Ben's Blog

So Ben has completed his first full term at school and we don’t know where the time has gone!

A few days after Ben’s first day, his Teacher Mrs Smale and her teaching assistant visited us at home briefly just to let us know how Ben was settling in.  He seemed to settle in quite quickly and integrate well in the classroom.

In the second week, parents were invited to have school lunch with their child, so I went into school and had Pizza and potato wedges with Ben.  Ben mostly has packed lunched every day but every now and then he likes to have hot school dinners if there is something on the menu that he likes.

Ben had to go to school on his 5th Birthday this year for the first time but I believe they made a bit of a fuss.  I made some cupcakes for him to take and share with the class and the class sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to him.  He also came home with some little presents from the Birthday tin.

At the end of October I went into school to meet with Mrs Smale for Ben’s first parent’s evening.  I was told Ben was doing really well and was achieving above average for all areas of learning.  This was just a brief meeting to set targets for the next couple of terms.  The next parent’s evening will be in April and will be in more depth.

Ben moved up to level 2 reading books quite quickly and we are all amazed by how much he can actually read and understand for himself.  If he can’t make out the exact words he is able to sound it out and use the pictures associated with the words to work it out.  His writing is coming along well too and he is able to write lots of CVC type word and even Aaron’s name by himself.  Ben is also doing well at Maths and is able to do simple sums.  This half term he is practising writing and reading numbers up to 20 and sums to incorporate those numbers.

Ben has made lots of new friends and has been to lots of Birthday parties over the first couple of months at school so it was a busy time leading up to Christmas.

On the last couple of days of term, before the Christmas holidays Ben was a Super Ted.  This meant he got to wear a special knitted, blue bear badge and he was a helper for the day and had some important jobs to do to help his teachers including collecting the register.  He was very pleased to be Super Ted as he had been waiting for his turn all term and he brought home a bear shaped certificate to say he had been a super Super Ted!

Ben took part in his first Nativity Play during the week before Christmas, and he played Mary’s donkey and had to dress up as a donkey for the part. He had been learning lots of new songs for several weeks and was driving us crazy with singing them every evening, but when it came to the show, he didn’t sing much as he was too busy watching myself and Mummy! 😉 For one of the songs, he was led around the stage by Mary and Joseph and they must have walked around the small area at least 15 times! For the rest of the play, he was sat down pretending to sing. Tut! He looked very cute in his outfit, and there were also a couple of photographs of him (and Mary and Joseph) in the local newspaper (which we bought!). It was great fun watching him in his play, even though he looked quite embarrassed! I took lots of photographs and a couple of videos with the best ones included below.

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A couple of weekends before Christmas, Kelly and I booked up a surprise weekend for the boys at Butlins for their Winter/Christmas spectacular. We managed to get a really good deal for the 3 nights so we couldn’t turn it down really! We didn’t say anything to the boys until just before we left on the Friday, so when we told them, they were ecstatic! Ben was jumping around and hugging us and Aaron was following suit, probably because he was too young to understand fully what was happening! 😉

So we got up there on the Friday late afternoon and went to our apartment (no free upgrade this time!) and unloaded our gear. Kelly had made pasties for us so we had those quickly for tea before going over to the Skyline to view the evening shows. We saw a show called ‘Winter Wonderland’ which was basically a Christmas musical, which was great. The boys loved it, as well as the lightsaber toys we got them as all the other kids had something similar from the shop! We then went in the arcade and saw a couple of other shows in the main pavilion. The boys had a great first evening and didn’t go to bed until quite late!

On the Saturday, we got up a decent time and went swimming. We had a good hour or so in there and the boys enjoyed going around the ‘river’ section where the current pulls you along. Was freezing when we got out though!! We then nipped home for showers and then went to the pub for lunch. It was very good this time and pretty quick, which was a relief as the pub was pants when we last visited Butlins in July. We then spent the afternoon in and out of shows (inc Superslam Wrestling where Ben and I got some autographs and Ben hi-fived a wrestler!), and also stopped in the arcade occasionally. All the shows we saw were great and good fun to watch. The highlight of the day was the ‘Skyline Snowstorm’ which started off with a few songs from the Skyline Gang, and then a countdown until the snow commenced.  It wasn’t actual snow mind, but small bits of silver glittering paper fired into the air via some very strong fan units. The effect was great though and was just like a snowstorm. The boys loved it and were ages playing with the glittering paper by picking handfuls up and throwing over myself and Kelly. Very good fun! We then had to go off to see Father Christmas at 18:45 as this was the timeslot we had been given. We first had to walk through the pouring rain to the front of the building and to the entrance of the winter wonderland, and then through a very well done walk that included Christmas ornaments and settings, until we got to an Elf who let us in to the queue to see Father Christmas.  There was a bit of a wait which included meeting the Gingerbread Man (and a photo) and counting how many present images were hidden around the area.  When the boys met Father Christmas, he was asking them questions and Ben was answering nicely and then they posed for photographs by myself and a redcoat guy, and then they each got a box of chocolates. We then made our way out through the rest of the Wonderland and back outside. It was very good and very well put together!  The evening actually got even better when, later on, I won a large Minion soft toy on my first go on the grabber machine in the arcade! I was so excited I was shaking as I hadn’t won anything on those machines all year! 😉 Ben then went and claimed it though! Cheek!

On the Sunday, we went to Bob The Builders Yard where we spent hours last time as the boys went around all of the children’s rides. For some reason this time, Aaron didn’t like half the rides which was a shame! He started crying on several of them so we had to have them stopped to take him off! We saw several more shows during the day, with the best one being the Pantomime ‘Beauty and the Beast’ which a lot of the entertainers from the other shows acted in (inc Skyline Gang members). The Pantomime was great and very funny! Aaron slept nearly all the way through it, but we enjoyed it very much even though we weren’t in the most ideal of places! We also went to a craft workshop afterwards where the boys made a cracker each. Ben got in a mood in this as he didn’t want Kelly to help! So she had to ask for a new one to start again and then let Ben do it all on his own! Tut! Aaron also had to dash to the toilet there as well which was typical, but luckily there was a little toilet in the craft area! We saw other shows, including the Snowstorm again, which were all very enjoyable and had some more time in the arcade and Ben went in the soft play area next to the arcade. We won several little toys on the 2p machines (we were addicted!) and had great fun, although by this point, we were quite tired and couldn’t quite believe it was Sunday evening already! The boys also got a large Christmas balloon each during the afternoon – Father Christmas for Ben and a Snowman for Aaron.

Sunday night was a bit of a nightmare as Ben woke up crying lots and wouldn’t go to sleep as he said he had earache and his cough started up badly again. Kelly ended up having to sit up with him for half the night, which was not good seeing as we had to pack our things and drive home on Monday. I was a little worried about the lack of sleep and having to drive for a couple of hours, but we managed it OK. We quickly went back to Bob The Builders Yard during the morning and had a last wonder around again (and packed the car in the rain!), before leaving Butlins and parking in the car park at the sea front (across the road) to have a bite to eat before setting off home.

We had had another great time at Butlins and enjoyed every minute of it (apart from losing Aaron for 5 minutes on the Sunday night!) and would love to go back again sometime soon.

Here are some photographs of the holiday. 😉

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The Saturday before Halloween, we all went to the local Halloween Party at the Woolwell Centre for the second year running. It was good fun again and the boys (and Mummy) both dressed up although Aaron did his best not to dress up! We met a couple of Kelly’s friends up there who have children that the boys know so they all played together in the room with the bouncy castle and colouring books, etc. They had a great time and Ben, like last year, was sweating buckets each time he came back to the table for a drink! Here are some pictures of the party.

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The following Thursday (on Halloween), we held a little tea party for Ben’s friend (and family) from when he was at pre-school (and who just live down the road), so they came over and had a play and some party food. Kelly had made some Halloween buns as well which were great, and we put a few decorations up for the occasion. We then all went out trick or treating and the boys dressed up in their costumes and got loads and loads of sweets! I can’t tell you how many sweets they had, but their buckets were brimming over with them! The boys had great fun and had to dive into their sweets as soon as we got home! Lucky the weather was dry this year for when we were out and about.

Ben’s 5th birthday was a bit different to his previous ones as this was the first birthday when he was at school for the day. Usually, I would have taken a half day and we would have gone somewhere such as bowling but this year we didn’t do anything apart from allowed Ben to choose what takeaway we had for tea (he chose Indian of course!). Ben also had to wait until after school before he could open his presents (I still had the afternoon off work), although we allowed him to open one before school. He had a huge pile of presents including some new clothes, games such as Hungry Hippoes, a Spiderman puzzle, money, a new Scooter and some other toys. Kelly made him an amazing Mario Kart cake with working Mario Kart figures on it, which he (and Aaron) loved, and also some buns to take in to school. Ben had a lovely afternoon and evening and went to bed tired out after a very busy day!

Thank you to everyone who gave him presents and cards!

Here are some photographs on his 5th birthday.

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