Reasons to be cheerful week 49 year 3 #R2BC

Thanks everyone who joined in whilst I was hosting last month now its over to Jo who has made the lovely new badge above. I may be hosting again in the new year if Michelle wants a longer break! So back to my reasons to be cheerful:

1) Helpful children

Not only did they help with the Christmas fair last weekend but my son has been doing more chores around the house:

Definitely good to have more help at home!

2) Feeling festive

We have got the Christmas decorations down just need to put them to their proper use:

3) Being lucky

I have won a prize from Tigerlilly Quinn with Argos. Not posting a photo on here but really hope my son will love the wonderful Lego set I chose from the dream toys list!

Why are you smiling?

Workout Wednesday Week 2

Well its been a mixed week on the running front! After last week's new 5 km record I did follow it with my 2nd best ever one. So I went into the weekend feeling pretty confident. 

Then life got in the way of my training schedule I had to do an afternoon run yesterday instead of a morning one and I didn't enjoy it at all and in fact failed to run 30 minutes non stop... Therefore when the app said that today it was a 40 minute run I was not feeling at all confident..

However it was a beautiful if very cold morning (my legs never did warm up!) and being out around Kendal felt lovely. I deliberately didn't push my speed up as I wanted to be able to complete the time. Finding a route long enough to run for 40 minutes was another issue but I added a little extra round the Natland Rd. Amazingly I managed to do the 40 minutes and then after rest walk I did another 10. 

So these are my Strava achievements this week: 

I have created a bloggers running club so that if anyone else wants to have a virtual running club with me then they can join in:

How is everyone else doing?

Book Reviews

Sponsored Posts

Here are some of the lovely books I have been sent recently but hadn't yet reviewed:

Can You Dance to the Boogaloo? by Alice V. Lickens
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a great book to read with younger children. It encourages them to get and dance whilst enjoying the funky drawings and whacky lyrics.

There are even drawings of musical instruments to learn about and recognise. It was such fun to read and over time I am sure that my son would memorise them all!

The illustrations are bright and bold and appeal to both children and adults.

Pinocchio by Michael Morpurgo and Emma Chichester Clark
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A brilliant re-working of the classic story. Michael Morpurgo has added his own style to the familiar story which has freshened it up and appeals to children and adults alike.

Emma Chichester Clark has done beautiful illustrations throughout the story which really bring the characters to life. This is one of those books that can be enjoyed at any age and will be kept to share with future generations.

Ali B Vs the Universe by Scott Cormack
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was written by my son's Little Kickers football coach as a way of using children's love of football to encourage them to read. My boy really enjoyed the story with the tale of the dog Ali B saving the world from aliens by playing football against them.

The story can also be combined into real football training games so it combines both literacy and PE - perfect for Foundation stage and Keystage 1. Definitely a good way to engage reluctant readers

View all my reviews

A family business

Being a single mum its great for me to have sources of income that fit in around my family. Obviously blogging is a perfect one as my children enjoy reviewing products and days out so I can write about them! The other thing I do is act as an Independent Usborne Re-seller. I started up doing this back in 2008 as I just loved the books and wanted a way to both boost my income and get cheaper books!

I haven't done too much of it this year so far as my car is almost too small to carry both my stock and my children... However now the Christmas fair season is upon us my children and I have swung into team action again. We kicked off by having a stall at our church Advent fair this Saturday. A very early start for a Saturday had us ready to set-up at 8:30 and within less than an hour we had got our stall all ready:

As a reward for an early start my daughter nipped down to get us all a take away McDonald's breakfast... My son decided the best place to eat his was underneath our stall whilst playing on the iPad:

The good thing about doing a Christmas fair is there is plenty to distract the children and I just had to eek out their spending money and ensure regular feeding! They are very good at drumming up entries for Find the Duck. At the end of the day they were each rewarded with a book as wages:

Can you tell who chose which?

We have more events this week and I hope that they are as helpful at them as they were on Saturday:

#SilentSunday