June has passed at the speed of light. And I've been glad. I want this year to hurry up for us, whizz by to the day when we complete on our forever house and finally move in and start living again, properly. 

We've been living in a strange sense of limbo since we moved out of the home we had loved for 8 years to a very handy rented house 4 minutes down the road. And hopefully over the next 24 hours we will exchange on the beloved forever house, which will trigger a temporary move again!

We are under pressure to secure a school place for Sammy - the village school with just 20 a class has one magical space available and if we are lucky to get it (another family have also applied) we will need to live in the area, an hour and a half's drive away for the 1st September.

We have a deferred completion on the new house, to give the lovely older couple 6 months to find their next home and whilst this isn't ideal, the thought of being certain that we will, at the very latest ring in the new year surrounded by boxes, is a very exciting prospect and well worth another move and the painful wait.

But something happened over June that knocked us all square in the eyes. Little Skye, my cousin's brave 5 year old boy, is fighting a new battle, against Radio-necrosis which has been brought on by the combination of therapies which he has endured. He is now in a state of paraplegia, with double incontinence, and very poor use of his upper limbs and hands. He fights on, as do we! The treatment has left him weak and vulnerable, yet strong and brave! I have taken this information from their new website Blue Skye Thinking, and if you want to read more you can find their inspirational blog HERE.

He was diagnosed at the end of May and I have been in awe of my cousin and her husband at how they have adjusted to this new and devastating phase over the last month. June has seen them take to the skies (literally) when a kind anonymous person donated a trip in a helicopter and an all expenses paid visit to Butlins at Minehead to meet Mr Maker, a well loved children's tv personality. They've visited the Britain's Got Talent set in London, sat in the famous chairs and helped Stephen Mulhern as he filmed the callers questions for the spin off show.

June has been a month to create a wish list (I can't bear to use the word bucket list) and we were lucky enough to experience one of Skye's firsts together.

Skye has never been on ice, so yesterday we headed from my in laws in Poole to Oxford to the city ice rink! Sammy was initially a little nervous to see him, which breaks my heart, as the medication he receives, has dramatically changed his little body and face. But after half an hour those initial concerns appeared to fade away and it was a pleasure to see our 4 boys playing together. 

Sammy never questioned why Skye was in a wheelchair, he has taken far more of the situation on board than we have realised.

As we left my in laws he said to me, "We are going to see Skye and his face is quite puffy now, but he is alive." It was like I'd been punched in the heart, that my little boy was seeing the positive in a heartbreaking situation.

And that's what we all should do. Count our blessings, make moments count. Take an extra second to appreciate the wonderful simple moments, like watching our children run through a sprinkler or write their own name. My boys are difficult and testing at times but I am trying to focus more on the good behaviour rather than be drained by the bad. June has been kind and unkind but being grateful for what we have is the most important thing.

This is why I love Me and Mine. It's about recording family life. The unit that is yours. Richard often says it's a strange feeling when you brush pass someone you love. Because you know you love them it feels different.

Poor Ollie had been an ice superstar whizzing around behind the penguin with one of us and at the last moment fallen down on the handle bars which led to tears and a sad face for a good while after. The smile returned eventually during the medal ceremony!

There was so much love on that ice rink and it was an honour to share it.

Come and join in with us and share your family photos, I've shown you me and mine, now show me you and yours!

This month I'd love you to visit Becky's blog - full of fun, smiles and genuine happy family moments.

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Hold onto your fishing hats, this is a mammoth post!

Who knew I would fall in love with fishing?!

When Sammy asked if he could have a fishing party, having never ever been fishing, about 9 months ago (Yes, he is as excited about birthday's as I am!) I thought, crumbs, I've never really seen any fishing themed party accessories but luckily for me, the very talented Stacy from Style My Party saw my tweet for ideas and came to the rescue!

I can't thank Style My Party enough for all their help providing so many of the party bits, decorations and details you will see in the photos. And if your little one would love a fishing theme, then you can head over here and purchase a lot of the things you see at our party.

I loved setting out the buffet table! I scoured our house and garage, borrowed a couple of crates and hunted in our local charity shops were I found a reel and lanterns for a couple of pounds. I found squeaky fish dog toys which the Westies will be getting for their birthday this month and came up with alternative uses for a few bits from the fishing section in The Range.

I love having games stations at parties. When you have over 30 children it's hard to make them all sit down for traditional games like pass the parcel and I find it keeps the adults occupied too, going from game to game, enjoying seeing their children having fun. I am a mean party host and don't have lots of chairs for the adults to sit on. I find you end up on your phone, waiting for the time to pass, instead of chatting with the other parents and joining in the fun.

Party Games

Flying Fish • I found weirdly realistic fish which fishermen use as bait for a flying fish game. The children all stood on mats and had to lob their shoal of fish into 3 different buckets! 

Tattoo Station • Always a hit with a party heavy on boys, I found fish transfer tattoos on eBay and larger ones that fit your hands to make your thumb it's mouth!

Splat the Fish • I used some disgusting slimy hands on a length of rubbery slime in the pound shop to splat the fish confetti from Style My Party. The rest went on the tables but it was perfect and not too heavy!

River Run • Rich made a marble river run out of a pool noodle which we cut lengthways and propped them in my Mother's Day magnolia tree using cheap plastic rod rests!

Get hit in the face with a wet fish • This was the star of the show! Rich was such a good sport and let the kids pelt him with soaking sponges and a couple of soft toy fish. Ollie was drenched within 5 minutes and loved it, hence the pants photos towards the end!

Balloon Fish • I think balloon modelling is a fab idea as they are fascinated watching the creations come to life! They all loved their rods and fishes from Balloonitude!

Hook a Fish • I used the boys paddling pool and a couple of fishing rod sets from the pound shop to create their own pond complete with lily pads from my sister's actual pond!

I always think at 5 it's incredibly hard to be out. So at our parties no one goes out in musical bumps and statues! I bought a bag of whistle lollies and the last one from each round got a whistle during musical bumps and then a "puffer fish" punch balloon to take home and blow up for the best statue during each round.

We had a few rounds of the Superman song and our resident party DJ, who we have hired for all our parties Billy Chappell Discos, was on hand with lights and music. He is at secondary school locally and has built up a fab business charging £15 an hour for a full disco service!

Fish Print Guest Book • I found a great printable range from Spaceships and Laserbeams and everyone placed an ink thumbprint as a little memento for Sammy to have on his bedroom wall.

Bouncy Castle • Always a hit and I hired the most basic one, no slide, no ball pit and they loved it. Plus it said Under the Sea!

I love having a Photo Booth set up at a party and Sammy's boat shelves were a perfect prop!

The party food went down a storm. I was thrilled when a couple of the Dads complimented me on the detail! The main food for the children was a "tackle lunch box" by Style My Party (How cute are the buckles?!) of fish and chips from our local chip shop who heavily discounted the normal price of a child's portion on the basis that it was such a big order. We got extra chips for the grown ups and used cones and palm leaf plates by Style My Party! They gave me a few of the boxes they normally use for me to use as cake stands and masses of chip forks!

Ideas for Fishing Party Food

I did lots of research on Pinterest and came up with a few new ideas for the buffet table.

Fish Flakes • I used dried fruit flakes and some edible glitter flakes in little pots which looked just like real fish food!

Fish Food • Rainbow drops were perfect or you could call them Rainbow Trout poo?!

Bait • Crushed Oreo type biscuits made perfect dirt for some jelly worms to sit on!

River Rocks • I found candy chocolate rocks on line and put them in tiny specimen craft pots. Tins of sardines made lovely stands too!

Reeds • An easy way to make reeds is with a chocolate log and skewer! 

Rods • Sticks of rock made great rods or use liquorice sticks which I used for long worms.

There were a few other fishy treats, Swedish Fish sweets, white chocolate fish and chips and jelly freaky fish.

Drinks • I mixed lemonade & a little blue colouring to make "Sea Water" and Dandelion and Burdock made perfect "Pond Water".

The hall had one big space and one small space, where I set the food tables out longways. The fabulous bunting from Style My Party and some helium balloons tied randomly along the chairs filled the room! Green tarpaulins from the pound shop made perfect table cloths and they were all excited by the "Boat Brew" label by Style My Party and party water! The lunch boxes were so cute too.

The cake was by an incredibly talented local baker DusiCake, who is opening a boutique in Burnham on Sea above the Crafty Teacup Cafe where you can sample her cake tails (Cakes not cocktails!)! 

It was a pleasure to spoil our precious boy and give everyone an afternoon of family fun. We know our family have to travel hours, book B&B's and we really appreciate all their help. Master clearer uppers! Sammy even had a little blog friend!

Mum wore a brilliantly on theme "Big fish, little fish, cardboard box" t-shirt! We missed my sister, brother in law and the American family contingent dreadfully! Blasted work and the Atlantic ocean! I have to thank my brother and sister in law for bringing a suitcase full of fish goodies over from America last month including a 5ft long bass that managed to get stuck on the ceiling for a while!

I'd been hoarding things for months so all the guests went home laden with goodies!

Party Favours and Party Bags

Tackle Treat Boxes • I saw printable tags from Spaceships and Laserbeams and had to make up these sweet treats! I bought the cheapest containers I could find and filled them with almost all non branded sweets! Scour your pound shop!

Burlap bags • There's something about hessian that feels like a fishing theme?! Style My Party provided the bags and tags and I filled them with some fishy favours from eBay!

We had an amazing day, all the late nights making bits and pieces were totally worth it!

Now what are we going to do next year?!

You can find the full Style My Party Gone Fishing range here. Thank you so much Stacy for making Sammy's fishing dreams come true!

Oh Summer days get here faster. I am dreaming of bbq's in the garden, lunches on street tables and the sun on our faces. May has always been kind to our family of 4, bank holiday fun, house news and celebrating a big boy's birthday.

So this month's Me and Mine portrait to dedicated to Sammy. 

A precious boy who a mere 6 weeks ago was driving me to tears with outrageously bad behaviour, rudeness and being aggressive to his little brother. But something happened quite naturally over the last month, this phase of shouting at us, demanding, defiant behaviour has dissipated. To the point where we have a lovely boy, who is appreciative and grateful and kind to his brother.

Of course there are still flashes of a 5 year old's temper and frustration but 99% of the time we see a new Sammy.

And at a time when our family are reminded of how precious life can be, we felt his birthday was a perfect excuse to spoil him rotten. Reward him for his good behaviour and just generally give him the most awesome birthday ever. "Everything is awesome...!" If you've watched the Lego movie you will know what I mean ;)

We headed to my Mum's late last Friday and after a leisurely sausage sandwich breakfast we set off on our adventures at Staines station. A half hour journey on the "land train" was enough to whip them into an excitable frenzy, with every platform we stopped at enjoying Sammy's announcement "Welcome to London Waterloo." Cue ah no darling not this one.

We negotiated the hoards of people heading for the Underground and made our way across the Jubilee line to Green Park to head for The National History Museum.

We had not anticipated the queues so dived into a Lebanese restaurant for a quick lunch whilst the lunchtime queues died down. What a treat to sit on the street! We let him have his first fizzy drink - he didn't ask for a second and called it spicy, and indulged in lamb burgers, pittas, dips and grilled chicken.

Unfortunately we timed it all wrong and just as we headed to join the back of a still rather long queue, the heavens opened! We crowded under a small umbrella and got soaked. The boys thought it was hilarious and spent the rainy episode with their tongues hanging out catching raindrops like dogs, apparently!

After 40 minutes in the pouring rain we made it inside, headed for the hand dryers in the toilets and dried off as best we could. Soggy trousers didn't bother the boys one bit - there was a new world to discover!

We explored and then explored some more. There is so much to see and do I think you definitely need 3 or 4 trips. Ours enjoyed the hands on stations around the museum and I know they will enjoy it in a whole new way when they can read all the information stands.

We stayed until closing time, fulfilled one of Sammy's wishes of taking a taxi ride (Straight to Anthropologie for me to grab a couple of bits and then to Harrods to have a peek at the incredible toy department!) and ended up in Chinatown where we had promised him dinner with chopsticks!

We enjoyed a feast, made friends with the waiters and as we left Chinatown to walk to the tube station, got caught in a hare krishna demonstration. The boys loved it and ran straight onto the makeshift pavement stage, dancing with delight in front of a smiling crowd who had gathered to watch.

I had fully expected one or both of them to nod off but no they were giddy all the way home and couldn't wait to see Granny to tell her all about our day in London.

Sammy woke up to helium balloon gift wrap, lots of little presents (His main present is his fishing party today.) and a simple day of family fun followed a 6am wake up call.

A birthday roast, a trip to the park and a sleepover at Auntie and Uncle's. What more could a boy want? We ended the birthday weekend with a visit to his poorly cousin.

Happy birthday my darling, we are so lucky to have you. So lucky you are the healthy happy boy we are incredibly proud of.

ps. Can you believe I left my big camera at home? On a birthday weekend? So this month's Me and Mine is mobile all the way! 

Join in with us and share your family photo from May. I've shown you me and mine, now show me you and yours! Capturing family moments is precious. Just snap away!

I'm hoping next month will be a photo of us at our new house - we should exchange in June so fingers and toes crossed. If you fancy a nose at some house photos click here.

Now head over to Becky's ace blog and check out what her, Tom and sweet Holly have been up to!