A Matter of Choice

265 - Making the most of summer with a day at the pool 266 -  Playing 'restaurants' with the boys and Leo decides that 'The Hungry Caterpillar' book will be our menu, luckily we didn't end up with a stomach ache ;) 267 - We nearly had rain!   I was all prepared, cleared the balconies and took the cushions in and watched it coming down in nearby Kapparis but it didn't reach us.  Still waiting for the first rain in about 6 months. 268 - Leo discovers Lego - it was a big hit even though a it too fiddly for him! 269 - Louka discovered 'Charlie and the Numbers' on Baby Tv and was captivated by it just like Leo used to be.   It was a real flashback to hear the song again! 270 - You can spend hours trying to get Leo to sleep in his cot, but lay him on our bed and he's asleep in seconds - typical! 271 - Saturday night = boys night .

As far back as I can remember I've been a fan of magazines, starting with 'Twinkle' which I believe came out on a Wednesday - I used to go to the shop with my Mum and she would get her magazine too and we'd go home and read them together with a treat to eat as well, In my school days it was 'Just 17', closely followed by 'More' magazine which we used to all fight over at school to read with the funny problem pages and 'position of the fortnight' When I lived on my own every time I went shopping I would buy a cake and 'Heat' magazine and when I worked in the worlds most boring office we survived by swapping issues of every celebrity / woman's mag going! I also loved the slighty more geeky 'Web user' and 'Computer Active' Big fat glossy mags were reserved for holidays and plane journeys as an extra special treat. And my favourite bit of planning my wedding was the tons of back issue Wedding Mags I use

258 - Leo and I are a good team when it comes to building tracks these days! 259 - The obligatory back to school photo, albeit a week late as he was not so happy on the first day! 260 - Clouds!!  There was rain on Tuesday, although not where we were!  My facebook news feed was full of excitement as everyone awaited the first rain which didn't end up coming. It was lovely to have a cool day. 261 - Back to normal on Wednesday with a gorgeous sunrise and temperatures in the high 30s 262 - How can that be a comfortable way to sleep! 263 - Leo's first trip to a funfair, he loved it!  His favourite ride was the rollercoaster  but my favourite photo was taken on the carousel while he patted his horse affectionately. 264 - We had a lovely morning at a local garden centre who were holding a kids fun day. The boys potted their own plants and afterwards sat and did some drawing, Loukas first drawing - luckily I took a photo as I forgot to bring the drawing

In my ongoing mission to find interesting (inexpensive) places to go I'm always really pleased to hear of a local child friendly event. Today   Garden Plus in Deryneia, a local garden centre was holding a Kids Fun Day so we went along to have a look. It was a free event designed to encourage a love of gardening for children, and all the children got to plant their own flower or herb to take home. My Mum, being the green fingered one of the two of us and a regular visitor of the garden centre got stuck straight in with Leo as he chose to plant a flower. He needed encouragement to get his hands in the earth but enjoyed 'making' a plant. He then helped his brother to do one too! There was a lovely shaded area with free drinks, biscuits and a yummy cake and a bouncy castle for the kids to play on.  Inside was a table set up with colouring pencils and paper, Leo and his friend drew rollercoasters (inspired by their trip to the funfair last night) and Louk

I've always loved the idea of reward charts even before having children, I don't remember having one myself - I guess because I was such a model child (Sits back and waits for my Mum to comment!) We used one with Leo when he was potty training which worked brilliantly but since then despite probably needing to I'd never got round to it. Over the summer I used a homemade chart which worked well but has been put away for a while since it lost impact but I missed having something to help me (and Leo) work towards something.  When I was offered a chart from Radical Reward Charts to review I jumped at the chance to get back into it when school started again thinking I would probably be needing a bit of help getting him back into a routine.    Radical Reward Charts have six charts to choose from, colourful and interesting and with the added option of being able to personalise them with a photo of your child. Being unsure as to how Leo would take to going b

After the long summer holiday - (I still can't get over how long they have here, even though I've decided that I like it!) last week was back to school for the children of Cyprus. Most of the Mum's I know here had at least one child changing schools this year as our 4 year olds join the 'Prodimodiki' (pre- primary) class. It's all very confusing for us non-Greek speaking expat Mums but we slowly seem to be figuring it out. After much confusion I think I've established that Leo will do two years of Prodimodiki, this first one being optional and next years being compulsory as preparation or proper primary school.  It turns out that I could have left Leo in the same class as last year (although without the friends he'd made) which I didn't realise until they rang me in the first week of September to tell me the starting date.   I was briefly confused as the what to do even more so as they needed to know straight away but the lady very helpful a

After a successful time playing with ice recently Leo has often asked to do it again so I thought I'd combine his new love of 'Jake and the Never land pirates' with it to make it a bit different. Luckily here in Cyprus our milk bottle tops are yellow and I have a collection of them just for times like this  (see, I knew I'd want them for something!) having used them as pirate treasure once before.  This time I froze them along with a selection of Leo's most 'piratey' toys so he could 'hunt for his gold doubloons' like they do in the program. Unlike last time where he was fascinated by the ice and asked tons of questions about it, ( how can it be water? how long did it take to make ice? when will it be water? Can I eat it? Why is it melting?  and so on!)  this time he dived straight into playing with it pretending to be Jake, and insisting Louka and I took  our usual roles as Izzie and Cubby. I must say I am loving the ice play, it&

251 - Last day of the long summer holiday and we spent the afternoon at a friends 1st birthday party. Leo had a fab time with his friend Oliver and won a HUGE amount of sweets that we still haven't finished a week later! 252 - First day back at school, I didn't get a photo of Leo before school as I was worried he was going to get in a bad mood about it. As it turned out he has a brilliant morning and loved 'the beginning, middle and the end' 253 - Cake! 254 -  A lovely brotherly moment, the next photo I took was Louka trying to pull Leo's ear off but it was sweet while it lasted! 255 - A rare girls night out in Agia Napa for a birthday surprise for a lovely friend of mine.   It was a great night and she had no idea it was going to happen. 256 - Grabbed a bargain rubber ring for 60 cents for Louka, although it was meant for the pool he took rather a liking to it and has been carrying it around ever since. 257 - Another night out in A

Day 244 - Celebrating September with a trip to the park, turns out it was still a bit too hot! Day 245 - A trip to an amusement park for the boys. Day 246 - Louka is always trying to grab books of the shelf which drives me nuts but I was quite amused to see him get this one and open it, maybe he's trying to find out what to do! Day 247 - My Dad and I took Leo on his first boat trip (not counting a narrowboat holiday he was too young to remember)  He loved it, and said it was an 'Awesome ride' but he was a bit sad that we didn't let him jump of the boat when we stopped for a while - maybe next year! Day 248 - Climbing again!   Every time you turn around he is trying to climb on or into something! Day 249 - Leo was busy looking for his lost sweet when I spotted Louka standing in the hall trying to look all innocent! Day 250 - Peekaboo

I've been feeling a little envious of all the lovely things people in the UK have been getting up to during the summer holidays, which seems absolutely ridiculous given that once I'd have spent every waking moment wishing I could be by a pool, who'd have thought I'd ever want anything more than that! I was worried about the summer, it seemed like I was the only one of my group of friends whose child was off for the nearly three months as the others were still in private nursery which only closes for one week in August. I may have moaned a little about this too - sorry to anyone who knows me! Before the summer holidays I decided to get organised and I created a kind of summer bucket list and called it 'Summer Dreams' the idea was to give us (well, me as I didn't tell Leo about it knowing he would want to do it all at once!) something to look forward to and some sort of plan to what seemed like endless weeks of scorching temperatures. In the end I prett