Project 365 - Week 15/52

9th April - 15th April

9th April 2017

10th April 2017

11th April 2017

12th April 2017

13th April 2017

14th April 2017

15th April 2017

It's the second week of half term and it's been a good one! Nick only had to work half the week so it's been really nice having him home a bit more and enjoying the lie in's with Ava whilst he gets up bright and early with Noah. I'll certainly miss that when he goes back to work on Tuesday! The weather has been very hit and miss so we've gotten out as much as possible but have also enjoyed a lot of lazy downtime too. That being said we've done quite a lot this week from a trip to Happa on Sunday to visit the rescue horses to Easter Egg hunts in the garden today. Noah really loved dashing around the garden finding all the hidden eggs and chicks with his cousin and he's got so much chocolate that I think it's going to last him weeks!

What have you been up to this week?

Cadbury Chocolate Treasure Box Hamper - Competition

It's Easter and all you see at the moment is chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate! If you are a chocolate lover like myself then this won't bother you much and you'll welcome it all into your life with your arms and mouth wide open! I often think about the person that invented chocolate and think what a genius that guy was, seriously! That being said I'm currently watching what I eat as I go on holiday next month so I've just been nibbling bits and pieces from Noah's Easter Eggs in hope that I won't eat too much! 

To celebrate everything chocolatey I've decided to run a competition on the blog to giveaway a Cadbury Treasure Box Hamper to one lucky reader. This Cadbury chocolate gift contains a wide range of their most popular chocolate bars from Crunchie and Twirl through to Freddo and Chomps! Why not enter for someone special or just to treat yourself? To enter all you need to do is use the Gleam form below! Good luck and don't forget to enter my other blog competitions!

Cadbury Chocolate Treasure Box Hamper

Terms & Conditions.                                                                                                 
1. There will be 1 winner who will win the prize stated above.
2. Prize sent directly from the website.  
3. Competition ends 20/05/17
4. Incomplete entries with be disqualified. 
5. UK entries only.

Revamping Our Home For Spring

If you're a friend or read the blog on a regular basis you will know that we were able to invest in our future by buying our first home a few years ago. It was such a relief to get out the renting rut and to get our feet firmly on the property ladder. It wasn't easy an easy process, all the saving up, finding a property that was right for us and renovating the house from top to bottom but almost three years later and our house is now a home and is exactly how I envisioned it to be and more. 

We have other renovation plans on the cards in the next few months and years but in the mean time we like to keep things fresh and new by changing up our interiors every so often. One room I tend to struggle with is the dining room and I think it's because its at the back of the house so it tends to be quite dull as it doesn't see much sun. It probably doesn't help that I have a dark wood flooring and some dark wood furniture. In hindsight we wished we had kept everything light ad bought white wood flooring and a shabby chic furniture.

With all this in mind I've been planning on revamping numerous rooms in our home for the Spring and Summer months, starting with the dining room of course. I first want to treat myself and invest in some designer furniture as I really think that room could use a gorgeous statement piece or two. I've spent the last couple of weeks searching for one which will really add a new dimension to our dining room and really love the bench style dining room sets and chairs as not only do they look stylish but would be so practical for our family too. I'm really looking forward to changing certain rooms in our house and shopping for furniture and decor is one of my guilty pleasures that's for sure!

Do you have a favourite piece or furniture or have you ever splurged on designer pieces?

- This is a PR collaboration.

   

Getting Garden Ready For Summer

Can you believe it's April already and Spring is here? The year is flying by and at times I wish it would slow down but I cannot wait for the sun and warmer weather! Our garden is at it's peak in the Summer months and I find that in Autumn and Winter it gets neglected. When it's cold and dull outside we don't like sitting out in the garden as much as usual and prefer to be nice and warm indoors so it's easy to turn a blind eye to it all. I'm not going to lie, our garden needs some serious TLC! The grass is patchy yet overgrown in some areas, it has muddy puddles where the playhouse and water table have been and there are abandoned toys trodden into the soil. It's a mess!

With the weather slowly getting warmer and more pleasant I've found myself sitting out more in the garden with both children. It's nice to get a bit of fresh air and some sun on our skin in our own personal space. We've already had a picnic outside and had numerous play dates too but there's so much we need to do to our garden now the colder months are over. 

I recently put together a checklist of jobs that I want doing over the summer months and three of those revolve around our garden and yard space. First of all I want the hedges and lawn to be pristine again as they both look a state at the moment. Secondly I'd love to totally rearrange the back yard and perhaps install some decking as it would be lovely to have summer BBQ's out back in Summer. Last but not least I want to add a nice block paving drive from Travis Perkins to our front garden as we really struggle to park on our street and it's not ideal with two small children. My checklist of DIY tasks is honestly never ending as our new home always seems to need something else doing to it but we will get there eventually!

Do you have any tips on keeping your garden in good shape over the colder months? 

- This is a PR collaboration. 

Exploring STEM Subjects with Your Child

 AD - This is a PR collaboration.

Preparing today’s children to become the innovators and inventors of tomorrow begins with STEM. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths and by exploring these four subjects with your child you will be helping them to develop a number of important skills for their future.

Parents should start exploring STEM subjects as early as possible, by incorporating STEM learning into fun activities at home. Here are a few examples provided by an independent school in Hertfordshire, on how you can explore STEM subjects with your child.

Learn with water play

Playing with water is a fun STEM learning activity that can take place in the bath or out in the garden. Let your child experiment with different materials to see which ones sink and which ones float. They can also explore what happens to certain materials when they come into contact with water, or what happens when you freeze water. The possibilities are endless.

Learn outdoors

Learning doesn't have to take part inside a classroom. One of the best ways to teach STEM subjects is by exploring the great outdoors. Encourage children to use all of their senses when observing nature and the weather. It’s much easier to get creative and messy outdoors too!

Learn with experiments

Children are naturally curious and love to ask questions and learn how things work. Help to stimulate this curiosity with some simple science experiments. You can create fun experiments in minutes with simple household items. For example, you can demonstrate chemical reactions with vinegar and baking soda or even Diet Coke and Mentos mints!

Learn through cooking

Does your child like to cook? Cooking is a great opportunity for a fun STEM lesson. In fact, cooking can help to develop your child’s reading, writing, math and science skills. Ask your child to bake a cake with you. During the process, they can read the recipe, write your shopping list, weigh and measure ingredients, and even learn about how the cake mixture rises in the oven.

Noah - 3 Years Old

My boy turned three back in November and I'm still getting my head around where the time has gone. It only feels like yesterday when he was a newborn baby never mind when I was writing his two year and two and a half year updates. So much has changed in such a short amount of time, I didn't realise there would be such a big leap from two to three but there really has been! He turns three and a half in May so I thought I'd better get a move on and get this post published as it's been sitting in my drafts for a couple of months now.

Character
Well, well, well. As they get older and bigger their character certainly grows a long with them too! Noah's always been quite a pleasant, easy going and funny child so there's nothing new there. He will do absolutely anything to make you smile and laugh and has a really caring streak, he's a sweetheart. Most of the time!

He's never really been one for tantrums either so we basically skipped the "terrible two" stage, which was a relief at the time. Turns out he saved all his sass for when he turned three, he's certainly a little "threenager" right about now. He still doesn't really tantrum but he can be difficult when he wants to be! I find myself having to get down to his level and explain why he can't do such and such a thing a lot more than I ever have, which is exhausting when pregnant with his baby sister. 

edit - Since writing this he's gotten a lot better with this! Which is great timing now his baby sister is now here (who he absolutely adores!) He still has his moments but on a whole he's well behaved for his Mummy. His Daddy on the other hand, he can be a monkey for!

Size
Noah now wears a combination of 2-3 and 3-4 clothes and size 6 shoes. He's quite slim but is quite tall with his long limbs. We recently weighed him and he was 2 stone three which is a good weight for his height and age.

Health
If you'd asked me about his health just before he started nursery I would have said everything has been fine but ever since he joined in September it's been one thing after another. He's had numerous colds, viral infections and even a chest infection and tonsillitis! He seemed to get the majority of these just after he turned three in November and even now he's still not fully over them as a night cough still remains. Bring on Summer, it's rubbish this time of year for illnesses and bugs! (Ignore the dummy in this photo, we took this back in November when he was just about to get rid!)

Feeding
Noah no longer has bottles of milk, we knocked that on the head quite a while ago now, a good 7 months ago. He still drinks milk but out of a cup and drinks a lot of water every day. Food wise he has three set meals a day and numerous snacks. He's still a fantastic eater and will pretty much try anything you put in front of him, he's great for that! He's more adventurous than I am when it comes to food, he puts me to shame! His favourite food without a doubt is pasta but he also loves cheese, fruit, veg, beans.

Sleep
The boy who slept through from three months old can be very hit and miss when it comes to sleep these days. I think the fact that he no longer wears nappies to bed, no longer has a bedtime bottle and no longer has a dodo is a big contributor to how he struggles now to settle at night. He still has his beloved kiki and his Ewan the dream sheep but after having a dodo every night for the past three years to nothing must be quite difficult. He tends not to nap anymore as I find that when he does he's almost impossible to get to sleep at night, even a half hour nap can totally mess up his sleeping pattern. On a good day he will settle at 8pm and sleep through till around 8am, with one wake up to go for a wee in the night of course!

Speech
He's getting there with his speech now. I wouldn't say he has ever been properly behind but he's been lazy with it, that's for sure. He'd been stringing one, two or three words together for the past six months or so but it's only been the past month where he's beginning to form sentences. As it's been such a long time coming it sometimes shocks me when he comes out with a long sentence. He still has his own ways of saying certain words which I absolutely love. Noah was obsessed with Halloween this year so two new favourite words that he pronounces in his own way are Yombie/Zombie and Panfire/Vampire! You've got to be really careful what you say around him now too because he repeats absolutely everything!

Potty Training
Noah has been dry both day and night since he was two and a half. He just seemed to get it. It was a breeze and I think that's because he was ready, we never pressurised him and totally followed his lead. I think during our entire potty training experience he must have had about five accidents in total. I wrote a post about our potty training journey which contains some tips which helped us a long the way. You can read it here. 

Milestones and New Tricks
He now goes to nursery, three afternoons a week.
Has made his first best friend at nursery.
Doesn't have a dummy or bottle anymore and hasn't for around 6 months.
Is fully potty trained and has been since two and a half.
Can use the toilet himself and can go all night without waking to go.
He will always say please and thank you. 

Favourite Things
He has a never ending list of favourite things but here goes nothing! Superheroes, toy figures, collecting things, bling bags, surprise eggs, chocolate eggs, his family, unboxing videos on youtube, being silly, his wellies, toy story, his baby sister, daddy, playing outside, ooshies and imaginext toys, sweeties, tomatoes, jumping on the bed, bath time, seeing family, making friends, going to the park, Marvel, DC, Marvel Live, the cats, dens, going shopping, the toy shop, cuddles and kisses, fruit, dancing, He-man, play fighting.

Least Favourite Things
Bedtime, Mummy dropping him off at nursery, singing, brushing teeth, loud noises, being told no.