We had a great start to the weekend just gone. Seth had a Tae kwon do grading a few weeks back but needed do sharpen up on some of his moves so has been practising at home. Last week he passed the physical side which he was really excited about so since then we have been practising his questions so that he can move up to his purple belt.
Seth has such a great memory and picks up things really quick. Seth passed his questions Saturday morning and is now donning the purple belt with pride. He had a lovely smile on his face when he strutted in the house to show mommy. We're all very proud of him and I can be safe in the knowledge that if there's ever a situation when I need to say 'low block' to someone in Korean (its bound to happen at some point haha), I can confidently say "Najunde Makgi".
Back in March last year we went away and we felt that this was a great chance to give Seth his own money. So we brought him a little bag and a wallet of his own so that while we were there he would have his pocket money to spend on what he wanted. Since coming back we've not really used his bag or wallet so as we were going to see our friends Chris and Michelle this weekend and Seth had some pocket money saved we thought it would be a good idea to reintroduce them to him.
I think it's important to get your children used to money, to explain the value of each coin so that they realise how much things cost etc. We have always tried to explain the value of things to Seth. Thankfully Seth isn't one of those children that is always asking for things and he really appreciates everything he gets from us. He's so kind and rather than spend his pocket money on himself he would happily spend it on Opeie ( remember the batman post? ), On the way to our friends he thought we had accidently turned off to the Toll road and offered to pay the toll (he's so cute). As for everything Seth does/has Opeie has to copy so we found him a little bag to put his toys in too.
Well we went to an old fashioned sweet shop later that afternoon and without thinking we paid for the sweets that Seth picked. About 30 minutes later Mrs M noticed that Seth was a bit quiet and asked him what was wrong, he said that he was upset that we paid for the sweets and he didn't get to spend his own money so we took him back to a toy shop that we had been to earlier in the day to spend his money.
Turns out that it wasn't the getting new things that Seth was excited about but more the using his own money which i think is great and he would have felt exactly the same buying himself Lego or paying the Toll charges on the motorway. It's things like this that make me realise were doing a really good job and bringing Seth up. He's selfless and that's such a great characteristic to have.
Ive said it many times, but having great friends means so much to me, they are the people that make up for the family that i am missing and for that i am forever grateful. Saturday was such a fun day, we had planned to visit our friends Chris and Michelle earlier in the week and after Seth had been to Tae kwon do we headed in their direction. Chris had mentioned an old fashioned sweet shop and also said the word park, two key words that are always going to get the boys interested in the days events. We had a chat and a cuppa when we got there and then headed to a park in Lichfield. The park was really busy which i thought might put Opeie off but the boys were really excited and couldn't wait to run about. Chris had brought his fancy camera so while me and Mrs M devised a plan for it to go walkies and come home with us Chris snapped away.
It's great having an extra two pairs of adult hands and meant that me and Mrs M could relax a little more than usual. The boys love Chris and Michelle which is great and they made the most of the extra playmates. Opeie said "weeeeeee" over and over to let us know going down the slide was his only agenda and Seth was happy dragging Michelle along behind him on the pirate ship.
We played pirates on a pirate ship, had a ride on a train, climbed some rocks, rode a skateboard on a rail and climbed to the top of a rope climbing frame, which Seth was very proud of (even if i did almost fall off). So all in all a fun packed trip to the park was had by all.
After the park we headed in to town to find the sweetshop, Seth enjoyed picking his pick n mix and Opeie shoveled down rainbow drops like they were going out of fashion. We all sat down and had a coffee and then headed to a toy shop that we had been to earlier in the afternoon. Seth got to spend his pocket money on a new Lego kit which we got to build as soon as we had walked through the door at Chris and Michelle's. After a lovely indoor picnic prepared by Michelle and some great conversation we headed home with two very sleepy boys.
We never did get that camera but were very thankful of the 300 or so pictures that Chris took, thanks guys as always we had a great day.
A few days back there was a knock at the door from our VERY noisy postman, upon answering the door i got very excited at the outside of the box he was holding. I (i mean We) have been waiting for a delivery of new building material's to try out and this was it. If your a regular reader then you will know that we love building (with anything). When we first spotted Triqo I was really intrigued and Seth loved the idea of being able to make larger scale colourful buildings.
We had a brief play making small shapes so that we could get used to the pieces and the different ways we could attach them together but both me and Seth knew that we didn't what to waste our time making small things, this was a building material with pieces a lot larger than we are used to, we wanted to make something BIG!!!
Seth has come up with loads of ideas which i love, aiming high on the first build Seth wanted to build an arch for the doorway to his bedroom so we got to it sorting all the pieces in to colour order to make it easier for us. Seth struggled at first connecting the pieces but i have noticed that the more we have played with them the easier they connect, Seth's muscle condition doesn't help but he definitely found building with these more appealing than the smaller bricks that he is used to
It didn't take us long to make the arch, sadly there wasn't enough square pieces in this box but to be fair we did make it pretty big and there were loads of triangle pieces left in the box for us to make other things.
later in the afternoon we planned to visit Nanny and Grandad so we thought we would take our new toys to their house, The Triqo came out straight away and Seth informed me that next we would be making a castle, Okay a castle that's doable, to be fair the pieces are so easy to stick together all you need is an imagination and the great colours and design mean everything you build looks great. We completed the castle in no time...
With plenty of time left to play we decided to make a parrot (for the 'pirates' of course) which I then wore on my shoulder while playing hide and seek, YAR!!
I've got a feeling that Triqo is going to be played with a lot, Seth is already talking about building things for the garden when the weather gets a little better. If I had lots more of this I would love to attempt a playhouse for the garden in the summer, the great thing about this is, its really doable and anyone could attempt a large build with this product with the greatest of ease, it was great to see Mrs M get involved too.
I had some time to myself this morning so I had a play around with it. If you've got a good imagination and patience then there's no end to what you can achieve...
Today is the first day of Seth's half term and were all so happy to have him at home during the daytime, Opeie especially. It was a morning of craft today and we all had a great time. With Easter coming up our craft plans have all been Easter themed. Were concentrating on getting our new craft blog up and running (giftsfromthepiratescreate.com) at the moment so the completed items that we make will be on there. There's been lots of painting, cutting, sticking and drawing happening today, Seth loves craft and can happily sit for hours creating, Opeie on the other hand has the attention span of a rock but he's happy just playing while were crafting.
After lunch we decided to go and see nanny and grandad as Opeie has been saying 'grandad' over and over again this week. Seth and Opeie really enjoy going to visit them and I'm not surprised, their lovely people and always make such a fuss of the boys. We did some building with our new toys (I'll write about those on the next post), We played hide and seek, watched some family movies of Mrs M when she was a little girl (very cute) and we got to hear grandad play the guitar (while Opeie and Seth helped with the strumming).
...Oh and Seth got to dress up as a bee keeper in Nanny's fancy hat, so all in all an excellent first day to the holiday. Were going to pack as much as we can in to this holiday so be sure to keep checking in on us and be sure to check out the new blog to find out what we've been making for Easter, they will be up soon.
Why do most of us only have pancakes once a year? I love pancakes! Yesterday morning we woke up and while I got Seth ready for school Mrs M made us all pancakes for breakfast. Opeie didn't know what to make of them and Mrs M doesn't really like them but me and Seth took full advantage of this tasty time of year. I'm a classic lemon and light sprinkling of sugar kind of guy and Seth likes lemon and honey. What's your favourite flavour?
The mornings feeding festivities gave us a chance to fill the table with all our favourite Nuby products making our breakfast table colourful and Inviting.
As most of our readers know, we are huge Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom fans. Holly actually graced the top of our Christmas tree this year for the festivities as Opeie wanted her as our fairy.
We are very excited to announce we have teamed up with the Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom Live, from the makers of Peppa Pig and the producers of the two hugely successful Peppa Pig theatre tours comes the first ever stage version of the BAFTA award-winning TV animation, Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom. And we have tickets to give away!
The Little Kingdom – where everyone is very, very small – is home to Princess Holly and her best friend Ben Elf. Holly is a young fairy princess who is still learning how to do magic properly and sometimes her spells don’t work out quite right. Ben is an Elf. Elves don’t do magic but they are very good at making things. Ben doesn’t have wings like Holly but he flies on the back of Gaston the Ladybird.
As we’ve often mentioned before, we wish we could have a pet Gaston in our house, as he is brilliant! Who is your favorite character ?
In this exciting new musical adventure, Ben and Holly have fun and games helping Gaston clean up his messy cave; they go on a trip to The Big World with tooth-fairy Nanny Plum; and still have time to plan a surprise for King Elf’s birthday party, complete with an unplanned jelly flood.
Packed full of games, songs and laughter, this is an enchanting and magical visit to the Little Kingdom, live on stage for the very first time. This beautiful story of elves, princesses and childhood innocence will delight all the family.
This brand new UK tour is now on the road until July 2013 and we have 1 family ticket up for grabs at the venue of your choice, subject to availability. (A family ticket is for 4 people, minimum 1 adult. The tickets are non-transferable. No cash alternatives, accommodation or travel are provided in this competition.) For further show information and tour dates: www.benandhollylive.com
Weve been looking about to take Opeie to some sort of toddler group for quite some time. Ive taken him to ball pits etc but our problem is that we find many of these places quite dirty. plus although its nice for children to run about we really wanted to be taking him somewhere a bit more educational. Opeie hasn't had a lot of interaction with other children apart from Seth and we don't want the inevitable going to nursery to be a problem so it was time to get him mingling.
Today we took him to a pottery class in Ironbridge which was a lot of
fun, i studied ceramics at uni for a while so i was also in my comfort
zone. when we got there we met Sarah...
... a lovely bubbly woman who welcomed
her new class mates with open arms. There was lots of activities to
choose from, not all ceramic based so we started Opeie off with some
paper plate painting
as with most activities when it comes to young children after making his mark on three plates he had lost interest and wanted to turn his hands to something else so we headed over to the clay table and Sarah got us a large chunk of clay to play with. There was a great selection of cutters and tools, perfect for beginners. Opeie was happy pushing his hand print into the clay and then destroying it. Mrs M cut out stars and Opeie added texture but then.... yes you guessed it, destroyed them.
Mrs M eventually made a miffy without it being destroyed and i cut out a heart shape for it to go on. We cut out a bear and Opeie made some eyes with mommy while i made an upside down Muno-esque finger bowl. Their all going to be fired so hopefully when we go again we can have some fun glazing them.
The conversation was great and everyone was so friendly which was great as it was the first time we had been and sometimes these things can be a little daunting. I would definitely recommend this group to anyone that wanted to take their children to something creative and we will definitely be going again. after an hour and a half Opeie started to look sleepy so we got our coats to head home, but the fun didn't end there. Before leaving we brought some ceramic flowers and a magnet for Seth to paint when he had finished school (we didn't want to leave him out of all of the fun). So as soon as he got in we got the paints out.
I spend so much time writing about the boys, Mrs M, friends and all the nice people that we come in to contact with. These people are important to me and i love writing about the people outside of our family because the boys can look back at the posts and see who played a part in the fun that we have. Until last week i had never read a post written about us/me by someone else and in the space of a week giftsfromthepirates have appeared on two great blogs.
After meeting Em, Annie and Ezra last week, our new friends from snowingindoors.com, Em wrote a lovely post about us and what we got up to. I can see how Seth felt now when we were mentioned on the Batblog. It's so nice to know that we have friends out there that really enjoy knowing us, ill be honest after some of the things i have been through over the last few years i had given up on the idea of making new great friends but it just goes to show there are lovely people out there.
If you would like to read the post and are interested in the adventures of the snowingindoors family then click below...
Then after writing a response to an article i read that upset me, my friend Alice from bigmilkthing wrote a beautiful post pegging me as some sort of parenting Guru, which was really nice. I'm not of course, but who doesn't like reading nice words about themselves. Its spurred us on to collaborate on a post which has the makings of quite a fun post for both Alice and her boys. So again, I'm really thankful for new friends.
The Link below (proud to be a 'moron') is to Alice's lovely post and if your interested in reading more about the family behind bigmilkthing then be sure to check them out...
