The lovely weather has officially skipped town so today Annie resurrected the sport of sofa diving.

She donned the official sofa diving uniform of undies and an upside down princess mask and then she went for it…

It’s no wonder my two sleep so well when this is how they spend their days!

I love watching her do this, leaping around the place with wild abandon, roaring with laughter when she lands and telling me to, ‘watch me Mama’ before each jump. It’s loony, a wee bit dangerous, loud and hilarious which encapsulates Annie perfectly.

I really don’t think it’ll be too long before Ez is joining in on the crazy, semi-dangerous fun with his big sister. He was standing out of harms way, cheering her on and clapping as she landed, both of them happy as larry.

Please tell me your kiddos are just as loony and wild!

I have introduced a small challenge into my life, I’m trying to embrace, ‘saying yes’. At the start of the week we were invited to a play date with a couple of friends at a local soft play area.

Normally I would find an excuse not to go in case I couldn’t park, the kids misbehaved, it was too busy etc but not this time. I decided to get over myself and say yes, and I’m so glad I did.

It helped that we followed our friend over in the car so I wouldn’t get lost (another anxiety trigger) and having someone to walk in really helped me feel way more confident.

Our 3rd friend who organised the whole thing couldn’t make it at the last minute which was sad, especially as it turned out we had the whole place to ourselves, I tell you, she’d have been in her element!

This lack of spectators allowed my inner 3 year old to emerge. Within minutes I was leaping comically acrobatically into the ball pit, crawling through the climbing frame to the very top and trying (with limited success) to wedge my bum down the narrow kiddy slide.

I’m a bit ashamed to say it was Ezra’s first trip to a soft play zone but he loved it, especially the ball pit. He wasn’t very good at manoeuvring his way through the balls but that didn’t stop him trying.

There was a fab tube system that shot balls into the pit and it was the favourite thing for both little boys, who are both in that funny, ‘I love posting things’ stage. The girls meanwhile zoomed around the place and it wore me out just watching them.

It felt so good to be out, getting some exercise, spending time with friends, acting like a kid and having a laugh, I came home on a real high (with two tired and slightly grumpy children!).

I am very proud of myself for saying yes, I would have regretted it if I hadn’t and have felt guilty for again inflicting my anxiety on the kids. Yesterday was a total win and it was all down to me facing a fear and saying yes for a change.

We are spending lots of time in the garden this year. Even though the sunshine has gone we still get outside most days to ‘burn off some crazy’ and wear out the kiddos.

Annie loves playing on the swings and bouncing on the trampoline while Ez enjoys throwing, kicking and catching. He has just learnt to roll a ball down the slide and looks very proud of himself as it rolls along.

We all went outside last night as dinner was cooking, Annie found a stick that she pretended was a wand while Ez played ball really happily (with one odd random outburst of crying).

Afterwards we all went inside feeling that little bit happier.

We also finally finished* the beach hut (wendy house). When we picked it up it, the wood was soaking wet so needed 3 weeks to dry out fully before we could paint it, then we took our time to paint the stripes before building it this weekend.

It looks fab in it’s corner, of course within 30 seconds the kiddos had broken the latch on the door but I think it was made of tinfoil and not really strong enough to cope with 2 excited kiddos!

(Please excuse the poor iPhone photo, it has been raining every time I have gone to take a photo of it in the daylight so far!)

Over the next few months (once next door have finally finished replacing the fence) we’ll dig, and fence, a little garden around the sides and ‘prettify’ it further with whirligigs and the like. We’re also considering putting some vinyl flooring down inside to make the floor a bit comfier to sit on.

The idea is that the ‘garden’ around the edge will be for the kids to maintain with a bit of help from us. I think it’s going to look amazing when it’s all put together finally.

I will admit that we are making the sort of garden that Jon and I both wish we could have had as children. I love how kiddo orientated our garden is, that we can let them outside knowing they will come in worn out and happy from all the exercise, that there is lots of choice when it comes to playing and how complete the garden is looking all of a sudden.

We couldn’t have done it without help from the Actimel Family Well Being fund. Being granted money from the fund for play has made such a positive impact on the family as a whole I’m not sure I can accurately describe how awesome it is. If you are a blogger the fund for Connect is now live and I suggest that you head over to the website and check out the details.

*technically we still have to fit the fiddly window panes and surrounds but that can wait for the dry weather to come back

Do you have any tips for how to ‘pimp our beach hut’ further?