Fun in the Garden - Blogger Competition!

For us, as a family, garden time is important. The garden is a huge focal point of our lives. When we were looking at buying our house a garden was high up on our must have list. The garden was what sold this house to us. As soon as we saw the garden we knew that it was ideal for us.

When the hubby and I were growing up we both had fond memories of fun play time in the garden and we always knew that we wanted our children to create the same happy memories. As the children have grown, over the years we have so many pictures of happy times and memories of them in the garden.

In the day and age of technology that we live in it is even more vital that we get our children away from the screens and out into the fresh air and enjoying outdoor play.

Our dream has always been to create a garden that the whole family can enjoy. We have a veggie patch where we grow our own fruit and vegetables as well as having chickens for eggs. We believe that the children have gained a better understanding to where vegetables come from. They watch as the seeds germinate, to being planted outside, to seeing the produce grow to helping to harvest. Then of course the fun part, eating what they have seen grow. We love getting the children as involved as possible.

My top tips for getting children into gardening are:

• Get them their own seeds to plant and care for
• Have sunflower growing competitions
• Give the older children their own area of responsibility in the garden or a set job like watering the greenhouse
• Take the children shopping and let the see the plants and allow them to select what to grow
• Let them get their hands in and muddy, kids love getting their hands in the mud!
• Get the children to paint and decorate their plant pots
• Hunt for garden mini beasts

Helping in the garden is not only great family bonding time but it also has great developmental advantages. It assists with physical development and their understanding of the world around them including life cycles and where their food comes from!

 

Growing fruit and vegetables is fun but all children dream of having their own play area.

In our family play area of the garden we have a trampoline, swings, balls, sit on cars and rocking horses. This year we have made a new addition to their play area. We have added a playhouse for the twins. This has become a favourite area of play and an amazing piece of play equipment. To personalise the house for the twins we have painted the house in fun, bright colours. We are still yet to paint inside the house, that is next on our to do list. The hubby has done an amazing job at creating the area for the twins. He cleverly reused some old pallets to become the base for the house. Then by adding some extra planks of wood he has made an adjoining decking area for them to relax on. When we moved some old edging we realised that it would go around the sides of the decking perfectly to create a mini fence around. As you can see with their own little path leading to their house they have the perfect play area that they can call their own.

If you are thinking of adding any piece of play equipment this year to your garden to keep the children occupied during the summer and school holidays we would thoroughly recommend investing in a playhouse. This has been one of the best toy buys that we have made!

If you are a blogger Waltons are giving you the chance to win your very own playhouse, like the one pictured below! Waltons provide high quality playhouses, climbing frames, sheds, log cabins, green houses, summer houses and more. To be in with the chance of winning one of these fantastic playhouses all you have to do is write a blog post similar to what I have written telling Walton about how you like to keep your children entertained in the garden during the summer months. The best post, judged by Waltons, will win their very own playhouse! There will also be a runner up who will win a £50 voucher to spend at Waltons. Check out the Waltons blog for further information.

Photograph courtesy of  Waltons

Disclosure: This post is in collaboration with Waltons. All views and opinions are my own and 100% honest. I am in no way involved with the running or judging of the competition.

Baby Memories

Over the past week I have been working on a guest post that I have been asked to write about my twin pregnancy.
Tonight, I think, I have finished it.
Writing this and going back into my memory from my pregnancy has really brought back so many emotions. The strongest emotions have been pride and luck.
I feel so lucky that our babies were born as healthy as they were. Yes they did have some struggles at first and needed special care. But it was only for 12 days! They have gone from strength to strength.
I cannot wait to share the guest post that I have written and feel quite proud of it as it has come straight from the heart. All that needs adding to the post is a few pictures and I will be passing it on and sharing it.
Something else that's twin related and has really touched me today.
We were told today about a couple who are visiting the UK who have had some twins at 23 weeks. This was my greatest fear and my heart goes out to the couple who are going through this and I do keep on thinking about them. My thoughts and prayers go out to them and their tiny babies.

Ha Ha Rain!! You Can't Stop Us!!

We woke up this morning to rain. It was not just a bit of rain, it was chucking it down.
This week hubby is not at work until Thursday so we have been looking forward to spending some quality time together.
Today we had planned a picnic and a walk around the local house and gardens. But looking at the weather this morning we very much doubted that we would be going anywhere!
However, after we had our carpet picnic, as opposed to our planned outdoor picnic in the sun, the rain eased and eventually stopped. We saw our opportunity and made a dash to the car and went out.
We went to the house and gardens as we had planned. We have got so many happy memories from the house. I have been taking Joseph there since he was toddling about. I have many pictures and videos of him having fun and I look forward to having more as he grows and of the twins as they become more aware of the natural world around them. I too have many happy childhood memories of being taken through the gardens by my nanna and grandad.
I love walking through the wooded area, smelling the fresh earthly smells and listening to the wind rustling through the trees. We enjoyed a peaceful walk through the gardens and woods. We strolled within the walled gardens stealing ideas and inspiration for our garden and took the children through a bamboo tunnel.
I thrive on moments like todays outing, being with hubby and giving our undivided attention to our family.
After we had explored the gardens we let the children explore the play ground.
Joseph climbed, zoomed down slides, swung like he was trying to reach the clouds and spun like a spinning top on the roundabout. No piece of apparatus was untouched my Joseph!
The twins, on the other hand, we're thrilled to just be on the swings. With every push they squealed "weee, weee" with excitement.
The rain had dampened our hopes of a day out when we woke up but it did not stop us getting out and having a fantastic afternoon together.

Not The Best Outcome

Well today was the dreaded D-day. The day we would find out whether the cancer had slowed down or not.
Unfortunately we got the heartbreaking news that it has not slowed down. So now we really do need to face the harsh reality that this is something that will not go away. It is here to stay and it will inevitably leave us devastated.
As I have said before I cannot imagine life without my grandad in it and nor do I want to but I know, that one day, I will have to face that outcome but until it happens I really do not need to deal with that. Call it denial, call it what you will, its my defence mechanism coming into play and that's how I will cope until then.
But I have made a promise to myself to go over more often, even if it is hard work for me on my own with the children, the hard work will be worth it because I know, deep down, that if I do not make more of an effort now, one day I will regret not doing more. They have always been there for me. During the good times and during the bad times that I've been through they were always there for me. They never lost faith in me and I am proud to say that I didn't let them down.
Since being very young I can remember them having a huge impact on my life. This is why I am finding this all so hard to digest, he has always been there, I want the twins to know their Gramps as Joseph does and enjoy having him in their lives as I did when I was a child.
The only way forward, for me, is to go on as normal, well as normal as possible, and just be there whenever they need someone.
I pray that the new medication slows it down so that we can have some more time to create more memories.