Joyful June!

This month has been really joyful! Not sure what it is, but our Maximus has been just full of giggles lately and we absolutely LOVE it! You'll see! Check it out!

He has been doing incredible with his phonics thanks to Cbeebies' Alphablocks, so much so that we decided to latch onto this sharpish and try teaching him to read alongside learning to speak. He is clearly very much a visual learner, so I made the decision to move away from PECs and onto phonics and reading. I'll put up a picture of the Alphablocks letters I made. I printed them from the Cbeebies website then coloured them in (with a little help from the hub), cut them out, laminated them, then cut out the laminates and we now have 4 sets of alphabet to make all sorts of words and even sentences in the future! So far we have been using these for about 2 weeks and Max can already make the sounds for the following letters UNAIDED: a, b, c, d, h, j, k, o, p, qu, r, s, t, u, w, x, y and z! :) PS - these phonics have also helped a lot with the pronunciation of a lot of his words, which now total about 40. We are getting there people!!

some of the joy I was talking about - Maximus has the best fun with Jack Jack, particularly on the trampoline or running around playing chase outside

Hannah skipping

Max worships Jack

He's a bit bonkers, but so's Max :)

Feeding the ducks on a very blustery day!

Avoiding the puddle in the playground, bless him - he's well trained :)

My eldest niece - Lucy, who is now taller than me at 13 - I know, I know I'm short, but still! She's us her best lion face

Sally showing us the artwork her little Harry did - so sweet

My Goddaughter and middle niece, Katie

and the youngest, Hannah

another play therapy idea, colour matching and number sequencing. He did it first try, clearly too easy, will make it harder next time!

Grandad, 'big' Gran and my Aunty Mea

Jack getting ready to catch a ball thrown by Grandad

Harry making us laugh his is super wide legged stance! He wanted a ball to roll through but he's so low to the ground it wouldn't go!

Jack and Harry giving Mea a tour around Grandad's greenhouse

Pouring water for motor skills practise

Jack Jack posing by Granny's roses

and Harry posing by his pushchair!

See the love? Max wanting Jack to do more running I think!

More bouncing joy

Chasing with Raphael after Jack! They ran for about half an hour with barely any stops - they were all EXHAUSTED by bedtime but very happy :)

Jack is pretending to be a dinosaur and chasing Max, who totally loved it and couldn't stop laughing and shrieking with delight!

He was soon chased down by Harry and Raphael and their trigger puppets



Max and his loving Grandad

My stunningly beautiful new goddaughter, Analena (3rd sister to Raphael)

Raphael and me when I took him out to feed the ducks

much joy

and even more!

This is jumping in glee watching Alphablocks (who says learning can't be fun?!)

Looking up to see where the wind is coming from