Joe Is 9 Today

Happy Birthday Joe

9 Today

We All Love You Very Much

Have A Great Day

Lots & Lots of Love & Kisses

Mum, Dad, Jack & Toby

xxxxx

My Clever Blogging Boy

Ever since I started my blog the boys have really supported me, Jack has helped me with his expert Internet web designing knowledge, and helped me work out complex problems like adding social media icons, and building my blog. 

And Joe has not only given me endless material with his antics but also helped me with cooking posts, and offered ideas for posts. Some of these have been great ideas, some downright barmy. Like the competition he wanted to run last week, the prize was a climbing day in my back garden. Which you can imagine went down like a lead balloon. 

Joe has been asking to set up his own blog for weeks and to be honest I have brushed it off a bit, however he was persistent, until I gave up and offered to give him a little blog lesson. He was so keen to learn and really concentrated, this surprised me, as Joe’s concentration skills are not great, he is always flitting from one thing to the next. 

100 Happy Days, Joe's Opinion of French Lessons, Day 95.

For my 100 Happy Days Today I have Chosen a comment by Joe. On our way to School on Today, Joe announced that if he was ever off sick he would like it to be on a Wednesday as French was on that day. Now in our home you need to be laid up to have a day off. We do not want them to grow up with the attitude that you can stay off School or Work for the sake of it. So he surprised me a bit with this comment.


















I challenged this, explaining that it is good manners to try to speak a little French when in France, and told him I wished I could speak a language. Especially as we like visiting France, it helps to understand the language. He replied with I can order food that's all I need! 

Ha ha bless him if only life were that simple. Anyway I am now on high alert to sudden illnesses occurring on a Wednesday. And if you ever want to order food in France; then Joe is you Man.

100 Happy Days, Day 71, creative Kids

Joe decided yesterday, that as he had got marker pen on a school shirt a few months ago, so no longer wore it. He would decorate it, he has spent quite some time colouring away. He has announced today he has finished his master piece,and has asked if I would blog it, ha ha. He is fully embracing the blog. Well-done Joe for such creativity, you never know I may have the next Tom Ford on my hands. 

100 Happy Days, Day 39, Joe got the Merit.

For today I have chosen Joe, today he got the merit award at school. It is awarded to a couple of children in every class to highlight how hard they have been working inuring the previous week. We received a top secret message this morning to invite us to the merit assembly, Joe had no idea and did not know until he entered the hall and saw us there. 

Well-done Joe for receiving the merit for improving your maths, nothing makes me happier than seeing the boys learning, doing well and happy at school.

100 Happy Days, Day 38; Coming home at the end of a long day.

I always love coming home from work on a Thursday, it is my late night and generally chaotic, so it's great to finally walk in the front door. 

I always say hello to Chris, Jack and Toby who are generally chilling and watching TV and then nip up stairs to look at Joe, look what I found tonight. I nearly missed him amongst all the teddies bless him. It makes me sooo happy to watch the boys peacefully sleeping.

Frozen for 43 years !

Don't you just love kids, now I do not have much patience?  But Joe's level of impatience really is in another league! 

Recently he decided to change his passwords on his I pad and I pod. Now you think he would use the same password but no he decided for maximum security he would have a separate password for each gadget. 

Clearly he has such confidential information being 8 years old, that he had to exercise extreme caution. The problem with this of course is that he then proceeded to forget one of the passwords, but no worries he decided to persist at trying again and again until he got the code correct. 

100 Happy Days Day 31, Joe's New Shoes

For today I have chosen Joe's new shoes, I came home tonight and Chris had taken Joe to get new trainers. He was sooo excited that he had got new running shoes, it was like he had never received a pair of new shoes before and spent 20 minutes telling me about the colour, laces sole and fabric. So today I am lending him my 100 Happy Days. Today Joe day 31 is all yours.

Joe's Easter Roaming Rooster

Last Easter Roaming Rooster education centre ran a competition to decorate an Easter egg, I had lots of great ideas but Joe was having none it, he wanted to go this one alone.

I gave him open access to my crafting kit for all the feathers and felt. He wanted his egg white and large, so we went next door to Farmer John to choose a fresh Goose Egg. And I gave him my French manicure pen. (He used it all!)

He set of painting and decorating his egg; he would not accept any tips or help. (I think he gets that from me) It took him 3 days to perfect but when he finally finished he called it the Roaming Rooster after the Farm Shop, he even made a little travel case. 

The Roaming Rooster

The Sheep Skull Saga

Last week on my Sunday afternoon walk through the fields with Toby, I came across a sheep skeleton. The poor animal must have perished in the recent bad weather. As I walked towards it a fox ran away, on closer inspection the bones had been completely stripped of all muscle, meat etc.  I had not been able to take this route for some months due to the terrible rain we had suffered with, the fields had been far to boggy to walk through.

When I arrived home I made the huge mistake of telling Joe what I had seen, his little face lit up. He had been learning about skeletons at school and it seemed it would fulfil a dream; obtaining his very own animal skull. So being a total mug I agreed to take him back to the location of the skull so he could retrieve it to keep. I know I must be mad but I agreed, isn’t this what little boys adventures were made of and who am I to stand in the way of that.

Joe,s Sheep Skull

Off we set wearing gloves and armed with plastic bags to retrieve the skull, Joe was soooo excited almost beside him-self with excitement. When we found the skull I felt a responsibility to say a prayer for the sheep, Joe was looking at me as if I had completely lost it, but I was about to boil this poor animals skull the least I could do was say a few words of respect. A bit of a mini funeral! What must I have looked like in my hat, gloves and waving a Tesco carrier bag saying a little prayer for a sheep skeleton?

Unlce Stephen 666

Ha Ha tonight we were sat with the boys reading the mail online , there was an article about a member of staff at Starbucks putting 666 on a customers coffee, I casually said oh uncle Stephen has that behind his ear. Chris said oh yes he does, Joe said is it a tattoo, I said no a birthmark, Jack accepted that, Joe said can I get a pen and draw it behind my ear(Joe hero worships uncle Stephen)

Me and 666 Stephen

Day 8, 100 Happy Days

For day 8, I have chosen my Mother's Day Daffodil Joe grew at School. When I watered it today it made me smile when I realized that once planted it would grow every year, and I will have a little piece of 8-year-old Joe forever.

Joey Half Essex!

We love 'I am a Celebrity get me out of here' in our home, as it is on quite late, I record it for Joe to watch in the mornings. I think the content and language is suitable enough so I do not mind him watching it.

I have always been proud to be an Essex girl, even though I have lived in the North for half of my life, but both the boys have strong northern accents. Joe was born in Lancashire, and  Jack was born in Essex. Joe has always been very proud of his northern roots and used every opportunity to call Jack an Essex boy, and boast about being a Burnley boy.















This all changed this year when he saw Joey Essex on I am a Celebrity. I must say I did not know much about Joey Essex, as I am not a TOWIE watcher.  However what a genuine and kind person he came across to be. So much so he seems to now hold cult hero status at Joe's primary School among Joe and all his friends. Who according to Joe talk about Joey Essex quite a lot. He has even followed him on my twitter.

One day recently over dinner Joe made the announcement that he was now known at School as Joey half Essex!

When we all recovered from hysterics and picked ourselves up off the floor,  he continued to explain he even spoke in an Essex accent at the School dinner table, and his 8 year old friends who are of course authorities on the Essex accent, all agreed Joe sounded exactly like Joey Essex.

So thank you I am a celebrity and Joey Essex for helping at least one of my children to embrace his Essex Roots.

We are all now eagerly anticipating watching Education Joey Essex, especially
Joey half Essex.

Joe's World

Joe my 8-year-old son is constantly coming out with the most hilarious and sometimes odd statements.  The tragedy of it is we laugh hysterically at the time then forget within weeks. 

I want to remember these gems for when he is older! Or when I am older, either way they are memories I don't want to forget. What better place to save those memories than here.

So here goes, Joe's world part 1:

This morning whilst I was styling my hair Joe came in looking a bit confused.

"The scales are broken,” he told me. "Why do you think that?" I asked.

"Well" Joe replied " I weighed myself on one leg and I was 4 stone, then I weighed myself on the other leg, that was 4 stone too. Then  I weighed myself on both legs, I was still only 4 stone. I should have been at least 8! We need to get Dad to fix those when he gets home." At this he shook his head and walked out the room. Bless.