"Open the door, get on the floor. Everybody walk the dinosaur"

 After attending the Jurassic World game event a few weeks back i couldn't wait to start getting my hands on the kits. Kit 75918 T. rex Tracker was the the one that caught Seth's eye and it came up in conversation many times over the course of the weekend. I love the sun being out as it means we get to build outdoors, very fitting for this dino build. I think the dinosaurs themselves are great and I'm really looking forward to eventually getting my hands on all of them.

The T. rex tracker is one of the larger sets from the range and the sheer size of the truck alone makes it well worth the money, so the big T. rex and three minifigures included are a real bonus. With 520 parts in the kit it did take the boys sometime to build but the look of satisfaction on their faces when they had finished was priceless.

Cue, Dino faces!!

"My guiding principles in life are to be honest, genuine, thoughtful and caring."

If you are a regular reader you may have read our post a few weeks back about the name of the blog and where it originated, if so then you'll know all about the pirates. They have been a part of our life for years. This week on the way home picking Seth up from school, Seth sat in the back talking about how much he loved the pirates. Being the thoughtful and caring person that he is he said "i want us to do something nice for the pirates to say thank you!" he continued to tell us that they are always doing nice things for him and he would really like to show his appreciation.

It's little out of the blue comments like this that make us realise what a great job we are doing at raising the boys. He has morals and his priorities are exactly as they should be. He understands that you cant go through life taking, you should always give something back and when it comes to acting responsibly and doing the right thing he clearly knows the difference between right and wrong (unlike a certain blog author, but i turned out alright in the end).

Ive now got my thinking cap on, the pirates have and will continue to be a great source of motivation for the boys and as Seth so rightly said they deserve a huge thank you. Whatever we decide to do to show our appreciation it needs to be a celebration worthy of our eye patch wearing pirates of the sky.

Watch this space...

"Our thinking and our behaviour are always in anticipation of aresponse. It is therefore fear-based."

It had been a while since the pirates had visited the house, not because the boys had been misbehaving but because we're saving for something (all will be revealed). The boys have been so good and we thought they deserved a mini treat. For those of you that don't know where our name came from, this ones for you.

We Introduced the pirates in to our daily life to keep Seth's behaviour at a level you expect from your child and to reward him for being a great kid. He's never been a naughty child but he did go through a phase of throwing some pretty immense temper tantrums. To be fair I put a lot of it down to the transition of having his life split in two and going from house to house.

The pirates watch the boys all the time, much the same as Santa who watches them at home through the light fixtures (quite a creepy thought really). The pirates though watch the boys EVERYWHERE. When they have a good run of excellent behaviour or they do something especially great they are rewarded and this can happen anywhere. When Seth was ill in hospital the pirates visited and left him something in his room. they leave things in his car seat when hes had a great parents evening. They've even been known to leave gifts on benches in parks.

When were at home and the pirates have been, the boys hear the sound of waves crashing against the beach (good old white noise app on the iPhone) and they excitedly search the house looking for their message.

The pirates have become a big part of our lives, even more so with the blog being started.  What's nice is that all the excitement Seth has already had from it Opeie is now just starting to understand. Seth and Opeie are great children, thoughtful and caring. The way we bring them up has everything to do with that and the time and effort we make with them has been important to their development. It's nice to think that those pirates in the sky have a little influence on that though too.