Brandon's 14th Birthday

So today was Brandon's 14th Birthday and  think he has had a pretty good day. The day started with the usual present opening before dashing off to a friendly game of football against Runwell which he won 3-1. For presents this year I think Brandon was more boring that at Xmas. He literally just wanted clothes, trainers, aftershave and a bag.

As with his mas presents he is becoming very brand conscious and wanted a Mercier tracksuit, a PSG fleece, Nike trainers, Nike bag and Jean Paul Gaultier aftershave. We added one extra item which wasn't on his list and that was a North Face tracksuit which he really liked. Instead of a party we finally bought Brandon his Brands Hatch driving experience which we promised him 2 years ago before lockdown put that on hold!!! So watch out for a blog update soon once we get that booked up.

In the afternoon lots of the family came over to visit Brandon and drop off cards and money. Thank you for everyone who saw him on his special day and for all the cards and money. As usually in the evening we always give the kids a choice of where they want to eat for their Birthday and Brandon wanted a 5 Guys. So we headed over to Bas Vegas for a nice burger and then he followed that up with a chocolate crepe in Sprinkles. Now it is home and he is chilling with a cider and watching Loki (where has my little boy gone!).

Not much in the way of presents as Brandon wanted all expensive branded items.

It didn't take long for Brandon to smash in to his presents before dashing off to football.

His designer Mercier tracksuit.

Somehow he had forgotten what he put on his own list and was surprised with some of the presents.

His Jean Paul Gaultier aftershave - what do you think he is smiling at?

His teenage perverted mind was chuckling at the crotch bulge in the bottle!!!!!

His PSG fleece, yes black again!

When did my two boys get so big. Absolutely towering over Auntie Nicky like a pair of bodyguards.

Birthday meal out at 5 Guys followed by a Spinkles.

Then as if we hand't eaten enough we came home for birthday cake.

Triple chocolate for Brandon's 14th birthday cake.

Holly's Sleeping Troubles

I am not sure if it is because Tina is working nights or what, but Holly has been a little bit of a cow to say the least with her bed time recently. It could be that she knows the boys stay up later and is feeling left out, but she constantly keeps getting up with all the excuses under the sun or even calling down with her Alexa. Often she even claims to have had nightmares despite not even having gone to sleep yet.

She also keeps saying she doesn't feel safe in the house and worries about fires and burglars etc. I try to assure her she is safe and that we have alarms, locks, two front doors, cameras etc but she still keeps getting up. Fingers crossed just a phase she is going through and will soon grow out of it. You'd think with all her clubs that she attends, she would have no trouble going to sleep. Currently she does gymnastics (x2), running (x1), football (x3-4), swimming (x1).

Is that sly smile faking sleep here with the book in hand or is she finally asleep!

Joshua Experiments with Vapes!!!!

As always, I try and be impartial and write about the good and the bad on the blog. Part of the intention of this is to hope that the bad things can be turned in to positives by learning from what went wrong and hopefully not making the same mistakes again. That is certainly the case here where I found a stash of vapes in Joshua's bedroom whilst having a little tidy out earlier this week.

To say I was extremely disappointed was an understatement. He is older enough to have seen first hand what smoking done to his nan and granddad, and I had really hope all the kids had learnt their lesson from that. Smoking and vaping is absolutely unacceptable in my opinion and I will not allow this whilst the kids are dependent on me.

Initially Josh tried to lie his way out of it by saying they were his mates and he was just looking after them (must think I was born yesterday). After about 20 mins I soon got him to come clean and own up. Apparently he has been "experimenting" for about two months and I am kind of disappointed with myself that it took this long to find out. God only knows where he has got the money from and who has been buying them for him. We estimate there is some £50 to £100 quids worth here and I assume as he is a big lad for his age, he has not been questioned when purchasing.

Anyway we have had a long discussion about this and I made him go and google all the health implications of vaping so to be sure he understands what he is doing. I made it clear I am unhappy as he is using my money to buy something I completely disagree with and potentially shortening his life in the process! He assures us it is just a fad he was trying, perhaps peer pressure and that he is now over it. Let's hope so.......

Anyway as punishment we have decided he is going to lose 2 months pocket money which we think is about the value of the vapes that he had stashed, and then donate this to St Lukes Hospice or Cancer Research.

Joshua's disappointing stash of vapes found in his bedroom. I hope to never find this again!

First Rugby Match Injury for Josh

With running Holly and Brandon around to football matched every Sunday it is very, very rare that I get to see Joshua play rugby. However today Brandon's match was called off due to a water logged pitch and Holly had an early kick-off.  That meant that after Holly's game had finished, I had enough time to dash over to Harlow for 12:30 to catch the start of Billericay Bee's against Harlow.

The Bee's played really well winning 31-29. The score makes it seem like a tight game but the Bee's threw a big lead away in the second half as they were some 10-15 points up at half time. Joshua player well and had a good few tackles and a few runs with the ball. His size means he is used in all the line-outs and scrums so he has a fairly active game.

In the first half today he suffered his first match injury when he got a stud to the nose whilst on the ground which left him with a bloody nose. As a result of this he ended up sitting out the rest of the first half and then coming back on in the second half.

Joshua is buried somewhere in that scrum.

And again, if you look close you can spot the ginger hair!

Ice pack on the nose after getting studded and having a bloody nose.

Joshua on the run.

Bad timing with my picture as Joshua just moves in for a tackle.

Team de-briefing at the end of a tough game against a team who spanked the Bee's last season. Good win.

Holly Starts 7-a-side Football + Swimming Gala Update

Well this has been my poorest start to a New Year in terms of blog updates. 2 weeks into January and this is my first blog. No real excuses other than being too busy with work, training and kids and then too lazy when I have had any spare time.

So what has been happening. Well Holly has had he first swimming gala with the school and whilst we haven't seen any certificates being sent home yet, we are told she did very well. Apparently, she won both her individual race and her relay race!

Then today Holly had her first 7-a-side football match with Wickford Town U9 girls. The team have now been moved in to the bottom division which is where they should be as a new team recently formed. The 7-a-side definitely worked better for them having more space and more options with players and as a result the team came away with a very good 5-2 win against a team of boys (hope they don't go to school with any of the girls otherwise they are going to get some abuse for being beaten by girls!).

Wickford Town U9 Girls ready for their first 9-a-side league match.

Wickmas 2022

So for the final blog of 2022 I am catching up on Christmas events with the pictures from our family Wickmas gathering on Boxing Day. As usual we had all the usual shenanigans and lots of fun had by all. I know it sounds biased, but I am going to award myself the Xmas jumper award for 2022 even though I was wearing a shirt (Holly thought it was hideous hence why I award myself best jumper). We didn't vote on a recipe as such, but again without sounding biased I would have to give it to Tina for her delicious brei and cranberry bake. The naff-naff was no contest with Nicky being the hands down winner with the singing cactus which repeated whatever sounds/words/noises it heard.

Lisa arranged an excellent quick as always which I think was won by Zoe. She also did this really cool string competition where you pulled a string through a cone and won a random prize. Michael also arranged a blind drinking competition with 5 or 6 soft drinks to taste - Joshua won this.

Anyway, enough words, loads of pictures from orur day.

Food all prepared and ready for everyone to arrive.

Once everyone arrived, we started the day with the presents.

More present opening.

Selfie with me and some of the family tucking in to presents.

Amy helping Rory open one of his presents.

Zoe tucking in to a present with Rory watching on intently.

Rory's turn.

It's Peppa Pig.

Me with my shirt that Holly thought was hideous.

I know it's cold in my house Matt, but the scarf up and over your mouth.

Uncle Michael got some nice Under Armour gear which I was dead jealous of.

Oldest and youngest siblings having a battle on Mortal Kombat.

David "trying" to get close to my score on Tapper.

Let the battle commence.

Lisa's new game for Boxing Day with the random prize draw by pulling a string through a cone.

Holly taking her turn on Lisa's string pulling game.

Time for the giant cracker which I had to make all on my own this year.

3-2-1 pull.

Dive in and find your present.

Me, Zoe, Nicky and Holly trying out Holly's new Stitch Monopoly. No cheating going on here (MUCH!).

Nicky's winning naff-naff lurking on the table repeating everything everyone says whilst Michael sets up his drinks challenge.

Zoe taking her taste test with the blind drinks game.

Rory taking on Lea on our new arcade machine.

Brandon on the drinks challenge and still wearing his Lorenzo coat!

And David still trying to beat me on Tapper (no chance).

Rory having a chuckle with Nicky's naff-naff.

The intensity on Michael's face as he dusts off some special moves on Mortal Kombat.

The hideous shirt and the drinking challenge.

Christmas 2022

Xmas 2022 and we spent Christmas Day staying at home in our little family of 5. Amazingly none of the kids woke up super early and I think we got to sleep in until around 8:30 to 9:00am. Once the kids were up though, they didn't want any breakfast or to get dressed and wanted to get straight into the presents. However, we did pour a quick cheeky glass of Bucks Fizz to celebrate and drink whilst having our presents.

The two boys were super boring this year and hardly had any presents due to high value items. I think they only had 5 or 6 presents each, but they were all super expensive items. Joshua got a Nike track suit and trainers, some airpods, a 2023 rugby world cup ball, some after shave and that was about it. Brandon was slightly different in that he didn't want Nike and is now into expensive London brands and wanted a Voi track suit and a Lorenzo coat. He also got some airpods, a running vest, some thermals and gloves for football and a Westham shirt.

Holly had tonnes of presents.  I think she got to open 2-3 presents for everyone else's one. Her main presents was a new light up scooter as she had outgrown her old one. Then she had loads of Barbie dolls, books, a jewel digging set, some Ninetendo Switch games, loads of Stitch stuff and on and on and on.

For the family present this year we wanted to get something we could play as the boys had nothing like that as it was all clothes, aftershave, shoes etc which you can't really use on Xmas day. So we brought a Mortal Kombat aracade machine which has 12 games includes some classics such as Tapper, Defender, Bubbles, Toobin and Paperboy. We figured this would make a really good family present and would get plenty of use on Boxing Day with the family around.

Me and Tina were also pretty boring with our presents this year. Tina's main present was an air fryer which she really wanted and mine was a really cool camo DryRobe to keep me warm and dry at football / rugby now that I am a mere spectator and no longer a coach.

As usual we ate loads all day and had a really nice Xmas dinner with all the trimmings. I am not sure anyone managed to finish their mountain of a dinner! Any way Xmas day done and time to start preparing for all the family on Boxing Day.

As usual Holly left out some drinks and munchies for Santa on Xmas Eve.

Santa came when the kids were in bad and surrounded the tree with lots of goodies.

Tina got me this so cool camo DryRobe. Can't wait for the next footy match in bad weather so that I can try it out.

The shape of the family present is a bit of a giveaway. Joshua certainly guessed iet.

Brandon's new Lorenzo coat which is actually really, really nice and super quality.

Holly with a little gem mining kit.

Brandon pretty much lived in his new coat all day.

Joshua with the 2023 Rugby World Cup ball.

Holly with a football Ken doll.

And one of her teddy unicorn eggy things which she seems to really love.

Joshua opening up his Dior aftershave.

Brandon in his Voi tracksuit.

And then all Nike'd out with a new track suit and trainers.

I think the trainers he wanted are actually really nice, but not worth the money we paid for them.

Time to tuck into the family present.

Holly had the honour of ripping off the paper.

It's an arcade machine.

Yeh, Mortal Kombat. Time to teach the two boys what "proper" gaming is all about.

As expected, neither of them were any good.

And who remember this classic - Paperboy? Definitely a big part of my youth and growing up in the '80's.

Holly really enjoyed the Bubbles game and for a long time had the highest score.

Holly also got a VR headset to attach to her Nintendo Switch. So funny watching her use it.

Is this the future for our children? Finishing a day at school/work and then jumping into a virtual reality.

Paperboy got plenty of use on Xmas day. Notice Holly's Stitch naff-naff in the background.

Table all laid for our Xmas dinner.

Merry Xmas from "We 5 King's".