places of interest along the way. Before we knew it it was go time and the excitement was back. 

Arriving when the doors opened meant that we could get to our seats and watch the arena fill up slowly which definitely worked out better for my little rock enthusiast. The only other issue was always going to be the late night. Come 7:30 any night of the week, Opeie will start to say "I'm tired" and this night was no exception. During the second support act he fell asleep... Bummer! I thought for sure that I was going to have to take him home but I held on and as soon as Fall out boy hit the stage Opeie was up and headbanging all over the place. Ive been to some amazing gigs in my time but this one was unbelievable, maybe it was being there with Opeie, maybe the music? all I know is it was a very special night.

They belted out all of Opeie's favourite songs, which was great because that kept him awake. As we started getting to the end of the evening though it was clear that all the excitement and great music was too much and he looked exhausted so we ducked out a couple of songs before the end. The cold air outside quickly woke him up and the walk along the canal back to the car was filled with singing and talking about what an amazing night we had had. I'm not sure I'd book anymore tickets just yet but what amazing experience for that little rock enthusiast of mine.

Happy 7th birthday Opeie, you are my world. 💖

"Get a bunch of bad guys together to fight bad guys? That's a terrible idea!"

I've been pretty quiet on here for the last few weeks but there has been a good reason for it. When we asked Opeie what he would like for his birthday, we were obviously expecting some sort of LEGO, he's a HUGE brick enthusiast just like his dad. What I wasn't expecting though was for him to ask for something that you can't buy as a kit. When it comes to Opeie's LEGO roleplaying, the most played with LEGO piece is the Disney themed Deathstar that we built last year. The shape of the original kit has the best playability for children and with all those rooms to play in with your minifigures, it is amazing for making upLEGO stories. The Disney themed one came about after creating our Christmas themed Deathstar the year before. The boys loved it but it ended up becoming part of our LEGO arcade machine. We encased it in the lower part of the machine for display meaning that the boys couldn't play with it anymore (as you can imagine they were not impressed).  

The Disney Deathstar made up for that though, that was until the release of The LEGO Batman movie. Opeie has become a huge DC fan since watching the movie, so when it got to his birthday build up, you can probably guess what he asked for, a Batman-themed version of his favourite play set, the Deathstar. We talked about it and I said maybe it could be something we could build together at a later date because there was so little time before his big day (yes I'm a meanie!). After that it was all systems go, I had 3 weeks to build it but it took almost a week for some obscure shaped baseplates to be delivered that I needed to build the levels. I spent the first week hitting all the online trade sites as I had a list as long as my arm of characters needed to fill the creation and I wanted to keep costs to a minimum. Bless Opeie, as part of his request there were only 2 characters he asked for that he really wanted, but I was sure I could do better than that though.

 As soon as my Bricklink order arrived I began building, For the first few days I went through my usual self-doubt 'this is going to turn out crap' 'I haven't got enough time' blah blah blah. As always though when I am building, the more bricks I attach the more motivated I get and my race to complete this special gift for that awesome boy of mine became a very fun challenge. Each night he would go to bed and as Mrs M was tucking him in, I was sneaking my creation downstairs to continue building. There were packages coming pretty much every day from figures I was trading and it was shaping up to be a creation full of DC Comics finest.

In keeping with the randomness of the movie and the awesome kits released to coincide with the movie, I didn't want to be too obvious with the themes of the rooms. We had already created custom jokers fun houses on different occasions and Mr Freeze and Catwoman have had their own builds on various things. The only character I repeated was Poison ivy but that was only because I had stolen the monster plant from Opeie's Scooby Doo kit for the arcade and hadn't replaced it. He wouldn't let me forget it so I saw it as the perfect chance to build him a new one.

Instead of The Joker getting his own multicoloured craziness of a room I decided to base their room around Harley Quinns nurse outfit from the LEGO Batman series figures. Joker donned some scrubs and poor Batman lay in bed completely oblivious about the medical care he was about to receive.

The two characters that Opeie really wanted were Beast boy and Star Fire. He has become quite the Teen titans Go! fan since his new found DC obsession, so seeing as we already had Cyborg and Robin it made sense to track down the others and create a Teen Titans Go! room. All I needed to fill it was a pink couch from the episodes and the characters, job done.

  
With the latest wave of Mighty Micro's hitting the shelves, we were very lucky to have had them sent to us to review, so we had a great collection of them to use in the build. as they are shorter than the usual characters and have cute child-like facial expressions Opeie had joked about how it would be cool if they were all in a class room. I had seen this done already but I wanted to include it in the build and using Eraser and Calculator as the teachers was a nice touch I think (I still want to get hold of Calander man too though).

Lobster Lovin' batman and Vacation Batman were two of my favourite characters from the Movie series figures and I wanted to do something fun with them both. I had built a bat shaped pool when the series was released and I was hoping to use that, but it was far too big for the Deathstar, so I used half of it in one of the larger rooms for Vacation batman, Aquaman, Orca and Black Manta and then for the remainder of the room built a sauna for Lobster Lovin' Batman.

As the Minifigure packages were coming through the post each day, I was building up quite a collection of Batman variations in different outfits and figured that the only way to display them was to create a walk in wardrobe style room for the Dark Knight himself. I loved this room because the brighter costumes really added some fun to what had been a build heavy on the black and grey.

 I had also managed to get hold of a lot more villains than I was expecting and obviously not all of them were going to get their own themed room. I needed somewhere to put them so I decided to add in Gotham police station. Barbara and Commissioner Gordon got there own room and after mooching for all the handcuffs I could find I had a great place to display some of the bad guys that just couldn't help but get captured by Batman and Gotham PD.

One thing I was really thankful of while building this was that we had won a Mosiac from the Opening of the Leicester square store which was so awesome. After Opeie had built the custom portrait of his face there were loads of single studs left, which ended up being perfect for making patterned flooring in many of the rooms.

By this point, I was really running out of time and I had so many other things that I needed to be doing in preparation for Opeie's big day. Then Mrs M pointed out something that stupidly hadn't even crossed my mind. I get so carried away when I am building something that all I can see is the end piece, she pointed out though that although it was turning out great and clearly he was going to love it, wouldn't it be nice if some of it was left for us to build together, and she was so right. Whenever Mrs M asks if there is anything I would like for Fathers day or my Birthday, I always say 'something fun I can do with the boys' and I almost missed out on the magic of building LEGO with the boys here. So I left the lower section of the Batcave for Opeie to build a Batcave area for batman and Robin and the top floor empty, no walls or flooring etc. I simply wrote 'Happy Birthday Opeie' in bricks and displayed the remainder of the figures that I managed to collect over the weeks.

As expected the Batman themed Deathstar went down a treat and having that area on top to sit and build together really was an amazing idea of Mrs M's. Opeie has big ideas and we've just started building a pizza parlour for his new Scarecrow figure from the movie set. He's also been busy making sports related Batman costumes for his costume room.

It's going to be a fun few weeks of custom building with the boys and I'm looking forward to getting stuck in with them. I can't wait to see what craziness the boys come up with. LEGO will continue to be one of my favourite things to do with the boys, there really is so much father/son magic in those amazing bricks.

Want to see more? check out the video HERE!

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

It seems that every year at the end of march, that Ferris Beuller quote pops into my head "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it". Tonight was no different, as I stood in the kitchen making a cup of coffee, thinking about Opeie's birthday yesterday, it surfaced again. These are words to live by. 6 years can go by so quickly and the last 6 have been my quickest to date. Becoming a parent seems to push the accelerator down on life and as I reminisced about that first time I saw that boy of mine, I found myself feeling so proud of how much we've packed into this time, it may have flown by but we have embraced every family moment.

Those first years, as difficult as they were at times, taught me so much about myself and shaped me into the person I always wanted to be, becoming a father was my defining moment. As Opeie developed so did I and things have been that way ever since. Parenting has been the most amazing adventure and I feel so lucky to have both of the boys in my life. With each birthday of Opeie's that passes, I find myself going over all of the the things that we have accomplished as a family and it really blows my mind.

During those early years I never could have envisioned me being the stay at home parent, let alone home educating Opeie too, but that is where our lives have taken us and I would never change a thing. Watching your children grow up and pass that birthday milestone each year is amazing but home educating adds an extra level to that feeling because you get to fully see that development and be a full time part of it. Knowing that you have been the one to teach them to read and write, learn maths and be a fountain of information at the age of 6 is a huge thing for us.

6 years on and I honestly couldn't ask for a more amazing child.  Opeie has completely changed my world. He is witty and kind and so much fun to be around but most importantly, he is always smiling, which for me was the most important thing to concentrate on as a parent.

In my head this was going to be a post about his birthday celebration, but as usual I've waffled on.

There was only one way he wanted to kick off his birthday fun, and when given the option of what he wanted to do on his very special day he opted to go to Ikea (which made us chuckle). It wasn't quite what I was expecting him to say but our little Lawrence Llewelyn Bowen has big design plans for his bedroom wall and was desperate to get some colourful picture frames so that he could start redesigning, I love his creativity. Yesterday was a day of family and he had an awesome time. 

Another year has passed and I cannot wait to see what the next 6 years have in store for us. Being a dad is Awesome!!!

"You don't get older, you get better."

"Dad go back to sleep!" was the first thing that I heard yesterday morning as I drifted in and out of consciousness. His adorable command became cuter and cuter though and eventually woke me up with a smile on my face. It was my Birthday. There was secret stuff going on and they weren't ready for a fully awake Birthday boy! when you get older your birthday starts to just become another day of the week, but when you have children the Birthday excitement starts again. I love the sneaking around Birthday build up "Dad don't come in the room" and "Did you just hear what we were just talking about?" as I walk past a room in the house.

The sneakiness makes me feel really special and I love the effort that the boys go to. As I fully opened my eyes and gave Opeie a HUGE hug, Seth came walking through the door with the most amazing looking raw cheesecake with homemade raw peanut butter cups topping and candles flickering away on top . It was the tastiest breakfast I could have asked for and an awesome start to another amazing Birthday with my favourite 2 people

(I know what you are all thinking 'he must be older than 12?!')

"There are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents, and only one for birthday presents, you know."

I'm not sure why but every time I have started to write this post about Opeie's birthday over the last two weeks I have drawn a blank. I honestly think that I'm in some kind of shock that he has already been around as long as he has and it has thrown a spanner in the works as far as writing has gone. It doesn't matter how many times you hear the words 'they grow up so fast' or 'they'll be a teenager before you know it!' nothing prepares you for just how fast the time with your child really does go by. The day he was born is so fresh in my mind and that look he gave me when I held him for the first time is permanently etched.

Becoming a dad completely changed my world, it took every thing I had thought about 'family' and turned it right on its head (for the better). After a pretty confusing upbringing from a family so wrapped up in themselves, I had got to my late 20's with no real value for family and now that I think about it that was pretty sad. Then Mrs M came along with Seth and put me back on the right path, a path I felt like I should have been on many years ago. When Opeie joined us our family felt complete and having him there really gave me purpose.

I get a little emotional around Opeie's birthday and I kind of feel like I'm not myself for a few days. I think its because in a way it does take me right back to all of the bad times that we were living with on the build up to his arrival. It was a tough pregnancy, physically for Mrs M and emotionally draining for me, watching the person I adored really suffering. All through the year I think about how lucky we are that Opeie is here and how much respect I have for our independent midwife Amanda who was there right by our sides through the entire pregnancy. Amanda not only made sure that Opeie was brought into this world safely but she also made me and Mrs M realise just how strong we are as a couple. 

I obviously didn't plan on Opeie's birthday post being so bleak but then there are a lot of emotional events surrounding his amazing day. 5 years old, I still cant believe it, although that time has gone fast we can happily say that we have filled those years with many amazing experiences for him and he is growing up to be a really amazing child. Not a day goes by where his dancing, skateboarding, amazing vocabulary and general glowing happiness doesn't blow my mind. There is always something he is doing or saying that is really special and as a dad I am completely smitten.

I too will pass on the message to any expecting parent that the parenting years (especially the early ones) really do go in to hyperdrive but I will always follow that with 'Embrace every parenting moment you have!.

Happy birthday Opeie x