I'm a little late posting these pictures from sports day last week, but I couldn't forget about them. My boys are not big sports day fans, but they give it a good go, and I'm proud of them. I think the attitude you have towards sport is the most important thing - enjoying taking part, being apart of a team, pushing yourself physically, and achieving personal bests!
Tayler did well in his balancing race, flat running race and class team relay. He loved the relay, and it was nice to hear his whole class cheering him on. Jarom ran in the flat running race and hurdles. He did well, and really pushed himself. Next year he say's he'd like to try the long distance again. I think he'd do well at that - he's better over longer distances and has good stamina, I think he'll enjoy cross country when he gets to secondary school.
We have a small park by our home with only two lonely swings - hence we named it Twoswing Park. It has wonderful green open space and little rolling hills. Yesterday I took the boys over to play football there for an hour.
After 20 minutes of being goalie Tayler had had enough and so picked up my camera and took a few pictures. The one above is his. Nice perspective, I thought.
Jarom is really loving football right now, and his practices at school are starting to pay off, he's starting to look really good with the ball. He realises he'll never make it to 'pro' level, he was telling me yesterday, but he would like to play for a local team when he's older, 'just part time'. He makes me laugh. Seriously, I hope he does continue to enjoy football and play for as long as he can. I think children gain a lot of confidence from playing sports of any form. Nathaniel is ball obsessed at the moment, and loved having a kick around too. I don't see professional footballers in our families future, but I hope all my boys continue to love being active and having fun playing sports.
I am not a green fingered girly, in fact I can't even take full credit for these lovely little babies growing in our garden right now. I can take credit for organising the budget so that we could afford to buy them, going to the shops to buy them as tiny sapling plants, and then giving Jason the instructions on where and how to plant them. Jason has continued to water and look after them over the last 2 months.
But look at them now! We have baby peppers and baby marrows growing!
I was inspired to grow them after a relief society activity, and I'm so glad we did. In another few months we will have beautiful home grown veggies to eat. That is if Jason continues to water them. How come I can't do the most simple of tasks like watering the garden, I hear you ask? It's just one thing too many on my list of things to do, It's not even on my radar most of the time. Only when I want to take a picture of something green do I think of my own little garden. I'm wondering who is going to water the garden whilst Jason is away on camp? Hmmm, I'll have to get Jarom to do it!
We've had a great first few days of the holiday. It started with my uncles coming to visit us on Saturday and us all going to the helidays show at the sea front on Weston's beach lawns. We watch the most amazing ariel displays and the boys got the opportunity to check out the helicopters up close. Nathaniel was more interested in checking out the ice-cream though.
Today Tayler enjoyed meeting up with his friend in the Ashcombe Park, Jarom enjoyed playing with Dominic his cousin. Tayler, Nathaniel and I headed to the library in the afternoon to join the Space Hop reading challenge. In the evening we had family home evening in the garden and talked about the importance of looking after our world by recycling. Nathaniel enjoyed some bouncing on the trampoline with Auntie Katy and Uncle Tim (they're the best).
It felt so good to spend the whole day having fun with the boys today. It was so nice to leave the work for later, and just concentrate on being a good mummy. I was glad I had the opportunity to do this, and hope that we will have many more days in the holiday that will be this fun and rewarding.
I love it when my boys break up from school, everyone is so much happier and relaxed. No more early morning school run - yippee! Pyjamas till 12 0'clock - hoo-rah! What what was that? PJ's till 12 0'clock? - Wait a second, not in the Beale home! We've got activities to do - got to make the most of the holidays! So check out our summer holiday list of things to do, maybe you'll see something there that you might want to try. Leave a comment and let us know how you get on and have a very happy holiday!
What a great event this was for my boys, their family, & friends at Mead Vale School. We really love our school, and really enjoyed this amazing performance. I huge thank you goes to a very talented dance teacher and all the staff who practiced and drilled these dance routines into my very reluctant boy's.
Tayler had been worrying for weeks, but he seemed the happiest boy in his class as he did his sea shanty dance routine. He even skipped! He was really nervous about that, but did a fantastic job!
Jarom looked thoroughly embarrassed throughout his dance routine, he told me later he was trying desperately to avoid my camera lens, but actually quite enjoyed the dancing. We loved watching the dance talents of all our nephews & friend's children, and we very impressed at their confidence - they can really move!
I thought this was the most perfect birthday gift. I couldn't think of a better way to spend the day. What a fantastic way to celebrate being 33. I hope there are many more happy returns of this particular day!
My good friend Michelle is the yummy mummy for this post and she is the creator of these amazing cupcakes. You know I've tried in the past to make cupcakes, and not really succeeded, but Michelle is fast becoming the queen of cupcake yumminess. She will be opening for business soon too - how great! I love mum-trepreneurs!
She made these particular cupcakes for our latest ward relief society activity (the one I made the poster for), and they went down a storm! I really appreciate talent like this, especially when I know I can't do it myself. I can't wait for business to open, I'll be first in the Que.
I'm not sure what Sunday afternoon looks like in your home, but this is often what it looks like in ours. The boys often say - 'mum, I'm bored, I don't know what to do!' yet there's plenty to do around the home. We played board games together and I taught Jarom how to play checkers - he whipped me after just one game, typical.
Tayler just loves to read right now, he's going to love this summer's reading challenge at the Library, we must join this week. And Nathaniel? Well, he just loves doing whatever his big brothers are doing.
We all love Sunday Supper - ummm, cheesy Wotsits, delicious, and chicken sandwiches made from leftovers, plus Jaffa cakes and pure orange juice (part of our 5 a day) - an absolute feast!
It's going to be so much fun. It's our first Virtue night, and it's based on value experience 1. I felt a little overwhelmed at first with the topic for 'p night' this month, the subject of virtue is so important, but needs to be handled with sensitivity.
We plan on having a great discussion with the girls, playing a great 'dating' game, and finishing with treats. Aren't these bags of Hershey's kisses the cutest?
I really feel blessed that my activity has come together. I always take a month to prepare each activity. I carefully pray and prepare each section for the needs of the YW in both of the weston-super-mare wards, even those girls who I know are unlikely to attend. I feel it's great blessing to be able to serve both wards in my calling, I especially love being able to spend time with my nieces and also the girls I have watched grow since Primary. I hope we all have a really fun evening together on Tuesday, I'm going to miss them all when they all disappear for the summer on holiday.
Nathaniel has a thing about keeping his feet clean and dirt free. He spends so much time going bare foot in and around the house, but he still hates to have bits on his feet. I noticed this morning that he was sitting on the floor wiping dirt off of his feet with a wet wipe. What I hadn't noticed was that he had got into the cupboard, carefully taken out the wipes and got himself a wipe, then re-closed the packet and sat down to wipe his feet. What a clever little guy? I love how he watches everything we do, and copies us. I know he's only eighteen months old, and sometimes he still feels like my baby, but this boy is growing up fast.
Monday's are my favourite day of the week, (apart from Saturday when we get to play as a family and I get to spend more time with Jase) I really do love the feeling of a new start, a new beginning and the chance to get organised and do things right.
Today Nathaniel and I went to Costco to do some much needed shopping - we love their kitchen towel and we were down to our last few sheets. We were almost out of washing powder, dish washer tablets and we had completely run out of Otis Spunkmeyer cookies - how can we live without them? Pleased to say we're all stocked up now - yey!
This afternoon in the garden Nathaniel and I found to beautiful blue little butterflies. We don't have too many plants in our garden, but we have tried to plant things that attract wildlife. It was so nice to see them enjoying our garden, and doing what they do here.
Dinner tonight was for 10. Yes that's right, 10 people for dinner. This is actually starting to become quite a regular occurrence in our home. Tonights tasty nutritious meal was my boys favourite - Chicken & Broccoli Bake. Yum! It consists of one tin of chicken in white sauce, one tin of chicken soup, cooked pasta, broccoli and a cheese and bread crumb topping - all baked in the oven. Our dinner did consist of a little more then one tin of chicken in sauce, I might add, but you get the picture. My boys used to be terrible eaters, they wouldn't eat properly at all, this was the meal that saved us and they still love it.
So that was my Monday, all wrapped up. Busy. Fun packed. Great. Happy Monday Everyone!
Today was the day Jarom needed to hand in his homework project. He'd hate to admit it but he had a lot of fun doing this one. The brief was to create a mountain range and then label the features of the mountain.
We choose Snowdon for his project, as it is the closest mountain range to our home and Daddy has climbed it. We did all our research on Wikipedia. I love Wikipedia, it's such an amazing online resource.
Jarom's mountain range was made from clay from our local beach, he dug it up himself one evening with Dad. I helped Jarom do the research, make his little notebook and flags using photoshop. Jarom did a lot of the work, and learnt quite a few new photo editing skills. I hate to admit it, but Jason and I really enjoyed helping him.
I'm so glad Jarom had the opportunity to do this project, we did have to encourage him at times to push himself and aim for a quality job, but there were times when he reminded us that the project needed to be done, I was quite impressed with that. I'm sure secondary school in a years time is going to bring more projects like this, I just hope Jarom will always aim high, he has greatness in him, I hope he always tries his best.
Sometimes, I am not the mother I wish I was. This week has been just like that. I often think of the title of a children's story book - 'The day mummy turned into a monster', where the mother in the story progressively becomes more and more like a horrible green bogie monster as her children become more and more difficult to handle. The story does have a happy ending, I hasten to add. It's that happy ending that keeps me going. I hope my children will forgive my frustrations with them, my overly high expectations, my grumpy outbursts. They truly are the most important things in to world to me, besides Jason, of course.
It seems the timing is just a little too coincidental, more like a tender mercy, that this weeks Mormon Message is a talk from Elder Holland, to boost my soul. I feel as though Elder Holland speaks directly to me, I find I am so touched and moved by all his talks. These words have come just at the right time for me.
"Yours is the work of salvation, and therefore you will be magnified, compensated, made more than you are, better than you are and better than you have ever been... The very fact that you have been given such a responsibility is everlasting evidence of the trust you Father in Heaven has in you. He is blessing you and He will bless you even - no, especially - when your days and your nights may be the most challenging."
All I need do is rely on him more, rely on him forever!
This week has been full of good things, here are just a few...
Jarom and I worked on his homework project, we're almost finished, he just needs to build his mountain range out of clay.
I helped make the posters and invitations for the next RS activity for our wards. This one looks like it's going to be so much fun, and it's for both Weston 1st & 2nd, I love that. I don't often get to spend time with dear friends, and I'm looking forward to being with them again. Plus we get to wear hats - how cool, I will take pictures.
It's my birthday month, and what better way to celebrate then by spending my birthday pennies at Boden. I've been seriously coveting several items from this seasons catalogue for a while now, just couldn't justify the prices, but it's sale time, so my money will stretch further!
And last, but not least, Jason and I had a date night last night to watch Eclipse. I had planned to go see it next week, but my babysitters had double booked, luckily I managed to switch my tickets to Saturday. I wasn't sure about advanced screenings, we've never been to one before, but we were surprised the cinema wasn't that busy. I've really enjoyed each of the movie versions of Stephanie Mayer's books. Jason and I fancy ourselves as movie critics, we watch enough to know a little, and especially know a bad one when we see it. But we both really enjoyed Eclipse, Jase thought there was "too much kissing", I thought it was an absolutely perfect adaptation of the book. If I could book my babysitters again, I would defiantly go see it a second time.
