Happy 6th Birthday to Josh

As suspected Josh was very excited about his Birthday today and had us awake from 5am this morning nagging to go and open his presents. However we made him wait until Brandon woke and then he also had to get washed, dressed for school and finish breakfast before any presents. We did allow Brandon to give his brother his present which he had hidden away in his wardrobe. Brandon got Josh a new Skylanders lunch box. More on Joshua's 6th Birthday tomorrow.

One more sleep.......

Joshua definitely takes after me with getting over excited about Birthdays and Christmas and has been a little excitable and complaining about being sick for the last two days. However his wait is over and there is only one more sleep until he will rise from his bed as a 6 year old. So tonight was the final preparations to wrap all his presents and put up a few decorations and balloons.

 

Who can believe that our Joshua will be six. Where dis the years go?

The dining table and decorations are all Disney Planes themed.

Brandon has been a little star and for the first time in his life he has actually kept a secret!!!! He helped me pick up Joshua's new bike last weekend and then hide it in the garage and to my amazement he has not slipped up once. Whenever Joshua's asks what presents he has got, Brandon just says we didn't get anything as we couldn't find what we wanted.

All his presents wrapped and ready, except his new bike which I couldn't be bothered to wrap.

 

So will Joshua get washed, dressed, teeth cleaned, breakfast done and presents opened and still have time to ride his new bike to school tomorrow.

Wickford Beaver Scouts

I try my hardest not to push the boys into doing anything they do not want too, but one club I have been dead keen on getting them involved in is Beaver Scouts. I always feel I missed out on something in my youth by not being a scout and it something that always appealed to me. So for that reason I have been pushing Joshua for about 6 months to finally join our local Beaver Scout group.

Anyway last night when I got in from work Joshua asked me to take him to Beaver Scouts off his own accord (I had completely forgotten about it). Needless to say I was pleased with his enthusiasm and didn't hesitate to run him over to the 1st Wickford Scout group. At first he got there and went all shy like normal and said he didn't want to join in. Then he realised there were a few of his friends from Abacus there and he was off. They started by playing a little relay game and then after that stopped for a drink and snack. Then the second half of the session they were decorating biscuits with icing. He seemed to really enjoy himself.

Joshua seems keen to go back for more which is good news. It sounds like in 2 weeks time they will be doing archery and having a Halloween party. They also encourage the boys to bring their younger siblings to the parties so we can start to get Brandon involved as well. There was also talk about a potential sleep over in Wat Tyler or somewhere later in the year!!! Can't believe my boy could be having his first sleep over at the age of just 6!!!!

The two boys social life and clubs is starting to get a bit overwhelming already. Monday morning they both have dodge ball club before school, Monday night is now Beavers, Tuesday night is swimming club, Friday night is Brandon's karate and Saturday morning is both their football clubs! Given that I have bought Joshua a golf set for his birthday then I guess golf lessons will also soon be added to the list. I am really starting to understanding the meaning of "Dad's Taxi Service"!

Mario Kart Racing

Whilst Joshua was playing football yesterday, Brandon was off to his best buddies 5th birthday party.  We have been to a lot of kids parties over the last 6 years but this one is right up there as one of the best - a go-kart party! Now anyone who knows Brandon knows he is a) a little petrol head and b) mad on Mario kart. So this party was right up his street and the little man was in his element. The thing that made this party even better is that it was run indoors, so the racing was unaffected despite the lousy weather outside.

Brandon storms off in the lead for another lap

Brandon in hot pursuit of the birthday boy, Zac.

Brandon crossing the finish line to take the chequered flag.

All of the kart racers proudly showing their medals.

I guess we all know what Brandon's 6th birthday party is going to be! Unfortunately for him he has already chosen and booked a gymnastics party for his 5th.

Forest Glade FC 1st Friendly

There are times when I really wish I had of been pushed into football or any other sport come to think of it when I was younger. I doubt I would have ever been much good at football but it might have helped with my coaching if I had at least played a bit more throughout my school years. We have now been coaching our under 6's Forest Glade football team for about a year and a half or more, and finally today we got the boys their first friendly game over in Shenfield.

 

This was a very proud day for the 3 coaches and for the parents of the children. To see our lads all booted up and in their matching kits, finally coming together as a little team to play someone else rather than just each other. Talk about throw the kids in at the deep end, they travelled away to Shenfield on a day when it was absolutely bucketing down with rain to play an unknown team, on an unknown ground with an unknown referee! Given the circumstances they all performed absolutely amazingly and despite losing quite heavily, they all had a real good time and came off the pitch grinning from ear to ear. A win would have been nice, but first and foremost the kids have to be enjoying themselves.

 

The Shenfield team runs a football academy and clearly their team was a lot more established as a unit than ours. We took two teams of 5 over and the boys each had about a 30 min game.

 

Ellis, Lorn, Joshua and Ryan waiting in the dry changing room.

And its game on, Shenfield in red, Forest Glade in blue.

Lining up for a goal kick. The smallest kid on the field, our little Ellis did a blinding job in goal.

It was good to see the boys all spread out and not school boy tactics with everyone chasing the ball around.

Ellis strikes another goal kick right out towards Joshua.

Shenfield reds on the attack again.

I think the final score was about 8:1 to Shenfield and our only goal came from a late penalty kick from Ryan (our man of the match). But like I said earlier the score does not reflect the experience gained and the enjoyment that the boys all had. At least we know the standard to be achieved now and also some key areas to start working on during our Saturday training sessions.

Soaking wet and muddy, but still all smiling at the end of their first ever friendly game.

The first ever Forest Glade Under 6's team, Ryan, Joshua, Lorn, Ellis and Own. Well done lads.

Diving for Seals

The company that I work for recently celebrated me having worked for them for a whopping 25 years and subsequently presented me with a nice pen, a bottle of bubbly, the biggest box of chocolates ever and some vouchers. As Tina lost my dive camera some time ago now I decided to treat myself with the vouchers and bought a new 16mp wifi digital camera which is waterproof to 15m and shock proof to 2m. Anyway ever since having the camera I have been itching to test out its underwater capabilities so today I sneaked it into the David Lloyd swimming pool to get some underwater shots of the two boys.

 

One of the boys favourite swimming pool toys is their diving seals. Even Brandon can now free dive from the side of the pool and retrieve the seals from the bottom of the pool completely unassisted. So having the two boys diving for seals gave me a great opportunity to test out my new underwater camera. The pictures are not great because I rushing a bit and not previewing the results as I was trying to make sure none of the life guards caught me snapping away.

 

Little B dives under water in search for some seals.

He homes in on one at the bottom of the pool.

I think I missed this picture slightly, but it shows his little feet kicking away.

And then the happy chappy returns to the surface with his catch in hand.

Joshua confidently retrieves two seals in one dive and shows them off proudly for the camera.

This is probably my best underwater shot of the day. Great piccy of Josh and hes even smiling underwater.

Joshua searching the bottom of the pool.

I think Joshua was trying to get me caught by the life guards as he kept wanting more and more pictures taken underwater,

Its not quite the same as scuba diving, but underwater photography of my boys is still good fun.

Karate Kid Pt.1

Well who would have thought Little B would be first to join my karate club. He has been really keen to start going for a few weeks now and despite not being 5 until Jan, he had his first lesson tonight. He thoroughly enjoyed his lesson and it was wonderful to see his beaming face as he did some front and back hand punches on the focus pads. At the end of the session he played his first game of crab bulldog.

 

Anyway he wants to go back for more and has asked me to buy him a gi. Joshua was going to join in with Brandon tonight, but once he got there he changed his mind and decided just to watch again. Quite surprising given that the class contains about half of his school (he certainly knew a lot more people there than me).

School Dinners

Last year I had the pleasure of eating my first school dinner in over 25 years as Joshua's foundation class had a parents dinner date. Tina missed out last year as she was at work. Today the roles were reversed as Tina got to attend Brandon's foundation class dinner date whilst I was at work.

Apparently the menu today was BBQ chicken with rice, peas and sweetcorn. Then a side salad with chocolate mousse and/or raisins for pudding. It sounds like B pretty much ate his chicken and cucumber and that was about it! I am amazed he didn't touch the chocolate!

We generally let the two boys have school dinners once a week and Brandon usually picks "Fishy Friday". Joshua tends to look through the weekly menu and chooses what day he would prefer based on what he likes/fancies. They both seem to really enjoy having school dinners as a change from packed lunch which they have 4 days a week. I find it hard to imagine B having a school dinner and standing in line picking what food he wants, then carrying it back to his table and tucking in with his class mates - how cute. Not sure I would trust him carrying a tray of food at home though!.

Tina and Little B enjoying their foundation year dinner date.

32 Week Scan - Boy or Girl?

Today we had Bubba's 32 week scan and I am pleased to say all is going well. The babies head is already in the down position and he/she weighs approximately 4lb 4oz at the moment. As a rule of thumb they say babies grow at about 1/2lb a week at these late stages, so if Tina goes full term then the baby should be about 8lb (right in middle of Joshua and Brandon). The low placenta dies not look like an issue anymore so it is likely to be a natural birth again and not a c-section.

 

So the million dollar question - is it a boy or girl? Well sorry to disappoint but the sonographer said it is actually harder to tell at 32 weeks than at 20 because its all getting very squished in there. She did have a look and could not see any obvious "sticking out bits" but did find a shape which she has previously correlated back to the sex of a girl. So whilst the sonographer could not confirm one way or the other, she was slightly favouring it being a girl. But based on her confidence and what she said - I think it would be a risk to go out and start buying any pink just yet.

Track Running

On the eve of my biggest ever physical challenge - a mere 75 mile run over 2 days around the Essex marshland, it is nice to see that the two boys are showing a keen interest in running / athletics. We take them to the Sporting Village every Tuesday for their swimming lessons and just lately I have been making sure we wear running shoes that that after swimming we can get out on the running track and do a quick lap. Both boys can easily manage a 400m lap, but seem to prefer doing a Usain up the 100m straight or even playing in the steeple chase jump!

 

 

Brandon charging down the 100m straight.

Joshua coming around the final bend on his 400m lap. Looking strong.

 

And Little B leads Joshua to the finish of the 100m sprint (he did have a slight head start!).

 Both boys are looking forward to dropping me off at the start line tomorrow and then meeting me 7 hours later at the finish. Brandon has been giving me lots of tips about speed walking when I stop for food/drink breaks so that I can finish quicker.

 

Fake Photo Smiles

Both the boys have had their 2013 school photos taken and I have to say I am a little disappointed. Basically there was two pictures of Brandon, two of Joshua and then two pictures of both of them together as siblings. God only knows what the photographer tells them, but Joshua seems to have the most unnatural forced smile ever and Brandon seems to have adopted a closed wide mouthed type of grin. Obviously being Brandon's first ever proper school photo we had to buy some regardless of whether we like them or not. Anyway I have scanned in the 3 proofs of the pictures we did not order so that you can see what I mean about their false grins. When the 3 pictures we have ordered arrive I will scan them and put them up on the blog as they will be better quality.

Brandon's closed wide mouthed grin.

Joshua's completely unnatural and uncomfortable looking smile.

The sibling photo.

Star of the Day (Brandon)

Little B got his first "Star of the Day" award yesterday for excellent news writing at school. Very, very proud of the little guy. He seems to thoroughly love school and is learning and developing at a rate of knots. As with Joshua it is not always easy to get him to open up and talk about what he has been doing all day at school, but for his star of the day award he was telling me he drew a picture of us out in the car with the windows down. Brandon has also now started going to the pre-school dodge-ball club with Joshua early on a Monday morning. Both of them are really enjoying this and I think it is such a great idea as it gets them involved in a team sport and another form of exercise each week.

Brandon proudly showing off his "Star of the Day" certificate that I made him.

Read All About It! - Brandon's First Picture in the Paper.

Another 1st as Brandon gets his first picture in the local paper. As with Joshua last year all of the schools in the area get a class picture taken which gets put into the Evening Echo. Brandon's teacher, Mrs Lee, is sitting in the back row on the far right. Little B really does not look very happy in this picture at all even though he is sitting next to his best bud, Zac!. 

Brandon's first picture in a newspaper.

Baby B in his Old Moses Basket

We are now well into the process of digging out all the old baby clothes and getting them washed, folded and put away in preparation for December. This has included stripping down and cleaning the old baby car seat and more importantly the moses basket which Auntie Lisa and Uncle David bought for Joshua some 6 years or so ago. Its great to see that we are getting our money's worth out of the basket as it is prep'ed and ready for child number 3.

 

Baby B reminiscing the good old days as he gets cosy in his very first bed.

Of course I call Brandon, Baby B, but he is far from a baby. To think he now goes to school, rides a bike, etc.etc. At the weekend Brandon was very keen to test out his new skills and go out for a bike ride with his friend Zac, so on Saturday afternoon I took the boys around to Zac's and the three boys tour up the neighbourhood and spent about 2 hours cycling up and down, and around the block. Having Joshua and Brandon cycling around with Brandon seemed to help bring his confidence along in leaps and bounds and before we headed home the little daredevil and mastered turning, confidently pushing off on his own, but most impressively he was bumping his bike down curbs already. Amazing considering he only learnt to ride the previous night. Zac even got his bike ramp out and had it not been for me saying "no" I think Brandon would have given that a crack as well.

 

Joshua limping gingerly over the ramp having already had one fall and grazed his knee.

Joshua, Zac and Brandon all lined up with their bikes and ready to go out cruising.

The terrible trio tearing up a neighbourhood near you!

Easy Rider

I set myself an objective to get Brandon cycling this Summer and really wanted to try and achieve this before he started school in September. I failed dismally in terms of timing as he started school 2 weeks ago, but I finally cracked the little guy tonight. It took about an hour of running up and down and getting very tired, firstly over the park on grass, then a gravel pathway and then on a quite road. He had two of three falls but nothing too serious. Once he started to get control of the steering and his balance, he was well away and even managed to do the push offs on his own without me having to hold the bike and run along side him. He is using the brakes very well to slow himself down and has also mastered the most important part - putting your foot on the floor when you come to a stop. I would say that he made more progress in his first proper session than Joshua did as it took me a couple of extra nights to get Joshua pushing off on his own.

 

Brandon mastered the push off all by himself.

Very cocky and confident considering nearly an hour ago he was still on stabilisers.

Brandon the easy rider.

Amazing picture of my two boys cycling side by side for the very first time.

And little B cycles off into the distance.............

 

I have to say I am an extremely proud Dad as I was beginning to think I would not get him riding a bike this year. Watching your child pedal a bike for the very first time without any assistance ranks right up there with watching them take their first steps. I think it is also quite an achievement that I managed to get both boys cycling before their 5th birthdays. So two down, one to go - but I have 4-5 years before I start teaching the next one!

More Pics from Brandon's First Day at School

Here are a few more class photos from Brandon's first day at School last Thursday.