I Believe I Can Fly

Finally the summer decides to desert us for a few days and the winds pick up speed. Joshua has been waiting patiently for such conditions in order to get out and fly his first ever kite. Well yesterday was that day. After a bit of a ropey start (after all its been a few years since I flew a kite) we finally got the Lightning McQueen kite airborne. Brandon was a complete natural at kite flying and managed to get the kite up higher than me and Josh, quite remarkable when you consider he is the shortest!

Here is Joshua flying the kite.

And he is Brandon "The Natural" King in action..........

Check out how high Brandon has that kite!!!

Once Brandon got the kite up nice and high he handed the string over to his brother sharing turns (at least this way Joshua got to piggy back off of Brandon doing the work to get the kite up high).

Brandon's little legs carried him far afield as he ran up and down, up and down for quite sometime to keep the kite up as high as possible and for as long as possible.

Joshua about to nose dive the kite into the ground.

The animals came in 2 by 2 hoorah......

The boys got to experience another first today. It was their first ever bus ride into Wickford high street. Despite the looks in this picture, they were both very excited about going on a bus and enjoyed the experience. Fortunately they didn't have to pay due to their age - if only all public transport was that cheap!

Anyway Noah's Ark was loaded with two of everything and that seems to be the flavour of the month for the boys. What with two go-karts, they now also have two scooters as well. It saves all the arguing plus Joshua's scooter is slightly too big for Brandon anyway.  Anyway here they both are on their scooters.

And Joshua makes a dart for it to show Brandon just how it is done.

Now here is a happy little boy with his Chuggington scooter.

Days Of Thunder

Remember the old saying from Days Of Thunder - "Rubbing is racing". Well welcome to the remake of that classic Tom Cruise film with two budding young drivers engaging in a bit of wheel rubbing. Yes after weeks of arguing and fighting over the lone go-kart I managed to pick up a 2nd one at an absolutely bargain price on e-bay. Joshua seems to have claimed the new one and has and passed on his old Toy Story go-kart to Brandon. This is not such a bad thing as the old one fits Brandon's shorter legs better, is slightly easier to pedal and has a brake on it!!!

So let the racing begin. On you marks...........

Pedals to the ready, but look - no hands.

And finally an action shot of Joshua taking the new wheels for a spin.

I am starting to feel left out now and might have to invest in an adult size go-kart so that I can enjoy the fun with the boys!

Surf and Slide

The latest bargain buy was this half price surf and slide garden toy. Perfect for those hot sunny days in the garden. Now all we need in the garden is a slide to propel the boys down the track rather than me having to push them!

The finish line collapses just as Joshua crosses the line.

As you can see the middle of the track is connected to the garden hose keeping the track wet and slippery and the boys nice and cool. Note also that Brandon is wearing pants and not a nappy!

Time for a race, its Daddy and Joshua doing some knee boarding.

We soon figured out that if you stand on the water channel then the squirters go up very high. The boys found this highly amusing running in and out of the water jets (a bit like a garden sprinkler).

Action shot as Brandon slips A over T running through the water.

Do snails swim?

A couple of weekends ago we took the boys to the cinema to watch Disney Cars 2 which was good fun. I think this is only the second time Brandon has been to the cinema. Not sure who enjoyed the film the most out of me and the boys. Here is a picture of the two boys wearing the Lightning McQueen T-shirts and standing in front of one of the cinema posters.

On Monday I decided to take a day off to chill out to recover from the weekends Thunder Run. Given that the weather was so nice we decided to head off to the coast for a picnic. The boys had a great time playing in both the sand and the water – unfortunately for me it wasn’t all that relaxing as I was helping them dig holes, build sand castles, jumping wave’s etc.etc.

Here is Joshua buried knee deep in the sand. 

And here is me and Brandon warming up in tent having got a little chilly playing in the sea.

Yesterday saw a complete change in the UK weather as the gorgeous British summertime escaped us for so much needed rain. This down pour seemed to bring about a flurry of snails over our local park. Boys will be boys and Josh and Brandon decided to start collecting as many snails as possible and collating them on a footpath. For a minute I thought they were then going to run over them in their go kart and scooter, but fortunately they didn’t. Instead however they found a large puddle and decided to perform a little experiment to see if snails could swim!!!! If this is a start of things to come, then god help any insects, bugs and creepy crawlies that cross paths with the two boys - who knows what the next experiment will be?

Anyway here are the boys proudly showing off their snail collection (much to Mum’s disgust). Note brave Brandon with the two biggest snails (one in each hand).

Adidas Thunder Run 2011

8 weeks of hard training and this years Thunder Run is all over. Our team achieved a stunning 320km in 24hrs taking a very respectable 3rd place. This result was achieved in part thanks to our great support crew and having my two inspirational little boys there to cheer me on. This trip was a little baptism of fire for the boys in that it was also their first camping experience. Maybe camp Team X-Men was not the greatest intro to camping, but they both seemed to have a good time.

The ice cold paddling pool was supposed to be for soothing aching running legs. But given that the weeend weather was so hot, the boys seemed to have an absolute blast diving in and out to cool down.

One of my many supporters waving the Team X-Men Thunder Run flag.

The journey to Catton Park was a long haul for the boys and Day 1 involved a lot of running around in some hot weather. Needless to say both boys slept pretty well for their first night out in a tent. Poor old Daddy meanwhile just kept on running all through the night. Sweet dreams little ones.

The next day I think the boys were more interested in visiting the Triumph motorbike stand than cheering our team on at the start/finish line.

Eat your heart out Tom Cruise.

Once the 24 hours were over I did manage to get the boys on the final stretch of the course and allowed them each do run down to the finish line. They absolutely loved this experience and the crowd even got behind them and gave them a clap and a cheer. For their efforts they were both rewarded with a very desirable Thunder Run medal.

And here is a nice picture of me running across the start/finish line holding hands with my two boys. Having run over 70km is 24 hrs the boys are actually dragging me across the line more so than me actually running with them.

And after all that exercise we needed a little sit down before the final trophy presentation.

No Arm Bands

Well sorry for the lack of blog updates lately. Unfortunately it is that time of year where the 24hr Thunder Run preparation takes priority and it is increasingly hard to free up time to write blogs when I am running over 100km per week! Still all the hard work is now done and I am resting up ready for the race this weekend. The good news is that this year we are planning on taking Joshua and Brandon. I think it will be absolutely great for them to witness their Dad competing in such an event and firing up their enthusiasm for running and exercise. Also it will be a great opportunity for the two boys to have their first real camping experience (outside of the tent in the back garden). So hopefully I will have some good pictures from the weekend to share next week.

On a different subject the two boys are slowly starting to settle down in the new nursery. It has only been a month so far and Brandon is still a bit tearful when we drop him off. However Joshua seems to have gotten over this stage now. The nursery are helping us try to progress Brandon’s potty training but he is proving one stubborn little cookie on this subject and despite sitting on toilets and potties, he has yet to use one properly. He is itching to wear big boys pants like Joshua but just will not make that first attempt. The big question is can we get him potty trained before holiday in September. One thing is for sure, Joshua was much easier to get potty trained than what Brandon is proving to be!

We are now starting to explore opportunities to get Joshua booked into swimming classes soon. I know I keep mentioning this, but both boys are doing so well at their swimming. It’s a reflection on the fact that they have pretty much been going every week since they were both 8 weeks old. Joshua is now at a stage where I would say he spends 80-90% of his time at the pool WITHOUT arm bands on!!!! You still need to keep a close eye on him at all times, but he has now learnt to tread water when he can no longer swim any further and can therefore keep his head above the surface. His confidence is growing by the week and he can now swim about ¼ of a length in a 25m pool unassisted and with NO armbands. The only problem is that Brandon sees his brother without armbands on and next thing you know he has whipped his off and jumped in!!! Unfortunately he can’t swim or tread water yet so you end up diving to his rescue Baywatch style!

Party Time

It seems like almost every other week one or other (or both) of the boys have a birthday party to attend. Most recently it was Joshua's best friend, Tommy's 4th birthday party. As you can see from the main colour in the pictures it was a very green "Ben 10" affair which was held at Tumbletown in Basildon.

All the kids lined up eager to go running off into the soft play area.

Before the food came out all of the children played some games which started with an electronic version of pass the parcel.

And Brandon wins a prize.

Closely followed by Joshua (the kids didn't notice but Daddy spotted the woman with the remote control to ensure the parcel music stopped on each and every child at some stage).

Then the moment Brandon had been waiting for - food time!

And notice Joshua still has a sausage left on his plate. Now that is a rare picture if ever I have seen one.