21 March , 201620 March , 2016 - Sarah 11 Comments

Living Arrows 12/52 (2016)

It’s been a fairly quiet week here. Gabe has just about recovered from his cold and turned seven months old, and Toby’s just been getting on with being two and a half, just like he always does!

We had a fun morning at soft play on Wednesday and Toby really showed how much his confidence has grown when he was playing on the big kids bit. He continued his progress this weekend at the park. It was a lovely sunny day on Saturday so we walked up to one of the bigger play parks near where we live. He really showed no fear climbing up to the top of the slide… I’m loving this new adventurous phase of his!

Gabe has been adventuring in his own way this week too. Toby is very possessive of his toys and doesn’t really like sharing with Gabe. So when Toby is at nursery Gabe loves a chance to get his hands on all those things he can’t play with in the mornings!

17 March , 20169 October , 2020 - Sarah 9 Comments

My Wild Ones // Growing confidence

At home Toby has always loved climbing all over the furniture, and us! Whenever we were at the park or soft play though he seemed to lose some of that confidence and would only try things with one of us holding him, or sometimes not all.

In the last few weeks though he seems to have suddenly grown in confidence. He is trying things he wouldn’t go near a month ago and what’s more he’s really enjoying it.

Last weekend at the park he climbed up one of those cargo nets for the first time. I could see his legs shaking but he held on and made it to the top. He was so pleased with himself too.

And then he was happy to spin round and round on the roundabout until he got dizzy!

Yesterday we went to soft play and although Toby is usually OK once he gets going whenever we’ve gone before he’s needed one of us to go in with him. Not today though. It was pretty quiet and I think that helped, and of course being a school day there weren’t any big kids about but he ran off into the pre-school section without a backwards glance! He kept coming back to report what he’d done – ‘I went on the blue slide mummy’, ‘I went through the tunnel mummy’ which was very sweet but I didn’t have to go in with him at all.

And then he decided he wanted to go into the over 4s section. There were a few bigger kids in there but there can’t have been anyone over 5. I went in with him the first time just so he could find his way around and I could make sure he didn’t get stuck! He was walking over nets and bridges which he’s never done without a lot of encouragement before. He went down a spiral slide which I’ve never been able to convince him to do before.

And he went down the massive slide all by himself too. Usually I have to come down on the other slide with him on this kind of slide and he’s never been on one this big before. Look how much fun he’s having though!

I’m sure over the coming weeks and months we are just going to see Toby’s confidence growing and growing. My big little boy is growing up!

15 March , 201615 March , 2016 - Sarah 7 Comments

Siblings // Toby and Gabe in March

The relationship between Toby and Gabe has continued to develop this month. Toby is very pleased with the fact he can make Gabe laugh and will always tell me when he’s done it which is very sweet. He still veers between being kind and giving Gabe toys and complaining or trying to take them off him when he thinks that they are his. I’m sure that will only get worse as Gabe gets bigger and wants to play with everything!

Gabe is still completely fascinated by Toby and will always give him a smile, even when he’s being totally grumpy with everyone else.

I love the photos that I managed to take of the boys together this month. They were just taken on a morning at home, when Gabe was full of a cold and mostly feeling sorry for himself…but just look at them together.

And look how Gabe looks at his big brother…

Neither of them look entirely convinced about this cuddle though…

Toby loves to give his brother kisses on the head…

…But he doesn’t always think about where his hands are going…

I love the pair of them so much and I’m so glad there’s a real bond starting to develop between them. I can’t wait until Gabe is crawling and walking and really big enough to play with his brother.

14 March , 201615 March , 2016 - Sarah 5 Comments

Living Arrows 11/52 (2016)

I feel like I’m repeating myself, but this last week has been very much like the one before. Gabe still has his cold and hasn’t been sleeping much. After getting some drops from the doctor his eyes have cleared up at least, and although he’s still snotty he does seem to improving slightly.

Toby is still just being lovely, funny, sometimes whiney, Toby. Most of the time he is lovely but he’s been getting a bit too attached to playing on the CBeebies app on my Kindle lately and we’ve had some tears when it’s been time to turn it off. I found him a colouring app too (which doesn’t let you go outside the lines) that I thought he would enjoy…which he did but every single picture he just wanted to colour them all purple! I’m assuming this is just normal toddler behaviour and not some sort of obsessiveness I should be worried about. We definitely need to work on limiting Kindle time though before it starts being an issue. He does call the Kindle the tiny telly though (we used to watch quite a bit of iPlayer on it when it was younger because it was the only way to get him to stay still when changing his nappy) which is pretty cute.

Anyway, to this week’s pictures. They were both just taken one morning at home – I’d been taking some product shots for a review and Toby wanted his picture taken so I took the opportunity to take a few of both of them.

I do love a good face shot of Toby – I don’t know where the scratches on his nose came from though, I think he must have done it in his sleep.

And as for Gabe, you can see he’s still suffering with his cold by the two streams of snot pouring down his face, but he still managed to crack a smile.

10 March , 2016 - Sarah 7 Comments

My Wild Ones // Playing with friends

Toby is just getting to an age when he is starting to play with other children, rather than just next to them. I’m sure being at nursery since he was 13 months old has helped him develop this skill. Having said that he’s still got a way to go before he can really play with other children happily by himself.

Yesterday we went to visit my friend Claire and her twins Thomas and Edward who have featured in some of my previous My Wild Ones posts. Being three months younger than Toby all three boys have spent a lot of time together since they were tiny. In this picture I think Toby is about 8 months and the twins are 5 months.

Recently they have started asking to see one another which is very sweet. The other day when we were on the way to take Toby to nursery he was saying, ‘not nursery, see Thomas and Edward in the park’. I tried explaining that Thomas and Edward were at nursery too (they go to the same one as Toby but are in a different room at the moment), but he wasn’t having any of it.

Anyway, yesterday Toby was very excited to go to Thomas and Edward’s house and the twins had been waiting for Toby so he could help decorate some cakes they had made in the morning.

Obviously having been dealing with her boys since they were born Claire is very used to policing them and trying to get them to share and take turns, and they’ve had to do this since they were born too. Toby isn’t always so keen on the idea though and although we had a few moments of playing together we had quite a lot of crying too. How is it that in a room full of toys toddlers will always want to play with the same thing?

Actually on advice from Claire I now always get the boys exactly the same thing for Christmas and birthdays – if you know someone with twins I would definitely recommend it. You might think that getting them two similar but slightly different things is a good idea but invariably they will both want to play the same one – and having two identical toys can help solve the problem (although sometimes even that doesn’t mean they won’t both want the same one!).

Despite the tears and moaning Toby didn’t want to leave and had a lovely time playing with Thomas and Edward. I just realised last week though that even though he’s known them all his life, and they aren’t identical, Toby doesn’t actually know who is Thomas and who is Edward. I suppose we always just refer to them as ‘Thomas and Edward’ so it might be quite tricky to work out. Toby has solved the problem though by just calling them both Thomas!

I think I’m going to have a very sad little boy on my hands at the end of the month when his friends move away back to England. And I’ll be sad too – I’ll miss having a friend round the corner who I know I can always call on for a cuppa and a moan…I can see a lot of FaceTime happening in our future!

7 March , 201615 March , 2016 - Sarah 4 Comments

Living Arrows 10/52 (2016)

Here we are with another week of Living Arrows – and we’re into March already, this year is just flying by!

This week has been pretty miserable for the most part. Gabe has been choked with a cold – it’s been awful not being able to help him. It’s been so bad he even had snot coming out of his eyes, which has now turned into conjunctivitis. Poor little bear. The last few nights haven’t been too bad but most nights last week I ended up sleeping on the sofa with him because the only way he could breath was if he was upright on my shoulder. Aside from his eyes the cold does seem to be improving a little bit so I’m hoping he’s on the mend.

Despite feeling rubbish we have had a few smiles out of Gabe this week. He seems to enjoy being in his high chair (and weaning is still moving along quite well) which means he can stay there for a little while after lunch while I get Toby ready for nursery. I love the concentration on his face in this picture – this toy was Toby’s (and still is if you ask him) and it’s great because it sticks to the high chair so I don’t have to pick it up off the floor every two minutes!

So far Toby has succumbed to the lurgy beyond a snotty nose so here’s hoping it stays that way! I took this photo of him when I was getting him to pose for last week’s What Toby Wore post but I couldn’t resist using it for this week’s Living Arrows too because he just looks too flipping cute!

3 March , 20163 March , 2016 - Sarah 4 Comments

My Wild Ones // Chasing bubbles

We had such lovely weather this weekend that we decided to go up to the park at the top of our road. It’s not a very big park – just a slide, a few swings and a see saw but there’s enough to keep Toby happy for twenty minutes or so.

This week though I decided to stick a bubble wand I had picked up in the supermarket a few weeks ago into the buggy basket so we could have a play with that while we were out.

Toby loves bubbles (what toddler doesn’t?) but he normally only plays with them in the bath. He thought the big bubbles were absolutely amazing and spent ages chasing them around the park trying to catch and pop them. He did get a bit frustrated when they blew across the road, or popped before he could get to them but mostly he was having a lovely time.

Of course he wanted to have a go at making the bubbles himself which wasn’t quite so successful – he just kept spinning in circles and any bubbles he did make just popped behind him! Still, with a bit of practice I’m sure he’ll get there.

Sometimes at the weekends I think we should always have plans, be going somewhere exciting or doing something interesting I think I forget that for a two year old a trip to the park with a bubble wand can be about as exciting as life gets.

29 February , 2016 - Sarah 4 Comments

Living Arrows 9/52 (2016)

Week 9 of the Living Arrows and we’re already at the end of February! And I just want to say a hello and thank you to our new Living Arrows host; my friend Donna over at What the Redhead Said.

We had some lovely weather this weekend so on Saturday we put Gabe in the buggy then walked to the supermarket and came back via the little park at the top of our road. Toby used to quite like the swing when he was really little but then went off them and wouldn’t go on them at all for ages. They seem to have come back into favour again recently and this weekend, for the first time ever he was actually asked to go higher!

He certainly looks like he was having fun anyway…

Gabe’s photo this week was just taken one day while I was getting dressed in the bedroom. His sitting up is still a work in progress so I had built him a nest of pillows to sit in and he was having a cuddle with his fab fox that my brother and sister-in-law bought him for Christmas. It’s almost as big as he is!

29 February , 201621 December , 2017 - Sarah 6 Comments

Me & Mine // A Family Portrait (February 2016)

I know February is the shortest month but it does really seem to have flown by! We’ve actually had some nice days weather wise this month – it feels like spring might finally be on its way. We managed a few days out exploring our local park and our town loch, and had a lovely day out in Dundee meeting up with one of my blogging pals.

Gabe seems to have grown before our eyes this month too; he turned six months old and he is now rolling over, he’s sitting unaided, he got his first teeth and we’ve started weaning! February has really been a big month for him.

There was some excitement for me and Barry this month too as my mum came to stay and we got to go out for a meal on our own for the first time since last Easter!

Even though it has gone really quickly we seemed to have packed a lot in this month, although it hasn’t really felt like we’ve been doing much…if that makes any sense.

Anyway, to this month’s Me & Mine pictures. It was a beautiful sunny, but rather cold day, today so we decided to head into town to the park for an hour. It was all a bit rushed because we had to be back in time to get our Tesco delivery, and we almost didn’t get to go in the park at all because the car park was so busy. We managed to park eventually and even though we didn’t have a lot of time I’m actually really pleased with the pictures we got this month.

I think it’s going to be a while yet before we get one where everyone is looking at the camera but I think these came out pretty well in the end.

25 February , 201625 February , 2016 - Sarah 2 Comments

My Wild Ones // Swings and bagels

My last few posts in this My Wild Ones series have all been about Toby really, with Gabe just along for the ride, so this week I thought I would switch the focus to my little wild one.

This linky is supposed to be all about exploring, and a lot of my posts so far have been about exploring outdoors but for Gabe everything he does is an exploration of something new. For a six month old, everything he does is a new experience. Gabe is so inquisitive, he always looks like he’s totally taking in everything that his going on around him.

Anyway, this week I thought I’d share some pictures of the new things that Gabe has been experiencing lately…

The last week has mostly been about food for Gabe – he’s really enjoying his first tastes, even if he’s not really managed to eat that much yet! He likes to have a good look at things before they go in his mouth…

And he’s been figuring out where a spoon should go…

It’s not all about food though. He had his first go on a swing yesterday – I think he liked it although he doesn’t look convinced on this picture!

He’s really enjoying his toys too now and this activity tray on his Mamas & Papas snug seat can keep him occupied for quite a while.

I thought I’d show you this last photo too – it’s not all smiles with a six month old. He can turn from enjoying himself to full on tears in the blink of an eye!

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