Play Matters

Love this....

Mummy and George Nights

George has just started school and he's not settling as well as I had imagined he would. Don't get me wrong, he is doing well but there have been tears and moments of having to pretty much peel him off of me! So, I decided to make Friday nights 'Mummy and George Nights!' I hope anyone else who has a child that has just started school is getting on ok, it's been emotional for us all, but I think we're slowly making some progress. He's all snuggled up in our bed now so I thought i'd share this evening fun with you all before we go and join him!

Snuggled up in Mummy and Daddy's bed ready for a Story Sack

So a Mummy and George night incorporates a 'fun bath'. This basically means something like, lots of bubbles and toys or coloured water tablets, balls in the bath or even balloons! Tonight we had a few balloons in the bath, one filled with just air, one with normal water and one with coloured water in. These, coupled with a pair of scissors (which George was supervised with at all times) made our first 'Friday night fun bath'.

Balloons waiting to be popped!

Cutting into the first balloon

Look what's inside... Blue water!!

 

Swishing the balloon around to "make all the water blue"

Cutting into the last balloon, this one was filled with just water.

 So that was a quick 'balloon bath', you can read about one of our 'ball baths' here.

Next up was a 'Story Sack' and tonight we had Tallula's Atishoo! A Story Sack is a bag full of goodies to inspire you to read stories to your child and to get your child actively involved in the stories they are hearing. Most Story Sacks are of traditional and popular stories, such as The Hungry Catterpillar, The Bad tempered Ladybird and The Gruffalo. They usually contain a child's picture book, soft toys of the main characters, scenery, props relating to items in the story, a non-fiction book relating to the fiction theme, an audio CD of the story book and a language game based on the book. Thay also usually include a prompt card of ideas suggesting ways in which you may develop listening, reading and writing skills using the contents of the Storysack and a guide for parents. Tallula's Atishoo had the story book itself, a game of snap, soft toys of the main characters and a fact book on flies. You can read more about Story Sacks here. George enjoyed this sack but it wasn't one of the best i've ever used. The story was a bit boring in my opinion but George liked it so thats all that matterd! I dont have a picture of him using the sack (as we were too busy enjoying it). But below is a picture of it's contents (modelled by George of course)!

 

'Mummy and George Night' ends with a sleep over in our bed. We have a big bed so there is plenty of room for me, Adam, George.......

Curly, Pluto, Woofy, Snowy, Patchy and Scruffy Little Woofster!

George starts school!

 It's been an emotional week in the Patterson household as George has stared full time school! Here is a picture of our little man, or 'big boy' as he has been calling himself a lot recently!

After his first day we took him for an ice cream sundae. It was so big he couldn't finish it, but he gave it a jolly good go!

 

It's hard to believe that our baby bean is now at school. We are so proud of him and wish him all the love and luck in the world as he starts this new adventure in his life

xoxo

Life's a Beach

Promise

our 1000 Homes of Happiness story

Southwold Beach- September 2012

I recently posted about a unique blog that I follow called 1000 Homes of Happiness. I mentioned in the post that I had requested a home of my own to be released. On a sunny September day at the seaside, George, Adam and I collected treasures from the beach and left them, along with the Happy Home 'Promise' for someone to find. Below is our Happy Home story…..

We originally asked for a Happy Home with the word 'wish' on it to release with some balloons on our wedding day, but due to worries of litter and harm to farm animals, balloon releases we decided against the balloon release. The word 'promise' was chosen to symbolise the promises Adam and I would be making on the day, the promise that we would love each other unconditionally, 'till death do us part'. So when we could no longer do it on the day I was quite disheartened as I was so looking forward to the release and had brought some lovely colourful balloons for it! You can see a picture of these balloons below!
 

We decided instead to put the 'Home of Happiness' out into the world after a fun filled family day at the seaside together, one of our first family days out as "The Pattersons". It was a great day, we hired a beach hut called Aunty Bong Bong's, ate a 'mummy made picnic' made 'daddy designed sandcastles' and went on a 'George led treasure hunt' for things to leave with our little home. We were really quite successful too, we found pretty pebbles, stones, seaweed and even a starfish!!

Auntie Bong Bong's- Our Beach Hut for the day

Building Sand Castles

Surf Lesson with Daddy

 

Surfs up!

Taking the rubber ring out for a float

More sand castle building

Mark making in the sand

Mummy and George

Daddy and George

Ahoy there! George on the look out for some boats

It was so wonderful to spend some quality time together as a family. It felt quite liberating to leave behind the housework, errands and usual domestic duties that dominate the weekends normally. At the end of the day Adam and I said we would try and make time to do things like this more often. In fact after leaving this happy home, we made a promise to each other and George that we would come back to the beach and beach hut next year to make more great memories. In the meantime we promised to spend some time together once a week, just 'The Pattersons' doing something away from the house and the distraction of chores!

 Our Happy Home- Promise

I hope we can keep this promise up. It will help us to love and appreciate each other more as well as creating great memories for us all to share in years to come.

Thank u so much to Kellie and her lovely little ladies for letting us be a part of the 1000 homes of happiness journey.

Big ‘life’s a beach’ love Sarah, Adam and George xoxo

Inspiration- 1000 homes of happiness

When I first began exploring the world of blogging I soon came across one called

1000 Homes of Happiness

I remember spending a number of hours going through the blog, looking at all the pictures of the 3 beautiful little girls, the photos of gorgeous landscapes and just general loveliness! Kellie, the founder of 1000 Homes of Happiness has created a world on the web that her children are not only greatly involved in, but one which will last forever. In years to come, when they are grown ups themselves, they will be able to look at this world and see the time, love and commitment Kellie put into their childhood.  I decided there and then to start my own world on the web for George. One where he can see the things we did, the games we played and the times we spent together as a family. I also decided that someday, I would like to release a 'happy home' of my own. After emailing Kellie my request, she came up with a word to put on a Happy Home. It didn't go quite to plan, but as you will see in an up and coming post, I think it worked out perfectly in the end. So go and check out 1000 Homes of Happiness. It will bring a smile to your face and a happiness to your heart xoxo

 

Kellie with her gorgeous girs, Poppy, Ava and Bloss xoxo

A bit nippy!

One of our favourite things to do as a family is to go crabbing! We live just a half hour drive from the seaside town of Walberswick, which is famous for its annual crabbing competition. It was a sunny (but slightly chilly) day, so we wrapped up warm, got the bacon out the fridge, picked up our friends Katie and Rob (plus Maisy the dog) and set off!

With a little bit of help, George tied the bacon to the end of his line.The crabs love bacon, so it's defiantly the top choice of bait for us!

After dropping the line over the edge of the bridge, he waited patiently for the

Crabs to bite!

Still waiting patiently, Katie and George played a guessing game about how many crabs they think will be on the line when they pull it up! This inspired mathmatical language by using numbers and critical thinking by estimating.

"I think we've got something" Katie helps George to pull up the line!

George was very excited to see thathe had caught some crabs in his net!
"Look we got some"

George gets his catch out of the net and puts it into his bucket. He was happy to just put his hand in a grab the crabs, stimulating his personal and emotional development. Funnily enough George was the bravest at getting the crabs out of the net!

Our bucket load of Crabs....what a haul!

Katie looking a bit scared of the crab as Robbie  points it in her direction!

What a catch! Think i caught the biggest one.

Ready to unload the bucket full of crabs....

After filling up our bucket full of crabs, we released them pack into the water. As we did this we counted them as they scurried along the pebbles! George joined in the counting with us until we got to numbers that he doesn't yet know. From then on he listened to us count and then counted along, repeating the numbers as we said them.

  

A bit of role play to finish the afternoon off. Here we're on our boot, looking out to sea, to see what we can see, see, see! Imaginative play with a bit of balancing thrown in. Creative and Physical Development all in one!

Ahoy there.... The Pattersons on look out!