My Weekly Happy List catch up: Weeks 35 – 37

I have no idea where the times gone this last month, October has been absolutely crazy! So I decided to write 3 weeks worth of ‘Happy List’ in this one post to catch up. There’s been so much going on, it’s been busy at work and at home. We’ve done some lovely things as a family over the last few weeks, including going away to Cornwall for half term (which I’ll write about in another post). So there’s much to be happy about! So here it is, these are my top 5 happy bits from weeks 35-37.

1. Enjoying our local National Trust beach & collecting shells. We’ve been spending lots of time on the beach enjoying the sunny autumn weather. We have been lucky with the weather recently haven’t we? Now we’re members of the National Trust we get free parking at our local National Trust beach not far from us, which really comes in handy. No searching for loose change and we can just pop over any time for the day or just half an hour.  Below are some pictures of one of our trips when we had fun collecting shells. My daughter really enjoyed putting all the shells in her bucket and we took them home for her to keep. She hasn’t really stopped playing with them since!

2. Extra non pupil day & zoo trip. As you will know if you read my blog, the zoo is my sons absolute fav place to visit. He was lucky enough to have an extra non pupil day on the 9th October so we made an impromptu visit to the zoo! We more than make up the cost of our annual pass!! It was so quiet there as it was a week day and out of school holidays. It turned out to be a very relaxing and chilled out day. Here’s some photos of our day.

3. Homework progress, yay!  I never thought homework would be such hard work! In fact, it’s safe to say it’s been one of the hardest stages of parenting so far! With my son moving up to class one this September, the homework started and it’s been a real struggle for him (and me!). We’ve had screaming tantrums over just having to do 5 minutes! I’ve battled with hard love and softly softly approaches to no avail. However, we’ve had some progress these last couple of weeks! At last I think he’s accepted homework is part of his life (sad I know) and he’s been a lot happier completing his homework. Well, no tantrams anyway. A bit of bribery has helped (yes I know bad parent) but whatever it might be, we’ve definately turned a corner! I’ll write about this in a separate post too.

4. Visiting the Gruffalo trail. We’ve been meaning to visit the Gruffalo trail at Haldon Forrest for a long time now. They’ve actually stopped doing the quiz around the trail now, but some of the activities are still there and the Gruffalo statue is still at the end (which is the main thing!). Anyhow, we made it a couple of Sunday’s ago and we really enjoyed it! It was super super busy, apparently it’s always like it there as it’s very popular with cyclists and families. There’s several trails and walks you can do, varying in difficulty and length. But we walked the Gruffalo trail (which is reasonably short) and had so much fun looking for the Grufalo at the end! The trail was mostly flat so my daughter was able to toddle along too! And we had a picnic about half way round. Of course the best bit was my sons face when we reached the end and saw the Gruffalo.

5. Ladies that lunch (or morning coffee!). As you know I adore my Friday’s off work when I get to do the school run for my son and spend the day with my daughter. A couple of Friday’s ago I decided we were going in to town for morning coffee and a tea cake. Well obviously I had the coffee and my daughter ate most the tea cake!! Days like these remind me of when I was on maternity leave, such wonderful times (mostly). God, I miss those days. Anyhow, we went to one of our fav cafes which has the all important toy corner (such a bonus!). My grown up girl sat proudly in the grown up chair and happily ate her tea cake. So cute. Such a happy morning.