Posts in category: Personal

We have had a very, very quiet weekend.

On Friday morning Nerys wasn’t feeling great, but she went into school with the promise that her teacher could phone me if she needed to come home.

I waited all day, really expecting the phone to ring.  But she made it through the school day like a trooper.

As soon as she came out of the door though I could tell she wasn’t well.  And she spent Friday evening and all day Saturday cwtched up on the sofa with a chesty cough and a temperature.

She was feeling a bit brighter yesterday but we decided it was best if she gave her swimming lessons a miss.  So I took Rhys by himself over to the pool.

He spent the whole walk there telling me about how certain games in Roblox work and the best way to play them.

I don’t think he stopped for breath, he was so excited to talk to me about it.

He did really well at his swimming lessons, and didn’t complain too much about having to stop off at the supermarket on the way home for a few bits and pieces.  I think the iced doughnuts I bought might have helped with that though!

Sunday afternoon was spent taking some photos for a blog post and generally taking it easy.

Nerys is still coughing away but seems better in herself so hopefully she’s on the mend and won’t end up missing school this week.  There are so many bugs going round her class though so I won’t be too surprised if she goes back downhill a bit.

I think this week might be one for a few early nights for all of us to try and fight off these winter germs that are trying to take us all down!

I’m not sure where the last month has gone, because suddenly it’s time for another siblings project post!

This month I’ve actually not taken any pictures of Rhys and Nerys together, just the two of them.  So this month it’s the siblings and their daddy project for us.

I took these photos towards the end of October, when it was a warm enough day to go to the beach without coats on.

We walked along the beach to county hall, following the tide line.  I love looking at all the things that the tide brings in and leaves behind on the sand.  Among the seaweed and twigs you can always find loads of pretty shells and quite often mermaid’s purses.

On this particular walk we acquired a nice collection of big sticks, perfect for using as swords and drawing in the sand with.

I think Rhys had about 4 sticks in his hands at one point, along with his toy pokeball that he brought out with us.  I often joke about how many sticks we collect and the nice pile that’s growing outside our front door.   But I know I’ll really miss it in the future.

One day I’ll realise that we’ve not brought sticks home in a while.

It makes me quite sad to think about it to be honest.  I love watching my children growing up but oh my word I want time to slow down just a bit.

What random little thing do you think you’ll miss one day when your children are older?!

We made it through the first week back at school in one piece.

It was a pretty busy week for us though, so we had a really relaxed weekend at the end of it.  After being allowed to stay up late on Friday night, the children had a quiet day at home with us on Saturday.

Then on Sunday the weather was perfectly autumnal, chilly, bright and crisp, so we went for a walk through Singleton park and for a quick play in Cwmdonkin park on our way home from swimming lessons.

That sort of slow weekend was just what we needed after a busy week.

The children were with their grandparents after school on Monday, and then Tuesday we walked down to the beach for the fireworks.

We normally go to the big display at St Helens here in Swansea, but this year to celebrate 50 years of it being a city the council put on a free display at the beach.  It wasn’t quite as spectacular as the normal fireworks, but it was still loads of fun.

Wednesday was a really big day for Rhys.

He’d put his name down to swim for the school in an urdd swimming competition a few months ago, which we only found out about just before half term.

He had volunteered for all the races, and was picked to do butterfly and the relay race.  All well and good but he’s not really done butterfly much in his lessons, let alone completed a 25m length doing it!

Fair play to him though, he went for it.

He was swimming against two other boys and he came last.  But he did it.  He gave it his all and didn’t give up even when he realised that the other boys had finished ahead of him.

Considering he’s barely learnt to swim that stroke and has never been involved with anything like this before he did amazingly.  I’m pretty proud of him to be honest.

With that out of the way we had our usual night of Rainbows and Cubs on Thursday, and then Friday it was Taiko drumming after school for Rhys.

He’s been going since the start of this school year and is absolutely loving it.  He even did a little demonstration of it at Cubs last week which he was so excited about.

The one downside is that he’s now asking for a drum for Christmas and I’m just not sure I’m ready for that!

Do your children do any clubs after school?  What are they particularly enjoying at the moment?

We’re back to the normal routine this week, after a lovely break from it all over half term last week.

Steve had the week off work so we had plenty of time all together, just enjoying slowing things down for a bit.  We did get up to something quite exciting on Friday though.  We headed into town and visited Plantasia.

I had been a few years ago with Rhys for a birthday party, and I think he’s been in the last year or two on a school trip, but we’d never all been together as a family.

We spent almost 2 hours wandering round, exploring and spotting all the different creatures.  I think my favourites were these 2 though!

If you’ve not heard of it before, Plantasia is basically a little tropical rainforest, right in the centre of Swansea.

We had a great time peering in glass cages at tarantulas and snakes, reading about all the different plants that grow in the rainforests and trying to get the parrot to chat back to us.  There were a lot of interactive features that the children really loved, including a tunnel to crawl through with an ant colony in the middle.

Possibly their favourite part though was the meerkats.

There’s a tunnel that goes underneath their enclosure, with a dome in the middle so you can basically pop your head up and be right in amongst them.  I was so tempted to crawl through that tunnel with the children!

We had a pretty quiet weekend to end the half term holidays, with a rainy day spent indoors on Saturday then a walk through Singleton Park and Cwmdonkin Park on Sunday afternoon in glorious autumn sunshine.

We’ve got our fingers crossed for a dry evening on Tuesday for bonfire night.

This year Swansea are doing something a bit special and putting on a huge free firework display on the beach at Swansea bay.  We’re all really excited about it, and have pretty high hopes that it’s going to be an impressive show!

Are you going to a fireworks display this week, or did you go to one at the weekend?

We’re ending this month with a lovely bonus bit of family time.

Steve managed to book the week of half-term off from work, so we’ve been together all of this week.

We started things off with a gorgeously relaxed walk along the beach at Swansea bay on Sunday, before the children’s swimming lessons on Sunday.

We walked along the beach to the steps by county hall, and stopped there for a family photo.

This little stretch of beach will always make me smile because this is where we came for champagne and a few photos on our wedding day.

We had a tiny wedding in county hall, and then popped over to the beach as the sun was setting and the tide was coming in.  It was beautiful and relaxed and low key and absolutely perfect.

And now whenever we come back to these steps it reminds me of that afternoon.

Relaxed and low key seems to be how we go about life in general I think.

This half term has been just that.  So far we’ve done the weekly supermarket shop, caught up with friends at the park and visited the Glynn Vivian art gallery.  The boys have had haircuts.  We’ve pottered about at home.

We’re planning a trip to the LC2 for a swim and a visit to Plantasia which I’m quite excited about for the end of the week but that’s as big a day out as we’ll get this holiday.

It’s what we’ve all needed though.

After a long term back at school we were all in need of a change in pace.  To slow down and rest a bit.  All to then gear up for the fun and madness of the Christmas term.

Nerys has already started learning some songs for their Christmas concert and I really can’t wait to sit in that school hall again and watch both my children up on stage.

There’s just something about the Christmas concerts that get me all emotional, even when it’s not my children doing anything!

When do your children normally start learning songs and lines for their Christmas concerts at school?

Do you get emotional when you watch them too?!

I’ve really enjoyed joining in with Blogtober this year.

The challenge of posting every day for a month has been great for pushing me to write more.  And I’ve really loved discovering new blogs to read and bloggers to learn a bit more about.

There’s been a real mix of bloggers from all sorts of niches that I’ve found in the last month, and it’s been great to read a mix of different types of blog posts.

Here are 5 blog posts that I’ve really enjoyed reading this Blogtober:

1. How I saved over £5000 in just one year

This post from Tea and cake for the soul is a really informative read.

Jo talks about all the different things she did and changes she made to save a huge amount of money.  I love how she breaks it down and reports how much she saved on each particular change that she made.

If you’re looking to save some money then there are bound to be a few things on Jo’s list that you can try.

2. Rainy day activities

I really enjoyed this post from Ashley at stumbling through wonderland.

She’s given some great ideas for activities and things to do with children on rainy days.  I especially like the idea of reading books together and then doing some crafts that relate to the books.

What I particularly like about Ashley’s post though is that she’s also listed some ideas for things you can do on rainy days when you’re child-free.

3. My favourite slow cooker recipes

I absolutely love my slow cooker.

We’ve been using ours once a week for the last few weeks to cook a whole chicken, and then to make stock afterwards.

This post from Kim at life as Kim has got me inspired to try some new recipes in the slow cooker.  The lazy chicken curry in particular looks really good, and so easy to throw together!

4. Cheat’s Paella

The colder weather has obviously made me hungry because I’ve really loved reading recipe posts during Blogtober!

This cheat’s paella from the spoonie mummy is right up my street.

It sounds so easy to put together, but still full of flavour.  Perfect for warming up on chilly evenings.

5. Decorating firework biscuits with Emmy

I loved everything about this post from Laura at Em and me.

The idea of decorating biscuits is so simple, but so much fun for little ones.  And I love the fact that Laura mentions the skills that children can learn and practice through the activity.

Have you been reading a lot of blog posts this Blogtober?

What type of posts do you enjoy reading the most?

We made it.

After what felt like a ridiculously long first term back at school, we made it to the holidays.

Luckily for the children there was an inset day at school on Friday so we kicked things off with a lovely long weekend.  The children were so tired from school that on Friday and Saturday we did very little.

Then on Sunday we made the most of a glorious sunny day and went for a walk along the beach before swimming lessons.

It was so warm in the sun that we didn’t even bother with coats, and Nerys even took her jumper off halfway along the beach.

We walked, we talked, we gathered sticks along the way.

It was one of those mornings that was so simple, so ordinary but where I just looked around and remembered quite how lucky I am.

There’s a line at the end of ‘about time‘ where Tim talks about how he doesn’t travel in time any more.  He says, “I just try to live every day as if I’ve deliberately come back to this one day to enjoy it as if it was the full final day of my extraordinary, ordinary life”.

Every now and then I’ll think of that quote, and it always makes me smile.

It’s a really lovely reminder to just look around now and then and notice how amazing our normal, every day lives actually are.  In all their routine and ordinary-ness, they are extraordinary and beautiful.

And now I just want to go and watch ‘about time’ all over again!