Spring Gardening

There really hasn't been much to blog about for the last few weeks as we have ground out the final few weeks of this latest lockdown. The kids are now back at school and I am still working from home pretty much full time. The clocks went forward at the weekend indicating that spring is upon us and literally today we had one of the hottest days in March that have been recorded since the '60s. 

So with the nice weather hopefully here to stay, Holly has been busy in the garden. Firstly she has upgraded her Fairy garden courtesy of some lovely new accessories that Auntie Lisa gave her. Secondly she has got a load of compost and planted tonnes of seeds with Tina so that hopefully we will have somethin interesting growing in our vegetable patch this year. Then thirdly today, Holly helped me give our little front garden fence a fresh lick of paint for the summer.

Holly's new fairy garden accessories.

Holly with her little fairy garden area in our front garden.

How many fairies can you spot?

No surprises that Holly's favourite is the new Unicorn.

Holly and Tina get to work planting loads of seeds.

Holly pressing down the compost once the seeds are sewn.

Then finally time to give them all a good watering.

Farewell to Rainbows, Bring on Brownies

Holly's Rainbows has been the only kids club that has continued during lock down and now that has come to an end as Holly recently had her farewell session as she is moving on to Brownies now. The event was weird as normally they would all sign a Rainbow song and then make a big tunnel with raised arms for the leavers to walk through before all sharing a big farewell hug. Clearly over zoom and with social distancing this was never going to happen, but at least all of Holly's Rainbow friends got to say goodbye over the Zoom.

Not the usual Rainbows send off, instead it was a Zoom call farewell.

Holly reading her end of Rainbows certificate.

Not the same as in person, but at least all Holly's friends got to say bye to her her.

One of Holly's leaving gifts was this lovely Rainbow pot with gold chocolate coins at the bottom of it.

Also Holly has done some more crafts this week painting another bird house which Auntie Lisa got for her. We are now attracting lots of birds in our front garden.

Marathon in March

It is no surprise that all of us have become a little bit lazy during lockdown 3.0 and probably all gained a few extra "unwanted" pounds. With the schools about to return back tomorrow, they have issued a Challenge for the kids to get active and to run a Marathon in March with the reward of a medal at the end of the it.

Holly jumped all over this challenge and was dead keen to participate. So I have taken her out everyday in March for a 1 mile run. So here we are 7 days in and 7 miles complete. She has done absolutely amazing and hasn't stopped on any of the runs unless it was to cross a road. She has been suffering with stitches quite a lot, but today was the first time she completed the run with out getting a stitch - so that's progress. So 7 down, 19 to go and no rest days taken yet.

Holly is really motivated to complete the Marathon in March Challenge.

What a great idea to get the little ones active again.

This is one of our routes which is the 1 mile mini-Wick loop.

Then for something different today we tried the Wick Country Park, but it is still a little muddy over there.

Shark Gym Update

Over Lockdown 3.0 I have expanded by garage gym significantly with a long sought after Olympic barbell and weight set. I have also added some hex dumbbells' and a padded plyo box to hopefully prevent further injuries to my shins. It is now my favourite room in the house and I refer to it as the gym and not the garage (much to Brandon's disagreement).

As Holly likes art and colouring, last week I spent some time with her drawing a large Shark on my hand stand push up wall and then adding the slogan "Shark Gym". I basically sketched it out and then did the outline, but Holly did the majority of the colouring and I have to say it looks amazing. Every morning when I am out there training it will remind "Do Sharks complain that it is Monday? No. They are up early, biting stuff, chasing things, being scary and reminding everyone they are a Shark!".

Outline of the shark complete and using a BIG pack of Sharpies, Holly begins adding colour.

Our finished wall out for my Shark Gym.

I think Holly is proud of her work and she even got to keep the big box of Sharpies afterwards.

Brandon's Adolescent Voice Cracking

During lockdown everyone has commented as to how much Joshua has grown and that his voice has deepens as he starts puberty. To me it hasn't really been that noticeable with Josh as he has always big very mature for his age. The biggest thing you notice with Josh is his height when you turn around and are looking him in the eye!

What has been REALLY noticeable in the last 2 weeks though is that Brandon has had a growth spurt and has clearly also started to go through puberty. His voice quite often "cracks" which is really funny but also somewhat weird as he has always been our little baby boy. It's actually quite funny with Brandon as he cannot control the "cracking" at the moment, so you will be talking to him normally and then suddenly it "cracks" and is completely different.