And so here we are, finally, on the last day of term. I know some schools don’t finish until next week but I’m very grateful that the boys break up on today. They did have to close one bubble at the boys’ school last weekend but thankfully both of mine have managed to stay in school until the last day.

I did start writing this post last weekend but then I didn’t finish it and the week just got away from me somehow! Last weekend it was Toby’s birthday – I am now the proud owner of an 8 year old!! With all the chaos of the last 18 months it feels like he missed so much of being 7 that 8 has crept up on us. Although it’s even crazier to think that some of his friends with September birthdays are going to be 9 soon!

We are having a joint party for the boys in the garden tomorrow so Toby’s actual birthday was a fairly quiet day. After opening his presents in the morning and having a bit of time on the PlayStation we went to our usual Street Monkeys session. My mum and dad popped round in the afternoon then we went out to a local pub for tea (where my Sunday dinner loving youngest had his first experience of a carvery!).

So, we didn’t do anything super-exciting but Toby went to bed saying he’d had the best day so I’ll take that.

I know I keep talking about Street Monkeys but honestly, my two absolutely love it. If you have any where near you that does parkour training for kids then I would thoroughly recommend it. It’s great exercise, they’re building confidence all the time and it’s just super fun. We got the boys Street Monkeys t-shirts this week – they’re a few sizes too big really but I’m hoping they’ll want to keep going for a long time so they should last at least!

This was Gabe at the end of their session on Sunday. He’s like me and always gets super sweaty and red-faced, whereas Toby doesn’t look like he’s been doing anything!

Anyway, I’d better leave this here – I’ve got a Minecraft birthday cake to finish baking before I have to go and collect the boys from school ready to start our summer holidays!

This is my ninth year taking part in this linky celebrating childhood, based on a poem by Kahlil Gibran, “You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth” .

If you’d like to see the rest of my Living Arrows posts you can find them all here.