Holly's 1st Birthday Pt.2

Holly's birthday continued today with a visit from her Auntie Nicky. She came armed with a huge present which had us instantly guessing what she had been out buying and then secondly whether we needed to think about selling the house to make space for it. As I was cooking dinner at the time I left Nicky, Tina and Holly to assemble the toy with a bit of help from Joshua.

 



Uh oh, two girls trying to read instructions and build a toy. I think Nicky is a few years out of practice.

 

Joshua joins in to provide a helping hand.

 

And who said King men/boys never read instructions.

 

Looks like Joshua and Auntie Nicky have got it sorted.

 

Meanwhile Brandon was entertaining Holly by pushing her around the laminate floors in a cardboard box! They do always say forget the toy, babies are just happy playing with the box/wrapping paper!

Auntie Nicky showing Holly how her new toy works. A great little play table which she can stand up at whilst playing.

 

Once again Joshua and Brandon were virtually pushing Holly aside so that they could play with her new toy.

Now this picture is rarer than a photo of a dodo - all three kids seemingly playing together nicely.

 

So my next job is to make some space in the house for all Holly's new toys ahead of the next installment on Christmas day in a months time.

Holly 1st Birthday

The last year has been a complete blur and it hardly seems possible that Holly turned 1 year old today. I decided to take the day off of work so that I could see her open her presents, spend some quality time with her on her birthday and also take the boys to school. Obviously Holly has no idea that today is her special day and I her two brothers were more excited about her birthday and opening her presents than she was. Unfortunately the poor little girl has a viral infection and has been a little worse for wear on her birthday with a very snotty nose and a bit of a high temperature.

 

 

The night before we decorated the house with banners and balloons all ready for Holly's big day.

A large pink "1" balloon, loads of presents/cards and Holly's main present was her red trike.

 

When she woke up Joshua was keen to go and get her from her hot. As usual she had some beautiful smiles for us.

 

Joshua and Brandon bought Holly some mega bloks and were keen to let her open them before we went downstairs.

Holly loved playing with the bricks and opening/closing the roof on the mega blok car that Brandon got her.

Holly does love to play with a balloon so I stuck a couple on her high chair for when she went downstairs for breakfast. She absolutely loved bashing the balloons around.

 

Holly having fun bashing her birthday balloons around her high chair.

This was a great idea until it came to trying to get her to eat breakfast.

Holly's main present was her trike and this was a big hit for the little girl. We thought it would be great for taking her out and also for the school run in the morning. The front wheel steering can be disengaged making it easy to push along whilst still allowing Holly to turn the handle bars without steering you off course. Anyway on the way to school she was jumping up and down with excitement in the chair, turning the handle bars and pretty much grinning from ear to ear the whole way there.

 

Holly's new set of wheels for the school run cruise.

She even has her own cup holder on the handle bars.

 

Something tells me we are going to get our monies worth out of this present.

Plenty of bags, storage for keeping stuff in plus an overhead shade to keep off the rain/sun.

 

Holly playing with her birthday kitchen set.

Its quite rare she gets to play with her new toys without her brothers both getting involved.

Poor little thing so wants to play but you can see in her face that she is not herself today.

Holly playing with the mega blok car from Brandon.

A quick selfie of the birthday girl with her Daddy.

Tina tried two times to make Holly a birthday cake and was unsuccessful on both occasions. So we ended up making a last minute trip to Tesco's on Black Friday to try and pick up a cake. In the end we chose this Tinkerbell cake for her. 

Holly's very first birthday cake - Tinkerbell.

Happy birthday to you............. I hope she has had a good birthday and bounces back to her normal self tomorrow.

 

Thanks to everyone who has bought her some really lovely presents and cards. And also a big thank you to Auntie Lisa, Uncle David and Uncle Michael for coming around to see her on her special day (hope you don't catch her lurgy!).

Rocking Horse Advent Calendar

2 weeks ago we bought Holly a beautiful house advent calendar as both of the boys have their fancy train and truck ones. However last week I saw this stunning pink rocking horse advent calendar and just had to get it for our little Princess. It arrived in the post today and  we are absolutely over the moon with the item. Hopefully Holly will look after it throughout the years. So, Tina now receives the house one and Holly has the horsey.

 

Holly's new advent calender for 2014.

She seems to like her new toy, good job it isn't filled with sweets yet.

A lovely piccy of Holly sticking her tongue out.

From this perspective the horse looks big enough for her to ride.

Holly the Stair Master

Never before have stair gates been more important in our house as now, Holly has now learnt to climb the entire flight of stairs on her own!!! As if that isn't bad enough she can also open the downstairs child gate on her own - so much for them being child proof. The other problem is making sure the two boys now remember to always shit the stair gates behind them.

 

Cheeky Holly manages to open the downstairs stair gate on her own.

And she is off, race on before Mum and Dad catch me.

She has learnt to go wide at the corner steps so there is more land to get her feet on.

The final few steps to the top.

"Look Mum, nearly made it!".

And there she is, under 1 minutes and she has climbed all 13 steps.

 

Other news with Holly is that she now has her 6th tooth, 4 on the top and 2 on the bottom and tonight for dinner she tried my homemade fish kibab's for the first time and really enjoyed them (much to the boys disappointment as they wanted more and was hoping she would leave it!).

African Mask Homework

So far in this school year the boys have not been receiving the usual weekly homework assignments. They still have daily reading books to complete but there has been no maths, phonics or English homework. Instead the school have been sending home a list of 10 or so projects related to the subject that they are learning about during that term, then during the term the kids have to do 5 of these projects as homework. Last term they were learning all about London, this term they are learning all about Africa.

Anyway the list of projects contains lots of variety with recipes, poems, famous people and so on, but the one that caught my eye was to make an African mask. It has been about 35 years or so since I last did any paper mache, so I jumped at the chance to brush off some old skills and teach the boys how to make a paper mache mask. So armed with some balloons, a packet of wall paper paste and and stack of news papers we set about our work.

Brandon didn't really enjoy the paper mache but thoroughly enjoyed the painting of the mask. Joshua seemed to thoroughly enjoy the whole project and really got stuck in to the paper mache. I think we did a great job and hopefully the boys teachers will be proud of their efforts on this project.

It may have been some 35 years since my last attempt at paper mache, but me and Josh soon get stuck in.

Any messy craft work is right up Joshua's alley.

Layer after layer he slowly covers the balloon.

After a day drying in the airing cupboard, Joshua begins painting his mask using his new acrylic paints that Auntie Lisa and Uncle David got him for his 7th birthday.

Looking good, great star detail painted above the nose.

Joshua's finished mask, looks almost identical to the plan he drew out on paper first.

Brandon starts painting his mask and uses a very African, Morroccan red as a base colour.

Adding some ccolour to his mask.

Brandon we his finished mask. Not quite as per his plan and probably looking a bit more Halloween than African, but still a good effort.

So one project down and four to go!!!!!

Alton's Xmas Display 2014

It is hard for us to really think about Xmas at the moment even though it is only about 6 weeks away. For us we want to get Holly's first Birthday out of the way first and then we will start worrying about Xmas. So today we headed over to Smyths toy shop to buy some presents for Holly and then on the way back we decided to stop off in Alton's to look at there Xmas display. Alton's was always one of my Mum's favourite garden centre's to visit around this time of year and she absolutely loved the Xmas displays. The displays this year are just stunning and it was a good photo opportunity for me and the kiddies.

 

Mad Hatters tea party display.

I think a lot of Xmas displays this year will feature "Frozen" or "Let It Go". Oddly this was the only display that Joshua wanted to be in the picture for.

The Peter Pan display.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Probably one of the best displays is the Princess one. A stunning carriage and horse.

Don't be surprised if this LED "Santa Stop Here" sign doesn't feature outside our house this year.

Holly seemed to like looking at all the LED animal light displays.

The boys were loving the penguins and want to get one of these for in our front garden.

Near the checkouts were these beautiful hand carved rocking horses. One was the shape of a chopper, one was a traditional rocking horse and one was a tractor. Holly really enjoyed the tractor rocker but at £200 each I think it is unlikely Santa will be bring her one of these.

 

Josh, Brandon and Holly playing on the stunning hand carved rockers.

Holly really liked the tractor rocker. But at £200 she won't be getting one of these!

 

We did spoil Holly a bit over Alton's though. You see Joshua has his special Xmas train advent calendar and Brandon has the truck one. So we felt it was only fitting that Holly also has a special advent calendar and when we say this house one, we thought it was perfect for her. Day 6 and day 24 will be exciting for her as half of the roof opens up for these two days allowing for more than just a little chocolate!

 

Holly's new house advent calendar for 2014.