I was introduced to this amazing site by my friend and I think it’s too good not to share! I’ve told so many others about it already, I really felt it deserved a blog post!
My kids sitting quietly – read on to find out how and why!
If your kiddies (or you) are into drawing, then this is the site for you. Run by Rob – a dad of four, he takes you through step by simple step to create amazing works of art. The kids (and you) will never feel intimidated by his amazing artistic talent as he always has one of his children doing the drawing at the same time. Read More »
It’s been a crappy week since my last Boxercise session, the Blue One has been really poorly with an evil virus, he’s had scarily high temperatures (kept spiking to 40). So there were trips to the walk in clinic at our doctors, the Urgent Care Unit at Queen Mary’s and even rung my friend’s husband who is a doctor. All agreed it was an upper respiratory tract viral infection, so it was a case of sit it out and wait, dosing him up on Calpol and Nurofen and just keeping a close eye on him (I checked him so many time for rashes). So I’ve been stuck in the house, and as much as I love my home, staring at the same four walls, you do begin to develop cabin fever. So with the little man finally seeming to be on the mend, I definitely wanted to get out to my Boxercise session, even though I can feel my son has kindly shared his germs with me (this morning I had even lost my voice – which I am sure some people were quite happy about!!! haha!!!).
Poorly Boy
So, warm up session tonight was alternating between the orthodox and southpaw stance, bouncing from foot to foot, then with a jab, then with the back leg kick your bum, then lift the front leg up. We then, to the beat, went backwards to the back of the hall and then we came forward again whilst also doing jabs. Then general jog/run round the hall, then on the spot, elbow and then arm strike, then we were all thoroughly warmed up!
Time to glove and pad up! In our pairs, we started off in southpaw, and then just punching with the right hand worked our way across the room, then once on the other side of the room, did five jabs, then five jumps for the person in the gloves and five jumping jacks for the person in the pads, then do 10 jabs – with ten jumps or jumping jacks, and do the same again for 15 and 20. Once complete, boxer’s bounce so facing the other way, now in orthodox stance, this time making the way back across the room jabbing with the left hand. Repeating the five, 10, 15 and 20 jab and jump routine again. I must admit, when I was in the gloves I didn’t manage all the jumps and did do some squats instead, blaming the cold I’m getting…
Once we’d both had a go in the gloves and pads, it was onto the next routine. Again in our pairs, two cones on the floor between us, then both in a squat position, we did step and hooks for a count of 3o, then in between swapping hands, we had to do 20 skaters. Then swap pads/gloves. This was a thigh burner for both the glove and pad wearer!!!
Squat Hooks
Skaters
For the last section we did some work with resistance bands. First move was the band under the foot and then into the lunge position with knee on the floor, lifting up – so 20 dips and pulling the bands up as you come up. Hold at the end and then pulses. repeat on the other leg.
Next interval was for the arms, so the resistance band is held under the ball of the foot, again in the lunge position and pulling the arm straight back, again hold at the end and pulsing for eight, hold again and another pulse for eight. Could definitely feel the burn! Repeated again on the other arm.
Now holding the resistance band in both hands, squat down and then come up and put the band up and over your head and stretch the arms out for a count of 30 – ouch!
Finally sixteen stretches in front of your chest and then sixteen behind – then it was cool down time!
Really good session, hard work, but after a pants week – perfect for releasing some stress and hopefully this week I don’t have any dodgy bruises on my knees!!!
Come and join us – you know you want to – see our instructor Michelle’s Facebook page for all the details! 🙂 xxx
It’s been a lovely but busy day! Saw the Minion movie with the family and it was fab. BAAAANNNNAAANNNAAA!!! 🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌
Then visited a few shops afterwards so walking was involved – so that counts for Juneathon Day 27!
Did some OU study when I got home and then my sister and her family came over for the late afternoon/evening! The kids had loads of fun playing with their cousins but have only just now (10:50pm) fallen asleep!
I’m off to bed now too – so walking and a token star jump for today it is then!!! 😊xxx
A very short post tonight about my ‘exercise’ for Juneathon Day 7, need to crack on with some more OU studies, so today I did some short walks to take my daughter to a birthday party and back. All in all, covering almost 4.5km, but adding all the time up, it over an hour – it’s quite funny comparing the speed of my walk back to collect her (average pace of 9:21mins/km) to length of time it took to walk back home again with the small Pink One in tow (average pace of 17.30mins/km) – but walking is walking and it was a beautiful day and lovely to be going along chatting and holding hands with my Pink One! I probably don’t do it often enough!
It’s a beautiful day…There and Back Again!!!
In between walking to and fro for my daughter, I baked some Gluten and Dairy free banana loaves, which are now in the freezer, ready for my daughter’s school fete on Saturday! I did make three – but one of them was a complete disaster for no apparent reason so didn’t make the cut!!! This did involve a considerable amount of standing up and mixing – so must contribute to my exercise somehow!?!
Gluten and Dairy Free Banana Loaves
I also did seven toe touches, seven sit and reaches and seven sit ups/tummy crunches!
Hope everyone else had a good Juneathon Day 7 and a lovely weekend!
So it’s the first day of June and is therefore the first day of Juneathon!!! I have decided to participate, as I enjoyed taking part in Janathon. Didn’t know what I was going to do today, after not feeling great during my Eltham Park 5 mile run yesterday.
I then decided I would attempt a run with my two small people, my Pink One is 5 years old and my Blue One is only 3 years old. They’ve always wanted to go for a run with mummy – so after collecting the Pink One from school, we came home and got ready to go. I didn’t know what I would be letting myself in for, this could’ve gone hideously wrong!
They actually did very well. I had planned a mile, which the Pink One would’ve coped with no problem, but was probably a bit optimistic for my Blue One bless him! We did short bursts of ‘running’ and the odd walk, at one point I had to carry the Blue One but couldn’t managed that for too long!
After run selfie with the small people!The time we took! Not bad with two little ones!The route we took!
Don’t forget I also got up this morning and touched my toes as well – which I tweeted this morning!
All in all not a bad start to Juneathon – how long will it last!?!
So I can be a proud artsy fartsy creative mummy – I have actually completed something worthy of Pinterest and in this post I’ll take you through the process of how I went about making it! What I will admit before I start (which I haven’t seen on other creative/crafty posts – whether it’s because they’re just more organised than me or just don’t admit it) it took me from ordering the A2 canvas in August 2014 to planning this in September 2014 and finally producing the completed article in April 2015… only eight months… oops…
This all started because I love the song “This House” by Gary Barlow (My 5 year old has told me she thinks she’s “getting in love with Gary”, time to listen to another CD in the car I think – but I digress!!!) – I identify with the lyrics and just think it’s a beautiful song – I’d also been inspired by some canvasses my friend had done with her children – using masking tape and paint – remove the masking tape and you’ve got a beautiful canvas!
So I took the line I most liked from “This House” and planned it on an A4 piece of paper – laying it out and getting the idea of what I wanted my canvas to look like!
6th September 2014… Planning Commenced
Then placed it in the plastic bag with the canvas (ordered from Amazon, link found above) where it sat (and collected dust) until 29th March 2015 – when I finally got to work! I used 25mm width masking tape – which I split into four;
Laying the plan out on canvas
This took me about three evenings, 2/3 hours each time, whilst watching TV and sometimes faffing! I did then find that this supposedly A2 board wasn’t quite four pieces of A4 – it was slightly narrower so had to adjust my measurements – I reduced the distance between the letters, so wasn’t too bad in the end!
Initially I was going to paint the whole thing using all our handprints, but I thought this might not be enough to make the words stand out, so I then split the image into four sections and make a paler version of the colour I wanted each of our handprints to be.
Adding the Background Colour
Next was time to add the handprints – so started with myself and the husband! My handprints are purple and the husband’s are green. I did ours top and bottom so that they surrounded our children. Once these were dried, the next day was to add the children’s! By this point, I’d spent a lot of time and effort on this, so I was very vocal to the children that they were to only put their hand down when I told them and not to move it around so it smudged the colour (way to go mummy, removing the fun from this activity) – they were both very good! Unsurprisingly – I did the Pink Ones handprints pink and the Blue Ones handprints blue! Though the Pink One told me after she would have preferred red! I told a fib and said we didn’t have any red – she caught me out! “mummy – come here please, you said there was no red, I have checked the box and there is red…!?!” Oops…
Adding the Handprints
I still find it strange that the Pink One and the Blue One’s handprints are similar in size, considering the Pink One is 2 years and 3 months older!!!
Next was the fun bit (though slightly nerve wracking after all that work) – well for me anyway – the removal of the masking tape!!!
Masking Tape Removal Part 1Masking Tape Removal Part 2
The only annoying thing was, because I used really high quality ELC poster paint (about £1 per bottle), where bits of the paint were thicker on the handprints, as I took the masking tape off the paint flaked – but not to worry, a little touch up with some more paint and it was done!!! Yay!!!
The Final Creation!!! 🙂
I am super chuffed with this, it may not be perfect, it may not be exactly as I imagined it, it may not quite have been the family affair I initially envisioned (yes I got a little possessive!) and the ‘A’ may not stand out as much as I would have liked, but over all it came out just great! The sentiments of the image may not seem to be in this household all the time – but this is a house filled with love… most of the time!!!
So, what’s the estimated length of time before it actually gets put up on the wall!?! Haha!!!
Any questions don’t hesitate to contact me! I would be very happy for any comments or if you’d like to share this post – it would be much appreciated!!! Share with me any of your masking tape creations – that would be fabulous to see!!! 🙂 xxx
Jog on Mum 