Holly's 7th Birthday

Today our little Princess turned 7 years old and despite this being another "lockdown birthday", she has had an amazing day. This year was the first year where she has really been excited about her birthday and understood that it was her special day and that she was going to be a year older. She has been counting down the days all week and woke at about 6am this morning desperate to go down stairs to open her presents.

Everyone that knows Holly will know that she absolutely loves balloons. So thanks to an idea we pinched off of Lea, me and Tina made a pink and white balloon arch which covered our bay window and all of her presents. The arch looked amazing but boy was it hard work to set-up with some 50 plus balloons to blow up and clip on to a plastic strip. Still it was worth every minute of the effort to see her little face when she went in to the living room this morning.

Holly also had visits from nearly all of the family which was just amazing and really made her day. Despite lockdown Min and Lea, Dad and Diane, David and Nicky all came to see her. On top of that we had a zoom call in the afternoon where everyone sang happy birthday to her in front of a half eaten birthday cake!

For her presents she got a new scooter, lots of Lego Friends, lots of Polly Pockets, unicorn stuff, a PS3 dance game, a Barbie jeep and horse carriage, a unicorn door stop, a chocolate sweet maker, loads of art stuff with blow pends and electric picsil pens, a unicorn door stop, unicorn bath bomb and so much more. She has certainly been very spoilt. Unfortunately we could not go out for a meal so we gave Holly the choice of what she wanted for dinner and she chose a KFC takeaway.

Hard work preparing the balloon arch the night before Holly's birthday, but so worth the effort.

Loads of presents to spoil our little girl with LOL wrapping paper.

Holly was very happy when she went in to the living room this morning and saw her birthday display.

Holly loves her Polly Pockets toys.

And she was certainly happy with her Lego friends.

More Polly Pocket.

More Lego with the Beauty and the Beast Castle.

Holly's new Barbie jeep and horse trailer.

She wanted to have a PJ day on her birthday and wore her Elf PJ's all day.

Holly had this Princess cake with a Tiara on top plus a Molly's chocolate cake!

Zoom call with some of the family later in the evening to sing happy birthday to our little Princess.

That's an impressive display of gifts, plus she has about £50 cash to spend.

My sassy little Princess at the end of a very special lockdown birthday.

Brandon the "High Attainer"

Brandon has arguably had the biggest disruption to he school year out of our three kiddies due to Covid-19. He is now on his second self isolation due to being in close proximity to teachers and/or students who have been confirmed positive. On top of that, due to shortage of teachers he is now homeschooling again on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Since starting secondary school he has found some of the work very difficult (especially languages) and at times has been getting upset. He really underestimates just what a clever little lad he his and doubts his own abilities, we've often said to him that he needs to believe in himself more as he is a very capable young man.

So it was really nice to receive a letter from the school today confirming that Brandon has been identified as a "High attainer" within his age group. This means he will be stretched at school because they think he is capable and to help him see what opportunities lie ahead in careers and higher education. As a high attainer it mentions that he will get some fantastic opportunities outside of the classroom. Hopefully this will now make him start to believe in himself a bit more.

From Star of the Week to Star of the Day

Following on from Holly's Star of the Week achievement last week, today she was awarded Star of the Day. She had a fairly disappointing mid term report not so long ago and since then she has been working so hard and made such massive improvements. Even her teachers have noticed the change and have commented that whatever she is doing at home is working and reflecting on her school work. Her reading was below where they expect it to be and that has improved so much in the last few weeks. This little chatter box just keeps going from strength to strength.

Holly was so proud of herself and even better it was on a day when I picked her up from school!

Holly gets Star of the Week on Children In Need 2020 Day

Super proud of Holly for getting "Star of the Week" today and on Children In Need 2020 day as well. She was awarded "Star of the Week" for trying so hard in all her subjects this week and for having a go. That's my girl.

Super proud of by Little H getting Star of the Week. Love her Pudsy t-shirt as well.

Holly's certificate for all her hard work this week.

Zoom Rainbows

So as we finish our first week of Lockdown 2.0 the whole country has ground to a halt and more importantly for us all of the kids clubs have stopped again. Holly was just settling back in to Rainbows and now its back to virtual Rainbows at home using Zoom calls on the laptop. I already spend 90% of my work day stuck on some sort of Teams conference at work - is this now the future for all of our work and clubs???? Let's hope not.

The Coronovirus has slowly been spreading through the Beauchamps school with Year 10's affected, then Year 9's last week and now due to staff shortages they are implementing some contingency planning. So as of next week Brandon will now be at home schooling every Monday and Joshua every Tuesday, i.e. all years are being out on 4 days weeks due to the staff shortages!! When is this ever going to end?????

Holly loves a Zoom call and feels so grown up, but what a sad existence this is.

Is this the future of social interaction for us or will we eventually get back to some sort of normality?

Memorial Sunday Poppy Drawings

Holly has been learning all about memorial day at school and now understands that Remembrance Sunday is a day to honour all of our fallen war heroes. She has gone absolutely bonkers on drawing various forms of poppies and then insisting on sticking them all over the windows of the house. The porch even has a rainbow coloured poppy (surprised she didn't add a unicorn as well!).

Love this temporary memorial that was set-up on the Wickford Town round-a-bout.

Holly with her Poppy art which is stuck up in the porch window.

Did you even know you get rainbow coloured poppies????

Great Fire of London gives Holly Nightmares

So Holly has been learning all about the great fire of London at school and since then we have hardly had a good nights sleep! This subject has really affected her mentally and now she  lives in fear of our house burning down. We have explained to her that we have a modern house made of bricks and not wood, that we have fire doors on all habitable rooms and showed her the smoke alarms - but she still wakes up with nightmares about fires. In fact it has got so bad that she won't even have her red heart night light on anymore as the red glow reminds her of fire. 

Fingers crossed this term they will switch to a new subject and hopefully we can move forwards and start getting a good nights sleep again!

Joshua's High Tech Gaming Set-Up

Joshua is slowly building himself quite an impressive looking gaming set-up in his bedroom now. With his two screen set-up, illuminated keyboard and mouse, led lighting and office chair, it is also starting to look very professional.

His latest addition was a very fancy microphone which he got from Nicky, Zoe and Amy for his 13th birthday. Then to further add to this he used his pocket money to buy a mounting arm with various diffusers for the microphone. When he is sitting at his PC now it almost looks like he is a pod caster or DJ or something. Lets hope the fancy set-up also improves the quality of his homework.

Joshua's modern gaming setup illuminated by blue LED strips.

This is his new fancy microphone on its mounting arm. Overkill if you ask me, but it is what he wanted.

Year 7 Newsletter Pictures

All the Year 7 kids had their picture taken in their bubble groups for a recent publication of the Beauchamps School Newsletter. The write up is really nice mentioning how well they hve all adapted to senior school in such unprecedented times and what a credit to themselves they are.