Summer holidays part 1

Well we are now about half way through the summer holidays. Yes I have survived it so far!  We have been getting up to lots of things. Mainly we have been having lazy days at home although we have had a few day trips out.
The boys have done a couple of gymnastics fun days - gym from 10 - 3. They have also done a weeks intensive swimming lessons (a half hour swimming lesson everyday!). This really brought their swimming along. They seem to understand the technique now much better.
We have made a junk model ninja warrior course which the boys were really pleased with.

They have also enjoyed playing with their Lego, and we have added to it with some second hand stuff we were given. We also have a box of daddy's old Lego upstairs waiting to be sorted. The boys have now got to grips with using their imagination to make models rather than always asking us to build something from the instructions!
We have enjoyed visiting slimbridge wildfowl and wetlands centre, where the boys enjoyed joining in with all the summer holiday stuff, which this year is based on Lego, with large Lego animals around the centre and doing the pond dipping - there are some advantages to being 5 (although I do get asked how old Harry is!). We have also visited Prinknash bird and deer park with friends. I managed to leave my camera in the car!
Douglas and Harry also enjoyed playing in the children's corner at one of our local cafes.
We have also done some baking making frozen cakes. It's amazing what the local pound shop sells.
We also treated the boys to their own floats for swimming (again found in the local pound shop) and have taken them swimming. There wasn't too much swimming done as soon after we got to the swimming pool it was fun time!
Douglas and Harry have also signed up to the library summer reading challenge. They have to read 6 books over the holidays getting stickers for a listed after every two books read, some of them are scratch and sniff- I didn't really like the cheesy feet one! Two more books to read and then they get a voucher for a free swim! I wish it was for something else as the boys swim for free anyway as we lay for their swimming lessons by direct debit!
We have a few things planned for the next half of the holiday, including a big surprise for the boys, so I will update again at the end of the holidays.
Hope you are all enjoying the holidays too.

Growing up too quickly!

Wow, where has the time gone. My babies turned 5 a couple of weeks ago and tomorrow is their last day in reception!
I can't believe how far they have come and how much they have learnt since starting school. They went into school aged just 4 years and 2 months, could write a D and H, could recognise their name and the letter s (that was their letter sound in speech therapy) and could count to 10! Now they can write at the expected level for the end of reception, with Douglas writing at beyond the expected level, they are both reading at exceeding the expected level and their maths is also at the expected level. Douglas is also exceeding the expected level for moving and handling. Harry's speech has also come on leaps and bounds, although there are still times that he is difficult to understand. He also still sees his speech therapist.
I'd also like to know what I was being taught in reception and year 1 given that I only started school after Easter, so only did a term of reception!
The boys targets are also amazing - Harry for literacy is 'confidently and consistently use capital letters and full stops' and for mathematics 'know the addition and subtraction facts to 20' and Douglas for literacy 'use connectives such as because/so/when/while' and mathematics 'solve number problems using addition and subtraction including missing numbers'. Now I'm sure I was in middle school before I had to deal with missing numbers!
I am looking forward to having all their books home from school so I can see all their work.
Out of school the boys are also doing well. They have both received their 5 meter badges for swimming and are both doing well at gym.
They will always be my babies though, even if they are now proper little boys with big attitudes! I will always treasure my letter from Harry 'dir mummy I love you bcus you gif me cisis and cudools love Harry'. I doubt I'll get them in another few years!

I've knitted Harry a jumper

Having been set the challenge of learning to knit I've finally done something half way decent. Harry found a knitting pattern of a jumper that he wanted. OK I said, so both boys chose some wool that they wanted. I've just finished Harry's jumper and I am actually quite pleased with it.

Now to start on Douglas's........

Snow!

Back in January we woke up one Saturday to a small covering of snow. We told the boys that if they got dressed quickly they could go out in it before breakfast and have a quick play before it melted. Harry got dressed very quickly and had great fun throwing snowballs and making a little (tiny) snowman.

Making Santa bags

We are having a Christmas craft day today. We have started off by making Santa bags! I must say that I do like craft packs that come with everything you need already cut out! The boys both enjoyed making the bags and all I needed to find was the PVA.
The boys were very careful with the glue, making sure that they only glued the outside of each of the shapes.
Sorry, but the pics have come out in a funny order!

Using our Christmas baking leftovers!

Being the boys first Christmas at school, I had to come up with something for the teachers Christmas presents. We decided to do some baking for them. We made rolo melts, mince pies, gingerbread biscuits and white chocolate and cranberry fudge. Having made all that I then had to come up with something to do with the leftover pastry and mincemeat. Unfortunately I didn't have enough mincemeat left for making mince pies for us! I decided to just spread the mincemeat onto the last pastry sheet and roll it up, then cut into smaller rounds. I then baked these for about 20 mins. They were yummy and meant that I didn't have to bin anything!

Douglas's day with Billy Bear

On Thursday Douglas came home with Billy bear. His day was very different from Harry's. The boys had a couple of friends come round to play, so it was an extra exciting evening. After their friends had gone they played on their little computer for a bit before they decided to use it to practise writing their tricky words. (Tricky words are words that cannot be sounded out e.g. the, no, he etc). I was very impressed with their writing.
Here is a picture of Douglas showing his writing in Billy Bear's book. He drew a picture of their little computer and then wrote 'little computer' using his sounds all by himself