Today my boy made lunch... for all of us!

I was so proud of my boy for helping me with the shopping and then making lunch, I thought it deserved a blog post. This boy certainly is growing up fast, and quickly approaching teenage-hood. His 11th Birthday will be in a few weeks and guess what? He wants a guitar. First skateboards, now guitars, what next?

This picture was taken in Bristol yesterday at the docks. We had a lot of fun there as a family, and would love to go back again soon. I have a promise to keep to Tayler that he can go and see the 3D shark movie. There was certainly a lot of atmosphere and lots of families enjoying the sights, the steam train and the fountains. We'd highly recommend it.

The things we do for toasted marshmallows...

We didn't make it to ward family camp this year and so instead we (Jason) built a fire in the garden and made 'delicious hot S'mores' (Toy Story Quote). We went over the the beach and then the woods to gather firewood, and I snapped a couple of pictures whilst we were there.

Tayler looking very handsome.

Nathaniel looking off to the middle distance (and a little over exposed, I hate that!)

My unedited images montaged.

And finally a little quiz for my boys.

Winner gets a prize.

I'll post the answers later.

After much deliberation Dad and I worked out some of the answers to guess the mushroom, it was actually really tricky, and we're still a little uncertain about some of them, we've given it our best guess. What I have learnt its that you can never be too careful about mushrooms.

1. Hare's Foot Inkcap Mushroom (Poisonous) 2. Sulfur Tuft (Poisonous) 3. King Alfred's Cake Fungus or 'Cramp Ball' (inedible) 4. Possible Bay Boletus Mushroom (edible - but I wouldn't try it) 5. Amenita or Destroying Angel (incredibly poisionous!) 6. False Death Cap (Poisonous).

So there you go. I thought that number 5 looked like a lovely looking mushroom, all white and clean, surely that one would be edible - wrong! It was the most deadly of the lot!

It was great to go mushroom spotting, but I wouldn't recommend eating anything you find, or even touching them!

Grateful... veggies & music

It's been a while since my last grateful post, that doesn't mean I'm not grateful, just that I've been enjoying my blessings so much recently, I haven't had time to take pictures of them.

So last night we had (5+1+2+3=11) 11 for dinner. I love a busy home. I had dinner all planned, and yet some of the main ingredients had escaped my shopping radar. I was missing onions and garlic for the risotto. I thought I was going to have to abandon my plans and order take-away, but them dad reminded me we still had spring onions growing in the garden - hooray - dinner was saved! It tasted pretty good too, thanks to Chessie's culinary talents!

I have been a huge fan of Mindy Gledhill for a long time now. Her latest album was released just a few days ago, I downloaded it from itunes yesterday - I've already listened to it about 5 times since - I L-O-V-E - love it! It is absolutely where my musical tastes are right now. Such a joy to listen to good music - I highly recommend it, (and her other albums too).

Our last full week of the holidays...

It's been a little quiet here this week... but yesterday I got out my camera...

My beautiful Tayler, my beautiful niece and my beautiful little big boy.

Reviewing the school year

For the first time this year I have properly organised the pictures and work the boys have brought home from school. Tayler in particular has really made some great improvements this year. He has worked so hard, and I am glad that his hard work was rewarded with a good report at the end of the school year.

I love Tayler's art work at the moment, it is so full of the innocence of childhood, and simply makes me smile when I see it. He made many of these pictures during art week at school, something that he loved being apart of. I particularly love his dragon (It's been hanging on my fridge for the last 6 months), and his owl (part of the work he did on nocturnal animals), I love the technique he used to capture the feathers. Tayler really enjoyed the last piece of topic work he did with his class this academic year - dinosaurs! He brought home some beautiful pieces of written work and some lovely drawings. He spent many hours at home working on his own dinosaur project too.

I am excited about Tayler going into year 3 in September, it will be quite a big jump for him, I am sure it will mean many long hours doing homework together.

I love recording my children's progress at school, and have been interested to see that Becky Higgins is giving away a free Personal Yearbook Project that will be so much fun to complete with the boys for the next academic year. As it's Jarom's last year in Primary school I especially feel the need to document it all.

Knock & Run Treats...

My boys love to play knock and run, accept we leave treats on the doorstep! We started this little family tradition a few years ago with Christmas treats, we did it so that the boys would get to know how good it feels to give to other people, what we didn't expect was how much they would love the knock and run part.

When I saw these cute treats on one of my favourite blogs I thought it would be fun to extend our tradition into the summer. So our treat buckets are filled with un-frozen ice pops ready for a lucky family to freeze and enjoy, the buckets were on sale from Sainsbury's (our local store has all sold out now), and the little tag came straight from the website, but you could just click on the image above, save to your computer and print.

We only have a few to send, but maybe one will come to you!

Our little holiday to Dorset...

We had such a fun packed holiday, and tried to cram in as much as we could in a few short days.

We started out at Bovington Tank Museum - such a great experience, our boys (Jase included) loved it! But as you can see from the picture below the boys were more interested in their own tanks then the ones in the display.

We had some great food whilst camping - my one rule for camping was that I didn't want to cook - so we ate out for every meal - what a treat! McDonalds for breakfast was a huge hit, TGI Friday's was our favourite (great burgers - yum!), and Chiquito's was a fun experience (Lucha Libre Baby!)

We also spent a day in Lulworth, one of our favourite places - the cove was busy (tide was in), so no fossil hunting, but Tayler and Jase did go for a ride on a speed boat to see the other coves. We went over to Lulworth Castle to watch the knights Joust and also saw the most amazing birds in the Falconry display, heard a fascinating talk about Medieval wars and gunpowder, and enjoyed viewing the castle. (Below - Tayler dressed as a knight!)

We finished off with a couple of trips to Bournemouth one in the evening to see the street performers, and another on Saturday morning to the Aquarium - both really fun experiences.

So we're back home now to the warmth of cozy beds - and the hugest pile of washing you've ever seen, how is it you go away for just a couple of days and end up with a months load of washing when you get back? Must just be one of those natural phenomenon - the sign of a good holiday.

Back in a couple of days...

We are off on holiday for a couple of days, see you when we get back!

Location scouting...

This weekend we had fun photographing various locations to take great photographs in. We found a few great spots on a walk we took in the woods this afternoon, and yesterday we hunted down some great places.

Grassy salt marsh at Sand Bay, Urban grunge at the Westlands Industrial Estate, and in typical Somerset tradition a Cider farm orchard belong to Thatchers - cool huh!

These locations are so great, I will definitely be using them for my family photography shoots. Plus they were pretty fun to visit as a family too (even though it doesn't look like it in the pictures!).

Getting just a little bit wet

Although the weather isn't amazing today, my boys found the water balloons and decided to play with them. They love playing this game.

Jarom and Tayler have fun standing really close to each other and bursting them in their mouths - I think they're crazy. We tried to photograph balloons as they burst, but this was all we could get, even at 1/4000 of a second, Jarom thought that was cool.

Nathaniel is a little more cautious with his balloon preferring to hold I squeeze it carefully. He didn't enjoy bouncing on a trampoline full of balloons with the risk of getting soaked. He does however, love doing what his big brothers are doing!

What a transformation...

Yesterday was hair cut day in our home. My amazing hair dresser Sally comes to our home, cuts & colours my hair, cuts dad's & Nathaniel's and yesterday even did Jarom & Tayler's hair. Jarom is going through a long hair phase so there's not much difference there, but Tayler was the real transformation, how did we ever let it get so long? He looks so great with short hair. He loves it too - 'don't touch my new hair cut!' I heard him yell at his brother - 'I want it to stay like this forever!'

Our visit to Bristol Zoo

I really wanted to take the boys somewhere special yesterday as a holiday treat. I gave them three options - 1. The new water park in Weston and the beach, 2. The new aquarium in Bristol & the IMAX theatre and 3. Bristol Zoo. They chose the zoo.

We were lucky to be joined by Auntie Katy, Uncle Timmy & Grandpa. It was a great help to have the extra hands.

We saw some amazing animals

1. The Lion - very sleepy.
2. The Twilight Animals - a little too dark in there, we kept tripping up over each other.
3. The Giant Tortoise - so slow, he just sat there.
4. Special animal show - Racoon, Kookaburra, Armadillo, Hawk Owl, Macaw Parrot.
5. Gorilla's being fed.
6. Seal's & Penguins - cool swimmers
7. Reptiles - one massive snake with amazing skin.
8. Aquarium - see, we did get to see fish after all.
9. Feeding the Lorikeets - the highlight of our day!
10. The butterfly house - so beautiful.

So after all that, the highlight was feeding the Lorikeets. Those beautiful little birds were so special, and we all enjoyed feeding them.

Tayler in particular had a magic moment. He was so scared at first and almost didn't do it. He was the last to hold up his little pot of food. I was so grateful to uncle Timmy for encouraging him to do it himself.

He absolutely loved feeding his little bird, all feelings of fear simply melted away. He was so proud of himself and his little bird. He now has a definite idea of what he'd like for Christmas - his very own pet Lorikeet.

Pictures of my boy running - just too cute

My boy...

How much he's grown recently. He started in nursery a month ago, and although he's taking a little while to get used to being with the other children he is starting to enjoy it. We still haven't left him for long, he starts to cry and there just aren't enough hands to look after him and all the other little people. I'm looking forward to dropping him and going to my class, I'm sure it won't be long, he's so much more confident then my other boys.

Running, dancing and playing with balls are Nathaniel's favourite things. He has the absolute cutest run, his little legs can barely keep up with how fast he wants to go. His little bottom has the funniest little wiggle. We constantly have music on in the home and his dancing has really improved this week, he's gone from simply moving his feet to the music to - head banging, grooving his little shoulders & head and pointing his little fingers saturday night fever style. Where does he get it from? Balls are still the number one toy of choice though - tiny bouncy ones, big brother footballs and everything in between. He's always got a ball attached to his feet or throwing one around the house.

This little boy certainly brings so much joy into our lives. He has developed a whole new love of mothering in me. I have joy swell inside me that just melts away any other feelings I have. This is particularly good right now because this boy is also trouble - he climbs everything, draws on all our walls & furniture with any pen he can get his hands on, constantly throws his food on the floor, and has developed the most annoying grunt which he uses to get our attention. What a boy! I guess this is what having sons is all about. They push your patience to the very edge, but are completely worth it!