St Georges Day @ Wat Tyler

Today we celebrated St Georges day with a family fun day at Wat Tyler park. I can honestly say I have never seen Wat Tyler so busy as we queued for about 20-30 mins from the Tesco's round-a-bout to the car park! Fortunately the weather was once again fantastic and we had packed our first picnic of the year. So first port of call was a spot of lunch.

Picnic time in the sunshine.

After lunch the boys had one thing on their mind - bouncy castles. They had about 5 or 6 bouncy castles set up for the kiddies and charged a reasonable £2 a child for 10 mins. Great exercise for the boys to burn off their lunch. 

Brandon and Joshua coming down a bouncy castle slide.

Joshua flat out on his belly as Brandon looks on.

Brandon exits one of the bouncy castles.

Joshua charging around like a bull in a China shop.

The fun day was packed with activities and displays from martial arts, to brass bands, to crazy golf, bucking bulls and so on. There was even a few old classic cars and speedway motorcycles to view. 

One of the miniature horses on display.

The boys played 9 holes on the crazy golf and had a pretty good idea what to do having been down the driving range with me and also having played crazy golf extensively on the Wii. However keeping a scorecard was pretty much impossible as there were both cheating like mad (I can't imagine where they get that from!).

Brandon is first to sink his ball at the 1st hole.

Little B preparing to sink his 2nd.

Little B needed some help cracking a ball around this circular wire frame.

What a great back swing displayed by Joshua.

At times I think Brandon thought he was playing hockey more than golf!

Can you crown please hush as Tiger B prepares for his next Tee shot.

Joshua lines up for a put with Brandon looking on.

Can you spot Little B in the land of the little people?

After spending a good few hours over the family fun day we headed back to Lisa's Laboratory art studio to participate in some St Georges day arts and crafts. Both boys enjoyed relaxing and colouring in their Knights in shinning armour and then using the split pins to assemble them together. We ran out of time to build their shields as Joshua wanted to head over to the boating lake to play with his radio controlled boat. But we can make the shields up one night this week. 

Joshua all smiles with his Knight in shinning armour.

Brandon needed a little help but did a great job colouring in his Knight and he even managed to cut the shield out on his own.

Battlesbridge

Today saw us take a little trip over to Battlesbridge with our country cousin Claire and her daughter Leyla. Despite the temperature being in the low teens we had beautiful crystal clear blue sky and having already been outside playing football for 2 hours, me and Joshua have got sun burnt faces! It was a pleasant trip but to be honest there is not much for kiddies to do and there is only so much walking around antiques that they can take before the boredom sets in. So I had my work cut out for me today as I tried to keep the 3 of them entertained as best as I could.

 

Joshua and Brandon did keep themselves entertained for about 10 minutes playing pretend garages with these old Pratts fuel pumps. I am not sure the shop owner was too pleased and as we left she gave me a very cold look as she had to get up from her chair and put the pump handles back onto the pumps. Stroppy!



 

The boys playing garages with some old fuel pumps.

Brandon filling his imaginary car with diesel.

 

I have always said that for me one of my most memorable manly type experiences which I will never forget and makes you feel really grown up is the very first time you pick up a fuel pump to fill up your own car. I waited 17 years for this feeling, the boys have got to hold a fuel pump at 4 and 5 years old. Still I guess it is best they do this now as by the time they are driving the cars are likely to be fuelled by hydrogen, electric fuel cells or some other carbon free fuel type.



 

Leyla, Joshua and B at the Battlesbridge lock.

Despite the temperature being low teens, the boys follow my suit and don the shorts for the day.

Joshua was most impressed by this rotten old boat.

The car park at Battlesbridge was stacked with a few little gems today. We saw a gorgeous Aston Martin and a nice looking Porche. However mine and the boys favourites was thus stunning little Westfield. Joshua had never seen a car with exhaust pipes running down the side seals before and had a million and one questions about the car. I love it that the boys (especially B) are complete petrol heads. Coming home from Battlesbridge they saw an old muscle car and two wedding cars on the road and got so excited at seeing them. 

The boys admiring the Westfield.

Star of the Week Hypothesis

Joshua has had a very good first week back at school after the Easter break. In fact he has been so good that this week he was awarded the "Star of the week". We are so proud of him. Lets hope he keeps up the hard work.

 





Joshua proudly showing his star of the week award.

 

I am sure that Joshua will give you his "hypothesis" as to why he was "Star of the week". Hypothesis is a word he has learnt from watching Dinosaur Train and it is so funny to hear him use it in everyday language. He  doesn't have thoughts or ideas anymore, he has a hypothesis's instead. You will be sitting there playing a game or doing some homework and he will just come out with, "I have a hypothesis as to why....................". He must be the only 5 year old in the world that uses hypothesis in his every day vocabulary.



Going to the Olympics

Woohoo. Finally got tickets for me, Tina and the boys to go to the Olympic's! No I am not bonkers and no I have not invented a time machine. Today I bought 4 tickets to the IAAF Golden League Olympic Anniversary Games to be held in the Olympic Stadium on 26th July.Well chuffed. It may be a year later but I finally get to see Usain Bolt run the 100m live. The boys will be so excited when I tell them as they are constantly asking me when they can go to the Olympics again (RIO is still 3 years away and will probably be way out of my budget!).

On the day we are going we get to see the mens 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, discuss and high jump, plus the womens 800m, 1500m, 5000m, 400m hurdles, 4x100m, pole vault and triple jump. So there is a real good selection of events to keep us all entertained.

Abacus for Little B

Today we received the great news that come this September Little B will be joining his big brother at Abacus School. Given how close we live to the school and that Brandon had a sibling already there, it was pretty much a given Brandon would get entry - but it is still nice to have it confirmed in writing. When Tina gave him the news this morning he was so excited about being able to start there soon and even more pleased when he discovered one of his best friends Zac will also be going to the same school. Although I have to say that Brandon is such a clever little boy that I am starting to think I should have put him down for Oxford, Cambridge or even Harvard or Yale as opposed to Abacus (but lets take one step at a time).

Brawn, Brains & Beauty

This weekend Joshua & Brandon got to spend some time with their 3rd cousin Leyla from Norfolk as she came down to stay for the weekend, The three of them get on so well together and its lovely to see them playing.On Saturday we took all three of them swimming, then badminton and then on to some soft play (and all this after Joshua had already been to his football club!). You would think they would all sleep well after that lot - but no!!! This time around Lelya slept end to end in Brandon's bed for the first time (Joshua said he had no room in his bedroom as he has too many boxes!). Anyway Joshua went to bed about 8:30 and was out for the count. Brandon and Leyla however were little chatter boxes who didn't shut up and messed around for about half an hour before finally going to sleep. Little monkeys!

 

The three B's. The  Brawn, the Brains and the Beauty.

Happy 41st Birthday Dad

Our not so beautiful spring weather put paid to most of my Birthday celebration plans for today. So a quick re-think after after opening my presents this morning and we decided it was best to stay out of the rain and thus we ended up going bowling. I can honestly say I was trying my best and ended up getting soundly beaten into last place by a 4 year old and a 5 year old. Lets hope I can continue to hold the boys off on getting the upper hand in my other sports such as golf, running, cycling, karate etc. unlike bowling where I was completely thrashed today!

 

Me and my boys at the bowling alley.

Even Brandon is strong enough to handle a 6kg ball without any help now.

Ans the champion of the day with 104 points was little B!!!!!!!!!

In the evening Tina and the boys took me out for a birthday dinner to The Quays. This is pretty much becoming our local restaurant now and the boys absolutely love it there. When ever you say to them that we are going out for dinner, The Quays is always their first request and we have pretty much no choice for other venues. The main reason for the boys fondness to The Quays is quite simply down to one thing.............pudding!

The ultimate pudding, cookie dough pizza with vanilla ice cream.

Spoons armed and me and the boys get ready to tuck in,

The pudding lasts no more than a few minutes as Joshua treats it as a race fearing that everyone will eat it before he has had his fill. This was similar to the starter we ordered which was a combo for 2 which ended up being a combo for 4! I swear Joshua could eat this entire pudding on his own if given the option.

 

 

So another year older and another birthday done. Next big Birthday for the boys is for their Mum to celebrate her 40th this year,

Naughty Hand Signs!

Well I was hoping that Joshua would have made it through his first year at school before picking up any bad language or hand signals. I am so careful around the children to never swear or flick the bird etc and then Joshua's good friend, Tom, goes and ruins it all. I was pretty shocked when I was getting showered this morning and Joshua walked into the bathroom and stuck up two fingers telling me this sign means a bad word!!!! I asked him where he learnt that from and he told me his friend Tom showed him, just great! Fortunately he did not know the bad word, but the finger sign was bad enough. So I had to have a little chat about how naughty that hand signal is and that I do not ever want to see him do it again.

45 High Frequency Words

Within the reception year at school the children are expected the learn 45 high frequency words. The idea of learning these high frequency words is to give your child a head start in learning to read as research has shown that just 16 of these words (a, and, he, I, in, is, it, my, of, that, the, then, to, was, went, with) make up a quarter of all the words in a typical text.

 

Joshua usually gets 2 or 3 of these words to learn in his weekly homework. In addition to that the boys both have flash cards to help them to learn all of the words. However a week ago we found a magnetic set of the 45 high frequency words which we thought would be a great learning aid to use on the boys white board at home. So I created two boxes on the white board with a tick for correct and a cross for wrong. Then the boys have to read each word and if they get it correct then it goes in the tick box and if they get it wrong it goes in the cross box. Both boys love this and see it as more of a game than learning / homework time. On Joshua's first attempt he got 7 words wrong, on his second attempt he only got two wrong (are and away), tonight he got all 45 correct!

 

The white board with the magnetic high frequency key word game.

 

Brandon is also learning the high frequency words despite not starting school until this September. He does not know all the words yet but had a crack at 20 of them and managed to nail 16 correct and 4 wrong.

Audley End

To finish the bank holiday weekend we ventured out to the stunning English Heritage Audley End House in Saffrom Walden. Audely End is one of England's most grandest stately homes and is a spectacular Jacobean mansion which forms one of the great sights of East Anglia. Behind the architecture, furniture and furnishings is the story of Audley End and its successive owners - from Thomas Audley, Lord Chancellor to Henry VIII in the mid 16th century, through earls and kings, to the Neville Family in the 19th and 20th centuries. 

 

The Elysian Garden looking towards the Tea House Bridge

Joshua standing by a little waterfall on the River Cam.

Brandon trip trapping and Joshua looking through planks trying to spot fish.

Joshua exploring some rockery in the pond gardens.

The old boiler room, times have changed.......

Joshua fancying a spot of gardening, or is he practising for strong man.

Little B muscles up for a go himself.

After sitting in the car for an hours journey to get to Audley End and then having a little stroll through the kitchen gardens, we headed for the Cart Yard Cafe to let the boys blow off some steam in the themed play area. 

Joshua playing jockey on a horse and cart.

The play area had a 3 tier play house with slide which the boys loved.

Brandon whizzing down the slide on the play house.

Little B pretending to be a meerkat!

And whats this, Uncle Michael riding shotgun on a rocking horse with Joshua.

Joshua named the wooden horse Becky and seemed to take a bit of a liking to this.

Brandon was more content on the smaller rocking horses.

We did manage to get both boys onto the cart for this picture.

The house also features some recently restored stables where the boys got to meet the three residents, Harry, Bess and another lazy old race horse that was too slow during Newmarket race training. The stables are pretty interactive for the kids as can dress up in some tack on period costumes.Also just opposite the stables are a couple of very old horse cart fire engines.

 

Joshua with an old fire hose cart.

Brandon checking out the old fire pump cart.

This was the largest of the horses on display and what a beast. This thing was huge, but very friendly. Joshua braved a stroke but Brandon was intimidated by the size and stayed well back.

This horse was a bit grumpy and actually gave me a little chest nudge with its head as if to say "bugger off", much to the boys amusement.

The gabled stables have been described as the "grandest surviving stables of the early 17th century".

My two boys standing at one of the entrances to Audley End House.

Joshua off exploring the Parterre behind Audley House.

A nice picture of the four of us in front of the house. Shame the fountain was still closed off from the winter period.

A beautiful photo of Josh and Brandon outside Audley End House and Parterre.

After covering a lot of ground exploring the site the boys little legs were getting tired. With no buggy available we were very resourceful.

The front of the house has some amazing shaped bushes which are hollowed out for the boys to explore.

Brandon submerges from a little bush walk.

Overall we had a very enjoyable day and hopefully the boys learned something new, even if it was just to see how clothes were washed and ironed in the old service wing of the house. We had great fun running around playing tag on the lawns out of the front of the house and had two very, very tired boys at the end of the day.