Living Arrows is a weekly linky celebrating childhood. The project originally took its name from a poem by Kahlil Gibran, “You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth” and every Monday I share what we’ve been up to during the past week along with a picture of each of the boys.
I’ve been writing these posts since January 2014 and you can find all of the posts below.
This week has been all about settling into school – Toby has done his first full week and by all accounts has done really well. His behaviour and attitude at home has been challenging at times but to be honest I was expecting that really. Read more
This week has been all about Toby starting school. He had his first day on Tuesday and we did have a bit of a fight to get him to put his uniform on, and then he finally admitted he was scared (and excited too). Read more
The last week has felt a bit odd, with it being the last week before Toby starts school tomorrow. On Monday I went to IKEA with my mum and Gabe (I know, IKEA on a bank holiday!) while Toby stayed at home and played with his daddy. Read more
After the excitement of Gabe’s birthday last week, and our BBQ at the weekend we had a fairly quiet week this week, apart from a trip down to north Wales to see our friends on Friday. Read more
This week has been all about Gabe’s birthday. On the day itself we had a relatively quiet day – my mum came round in the afternoon and we popped out to the garden centre for ice cream. At only two I’m not quite sure that Gabe really knew what was going on but he seemed happy to have some presents to open and a balloon to play with! Read more
Yesterday we went to Old Holly Farm which isn’t too far from where we live. We managed to get out quite early again so we could go and have a fun morning but still get home in time for lunch and for Gabe to have his nap at home. Read more
I can’t really think what we did last week – the weather was pretty awful so we did quite a lot of staying at home and playing with trains! My mum and dad came back from their holidays so we went to see them on Friday and the boys got a load of freebies that they had picked up when they were watching the Tour de France. Toby also got a little booklet that I think had come free with National Geographic – it’s about surviving in the rainforest but it’s all LEGO characters and pictures. And he’s obsessed with it! He’s not stopped ‘reading’ it since he got it.
When it comes to building though we are still all about the DUPLO in our house Read more
I don’t know what the weather has been like with you the last week but it’s been pretty awful here. We’ve managed to get out of the house a little bit but we’ve had plenty of quiet times at home too. On Friday the boys stayed in their pyjamas all day and we brought the train set down from where it had been living upstairs.
My brother and sister-in-law bought Toby a massive wooden train set for Christmas but it’s been in our spare bedroom since then. Toby has been going up to play with it sometimes but when we first got it Gabe was a bit too young to appreciate it and we could just see it causing arguments when he destroyed the track or took the trains. Read more
After a reasonably quiet week at home, yesterday we made an effort to get out of the house. We went to Stanley Park in Blackpool, for ice cream, scooting and feeding the ducks.
We had a lovely morning really but as always for us in public places we had to cope with Toby’s massive fear of dogs. He did get a bit better for a while but in the last few weeks we have gone back to proper tears and panic whenever he sees a dog, and if one happens to bark near him we’re on for a full meltdown.
We do our best to reassure him that he’s safe, that the dogs are on leads or being controlled by their owners but he is genuinely terrified. Read more
Last week it was Toby’s fourth birthday (and I will get round to writing his four year update soon!) – it was on a nursery day so he opened a couple of presents in the morning then had a cake and pass the parcel at nursery, and got to open the rest of his presents when he came home.
Barry and I spent nearly all day making a Numberblocks birthday cake as requested by Toby – I’m going to put a tutorial up soon too. I did all the cakes and icing, and Barry made all the features, which ended up being much trickier than I had imagined!
Anyway, I was really pleased with how it turned out – Toby loved it, although after the first piece refused to eat any more because apparently the icing was ‘revolting’ so Barry’s work colleagues were treated to quite a lot of cake last week! Read more