"Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful."

As we took down the trees and the decorations last week we all felt a little gloomy as the house looks so bare once all the colour and glitter has gone. As we carefully packed away all the tree decorations we have collected over the years it made me realise that we needed the next installment of our Gifts from the Pirates fox hunt. Whenever we've been out shopping on the build up to Christmas and spotted a festive fox we've snapped them up straight away. So here are the sly ornaments that were making our trees look pretty this year...

Nanny and Grandad added an extra fox themed book to Opeie's ever expanding collection which was lovely. I love how family and friends pick up on the little quirks that make our family what it is.

Each year we pick a toy to sit on top of the tree (angels are so last season). We've had Holly from Ben and Holly, Cat in the hat and Miffy and this year foxes made their way to the top of two of our trees.

Nanny and Grandad again turned up a few weeks before Christmas and gave the boys a very cute Fox each that spent the build up to Christmas keeping each other warm on our stairs. It was a lovely little touch to our festive looking home, thank you Nanny Roo.

I'm already looking forward to what foxey treats next year has to offer. 

"Whatever good things we build end up building us."

LEGO!!!! It is an addiction that i have been rubbing off on to my children for many years. Not a week goes by that we don't wander in to our local Smyths store looking for new products. The Series Minifigures are a huge thing with us, one of the main reasons for me is the cost, as a parent you have so many outgoings that its not always possible to have much of a disposable income for things like toys and games (although i would happily spend every spare penny we had on LEGO but Shhhhh.....)

We completely missed series 1 of LEGO's collaboration with Cartoon Network the Mixels range and I'm kicking myself now. Mixels are perfect pocket money priced kits that are fantastic for either adding to your expanding LEGO collection or a great way to kick start the addiction that follows once you start building with this cult status building product.

Changing the subject completely (don't worry i'll find my way back). One of the things i love about visiting Mrs M's parents is how much they get involved with the boys. When we go to see them within minutes they are down on the floor playing so i tend to take a step back as its really nice to watch them building a great relationship. Today i decided to take the Frosticons tribe from LEGO Mixels series 2 with me knowing that Grandad loves building things and i left him and Opeie to a fun bit of LEGO creating.

It wasn't long before things moved to the table so that they could really get stuck in. LEGO has been such an important factor in the great relationship i have built with the boys. When we sit down to build we are a team and together we come up with some great ideas so seeing Opeie building with Grandad was lovely to watch. Grandad was really getting in to the building too which was fab, i think we'll have to gradually move him up to bigger creations it would be great to have a big family build.

 The Mixels are really great mini kits and i think in comparison to the minifigures you get a lot more LEGO for your money. From a custom builders view these kits are great for interesting new mini pieces that you don't get in other kits. The teeth and eyes used on some of the Mixels have been great new parts that we didn't already have in our ever expanding collection of bricks and have given me a great idea for a future Mixels post that we will work on over the next few weeks. 

The fact that the three kits from the same tribe (Flexers, Fang Gang and Frosticons) can be combined to make an uber Mixel is a great addition to building. Before getting these and even though i am a HUGE LEGO fan i failed to do my homework and i hadn't even realised they were a collaboration with Cartoon Network or that there was a cartoon to accompany the kits (very clever on their part as i imagine its really boosting sales). As with many of LEGO's product themes there is the Calling  all Mixels app released to run along side the products release. Its another great way to make the most of these interesting LEGO kits.

Thanks to LEGO today was another great chance for Opeie to spend some quality time with his ever doting grandparents.

"The most important thing in the world is family and love."

Saturday felt like a little bit of a wasted day. Mrs M was working for a few hours and the weather was awful so me and the little super hero spent the day in apart from a trip to the game shop to trade in some unwanted games for newbies. Yesterday really made up for it though, the sun was out and everywhere looked cheerful again. We didn't have any plans so we spent the first couple of hours of the morning trying to decide what to do. eventually we decided and packed a picnic and headed to Attingham park. We took a stroll towards the house on the grounds and it was really peaceful, I love walking around holding Mrs M's hand, we don't seem to get to do it very often and it always feels quite romantic.

 Our game of hide and seek in the garden was made a little easier by the big red super Mario hat that Opeie was insisting on wearing all morning. He was looking rather cute though.

After eating our grub and spending some time in the walled garden we jumped back in the car and took a slow drive towards Mrs M's parents house. Opeie was feeling exhausted so it was a great opportunity to get him down for a nap so that he was full of energy for all of those kisses he was going to get off nanny.

After a cup if tea, racing some toy cars and a game of Bigjigs skittles with Nanny and Grandad we all jumped in the car and drove to Auntie Lottie's house...

Opeie was so excited that he got to have a ride around on one of uncle Aaron's vintage tractors and i even got to drive it around the garden too which was lots of fun. The weather was so lovely all afternoon and being around the people we love the most made for a pretty perfect Sunday afternoon.

"Silver white winters that melt into springs, these are a few of my favorite things"

We had had a couple of weeks of excellent behavior from Seth after the incident three weekends back so we decided to give Seth the thing he had missed out on due to his out of character lack or appreciation, obviously we hadn't sent it back but it was important to teach Seth that he needs to be aware of the effort we put in as parents and to make him realise how loved he actually is.

Since getting the Micro Scooters a couple of months ago Seth has become an addict and had been working on his behaviour so that he might get a scooter of his own. Seth had his eye on the pink Sprite Which I thought was great as there is no gender colours issue with the boys. Even though Seth had received some grief off his friends at school when he told them he wanted a pink scooter he informed me that he simply retaliated with "my step dad is big and has a massive beard and his favourite colour is pink!" Yeah... Go Seth!!

Well the day had come to give Seth his scooter and this time round we received the very appreciative response we should have got a few weeks back. Unfortunately the weather decided to throw a spanner in the works for a couple of days but as soon as it had cleared (despite the floor still being wet) we took our wheels over to Nanny and Grandads with the promise of some long smooth walkways that run for miles.

 There's something about Micro scooters that turns any new rider into a hogger and there was no exception with Nanny and Grandad. As soon as they had felt the wind at their ankles there was no stopping them. It was great to see them getting involved with the boys new hobby but it was everything I would expect from Mrs M's fun loving rents. Here you can see Grandad who is very skillfully balancing using only his tongue (The mans a genius!!).

The walkways were pretty quiet so we got to race up and down almost Undisturbed. Seth had a couple of small tumbles but it's all part of the learning curve, it was good to see him brush himself off and get back on, he was so excited about his new scooter and said 'I feel really cool'. Seth has been learning to skateboard which understandably has been slow going, with restricted mobility and less sense of balance it has been difficult for him to stay on the board but the great thing about Micro Scooters is having those bars in front to steady himself mid transit. The scooter has given Seth so much confidence and it's lovely to see him fly by with a smile on his face. 

While we were scooting i was thinking how awesome it would be to get a scooter with chunky wheels so when we got home i had another look on the site and spotted the Monster Kickboard Scooter. This scooter looks great and id love to have a try of the steering on this model as it is a lot like Opeie's scooter. Our scooting adventures definitely need a personal blog related touch so stay tuned and watch this spot.

After seeing Nanny and Grandad whizzing around on the scooters and getting into it I think Mrs M is feeling a little left out and wants to join the team. She's got her eye on the little flowery number. Who knows you may see that famous scene from the sound of music with the Von Trapp's on bicycles, recreated on scooters, a modern day take on family foot powered travelling.