Clap for the NHS

One of the things which seems to have really taken off during the Covid-19 lockdown is the "Clap for the NHS" every Thursday evening at 8pm. The NHS are under extreme pressure trying to cope with the ever increasing number of people coming down with Covid-19. They are having to work extremely long hours, in very dangerous conditions and availability of personal protection is also putting them at further risk. 

So as a Nation we have started applauding the NHS and other key workers at 8pm every Thursday evening. We have tried to encourage the kids to join in and allowed Holly to stay up a bit later. The clapping has evolved over time to banging wooden spoons on saucepans and even setting off fireworks. It is just incredible to see the whole neighborhood getting behind this cause and showing their support for the NHS every Thursday. That being said, the sooner it is all over and we can get back to some normality, the better!

All ready for bed but stayed up later with pots, pans and wooden spoons to clap for the NHS.

Holly really enjoys this every Thursday and seems to pride herself on being the loudest!

Hunting the Tooth Fairy During Lockdown

Yesterday Holly had yet another tooth fall out (well pulled out by me!) and she was a little unsure as to whether the tooth fairy could come due to lockdown and the 2m social distancing! 

Anyway she came up with this elaborate plan all by herself to try and trap the tooth fairy so that she could play with it with her dolls. So off her own back she got a big box, added some unicorn tape around the outside and then tied a bit of silver string to the top. He idea was to put her tooth in her tooth pillow and then inside the box. Then she would hold the string all night and as soon as the tooth fairy came she would pull the string drawing the box in to the side of her bed, thus trapping the tooth fairy in the box (little genius).

Obviously we had to play along with Holly's imagination and once she was asleep we exchanged the tooth for some money, pulled her trap in to her bed and then we left a little note inside from the tooth fairy which read, "You can't catch me that easy Holly King, Love the Tooth Fairy!". 

Another tooth out for Holly and in to her tooth pillow.

Holly's genius trap that she made to try and catch the tooth fairy.

And of course because she lost her tooth she insisted that her bed time story was Peppa Pig - "Tooth Fairy"!.

Teaching Holly To Ride a Bike

One of my objectives for last year was to get Holly riding her bike as both the boys were riding at around 4-5 years old. Anyway I failed monumentally and to be honest I didn't even try last year due to the house extension etc. So this year I am determined to get her riding on her own and have been actively working on it over the last few days.

I have serviced her BMX so that it is all running nice and smooth and connected the balance buddy which I used for the boys. So the last 2 days I have been running up and down the footpath outside trying to get her riding. She is fearless and proud of how far she has come, but she does still rely on me too much and tends to lean to the left a lot. The best she has managed un-assisted is maybe 3-4m. We will keep plugging away though and hopefully by the end of lockdown this will be ticked off the "to-do" list.

After running up and down the road for 15-20 minutes we have then been connecting the Trail Gator to my bike and heading out for afternoon rides as part of her P.E. lesson. Although she cannot steer or balance, she still has to pedal. We have had some really good fun exploring parts of the Wick that I didn't even know existed despite having lived here for 20 years.

Using the balance buddy to catch Holly if she loses balance and trying to encourage her to rise on her own.

She tends to lean left a lot for some reason!

Using the Trail Gator to explore a small woodland area we found in the middle of the Wick.

The weather has been beautiful under lockdown, so just perfect to get out and explore.

Holly absolutely loves our afternoon rides and always wants to go further and find new places.

As a good deed this week we also put up a stall outside our house offering loads of old unwanted teddy bears to passersby, completely free. Just a little something from us to spread some cheer during lockdown. The response has been amazing with lots of positive comments on social media.

Holly has also been learning new games/pranks on YouTube and was desperate for me to play the blindfolded box feeling game with her! She put everything from scissors to slime in the box.

I also encouraged the kids to all do a WOD with me today. So this was the after picture having just done 20 rounds of 10 press ups, 5 down-ups and a 200m run. A good 20 mins exercise for us all.

Holly's Pink Hair

So we are all starting to go a bit mad and a bit bored at times given that we have been on lockdown for about 5 weeks now. Earlier this week I was in my bedroom with Holly and she spotted some old hair spray dye from Halloween which was on top of our wardrobe. One thing led to another and she asked what it was for and then wanted her hair done. So I obliged and did a nice pink/purple double ponytail hairstyle. Tina was not impressed!!!

As the weather has been so good Holly has also been enjoying going out on a daily cycle with me around the Wick. I have connected up her mountain bike using the  TrailGator and tow her around for about 3 miles. She absolutely loves it and it gets her outdoors in the fresh air and getting some exercise.

Holly as a red head.

Believe it or not one side is pink and one is purple.

To get our daily exercise me and Holly have been going out for daily cycles around the Wick.

Easter Egg Hunt

It's nice to see that even the boys are not too old for a good old fashioned Easter egg hunt in the back garden and even put on the silly rabbit masks as part of the fun. Just goes to show either how bored they are getting under lock down or to what lengths they are prepared to go to for more chocolate! Anyway we hid about 18 little eggs all over the back garden which took the kids all of about 5 minutes to find!!!

Nice to see Joshua and Brandon putting on the mask still for a traditional Easter Egg hunt.

Holly finds one in her toy BBQ set.

Brandon even looks like a grey bunny wearing that oversized fluffy fleece.

Holly returns with chocolates from under the trampoline.

Seeking out the last few well hidden eggs.

Not bad for 5 minutes work in the back garden!

Every year I make my Easter Egg cheesecake for Easter pudding, however as Easter Sunday was also my birthday we had birthday cake for dessert on Easter Sunday this year. All was not lost though, I made the Easter Egg cakes for Easter Monday and, wow, they were just amazing again. Everyone apart from Holly polished off a whole portion (i.e. half an egg) each. Such a nice treat each year and becoming a bit of a tradition like my Xmas turkey and leak pie.

My Easter Egg cheesecake with mango and strawberry yoke.

Crack it open and whats not to like, just divine.

More Lock Down Easter Crafts - Milk Carton Elephants

Keeping Holly entertained over the Easter weekend with some more craft activities, this time making elephants out of empty milk cartons. I cut the milk cartons to shape for me and Holly and then we both sat there and painted them pretty colours. Holly absolutely loves them and now has three in her bedroom and wants to make one for all of her friends that she is missing at school. Looks like we better get drinking more milk!

The elephant shape cut out of a milk carton,

Holly gets to work painting her first elephant.

For some reason Holly even out on her school dress to do the crafts (not sure Tina was happy as it is now covered in acrylic paint). 

And our finished items. Happy Ele-easter.

Making Lego Soap, Easter Eggs and Rainbows Planting

Lock down continues in to the Easter weekend and Holly has been busy making home made bars of soap with hidden Lego figures inside, doing loads of Easter crafts and planting some aloe vera and marigolds as parts of one of her Rainbows badges. The Lego soaps are actually really good and are now spread throughout the house in all of our bathrooms.

As usual we also started our Easter weekend on Good Friday and so the Easter bunny has already visited out house with the chocolate eggs. We haven't done our garden Easter egg hunt just yet as we figured we should save some of the Easter activities for Easter Sunday (I think I have used the word Easter far too many times in that paragraph!).

Holly getting the moulds and Lego figures ready to make some home made soap.

In goes he Lego figure and the soap mixture which she bought with her pocket money.

She has hidden Lego Princesses and dogs in the soaps.

Melting down the soap materials over the kitchen stove.

Holly loves making anything with soap or slime so this was right up her street.

Kitchen table all decorated ready for Good Friday.

One of our traditional Easter breakfasts ready for Brandon, a Cream Egg with KitKat soldiers.

Joshua opted for our other Easter breakfast, half an Easter egg filled with Coco Pops.

The Easter Bunny had been and Holly was very excited to see all the chocolate eggs and the message left on the light box.

Personalised Easter place mats.

Holly catching up on some of her Rainbows badge work with some planting and seeding.

She decorated this pot and then added some marigold seeds.

And this pot was a belated Aloe Vera plant which Holly was supposed to decorate and plant for Mothers Day.

Holly decorating her flower pots and plant labels.

Crossfit Box Jumps and Garden Picnic

So we are still on lock down due to Covid-19 and I am still working from home as best as I can. The weather has been so nice lately that we decided we wanted a picnic, but obviously you can't go out anywhere. So we did the next best thing and had a lovely picnic in the back garden!

Garden picnic in the glorious sunshine.

Lock down has also meant no Crossfit Rayleigh for me so one of my first jobs right back at the start of this mess was to get the garage cleared out so that I could train at home. The training has been amazing and I am really enjoying making up my own garage WOD's. However the one bit of kit I lacked was a 24" box for box jumps and step ups. So I decided yesterday to make my own one out of left over deck boards. Well to keep Holly entertained today I decided to let her paint it for me and she has done an amazing job. I let her pick the colours entirely herself and think it looks absolutely cracking (albeit not very manly!!!).

My homemade 24" box jump box (before Holly got her hands on it).

I let Holly pick the entire colour scheme and of course pink had to feature!!!

Along with lilac, yellow, blue and pastel green.

Holly thoroughly enjoyed painting my box and I think it looks amazing. Kept her busy all afternoon and looks great in my garage gym.

Bubbles, BBQ and Queens Speach

Last Friday we completed the second full week of home schooling and seem to be finally making progress and having an understanding from the kids of what we expect each day. Friday morning stared with Joe Wicks again, only Friday he asked everyone to do it in fancy dress. I called it right with Joe dressing up as Spiderman as one of his favourite exercises has been a jumping Spiderman lunge. Holly dressed up as Mary Poppins and kept the costume on all day.

Over the weekend we also tried to have a family game of Monopoly using Holly's Frozen Monopoly game. As usual the game went on for ever (over 2 days) and caused many arguments and lots of shouting. Holly won in the end but only because the rest of us had lost the will to live. Maybe we should find a different board game during lock down.

Today has been an absolutely amazing day for weather and we have spent most of the day playing in the back garden. It has been really nice to finally open up the bi-fold doors and experience our extension as it was intended opening out in to the garden deck area. Whilst playing in the garden me and H did a little bubble experiment with an empty bottle, an old sock and some bubbles which was really effective and made some amazing bubbles snakes.

To end the weekend we had our first BBQ of the year with some juicy steak, jacket potato and some salad. Then after getting all the kids baths and showers done, then having some pudding (homemade carrot cake) we all sat down to watch the Queen address the Nation regarding the Covid-19 pandemic. I think its great to see the Queen doing her part, but personally I felt her speech was weak and really didn't add anything to reinforce what the Government are trying to achieve with the lock down.

I called it, Joe Wicks dressed up as Spiderman.

Holly wore her Mary Poppins costume.

A family game of Monopoly - always good for some arguments.

Mine and Holly's bottle and sock bubble experiment.

The bottle and sock produce some amazing bubble snakes. 

Holly had loads of fun playing with this and chasing the bubbles around the garden. And it was completely free.

Finally we can use the extension as intended and open up our bi-fold doors on an amazingly hot day.

It's just perfect having the new man cave open out on to our decking.

First BBQ of the week. Lovely steaks and some lovely vegetable mix that I knocked up.

We made sure we all sat down with the kids tonight to watch the Queens Speech on TV.