Reasons to be Cheerful XXXVII ( #R2BC )

Here are this week's reasons to smile!


1) Family I


On Friday my brother and my nephew came to our house for the afternoon and for tea. It was the first time we have been able to sit down to a meal with them in our new home. All the children seemed to be having a wonderful time together and my brother was brave enough to join in:

2) Family II


On Saturday we belated celebrated by granny's 95th birthday with 4 generations of us together for lunch. Granny seemed to really enjoy having family around her and trying out her great granddaughter's new baseball hat:

3) New Term


If I gloss over the fact that we are all finding getting up and ready for school very hard this week its great being back at work. As my job is still new and I have lots to learn it really does make me smile. I am getting to remember more of the 300 staff and I love the bustle of a busy secondary school reception. Long may I continue to enjoy it!

Wordless Wednesday

Digital Joneses: The Talk 2.0

I have briefly mentioned that my family are one of the 10 families in the UK chosen to be part of Trend Micro's Digital Joneses project. This as an exciting chance for me to learn how to keep all my family safe online over the year of the project. We are being set a series of challenges to either test what we know or to teach us more.


The first challenge we have had to complete was The Talk 2.0 in which we had to make a video on an iPad showing us talking about staying safe online with our children. With my youngest being 5 I decided to complete this task with my 8 year daughter. She is getting into using computers and the Internet at home and school so I wanted to make sure she understands some simple safety rules without scaremongering or being beyond what she needs to understand.


It took a couple of takes but this is the video she and I made together:






As you can see she seems pretty clued up on staying safe online and even throws in some advice for me! At the minute she has to use a computer in the same room as me and I can control what she does on it, hopefully she will keep this lessons to heart as she grows and becomes more independent. 


I am looking forward to carrying on with the project and seeing what else it can teach us all as a family to keep safe on the Internet.


My son was a bit jealous about his sister's video and was inspired by seeing some YouTube Lego Star Wars videos to get me to make one with him:

Back to school

That's it term started in Cumbria today so my children went to school and I went to work at my school. Where did those 2 weeks of Easter holidays go to?

At least it was a gorgeous if chilly first day back:

#SilentSunday 15th April 2012