Splash and splash again! Active Family

In Jaime at oliversmadhouse.co.uk well-earned holiday break, I’m taking over the Mark Warner Active Family reins for this week.

My personal aim for Active Family is to get us outside, away from the I pads and the games console, out in the fresh air, having fun and creating good, happy memories, whilst at the same time being active. It will benefit us all.

So please link up with an old post or new, or even just a picture. The only criteria is that it’s active and it’s about your family.

Here’s our post this week:

The sun finally broke through the clouds last week and we enjoyed it.

For weeks, every time there has been sunshine for more than half an hour it’s been “can we get the pool filled Mumma?” Bearing in mind we have a frame pool rather than a pump-it-up one, the filling isn’t instantaneous and needs to be planned.

We settled for a frame pool after going through two pools a year thanks to little paws and not-so-little claws, I’m not sure why my cats prefer “banned” swimming pool water as opposed to fresh water in their bowl!

The advantage of the frame pool is that it has a filter, pump etc to, so once the water is in, it’s in and the pump (and tablets) ensures it stays fresh and doesn’t go green (yuck!).

So, pool eventually up and my not-so-little water babies and I have made the most of it, splashing and swimming! The focus is sometimes more on the splashing but even that’s good exercise as the muscles are working against the water.

It’s something that’s going to be a big part of our summer and the UV tent cover means that we’ll be additionally protected from the sun whilst we’re in there. It also allows a degree of privacy, we are overlooked on both sides and my wobbly bits are mine, not for public consumption!

Obviously I haven’t wanted to get my phone wet, so here’s the sight that greets us every afternoon, Mr Happy Shark waiting for us to jump in and have some fun, which we do!

This is a linky so please link up with your posts below and leave a comment. I will read, comment and publicise every linked post.

Thanks for reading Jx

Running Up and Down That Hill!

I’m linking today’s post in with the Active Family Challenge at oliversmadhouse.co.uk because although we haven’t been splashing, we’ve certainly been active.

It was a gorgeous – but windy – day on Monday and we decided to take a picnic to the park nearby (well, twenty minutes walk away). D had a new scooter to test out too, so that came along.

Hubbie decided to ride it down the slope outside our front door – and nearly ended up in the lavender and clematis. He drives better than he scoots!

Onto the park and it was a tad windy at the top of the hill that the children decided we were having our lunch at, but well worth the view and great cardio-vascular exercise going up!

After letting lunch go down, we had some football activity with T/Hubbie down at the bottom of the hill and us at the top, the gradient was quite steep and what with the wind and as I’m a toe-punter kicker, the ball went quite a distance at times!

It was good energetic fun, all a bit energetic for one certain Hubbie who acts his school size and not his age at times!

He is literally crawling up the hill! But with the aim of making us laugh and it worked.

And reached the top!

Scooter fun next, the boys very keen to try out the downhill gravity effects, D preferring a more sedate flat, straight line route:

It was all really good family fun and certainly blew any cobwebs away.

What did surprise me though, on a sunny Bank Holiday, was the lack of other families. Obviously an ideal environment for my children who have anxiety issues around strangers, but I really thought it would be busier. It was free, the weather was fantastic, ideal conditions.

Something we’ll be doing more of in the coming months.

To find out about the Mark Warner activity month, please click here.

Bounce, bounce, bounce!

I’m joining in with the Mark Warner Active Family Month with this post today.

The theme for this month is “Get Sporty” and you honestly cannot get more sporty than this little lad:

T loves his sports, I mean really LOVES them. He strives to do the very best he can in every sporting activity and met quite a challenge when he found that he wasn’t as good at swimming as everything else. D loves swimming and it’s something we’ll be doing as a family during half term next week.

Another thing we enjoy as a family is the trampoline. It’s a great stress-reliever to get outside and just bounce!

The children bounce on it, they use their space hoppers on it and we all enjoy bouncing, hair flying everywhere, laughing as the bounces take us higher and higher.

The trampoline is a godsend as my children get anxious in public places with lots of people, public parks – if they’re occupied – are usually a no-go area as strangers in close proximity will invariably cause a bolt from the area, which then creates looks, stares and comments from other parents.

T also uses our trampoline as his calming mechanism. If he needs to self-regulate, his best way is on the trampoline, with a ball. He’ll commentate as he’s doing it, as he’s heard football commentators do. Quite often he’ll be watching a football match on the TV, the pressure will be on his team and he’ll suddenly feel the need to have a bounce, returning more regulated and calmer ten minutes or so later.

Couldn’t be without it! I’m considering getting one of those trampoline circus tents so that he can bounce in all weathers, a must for the UK!