Posts in category: Personal

The children are back in school today after a really lovely week off for half term.

My brother-in-law and his family came over from the Isle of Man for a visit so we spent the first few days of the holiday with them.

The children went to Wiggly’s one day and then on the other days we went for a chilly walk on the beach and warmer splash around in the pool at the LC2.

Rhys and Nerys really enjoyed getting to spend time with their cousins who they don’t get to see all that often and it was lovely for us to watch them all play together and have so much fun.

We did have a bit of upset at the beach when Nana’s football got carried out to sea.  The tide just took it so quickly, no one had a chance to run and grab it back.

It wasn’t too long though before the children were distracted again by building sandcastles and hunting for shells.

On Thursday Steve was back in work and I decided to brave taking the children to soft play on my own.

It actually turned out to be a really lovely day out.

We caught the bus into town and managed to get the double decker, and got the coveted seats at the front on the top which made Nerys in particular very happy.

We spent about an hour at soft play which was much calmer than I expected, then walked over to Swansea museum to meet some friends and join in with a craft activity.

The children had a brilliant time with their friends, and loved getting creative and then exploring the museum.

After all the fun Rhys and Nerys managed to hold it together while I picked up a few bits from Wilkos then we caught the bus back home.

Friday then was a day of rest.

We watched tv, played on the computer, did a few jigsaw puzzles and generally took it easy.

I think we found a nice balance in the end, between getting out and being busy and getting some much needed rest.

This term will be a busy one for the children, but it should be fun and I’m already looking forward to seeing both of them in their Christmas concerts at the end of term!

October ended on a lovely note for the children thanks to them being on half term holiday and getting to spend lots of time with their cousins who were visiting from the Isle of Man.

Steve had a few days off work so we could all spend time together which was really lovely.

We all spent a chilly morning at the beach one day and a fab few hours splashing around in the water-park at the LC2 another day.

The rest of the time we spent at my in-laws’ house; playing, chatting, eating.  All the good things in life with family.

This month’s me and mine photo was taken there one afternoon, after we’d actually managed to get a photo of all 4 children together, looking at the camera and smiling.

We did have a few chances in October to take family photos outside, at the beach or at the park.

I quite like that we ended up taking them the way we did though.  They’re a nice reminder of how our month ended, and I know that photos like this will mean a lot to the children when they’re older.

They’ve spent a fair bit of time at their grandparents’ house over the years, and I love that there are photos like this of us all there.  I hope they’ll bring back all sorts of wonderful memories when they look back at them when they’re older.

Most days almost as soon as we walk through the door after school the children will peel off their school clothes and change straight into their pyjamas.

I’m not sure when or why exactly they started doing it, but it somehow became the standard thing for them to do every afternoon.

At the start of last week though I asked them to do me a favour.  I needed some photos of them for a blog post I’ve got planned, so I asked them to change into actual clothes for me and then do some poses for a few photos.

Once we’d got the pictures I needed they decided to have some fun.

They both wanted to have individual photos taken, and after doing some random poses they both asked if I could photograph them jumping.

Well, I’m so happy they did, because just look at these photos!

I feel like I should do some photoshop magic on these, especially the one of Rhys, and have them flying up into the sky or something!

We’re finally on half term this week and the children are absolutely ready for it.

We have a few things planned for the week, as my brother-in-law and his family are over for a visit.  I’m hoping we’ll have a good balance over the week though, between getting out and being busy and having some time to let the children just relax and recover a bit from this long first term at school.

Are you on holiday this week or are your children back at school again now?  

Half term is in sight.

Just this week to get through and then the children have a week off, and they are really ready for it.  This term feels like such a long one, and both Rhys and Nerys seem a bit worn out.

Nerys is still adjusting to being at school full time and I think year 3 has been a big adjustment for Rhys too.

We had a little taste of half term last Friday though when there was an inset day at school.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous so we ended up heading to Cwmdonkin Park to meet up with some friends from school.  It was just what we needed.  A quiet, lazy start to the day and then a long afternoon spent running around the park.

The friends we met up with were from Nerys’ class at school but Rhys coped really well with being the oldest one there.

He played for a while with the younger ones, then happily played by himself on the climbing frame, pushing himself again to be brave and climb to the top.  Later on the afternoon one of his friends did come along too which he was happy about.

They ran off to play football together, pushing me to be brave and let him out of my sight now and then.

The rest of our bonus long weekend was pretty standard and low-key.

A visit to the local library, a walk to the shops, swimming lessons and a trip to the little park on the way back home.

Another one of those perfectly normal weekends.

Now we just need to get this last week of school done and we can all relax a bit over the half term holidays!

Is it half term already where you are or do you have another week to wait like us?

Last weekend we went for a long walk through Singleton park after the children had their swimming lessons.

We explored parts of the park that we don’t go to all that often and there were quite a few gorgeous spots that seemed perfect for taking photos for this month’s siblings project post.

Nerys is really quite tall for her age and we quite often mention that she’s catching up with Rhys.  We know that at some point in the not too distant future she’ll more than likely be taller than him.

Looking at these photos though I think they might have both had a bit of a growth spurt recently.

Rhys definitely looks like the older brother, and I love how he has his arm around Nerys is so many of the pictures.

They seem to have developed an even closer relationship recently, and are so affectionate with each other.

They’ll often have a big hug before Rhys goes in to his classroom in the mornings and they have sat in the back of the car a few times recently holding hands.

I wonder if it’s down to the fact that they don’t see each other much during the school day, so they’re missing each other a bit.

Whatever it is, it’s lovely to see and I hope it lasts.

More often than not my photos for these living arrows posts are taken at the weekend.

With both the children being in full-time school now we don’t tend to do all that much during the week outside of the standard school-day routine.

The weekends are when we head out to the beach or the park or the woods as a family, and those trips out tend to be when I take the bulk of our family photos.

This week though I saw a moment unfolding after school that I wanted to capture.

Nerys had come home from school and decided she wanted to do something creative.  So I drew a butterfly shape on some paper for her to cut out and decorate with crayons and stickers.

These photos are from when she was carefully and patiently cutting out the butterfly shape.

I love the look of concentration on her face, the tongue sticking out ever so slightly, the buns that I put in her hair that morning barely holding on after a long day at school.

She has really good scissor skills this one, and did a great job of making her butterfly.

I left her to it for the most part and was really impressed when she showed me the end result.  She had picked out pairs of matching stickers and put them on the butterfly’s wings so the whole thing was symmetrical.

With the days getting shorter I think we’ll be spending a bit more time inside in the coming months, and our craft box will be used a lot more again.

I have a feeling Nerys for one will be quite happy about that!

After what seemed like quite a long week for everyone last week, the children and I had a quiet day in on Saturday.

Steve went off to do the last stretch of the Gower walk that he does with his friend every year, and we stayed at home for a day of painting, maths homework and zoning out in front of YouTube.

On Sunday though we were all in need of a bit of fresh air so we walked the children to their swimming lessons then took the very scenic route home through Singleton Park.

We must’ve spent almost 2 hours roaming round the park, exploring different parts of it and getting little history lessons from Steve along the way.  If you’re at all interested in the history of the Singleton estate in Swansea he is the man to talk to!

The children did a lot of running and climbing, as well as examining lots of different leaves to find out what trees they came from.  Steve’s got an app on his phone that you can use to work out what species a tree is by answering questions about its leaves.  It’s brilliant for the most part, but it is limited to UK trees and apparently quite a few of the ones in Singleton park aren’t actually native to the UK.

I just love how curious children are about things like that, and how much I end up learning along with them when we look up the answers to their questions.