Posts in category: Personal

I have two rather excited children on my hands.

They made it in one piece to the end of term and are now counting down the days until Christmas morning.

The last week of term was what you’d expect really, a whole lot of fun and not much learning going on at all.  They had toy day on the Friday which is always a hit, and the children were actually pretty good about deciding what toy to take in with them.  Rhys took in two of his pokemon soft toys and Nerys opted for a pillow pet (so she’d be comfy if they watched a film!) and one of her babies.

And the family festivities have started as well now that my brother-in-law and his family are over from the Isle of Man.

They all went with Nana to see Father Christmas in his winter wonderland at Poundffald farm at the weekend and had an amazing time.   We’ve been a few times now and it’s always been really well done, with brilliant staff and a really magical experience for the children.

The fun continues today with all of us heading off to the panto in Porthcawl.

I actually can’t remember the last time I went to see a pantomime so I’m quite looking forward to this, and it should be a lot of fun with the 4 cousins together.  I have a feeling things could get a little bit rowdy!

We’ve then got a quiet day planned for Christmas eve, maybe popping out for a walk if excitement levels get a bit too high for staying indoors.  Then we’re up at my in-laws for the day on Christmas day which will be lovely.

We’ll open stockings first thing, and then have smoked salmon and scrambled eggs for breakfast before heading up to see the family.

Do you open all your presents early in the morning, or do you just do stockings first and then the rest of the presents later in the day?

I love hearing about how different families do things at Christmas!

There’s been a little bit of end of term madness in the air around here.

The children came out of school last Monday absolutely wild.  They just had that mad energy that you normally get at the end of the week, when you know a crash won’t be far behind.

I took this photo of Nerys that afternoon, and just look at that sparkle in her eyes!

She is full of excitement about Christmas, and so worn out by all the activity at the same time.

We all went along to watch Rhys in his school concert on Thursday and she alternated between singing along to the songs that she knew and curling up on our laps looking like she just wanted to sleep.

As for Rhys, he was non-stop action in the concert.

His year did ‘Christmas through the decades’ and it was amazing.

They sang Christmas number ones from every decade from the 50s to now, including ‘return to sender’, ‘Hallelujah’ and ‘do they know it’s Christmas’.

Some of the children, including Rhys, did a dance which was so much fun.  And then we were treated to a bit of a surprise from Rhys.

At the last minute he’d been asked to ‘play’ an inflatable guitar while they sang ‘merry Christmas everybody’ and oh my word did he go for it.

He was jumping around, strumming his guitar over his head, spinning round, generally loving his moment in the spotlight.

This from the boy who was too shy to join in with the hand actions to the songs at last year’s concert.

He has been full of surprises this year, putting himself forward for things and doing things I just did not expect him to go for.  And I am incredibly proud of him.

I can’t wait to see what the next year has for him and Nerys.

I can’t quite believe we’re at the last siblings project post for 2019!

I am so grateful that I was introduced to this little project, because it pushes me to make sure that I actually get photos of Rhys and Nerys together on a regular basis.

Looking back at the photos I took for January’s post, it’s quite funny to realise that their winter coats are still going strong, but the children have definitely changed over the last 12 months.  I don’t think you notice your children growing and changing when it’s happening in front of you, but then you look back at photos and realise how much they have grown.

They’ve grown closer in the last year too.  As they’re getting older they can do more and more things together and they’re bonding over things like Roblox which they play together, Rhys on the PC and Nerys on the iPad.

They take such good care of each other too.

Of course they wind each other up and we’ve had plenty of tears and angry words this year, but those little moments of thoughtfulness just drown it all out.

At their school each year group does a dress rehearsal of their Christmas concerts for another year group, so they can practice in front of an actual audience.  What I didn’t realise until this year was that siblings from other classes go and watch too, even if it’s not their whole year in the audience.

So they both got to see each other in their dress rehearsals and they were so excited about it.

There’s something very special to me about them being proud of each other.

For Nerys to be in the audience, excitedly thinking ‘that’s my brother up there’, and vice versa is just so lovely.   And I’m very grateful to the school for encouraging this and arranging for siblings to see each other.

Now the end of term is in sight and they’re both beyond excited to have some time off, to relax, to play, to stay up late and generally enjoy everything Christmas has to offer.  I just love that they’re looking forward to it all together.

Things have started to feel a bit Christmassy around here.

We started with Nerys’ Christmas concert at school on Tuesday.  Her year did ‘Christmas around the world’ and it was brilliant; they all did so well and sang their hearts out.

Then on Wednesday I went to pick out our Christmas tree.

For the last couple of years we’ve got ours from Gower Fresh Christmas Trees and I honestly can’t fault them.  The trees are beautiful and all the staff we spoke to when we were there were so friendly and went out of their way to help us.

I arranged to have the tree I picked out delivered and then we spent Saturday afternoon decorating it.

The children had a great time sorting through the boxes of decorations and helping to decide where different things should go.

Luckily we have a pretty large collection of baubles and tinsel and lights and old fashioned wooden decorations, because the tree I picked out turned out to be slightly bigger than it looked at the farm!

It reaches all the way up to the living room ceiling and we’ve had to rearrange a few bits of furniture to fit it in, and I absolutely love it.

Between our sparkly Christmas tree, watching Nerys’ concert and a day out Christmas shopping in Cardiff with my sister and my niece yesterday I am really starting to feel festive now.  I made some Christmas chocolate bark in the week too, as a trial run before I make some to give to the children’s teachers at the end of term, and sitting on the sofa munching on that with the tree lights twinkling is really helping get me in the spirit too!

What treats do you enjoy this time of year that get you feeling all Christmassy?

Well after having Nerys home from school the week before, last week it was Rhys’ turn to be poorly.

There are so many bugs and viruses going round their school at the moment it’s unbelievable.  Rhys had a temperature, headache and kept saying he felt dizzy, so he ended up coming home from school early on a few occasions last week.

I’m hoping we’re out of the woods with the bugs now though, as the children have a busy few weeks coming up.  They both seemed pretty much back to normal at the weekend and it was lovely to head out to Clyne for a walk and to take a few photos.

The busy Christmas period kicks off this week with Nerys’ school concert, which she is so excited about.

Her year is doing ‘Christmas around the world’ which is what Rhys’ class did a few years ago.  She has been practising loads, singing all the songs and telling me what lines she has to say.

Rhys’ concert is the week after and he’s doing ‘Christmas through the decades’ which is new to me and sounds like it’s going to be a lot of fun to watch.  Saying that, I already know I’ll be fighting the tears at one stage because they’re singing and signing ‘Hallelujah’.

I always love going to see the children in their Christmas concerts, they put so much time into learning all their songs and their lines and I love seeing how enthusiastic they all are at the performances.

Do your children do a different concert each year like this, or do they tend to stick to the classic nativity play?

November has been a bit of a funny old month for us, mainly spent juggling germs.

I had one week where Nerys was home from school one day and had to be picked up early on two more days because she was unwell.  Then the next week Rhys caught another virus that seems to be doing the rounds so we had a few days of him needing to come home from school early too.

All of which meant that I was all out of sync with the days and not knowing if I was coming or going.

It has made me so grateful though, to be able to work around the children.  To be able to stop what I’m doing and take care of them whenever they need me.

Touch wood as we reach the end of the month both children seem to be feeling pretty well again.

Our family photo for this month was taken earlier today on a walk in Clyne woods.

With the illnesses and wet weather over the last few weeks we’ve not had many opportunities for family pictures so I was so happy we were all feeling well enough to head out for a walk and to take these.

I am quite pleased in a way that we were forced to slow things down in November because December is likely to be quite busy.

It still feels a bit early to me but the Christmas season kicks off for us next week with Nerys’ Christmas concert at school.  Then Rhys has got his the week after.  I have to admit, I’m really looking forward to both of them.

The children and the teachers always work so hard and the concerts are always so much fun to watch.

The next few weeks will also include going to pick a Christmas tree, then digging out the decorations for it when it’s delivered.

I’m also hoping to meet up with my sister for a day out shopping, and possibly taking the children to see Frozen 2 too.  Then we’ll be almost at the end of term and ready for the madness of Christmas with the children’s cousins over from the Isle of Man.

I’ve been fighting feeling festive so far, it just feels too early to me to be getting all Christmassy in November but I’ve learnt from previous years not to fight it too hard because then I end up not feeling festive at all!

So with December here I think I’ll start letting it in.

We’ll put up our tree, get some fairy lights up in the house and I’ll start slipping some baileys into my coffee in the evenings.

Are you feeling festive already or are you holding out a little bit longer?

Disclosure – We were sent the toys featured in this post for review purposes

I’m cheating this week.

I normally make sure I have at least one photo of the children taken each week for my living arrows posts.

But I just didn’t manage it this week.  So instead I’m sharing photos that I took last Sunday.

We were sent some gorgeous goodies from shopDisney including pjs and some cuddly toys, and the children did an amazing job posing for photos with them all.

Nerys was particularly taken with the Minnie Mouse toy, and Rhys didn’t want to let go of Nemo.

I worry at times about the children suffering from photographer’s child syndrome, and not wanting to have their pictures taken.  But they were so patient with me, posing with different toys and helping me rearrange everything on the bed.

I’ve ended up using these photos for this week’s post because we had such a quiet week last week, and it was so grey and wet the whole time, that there weren’t really any great opportunities to take any new pictures.

Nerys was up and down all week feeling unwell.  She had one day off school with it, and on two other days I was called to go and pick her up early because she was feeling so poorly at school.

By the weekend she was feeling much better, but still has a chesty cough that won’t quite shift.  I was really hoping Rhys would get away without catching anything but he has been sneezing like nobody’s business all weekend and I think he has a bit of head cold.

So Saturday we strolled to the library to exchange some books, and then spent the rest of the day in the warm at home.

And on Sunday we took the children to their swimming lessons and Steve took them up to see his dad in the afternoon, but that was the extent of our weekend activities.

I’m hoping having quiet weekends when we can will help the children rest up a bit and maybe give them a fighting chance of not picking up the next round of winter bugs and germs!