Reasons to be cheerful: birthdays, Wii and more #r2bc

I do believe it is Friday which means I'm late, I'm late for a very important date! It is a good job this is one of the most laid back linkies on the Internet... Preparing for being back in a real job and a return to some pre-lockdown activities has caused me to get behind! Lots of these have been reasons to be cheerful though. I hope that you have some reasons of your own to share?

What do you have to do? Easy: 

1. Link up a post about something that is making you happy or grateful. It can be a list, photos or any way you fancy. 

2. Add the #R2BC badge (at the end of this post) onto your post or blog so that people can easily find the linky and join in too if they want to 

3. Share the love. This is the really important bit. Please don't just link and run, comment on at least a couple of posts and why not share with #R2BC too? 

I'll stop by all linked up posts to comment and I'll share on social media too. 

Meanwhile here are my reasons to be cheerful for this week:

1) Belated birthday celebrations

As my dad had to be quarantined after a holiday to Holland we only celebrated his birthday (and my daughter's boyfriend's) with a takeaway curry and a cake made by my daughter:

2) Wii fun

We are having so much fun on the old Wii. It does get temperamental sometimes as its an original so pretty ancient! I am finally getting the hang of Mario Kart - typically there was a disc read failure after I managed my first ever 2nd place:

3) Days out

Now I am mobile again we have had a couple of days out into the Lakes. One trip to catch up with a family friend staying in Langdale and one visiting Grizedale Forest. The sheep seemed please to see us:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Bonfire, Birthday and Mud! #R2BC

 
I seem to be moving the linky to Saturday evening and not Saturday mornings! I'm all rushed out during the day with sporting activities... Here is what made me smile this week:
1) Bonfire Fun
My daughter and I enjoyed a Jacob's Join and bonfire party with friends out at Selside. Nice to be sociable and have a few fireworks at a low key event:

2) Forest School

I got to spend Thursday out at Footprints which is a forest school on a National Trust property in Windermere. We enjoyed communing with nature, lighting fires and learning how to whittle.

3) Birthday Boy

Reasons to be Cheerful: Birthday Fun & Fireworks #R2BC

The happiest linky around is still in the hands of Michelle so please join in, comment and share the things that have made you smile this week however small! Here are some of mine: 1) Birthday Boy
My son turned 11 this week (how did that happen!). He is growing up fast and this year chose a trampoline party at Jump Rush in Morecambe with his friends. It was so much fun and I wish I had been brave and joined in.... next time:

2) Bubbles

I had won some Prosecco with extra pop-a-ball and fun additions from a local company Fabulous Flutes. It was perfect to enjoy once my house was no longer full of tween age boys and I could sit back and enjoy Strictly:

3) Mummy Treats

Simple Cake Decorating

My son and I weren't too impressed with the party cakes on offer at Morrisons as they are all quite pricey when you only need enough for a few people. So instead we got the basic cake and he chose some things to decorate it:

I did the initial divide with icing and then it was my son's turn to do some decorating:

Reasons to be Cheerful: The Birthday Edition #R2BC

Where is October vanishing to? We have had a very busy time as it was birthdays for 2 of us! Therefore I have had plenty of reasons to be cheerful:
1) Birthday Girls
I had a special night out with my daughter to celebrate our birthdays. We went out for pizza and then mocktails at Slate. It was a lovely evening with my mini me:

2) Spoiled rotten

I was very lucky to be sent plenty of cards and some lovely gifts for my birthday. This was one of the wonderful birthday messages that made me smile:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Family, Friends and Celebrations #R2BC

Where is August vanishing to? Scottish schools are back already and we have less than 2 weeks left here! So much still to make me smile this week though and I hope lots of you join in too and then comment on other blogs:
1) Happy Birthday Dad!
Today is my dad's birthday so I just have to post the oldest photograph of him I can find which must be from the early 1950s!:

2) Furry Family

We have 3 furry family members who bring us all lots of pleasure here are Bubble (Splodge playing hard to get!):

and Coco:

3) Movie Time

Reasons to be Cheerful: 10th birthday #R2BC

The lovely Michelle is hosting this week and she has super reasons to be cheerful so please pop over! Meanwhile here are mine:

1) Mummy power

My son chose Laser Quest for his 10th birthday. I was forced to join in as one his friends couldn't come along. We all had a lot of fun and I impressed his friends (and annoyed some teenage boys!) by winning our first match [thereby getting 3rd highest score of the day!]. I was then handicapped by being teamed up with the younger boys but still was in the top 3 each time.

2) Family fun

We all popped into town on Sunday and had a chilly but fun time in the park on the way back:

3) Fun teaching

As an NQT I lose a lot of the fun subjects to teach as I am out of class twice a week. This week due to swapping around I was able to have an afternoon learning about Diwali (including making lanterns) and a morning of history. Its definitely what keeps the enjoyment in the job:

4) Birthday Boy

Scary that my youngest turned 10 this week. Where has the last decade gone? So glad he is turning out to be a fine young man whose teacher says he is a pleasure to teach:

Looking forward to reading everyone else's posts!

Reasons to be Cheerful: Family Fun #R2BC

So many folks joining in last week which was great as it was a mix of familiar and new blogs to read. Hopefully everyone will be back this week with a few more blogs for us all to enjoy. We are getting close to the end of our school holidays and still packing in the fun:

1) Jumping for joy at parkrun

Our parkrun had a temporary course this week due to the National Stone Skimming Championships and it poured with rain but it didn't dampen the spirits of the volunteers including my children:

2) Quirky signs

Whilst driving through Castle Carrock we noticed that the sign was rather amusingly subtitled. Unfortunately we could only photograph the one on the way out that wasn't quite to easy to read (it says please dance):

3) Tidy tween bedroom

My daughter tackled her room to remove all the clutter and now has the nicest room in the house:

A tale of 2 sleepovers

I was looking for inexpensive birthday parties for my children this year so agreed they could both have sleepovers. They turned out to be very different affairs! 

12 year old "Hunger Games" sleepover

My daughter helped to create individual district invites for her 5 friends with the use of the Internet. She wanted it all to have shades of the book series. The sleepover was mostly outside (thank goodness for a mild October) and they pitched tents in the garden:

They did have sheepskins to keep them nice and snug overnight! I had hidden the food and drink around the garden in containers and they had to hunt it all down before they could eat. It was all cooked by them on the BBQ and I was able to let them get on with it.

After eating they came inside for a while to watch one of the Hunger Games movies before heading out to the tents. They did make use of the WiFi to watch YouTube videos for quite some time and there were giggles until about 1 AM. In the morning they were up bright and early and being obviously sophisticated they even made a pot of tea:

Reasons to be Cheerful: My Blue Eyed Boy is 7 #R2BC

When we have been house bound since Tuesday night with tummy bugs its hard to be cheerful but today is my son's 7th birthday so that is a reason to smile! My son was born by C-Section after going 12 days overdue! So glad he came out this way as he weighed in at 10 pounds!

What was really nice was that my grandmother had come down south with my parents the day he arrived so she got a cuddle when he was only about 2 hours old:

He turned out to be a blond, blue eyed handsome young fella:

Think he is turning out pretty well:

Why are you smiling this week?

Reasons to be Cheerful the birthday edition #R2BC

Birthdays definitely have to be one of the biggest reasons to be cheerful and having 2 within 48 hours makes this a fab week! Here is what made us smile about them:
1) Family Night Out
On Saturday night we went out as 3 generations to a ceilidh that was raising funds for a young member of our church to go on World Challenge to Malaysia with his 6th form. 

It was an organised chaos night with everyone having a great laugh and dancing the night away:

2) Family Breakfast

My birthday started with breakfast with 5 of my closest family at a local hotel. It was a lovely relaxed affair and a great way to kick of my day:

It was lovely being spoiled with some home grown roses too:

3) Birthday Fun

After a couple of trips to collect a replacement high sleeper for my daughter from Arnside I joined my children at the Kendal Wool Gathering at K Village:

Then we headed over to Sizergh Castle. After completing the Woodland Play Trail the children made use of new pond dipping nets to have fun at the pond:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Birthday Edition ( #R2BC )

 

It's wonderful that Michelle has come back from Ethiopia but has asked me to host whilst she promotes the campaign on her blog. I'm sure it will be back to normal next week! 

Meanwhile here are my birthday reasons to be cheerful:

 

1) My Birthday

 

Saturday was my birthday and thanks to my parents kindly having my children all day I got to spend it in Manchester at BlogCamp! I love my children dearly but to have an entire day to myself doing what I wanted was such a treat. The fact that it meant the company of some lovely friends from my twitter and blogging world was a bonus. Even more of a bonus was that it included cake and wine...

 

And I came back to a cake made by my mum and my daughter:

2) My daughter's birthday




On Sunday my daughter was 9. It is amazing how the time has flown by! She wanted to be grown up this year and as Sunday is no good for sleep overs I took her and 4 mates for a Pizza Express lunch then the cinema. I sat away from them to give a feeling of independence whilst still supervising. At times she looked so grown up:

 

It's definitely a week to be smiling about in our house! What is making you cheerful this week?