Joys 5th Birthday

I realize I haven't yet got around to Donalds birthday, and I will but I just want to mention here that on Donalds 7th Birthday (which was a saturday) we had a party for him in the house, from that day Joy had it into her head that she would be having a party on her birthday too, we were not prepared to have another house party in such a short space of time and her brithday was to be on a tuesday which isn't exactly an appropriate day for a party anyways so I had arranged to have a 'party' at the beach for her instead!

The night before her birthday I laid out all her presents

When she woke up she tore through all her presents so quickly there was no time to get a photo of her unwrapping anything! We got her a Happy land windmill farm, a Happy land Toy shop, a Happy land roaming rose caravan, a doodle bear, a hello kitty picnic basket, 2 strawberry shortcake playsets, and my personal favourite.. a toy cake set with lots of velcro pieces so you can design it anyway you like!

                                            
                                                  We also got her a balloon with her age on it..

..and a birthday badge so everyone knows its her special day!

there was another badge under her cardigan too, just incase she took her cardigan off!

While she waited for it to be time for the party she got some birthday cuddles from her brothers!

Eventually we got tired of waiting around and headed for the beach! we were way too early but the kids had a fantastic time playing while we waited for our friends to arrive!

When everyone arrived we had a picnic then sang 'Happy Birthday' and had some delicious chocolate cake!

I had 3 games planned. The first was called island hopping. I filled a white bucket with water from the sea and laid out some mats, the children were divided into teams and each team had a white cup. the aim was to fill their cup from the white bucket and then jump across the mats trying not to spill the water from their cup, they each had an orange bucket at the end to dump the water into then they had to run back and give the cup to the next player, the game continued until the white bucket was empty, the team with the most water in the orange bucket won. The second game was a seashell relay race. each team had to find a seashell and I laid out some mats quite far apart. the first player had to run with the seashell on their forehead to the next player then that player ran with the seashell on their forehead to the next, and it continued like this until the final player reached the finish line.

The third game was called fill the bucket. I took the 2 orange buckets down to the sea and placed them a short distance from the water each team had to fill their bucket to the halfway mark using only their hands, the team that filled their bucket first won.

When the third game finished everyone was free to play how they liked. Donald and Teo wanted to play with the buckets

                                                         Joy wanted carried in the water

                                              ...But nearly got dunked in!

Some stayed in the water for a while

 Back on the grass I asked our friends to draw some pictures on some squares which were tied together so Joy would have something to remember the day by

What a fantastic day everyone had!

Just incase she wasn't happy enough we ended her birthday with a happy meal!

When we got home I hung up the pictures everyone drew so that she would always remember her special 5th Birthday at the beach!

She snuggled into bed and was asleep in no time at all and I noticed she was a little bit sunburned too!

The Beach Party was so much fun I think we may have to do it every year weather permitting!

Learning to Ride a 2 Wheel bike

Living in a tiny flat with no storage it was never one of our priorities to buy bicycles for our children. Donald got a bike from my aunt one christmas when he was 3 which we had always kept, but used very little, he outgrew it and we bought him an orange one from tesco for £20 which was faulty but we couldnt return it because we didnt keep the reciept so we got rid of that one and he never got to ride it. when he turned 7 I felt ashamed that we hadn't taught him to ride a 2 wheel bike, I thought if we don't teach him soon he'll grow up and never be able to ride a bike. we took the training wheels off the little bike he got when he was 3, deciding we would teach joy to go a 2 wheel bike as well. we borrowed my cousins bike which she had outgrown to teach Donald on and went to the battery park. My expectations were that Joy would be excited and eager to ride the bike alone and that Donald would scream and cry and refuse to try. these expectations were far from what actually happened.

We arrived at the battery park and they were both excited and ready to learn. They pushed their bikes along to an empty bench where we could sit between turns.

Donald got to go first, he got on his seat, hands on handle bars, feet on pedals. William held onto the back of the seat and pushed him along until he got his pedal power going then let go, Donald was great at balancing and fast at pedalling, William ran beside him.

After cycling to the other side of the park and back Donald was exhausted!

He had a rest on the bench while Joy waited for her turn.

Joy was surprisingly more cautious than Donald was, William held onto the back of her seat while she pedalled and when he let go she was doing fine..

...but then she would look around to make sure daddy was still holding on and lose her balance! William soon discovered she had a technique of her own..

She didn't want him to push her at all, she wanted to pedal herself! after an exhausting cycle to the other side of the park and back she announced it was Donalds turn again

'on yer bike Donald'

Donald was happy to have another go, Joy ran beside them!

after just a few times practicing up and down the park they were both addicted to bike riding!

I was so proud of both of them, and completely surprised at how easily Donald took to it! Neither of them wanted to go home! Now I can see they are both ready and able to ride bikes I will need to buy them new bikes, the one Joy was on is a bit too small and besides that a boys bike. the one Donald is on is a girls bike and william thinks the handle bars are too far away so the plan is to buy new bikes after Teos birthday. Teo might even get a trike for his birthday! we still have a few kinks to work out in the meantime, we need to teach them how to steer and Donald tends to just drop off when he stops, we need to teach him how to stop properly, but with balance and pedalling mastered everything else should fall into place easily!

saving electricity

some time ago I went on a mission to save electricity because it costs me way too much. my tv gets switched off at the wall and therefore only gets switched on between 8 and 11pm and my computer gets switched off at the wall and forgotten about completely, I check my facebook on my phone, I rarely check my email anymore and as for blogging, well you can see that too has been neglected. occassionally I consider going on the computer but the thought of waiting for it to load up puts me off so i don't bother unless I need to do some online shopping, as a result of not turning the computer on very much I decided I didn't need the size of broadband I had and switched to the cheapest broadband available by my service provider. I also downsized my tv and phone package while I was at it and have saved around £50! (not sure if I've saved much on electricity, they still ask me to continue paying £70 a month)
 I appologize to you my readers that I have not been posting lately, Its not that we haven't been doing anything, because we have been having so many fantastic days out, Joys birthday being just one of the most recent, I have just been too lazy to switch the computer on! I may eventually backtrack and write about joys birthday, and maybe even donalds too which was back in march, but first I plan to write about our most recent adventure, teaching Donald and Joy to ride bikes!