A is for Adventure. F is for Family.

Christmas this year was AMAZING! We got to spend a huge amount of time with Mrs M which made our festive celebrations. To add to the excitement Mrs M had set up one of her treasure hunts around the house, with a very exciting booty to be found. More from that later in the year though, exciting times!!!

"Treasure your relationships, not your possessions."

There has been an envelope sitting on our tall boy at home amongst the tin robots since last Thursday, addressed to me and the boys with the strict instructions not to open until 4pm today. As you can imagine me and the boys were very eager for that time to arrive as we had no ideas about the contents of said envelope. Mrs M had left us this as she is working away and we've all been missing her very much.

Excitement was in the air when Seth finished school today and we raced back to see what Mrs M had planned for us. Inside, a clue and the start of what turned out to be a very exciting treasure hunt. I loved how personal the treasure hunt was, some of the the clues were things that only we would know and were aimed at us individually. Considering Mrs M is always so busy with work I don't know how she found the time to organise it.

Not only were we running about the house searching for well hidden items, we also had to take our hunt online and get clues from Mrs M's Twitter page. As excited as the boys were getting, I was starting to get a bit of a headache by this point as because the excitement was too much. I loved the effort that had gone in knowing that she would be away for a few days and it really meant a lot to us that she had gone all out with this surprise hunt.

With clues zipped inside sofa cushions, within the pages of books, inside pen lids and hidden in the barbecue in the garden it was just what the boys needed to perk them up because of mommy working away. I was getting so much out of the smiles on the boys faces, it was lovely to watch. there was one point where there was a clue in a box of Amsterdam shortbread and Seth thought that was the end but the search continued.

The final clue was a memory stick with instructions to play a video and when the boys saw Mrs M wearing a pirate hat and explaining where the surprise was  they were on the edge of their seats. She told the boys that even though she had told them where the surprise was they had to watch the video till the end. She told Seth not to run off and that she knew he was giggling (which he was, he thought that was amazing).

As the video ended they both darted for our bedroom to the lever arch folder in the bookcase that was hiding their surprise. Mrs M notched up some serious super mom points today, not for the surprise itself although we've all been so excited about getting this game and it really will keep us entertained while she is away but for the effort and love that went into organising this without us knowing, so that she can continue to put smiles on our faces even though shes not with us.

I feel so lucky to have Mrs M as a best friend and i know the boys feel exactly the same way. Now to go and play LEGO haha.

Thanks Mrs M there really is no one quite like you x

"Wingediet: When you eat nothing but Giraffe wings!"

It's my favourite time of year again and despite the attempted wake up call at 5am yesterday, i loved being woken up by two excited boys eager to dish out the fruits of their artistic labour. The boys have been secretly working on cards and i love the excitement in the air on the build up to fathers day. I used to like all the secrecy myself when i was growing up. It does make me feel a little sad now though that my own dad has failed to step up and make the effort over the years. 

Anyway, yesterday was awesome, a relaxing day playing with the boys and taking time to spend quality time with them is what fathers day is all about. They make me feel like the luckiest dad on the planet and Seth especially has been the cutest. Being a step dad can be difficult at times but hardships aside my relationship with Seth has blossomed over the years.

What i love about Seth and Opeie is how they fully appreciate what me and Mrs M do for them. They are thoughtful and caring boys and everyone comments on how lovely they both are.

(Opeie shamelessly revealed my true age on this card, I'm still looking good for it though)

Fathers day ended with a family game of scrabble which left us all in hysterics when Seth attempted to play 'iet' off of 'winged'. The word was crazy enough but it was followed by a very sleepy Mrs M explaining that a 'wingediet' is when you eat nothing but Giraffe wings, she's a crazy woman! A great end to a fun day with my special boys.

I hope you all had an amazing fathers day.



 

"The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life."

A month or so back me and my little sidekick took Mrs M to a business meeting in Stroud, I'd never been before and had no idea what was there so the prospect of heading in to unchartered territory as always was exciting. We love just wandering around places we don't know and taking everything in. When we arrived Mrs M went off to do what she needed to do and we went adventuring. I thought it would be fun to get Opeie to point out all the things he could see that interested him and I'd take pictures. I'm not sure why but the post never got written but a few days back we had to go to Stroud again so we played the same game and well, here's some of the pictures from both trips.

It was nice to see that a lot of the things that interested Opeie were from nature, trees, berries etc...

We stumbled in to a little toy shop and found a little fox to come home with us. The Gruffalo and little brown mouse were very happy about the new addition to our family and 'foxey' as we're calling him now has become a 'book fox' and reads with us every afternoon...

Opeie seemed quite amused by the 'lady with an iPad head' in one of the bank windows, So she was added to Opeie's items of interest. It was so much fun listening to Opeie get excited about things and then say 'Daddy take a picture!'.

"Wow daddy look! a big number 1!" i love how excited he gets about everything...

Fox!!!!

Opeie was really missing mommy and we thought it was cute when we found this book in a charity shop to read while we were having snacks...

More Foxes!!!

Opeie was really excited when we found a book with his friends name on the front.

yeah, you guessed it... Fox!!!

And there you have it, the things that grab a 3 year olds attention. It would be lovely to have his innocence for the day and only see the beautiful things that are in our eye line. As a dad (although i did pick up on the many things Opeie did), i was concentrating more on a cyclist that almost hit us, Selfish smokers blowing smoke our way and an array of people effing and jeffing as they walked by with no consideration that there were young ears present. Never lose that innocence Opeie in many ways i crave it daily for myself.