Picnic Sunday

Well continuing on with the beautiful weather we are having this weekend, today was a perfect day for a spring/summer picnic. So once Joshua had finished at his football club we loaded up the car and headed over to Maldon Promenade. Once we got there the boys had about an hour or so playing in the sand and on the big pirate ship play ground.

And yes both Brandon and Joshua are wearing my hats today. Not only has Joshua claimed my blue diving hat as his own. but we couldn't find Brandon's hat in the car and so I had to give up my New York Giants cap to the little guy. OK so it is a bit big, but at least it kept the sun off the little dude.

Joshua is getting very confident and brave with his climbing this days as shown in this picture.

And the reward for climbing the top was to captain the ship.

Brandon enjoyed playing in the sand and seemed to bring half the sand pit home in his shoes, trousers, nappy and just about everywhere else.

After playtime it was off for Brandon's first ever picnic. He sat in his chair very well and as usual ate everything in site.

Once Brandon had his fill of food it was pretty hard to keep him contained to the picnic area as he was off running around and playing football. He even managed to hijack a smaller ball from another lady playing in the park.

Now tell me this is not an adorable picture. Both boys laying in the back of the car drinking their milk!

Joshua off exploring a bit of nature. He was fascinated by the tree dangling over into the water.

Later in the day we found another sand pit and therefore ended up buying yet more buckets and spades. We really must starting leaving some in the car!!!!

Independance Day

I regularly receive e-mail updates from the babycentre website which gives really good guidance about your child's development along with activities to try, recipes to cook etc.etc. This weeks e-mail had a really interesting paragraph about your child's growing Independence and their needs to do things on their own for fulfillment. This could not be truer about Joshua. Within the last week we have really noticed and increased level of Independence. For example of a morning now he is getting up on his own, going to a wee, tipping the potty down the toilet, wiping his potty clean and then washing his hands on his own! Often when he wants a wee or poo now he will tell you to stay where you are and he will do it on his own! So Independence Day comes early........

Today was probably the best day so far this year in terms of weather. One thing that comes with good weather is Ice Cream Vans. Unfortunately Joshua knows the sound all too well and often it is just too much like hard work to say no to him. So today we gave in and it was a round of 99's. Joshua pretty much ate all his ice cream, then looked at mine and sore I still had loads left so he swapped his cone with mine. That seems to have been a common theme today as he also claimed my pannini at lunch, my banana, my cap when we went outside and my juice with dinner!

Anyway here is Josh sitting in the garden tucking into his first ice cream.

He found it quite amusing to dip his nose into the cold ice cream, lovely!

After Brandon's afternoon nap we went over to one of the local parks just to let the boys have a run around and kick some footballs. Here is a picture of Joshua in a climbing frame aeroplane (and yes that is my cap he is wearing!).

Brandon was enjoying kicking a ball around as usual. This is the first time he has had to wear a hat due to the sun and was pretty good at keeping it on.

Joshua on one of the climbing frames.

And it wasn't too long before Brandon built up the confidence to climb the frame.

Brandon's communication skills are going from strength to strength. In fact his Czech language is now about as proficient as mine. You see other than "dobry den" and "pivo" the extent of my Czech language evolves around pointing with the universally recognised finger and making funny grunting noises. Well that is pretty much what Brandon does now whenever he sees something he wants, be it his cloth, dinner, juice, a ride on the bike, a magazine etc.etc.

Little Tiger

A bit of a mish mash of blog updates today with no real theme. Just some random, nice pictures of the two boys which were taken over the last week or so.

To start with look at my eldest sitting in a restaurant, all grown up and drinking from a tea cup on his Daddies birthday.

Both boys seem to enjoy helping Daddy with the hoovering. Up until recently they used this most annoying duck toy as a hoover and made a humming noise to accompany it. Well finally we got around to buying them a proper toy hoover and so the duck is history (I hope). Anyway here is Brandon cleaning up some of his mess.

One thing about Brandon is that he is all about food and is getting to a stage where he knows exactly what he wants. Below is his "GIVE ME THAT FOOD NOW" face.

Once he has the food it is in his mouth instantly.

Sometimes the food gets chewed. Often just swallowed and then you are back to stage 1 with "the face"!

And when meal time is over and you have a satisfied little boy - evident by the beautiful little smile with his glittering eyes and pearly white teethy pegs.

So why was this blog update called "Little Tiger". Well a few posts ago I mentioned about a cheap £1.25 golf set we picked up for Brandon but did not show any pictures of him playing with it. Well he has taken to golf like a fish in water and seemed to instantly know that you hit the ball with the club. OK so he isn't holding the club with two hands, but he still manages to get a good old whack on the ball. If I am brutally honest he has had a few hits which have gone further than Uncle Michael's and Uncles David's drives (but then that is not saying much really!!!).

The cheeky little boy has also been caught smacking his bigger brother over the head with a golf club. Naughty step time...............

Fun Fair 2010

Yesterday we treated the boys to an afternoon down the Fun Fair. The weather was gorgeous and it was a really enjoyable afternoon. Unfortunately Brandon is still a bit on the small side and only got to go on a couple of rides. Joshua went on loads which was great for him, and bad for me as they no longer offer the wrists bands and so the individual ride prices soon start mounting up.

Anyway after an initial baptism of fire on the Runaway train which was by far the largest ride Joshua has ever been on, he chilled out on the boats. As you can see his face was still a bit unsure at this stage..........

To settle the little guy down he went on the small Thomas Train with Mummy and Brandon. Both boys seemed to enjoy this and were ringing the bell and looking out of the window.

Next was one of my favourites - the bumper cars. I can't wait until the day Brandon is old enough to go on these as I think the boys will have an absolute blast crashing into each other.

We all know Joshua likes his planes and I have previously made references to "Little Biggles". So of course he found a plane ride - the main surprise here was that he did not go on the yellow plane. Yellow is by far his favourite colour.

Next it was time for Brandon to get some action as a Yorkie eating trucker!!! Big brother was on hand to keep an eye on him, although it didn't help much as Brandon slipped from the seat and vanished below the steering wheel!!

I think Brandon needs a booster seat!

There was no stopping Joshua on the bouncy slide. Amazingly he managed to climb all the way to the top without any help (obviously all the trips to Party Man have paid off). Once he reached the summit though it was difficult to get him to slide down as he seemed to enjoy just running from side to side across the top.

Now that the boys have a trampoline at home then Joshua was old hat at this.

And that was about all Dad and Mummy's wallet had time for! Bring back the wrist band idea - much better value for money when you have little ones.

Spring Arrives

Finally spring arrives and what a beautiful day it has been today. It is so nice to have the back doors open and allow the boys to play out in the garden rather than being stuck in the house. Today was so nice that Joshua even chose to have his lunchtime milk on a sun lounger in the garden.

I am always looking out for bargains and today we picked up a golf set for both the boys. Brandon's little plastic set was all of £1.25, and Joshua's metal set with a PVC golf bag was all of £3. So forget all the hype about Tiger's return at Augusta - the hype is now about JJ King hitting the PGA tour. The little guy looks nervous as he heads off for the first "Tee".

Club selection is very important. But if you cannot decide then just grab 3 clubs at once!

Brandon's 1 Year MOT

Today Brandon had his 1 year old health check and passed with flying colours - A+. The funny thing was that she said his weight is actually low compared with his height / head circumference and that we need to try and increase his food intake!!!!! We tried to explain to her that he eats everything in site and far more than his bigger brother. We couldn't feed him anymore if we tried. His weight is on the 25th percentile curve whilst his height and head dia are on the 50th percentile. She said not to worry and that they usually balance out by the time they are 3'ish and gain all the correct proportions. The ironic thing about this is that Brandon is a right little pudding and us a far "chunkier" boy than Joshua ever was. Me and Tina were actually saying a few weeks ago that in time we might actually have to watch his food intake closely to make sure he does not start getting obese.

On a different subject, for Easter I bought both the boys a new book and Joshua's one was called "My First Easter" and tells the story of Jesus' crucifixion. The reason I am writing about this is a funny comment Joshua made when we got to the page showing Jesus nailed to the cross. This comment is one of those children's classics which will forever bring a smile to my face whenever I look at this book. So what did he say? Well he now recognises those large wind turbines which are scattered around the country as "spin spins". Well in his book the white cross looks like a "spin spin". Because Jesus has a big bushy beard and moustache Joshua thought it was a monkey. So his comment was "oh, monkey on spin spin!!!!". Brings a whole new meaning to the crucifixion.

JCB Role Playing

I haven't really spoken much about Joshua's potty training on the blog. However I think it is now pretty safe to say that he is 100% dry. Through the daytime he wears normal pants now and always asks for a wee or poo. Of a nigh time he still sleeps in pull-ups however 99% of the time they are bone dry in the morning and usually the first words out of his mouth when he wakes up is "I need wee wee"! We have even taken Joshua's potty training wallchart down as it is no longer needed.

News on Brandon is that he can now say the words "brother" and also runs around making a "rooaaar" noise trying to scare everyone - similar to what Joshua does.

Anyway yesterday we took the boys over the park on the bikes to feed the ducks and swans. After feeding the birds Joshua found this humongous puddle which wasn't much smaller than the lake. Anyway he had an absolute blast running up and down and kicking the water - so much so that his shoes are still hanging up to dry!

Earlier today whilst Brandon was sleeping I decided to get my bike all cleaned ready for the cycle to work tomorrow. As always Joshua is never far behind and was soon more than willing to help his dad out.

After cleaning the bike I was showing Joshua some role playing using his new JCB digger set. This worked really well and as you can see below we was using a small pile of stones to teach him how each of the vehicles worked.

First we learnt to load the back of the dumper truck and move the rocks off of the road.

Then we learnt to use the bull dozer to push the rocks out of the road to allow the other vehicles to drive through.

Here Joshua is using the digger to pick up stones and load them into the dumper truck.

Joshua took to this role playing really well and understood the function of each vehicles. At the end he would stand back all proud and say "well done everybody".

Easter 2010

Sorry for the lack of blog updates but the last week has been busy and on top of that both boys have been a bit sick. Brandon is now back to himself and eating everything in sight, but Joshua is a worry as he has not eaten properly in about 3 days - even turning down his favourite, sausages!

Anyway onto Easter. As with Joshua, Easter was to be Brandon's first experience of egg and soldiers using his new toy story boiled egg set. As you can see he took to the experience very well and soon got the hang of dipping the soldier into the egg.

Big brother was on hand to teach the little guy first hand.

After the egg Brandon tucked into Daddy's left over actimel.

As usual the boys have been spoilt massively by friends and family. As you an see from below they probably have enough chocolate to last until Xmas!!!

Whilst Brandon had his afternoon nap me and Joshua got on with painting and decorating a few hard boiled eggs.

These little babies put Faberge eggs to shame.

On Easter Sunday morning Brandon started the day with a flick through the local papers.

And then shared little snippets of the paper with all the family.