The Beesley Buzz: 2020

Competition info: Children's Art Competition

We wanted to share info about a fabulous Children's Art competition currently running at JAR Project. It closes on Saturday 7th November so be sure to get your entries in before then. It's completely free to enter with great prizes to be won and is open to ALL children in the UK aged between 3 and 15.

JAR Project are a small UK charity focussing on finding a cure for juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) as well as raising awareness of the condition and providing support and information to newly diagnosed children and those further down the JIA journey.

They receive no government or grant funding and so are reliant on fundraising and donations to support their vital work. When an organisation or individual arranges a fundraising activity, it's always nice to be able to say thank you. So when they needed new "thank you" cards printed, they thought it would be a great opportunity for them to be designed by a child through this competition.

As well as a main prize bundle for each age category winner, there are 30 runners up prizes to be won!

The runners up will be drawn at random and the main age category winners will be judged by celebrity judges artist Sarah Maycock and musician Tom Williams. Sarah's work includes pieces for the Natural History museum, BBC Wildlife magazine and the Rugby World Cup.

Celebrity judge: Artist Sarah Maycock

Each of the main age category winners will also receive a copy of Sarah's beautifully illustrated book "Sometimes I feel..."

Find out more about the competition and the judges here.

Let's #ACEit when washing whites!

I've been sent a bottle of ACE Ultra for Whites to try out.

In our household, the main culprits for getting that dull grey look and hard-to-remove stains are the kids school polo shirts, shirts and white school socks.

Common culprits: White school socks often end up grey!

School polo shirts soon lose their whiteness and brightness!

We also have some nearly white handtowels that I use in the kitchen for when I've washed my hands. It is recommended that ACE Ultra for Whites is ONLY used on completely white items but I knew that I wouldn't mind if the colour of these towels changed as they're rather old anyway.

I have to confess that I didn't have any fresh stains to use the ACE on as the kids have been studying from home this term for medical reasons so we didn't get the usual "school dinner tomato sauce stains" that are usually a regular feature in our household!

So the stains were older "baked in" ones like the yellowing around the collar and underarms. I realise that allowing stains to "bake in" is actually one of the worst things you can do. You can read some great tips for how to avoid this on the Britmums website.

But nonetheless, we put the ACE Ultra for Whites to the test. There are several ways of using it including for directly treating stains before washing and leaving to soak. However, my usual way of washing is as quick and straightforward as possible so I put it in the fabric conditioner drawer as we don't have a dedicated CL compartment as some washing machines do and I didn't need to use fabric conditioner.

As I expected, the baked in stains proved stubborn but I was impressed with the improvement in the towels! I have some white bath mat towels that I'm planning to use this on now as I think it will help them stay bright and white when use in every wash of whites.

For the shirts it was harder to notice the difference. But as I mentioned, these stains are old "baked in" ones so it wasn't really the fairest test. I'll definitely be using it straight away on any new fresh stains in future. Even with the shirts, I think there has been some improvement in reducing the yellowing neck stains.

I was amazed at the fresh smell of the clothes. As ACE Ultra for Whites contains bleach, I have to admit that I was worried about being left with an unpleasant bleach smell but I was very happy to have a fresh clean smell wafting around my home as the clothes dried.

In future, I'll definitely be taking note of the tips on the ACE website to help me #ACEit when it comes to keeping whites bright!

Gifted item: I received a bottle of ACE Ultra for Whites for the purposes of this post. All opinions are my own.

This post is an entry for the #ACEit Challenge, sponsored by ACE. Get ideas on how to wash whites, treat stains and laundry like a boss with tips from the ACE site!

Chocolate chip loaf cake

Another day, another loaf cake. This time our chocolate cravings took hold so we made a chocolate chip chocolate loaf cake. I suppose it could be called a double-chocolate loaf cake as it has cacao powder in the batter as well as chocolate chips in it.

Once again I tried to keep the sugar content a little lower and switched some of the fat content for greek yogurt. I have found that oil seems to work better in chocolate cakes for keeping the cake more moist compared to butter.

Ingredients:

100g self-raising flour

25g cocoa or cacao powder

1 tsp baking powder

100g caster sugar

2 eggs

50g olive oil

50g greek yogurt

20g chopped white chocolate (or chocolate chips)

30g chopped milk or dark chocolate (or chocolate chips)

Strawberries to garnish

Drizzle of melted white chocolate to decorate if desired.

Method:

Once again, as with the Basil, Lemon and Poppy seed loaf cake, the method is really simple. Perhaps just a little tricker because I mixed the wet and dry ingredients separately first.

1. Pre-heat the oven to 160C and grease and line a loaf tin. I used a loaf-tin liner and found that I didn't need to grease it.

2. Mix all of the wet ingredients together. In a separate bowl mix the dry ingredients together except for the chopped chunks of chocolate.

3. Then mix around half of the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Add the chopped chocolate to the remaining dry ingredients. The idea being that if they are coated with the flour and cacao powder it should make them less likely to sink in the cake when cooking. Then add the last of the dry ingredients with the chocolate chunks in into the main mixture and fold in to combine.

4. Pour into the loaf tin and bake for 35-40 minutes at 160C (fan). It took 37 minutes in our oven.

If you wish to you can melt a little white chocolate to drizzle over the top and garnish with some chopped strawberries.

Lemon, poppy seed and basil loaf cake

One of my favourite cake flavour combinations has to be Lemon and Poppy seed. In the past, I've made gluten-free lemon and poppy seed cupcakes and even a vegan version of a lemon and poppy seed cake for GBBO's Vegan week bake along back in 2018.

Lately I've been really into baking loaf-cakes. They seem to have a reliability about them that I don't seem to master with a circular shaped cake! So it made sense to try a lemon and poppy seed loaf cake. To give it an extra flavour twist I also included some finely chopped fresh basil.

If I can get away with it, I often try to reduce the amount of sugar and fat in cake recipes. So I got away with 100g of caster sugar in this recipe and used a combination of greek yogurt and butter so that I didn't need loads of butter. Both of these tweaks seemed to work out well.

Ingredients:

125g self-raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

100g caster sugar

50g butter - room temperature

50g greek yogurt

2 large eggs

Juice of half a lemon and zest of a lemon

20g poppy seeds

A few leaves of fresh basil - finely chopped (plus extra for garnish)

A little icing sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice to decorate if desired (or a drop of gin mixed with icing sugar for an extra treat)

Method:

The method really was as simple as combining everything together in the stand mixer, pouring into a lined loaf tin and popping in a pre-heated oven at 160C for 35-40 minutes. It actually took 42 minutes in my oven.

I put the poppy seeds into the mix last but everything else went in at the same time.

I've found that if I use a loaf-tin liner then I don't even need to grease the tin first whereas with baking paper I do tend to grease the tin too.

The trouble with the loaf shaped cakes is that between the 5 of us, they dissappear rather quickly - A generous sized slice each and it's gone or two thinner slices each if we're trying to eat less of it each time.

Apple Cake with apples from the apple tree

It's that time of year again...time to find any apples on the apple tree that haven't been too badly eaten by insects. I tend to cut off the good bits to use in recipes and the bad bits go into the compost bin.

I decided to make apple cake. I've made this Mary Berry apple cake recipe before and it's always turned out well (as most Mary Berry recipes seem to do). I seem to recall that in the past I've even added cinnamon and raisins into the mix to make it resemble the flavours we enjoyed in the apple pies we had in Amsterdam.

I forgot to add those extras in this time though so we sprinkled some cinnamon on top of it afterwards.

I've tweaked the recipe because I needed to make a double batch to use up the apples I had picked. I also reduced the amount of butter slightly, adding a little greek yogurt in it's place and reduced the amount of caster sugar slightly too because most I've found that you can get away with slightly less sugar in most cake recipes.

This makes enough for 2 cakes. I used a 9inch (24cm) loose bottomed cake tin and an 8inch (20cm) loose bottomed cake tin.

Ingredients:

500g fresh apple - sliced

250g melted butter

2 tsp baking powder

50g flaked almonds

450g self-raising flour

400g caster sugar

4 large eggs

50g plain greek yogurt

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 140C (fan). Grease and line the two baking tins. Ensure the apples are washed and sliced ready to use and the butter is melted on a low heat in a pan. Remove the butter from the heat and allow to cool slightly.

2. In a stand mixer, mix together the flour, baking powder and sugar. Then add the eggs and the yogurt. Slowly pour in the melted butter whilst the beater is still turning until it is all combined.

3. If using added cinnamon or mixed spice, I would have added a teaspoon in at this point and mixed it in.

4. Pour half of the mixture into the cake tins. So each cake tin will have around a quarter of the entire batch. You will need to save half of the whole batch to cover the apples with shortly.

5. Place the apples onto the cake batter. Don't worry about piling up several layers of apples. I just try not to let them go too close to the sides of the cake tin. If I was using sultanas or raisins I would add them amongst the apples at this point.

6. Cover the apples with the rest of the batter trying to cover them as well as possible. It always feels like there is not enough batter left but it does usually turn out OK in the end even if they are not fully covered.

7. Bake in the oven at 140C (fan) for 1 hour. Then check with a skewer. It may need an extra 15-30 minutes so check again after a further 15 minutes if it is not ready.

The original recipe can be found here. This is my own adaptation so that I can remember what I did! Next time, I might try reducing the sugar and butter further and increasing the amount of yogurt.

EDIT: I did try the recipe with less sugar and butter and more yogurt and it worked! Had a slightly "wetter" texture when cooked but that could have just been the apples bunched up more closely together and the batter seemed thicker so harder to spread but essentially it worked. So I used 200g butter, 300g sugar and 100g yogurt in place of the amounts given above.

Persian cooking: Fesen joon recipe

One of my biggest regrets is never learning to cook from my mum before it was too late. In her friendship group, she openly admitted that she wasn't the best cook when it came to Persian food but having tried to cook Persian food myself, I've realised that it isn't as easy at she made it look and that she was actually a great cook (memories of my zooloobiah disaster come flooding back as I type this!!!)

In my opinion, Persian cuisine is one of the tastiest in the world and also hasn't yet had it's moment as it doesn't seem to have been widely discovered in the way other world cuisines have.

Our nearest Persian restaurants are in London, for example, and we don't have any nearer to us sadly.

I did however come across something the other day that I got very excited about - Nationwide delivery of frozen Persian meals from Modern Persian Kitchen. In fact, I placed an order as soon as I discovered it. We've gone for the Family Selection chef's pack. Next time it will definitely be the veggie option so that I can enjoy more of it. This time I was thinking of my family and what they would all enjoy the most.

In the meantime, I started to crave Persian food. Although I never did learn to cook from my mum, one of her close friends gave me a Persian recipe book - It was her own treasured beloved copy - and to this day remains one of the kindest things someone has done for me. My dear auntie has also taught me some dishes when she has visited a couple of times in the past couple of decades and we miss her dearly living so far around the globe the rest of the time. And with the wonders of the internet, I'm always excited to come across Persian recipes.

Now there are a few more unusual ingredients that you need for this recipe - but these days most ethnic stores or Amazon will sell these ingredients. Even supermarkets sometimes have some of these items. I'd say the key ingredient that you need that you may not ordinarily have at home is pomegranate molasses. Dried barberries and saffron for the rice also help complete the dish although it would be fine to serve with plain rice instead.

I found a recipe on Turmeric & Saffron that I used as a starting point for this. I love the idea of adding an apple - I've never done that before. Although I didn't add any sugar as I love the tangy sourness of the pomegranate molasses and the barberries.

I've made my version meat-free using Meatless Farm mince as I usually keep a pack of that in my fridge. It has a longer shelf-life than meat and I use it in all sorts of recipes!

Ingredients:

1 onion - diced

1 pack Meatless Farm mince

1 cup pomegranate molasses

1 apple - chopped

2 cups walnuts (finely ground)

A little oil

Half tsp turmeric

Salt and pepper

For the rice:

2-3 cups rice

2 carrots - grated

Handful of dried barbecues

Butter

Saffron, rose petals, ground cardamom

Parsley to garnish

Method:

1. Prepare the meatballs by adding salt, pepper and turmeric to the Meatless Farm mince and rolling into balls.

2. Fry the onion in a little oil, then add the meatballs, gently stirring until browned.

3. In the meantime, cook the rice according to pack instructions. My go-to way of cooking rice is wash, cover with water (a few centimetres above the level of rice), and pop in the microwave for 20-25 minutes (white rice) or around 40 minutes for brown rice.

4. Remove the meatballs and fried onions from the frying pan. Then use the same pan to dry fry the ground walnuts. They need to be finely ground. Keep stirring and keep a very close eye on it as they can burn easily. Once the walnuts have darkened (but not burned), add the pomegranate molasses and 2 cups of water. Add the meatballs/onions and apple and leave to simmer on a low heat.

5. In a separate pan, fry the grated carrot and barberries in a little butter.

6. Add the saffron to a small amount of boiling water. I used the contents of a saffron/rose/ground cardamom teabag but you can just use saffron if you wish. This is then stirred into the rice.

7. Serve the fesen joon with the rice and garnish with fresh parsley if you wish.

Strawberry cookies?

We set out to make strawberry cookies, but ended up with something that was a cross between a cookie and a rock cake. Tasted biscuity-cookie-like enough but looked more like a rock cake. Either way, it tasted good.

Ingredients:

150g chopped fresh strawberries

100g caster sugar

250g plain flour

50g milk chocolate (chopped into chunks)

Half a tsp baking powder

Pinch salt

110g butter

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180c. Grease and line a baking tray.

2. Cream together the butter, sugar, vanilla and egg (I used my stand mixer, scraping around the sides as needed).

3. In a separate bowl mix together the flour, baking powder and salt.

4. Pour the bowl of flour into the creamed butter and fold together until combined.

5. Add the chopped strawberries and chocolate chunks and fold until incorporated.

6. Roll into balls and place on the baking tray. You could probably press down to flatten them slightly. I didn't as I wasn't sure how much they would spread when cooking.

7. Bake for 15-20 minutes until beginning to turn a golden colour.

Remove from oven and leave to cool.

July 2020 unboxing video

So here we are at the end of another month. This year is truly flying by despite the awfulness of COVID-19.

I've decided to take a break from doing an unboxing video in August. My heart wasn't really in it for the second part of July and it began to feel like a chore. I hate seeing myself on camera - I always look so miserable and I STILL don't know where to look to be looking at the camera properly! And far too many ermming and uhmmings for my liking. So I'm always cringing when I watch it back.

I love watching other people's unboxings so hopefully will be back to doing another video again in future but there is a lot of "stuff" going on at home at the moment that is using up my emotional energy. My insomnia has crept back into my life and so on.

Forgot to mention on the video that the Bird and Wild coffee was via Women Talking on Instagram. The others I think I have mentioned properly where the wins are from. It's been interesting to see that being back on Facebook this year after a long break, that I have managed to pick up a few wins along the way despite many many more people entering comps on Facebook compared to when I was previously properly on there several years back.

Those Facebook scams are getting truly annoying though! Seems to happen to every single comp these days where the scammers with a clone account say "You won - visit my profile". I report and block them each time they appear but it is frustrating that Facebook doesn't find a way of stopping them.

The interview / article I mention in the video was published by a local paper, The Kent Messenger and Kent Online here. I was really pleased with it because the journalist spent a long time (about an hour and a half) chatting with me on the phone - and I love talking about comping even more that comping itself! So that was a great morning. She then wrote a really balanced piece reflecting our interview.

It then went rather crazy once the piece was published with multiple news agencies getting in touch out of the blue - and I didn't like that at all. Many didn't like taking no for an answer and kept contacting me for several days. In the end I gave permission to the original journalist to pass on to their sister company and from there it appeared all over the place like The Mirror and The Daily Star.

As a natural introvert - I don't like all this attention but on the other hand I'm conscious that the driving force behind writing my two comping books was to raise awareness of and funds for Juvenile Arthritis Research and so I knew it would help with that. I was also blown away by the number of people who got in touch with me after reading the article to say how much it resonated with them with what the articles described as "the darker side" of comping. It is another reason for sharing my comping story so that others won't feel so alone if they do experience a similar situation.

Anyway, here's July's unboxing. Since filming I had the Soltan parcel arrive and also another sun protection mist from Bioderma so we should be sorted for all this sunshine we are having this week!

Hope everyone is staying safe and keeping well.

My Squeebles family by Trinity

I woke up this morning to the cutest thing and have asked Miss T if I can share on the blog which she was happy for me to do.

We are all BIG fans of the Squeebles apps from Key Stage Fun - a range of maths related and spelling apps for children. The kids have as much fun as they would if they were playing a game and I have the satisfaction of knowing the huge educational benefits of these apps.

When J was younger they enabled him to get super good at his times tables that we would know all the times tables right up to the fifteen times table totally off by heart - it was truly incredible!

The cute in-app characters are called Squeebles and Miss T decided to create our whole family as Squeebles. I love every single one of these that she has created:

Daniel as a Squeeble is called Danny Boy 5:

Favourite food is chocolate
Favourite hobby is cuddling cats
Interesting fact: Danny Boy 5 gets on really well with other cats.

Trinity as a Squeeble is called Trinity the Greatest 2000:

Favourite food is chocolate cake
Favourite hobby is being a giraffe
Interesting fact: Trinity the Greatest 2000 is part giraffe.

Mummy as a Squeeble is called Mummy:

Favourite food is lasagne
Favourite hobby is comping
Interesting fact: Mummy once won a trip to the World's best restaurant.

Daddy as a Squeeble is called Daddy:

Favourite food is chocolate
Favourite hobby is cuddling Trinity the Greatest 2000
Interesting fact: Daddy is a scientist.

Joshua as a Squeeble is called JCB:

Favourite food is Pepperoni Pizza
Favourite hobby is Crossy Road (obvs!)
Interesting fact: JCB broke the world record on Crossy Road and never stops eating.

4 month isolation milestone

Today marks our 4 month isolation milestone. 4 months without proper contact with the outside world. 4 months without having gone into any kind of shop or building other than our own home.

Many things day to day are the same as in our 3 month isolation update but in the past couple of weeks, I've just felt more fed up. Not fed-up of being isolated as in truth, there is not too much that I feel I miss as such. As an introvert, I can keep myself busy at home and feel sufficiently connected with friends via messages and zoom calls at the moment. But just fed-up that the covid situation is dragging on when things could/should have improved more by this point. I have a feeling we are heading into a time of divide again where some people won't feel comfortable with the easing of lockdown and returning to "normality" whilst others are desperately wanting or needing to get out and about again. So I hope that we will all be able to respect each others opinions and decisions during this time as everyone is navigating new territory.

I certainly don't miss grocery shopping which always felt like a chore. During this time we've actually managed to work out the precise amount of milk, bread and essentials that we need from one week to the next so all those little in-between trips to the local shop we used to do won't be necessary in future either.

We are disinfecting the grocery deliveries when they arrive so that is a "new" chore that we didn't have in pre-covid times and that can take well over an hour each time to do. We are also re-thinking hygiene all around the house ready for when we may have visitors in future - so shoes are strictly to be removed in the porch only. This is something we tend to do ourselves but it is harder to insist for others to do. We've been super strict with not even taking 1 step beyond the porch whilst wearing shoes.

I've ordered new handtowels so that we have plenty for washing even more regularly than we do at the moment. I am thinking of doing a 1-use and wash small towel system in our downstairs loo, I used to do this when I was childminding and it helped with good hygiene.

We have hand sanitiser by the front door so once we put our shoes on we can use that to clean our hands when leaving the house, and we all wash our hands thoroughly when we get back indoors.

The other thing I haven't missed at all is catching all the normal illnesses - all the little coughs, colds, tummy bugs etc. and avoiding nits. It's something I remember being a big plus point of when we homeschooled previously. Although hayfever seems to have been bad at times this year in our family, it has been brilliant not to have caught any illnesses because of not coming into contact with anyone else.

So this past month we've had the one year anniversary of Miss T's tooth trauma, Father's day, J's 16th birthday, and plenty more baking and crafting adventures.

I know a lot of people may be using this time for armchair travelling planning places to visit in future or just seeing wonderful places at the click of the button on the internet. We've found ourselves so thankful for this little blog where we've kept so many of our travel memories so we've been using our previous blogposts to reminisce.

Going out mainly in the evening continues to be our norm and J has been running regularly again with D joining in for some walks.

The photos have ended up in a rather random order, but we also have the new section of patio more or less finished (needs a bit of cleaning up and then made to look nice with garden furniture and accessories).

And our raspberries have remained fruitful meaning that we've had to find even more ways of using them so we made another batch of our raspberry and chocolate muffins (using white chocolate this time). We've also added them to scones using this recipe with raspberries added in place of sultanas. And of course raspberries are great in smoothies too like the unicorn smoothie we made.

I've included photos of our chocolate dipped strawberries too as they remind me of happier times from last summer. After one of Miss T's hospital appointments in London we headed to Harrods as I had a voucher to use. A Harrod's voucher doesn't stretch very far but we thought it would be a fun experience for Miss T. It was rather too busy for our liking but Miss T chose a cuddly toy and then in the chocolate department she had her heart set on a cone of chocolate dipped strawberries.

However much I tried to convince her that £10 for 5 strawberries really wasn't worth it, she really really wanted them. We got the strawberries and enjoyed every mouthful. At the time I still hadn't felt it was worth the price tag but it's funny how perceptions change over time.

Now I look back so fondly at that memory and it makes me smile.

So recreating our own chocolate dipped strawberries brought back the memories from that day - but at a fraction of the cost.

At the start of all this back in March when we began our isolation, I honestly thought that by June and July time we would all be emerging slowly and cautiously into a covid-free country. Sadly that is not the case. I hope that by the next milestone update, that the situation will be more positive. In the meantime, we continue to take one day at a time and remain truly grateful to all those amazing keyworkers getting us through these difficult times.

Unicorn smoothie

I've wanted to have a go at making a layered smoothie for a while. I have a vague recollections of managing to make two tone ones a few years back by making sure one layer was a lot thicker than the other. Avocado smoothie as the bottom layer and peach smoothie on top. Vanilla oats smoothie on the bottom and berry on top etc.

So being at home, this was the perfect opportunity to try a smoothie with more layers.

After a spot of googling, it turns out that it is best to freeze between layers to ensure they don't mix together.

So I started with a base of banana smoothie blending together a banana and milk. I saved this across 4 smaller containers.

Taking one of the containers, I tipped it back into my blender and added blueberries. This gave us the purple layer at the bottom of the smoothie.

This was poured into a glass and popped into the freezer. A quick rinse of the blender and then I added the next portion of banana smoothie along with a handful of strawberries and blend.

I poured it into the glass once the purple layer was sufficiently set to stop the layers from bleeding together. Then repeated with raspberries (This didn't give a huge colour variation so you could try cherries instead?) And the final layer was our final portion of banana smoothie.

The horn and ears were made of greaseproof paper and edible marker pen although as it didn't touch the smoothie any clean paper and a felt pen should be ok. A squirt of aerosol cream and a sprinkle of edible glitter gives the final magical touch.

We made another batch of our raspberry and chocolate muffins (this time using white chocolate) and this was the perfect drink to accompany them.

June 2020 unboxing

So after a few trials and tribulations I finally managed to rescue my June unboxing video from my ancient iPad (which itself was a prize win from many years ago). Anyway, here it is!

I've had a strange month emotionally again - I blame the COVID situation! At times, I've really enjoyed this hobby and at other times I've felt the negative feelings creeping in and feeling like the balance of enjoying it and NEEDING it to get through the day is shifting.

But that's what we've been doing, getting through each day, one day at a time.

I've had times when I really didn't want to do an unboxing video at all but I know I really enjoy watching other peoples so ended up doing one after all. The video is a combination of both video and some still photos. I felt lucky with Father's day comps this year winning some random draws including some fab clothes for Richard and some T-shirts for my little nephew.

We've been busy with a garden re-vamp so I'll be on the lookout for anything garden related over coming months - especially garden furniture but also accessories and plants or garden centre type vouchers. I'd love to be tagged in any you see and if you have anything specific you want to be tagged in, let me know and I'll tag in return! My handles are:
@Rebeccabeesley on Instagram and
@TheBeesleyBuzz on Twitter.

Hope that July is a good month for you all!

Links to the books I mention are as follows (all proceeds go to Juvenile Arthritis Research charity):

The Crossy Road King turns 16! Happy 16th Birthday Josh!

Dear Joshua,

You came into our lives 16 years ago on a stormy night at 2.30am. You certainly kept us waiting. 9 days late beyond your due date and after a whopping 72 hours in labour, you eventually shot into the world like a rocket that night. And life has never been quiet since!

From the moment you were born, we couldn't remember life without you. We used to think back to memories of holidays and things we'd done previously and it was like you were there with us in our memories because we just couldn't remember what life without you was like.

You kept us on our toes from the outset. I remember you sleeping well until you were two weeks old. And then everything changed and you didn't sleep well for about 13 or 14 years after that. It is only in the past couple of years that you settle to sleep a lot better. No-one warned me about that!

One of my friends described having a new baby like having a little stranger come and live with you and you have to get to know them over time. So you were our little stranger and you were always on the go. Never stopping. Never sitting still.

Always super intelligent. Little did we know then just how intelligent! As our firstborn we had no idea that it wasn't normal to know ALL the numbers on an advent calendar at just 18 months old. We didn't realise it wasn't normal to be able to add and subtract a string of numbers in your head at just 3 years old.

It was only as part of the assessments around the time of your ASD diagnosis aged around 5 that the doctors told us that your IQ level was beyond that of a 16 year old which was all their scales measured up to. And now you are 16 and you can easily outwit the rest of us put together!

We are so very proud of you Josh. More than you will truly ever know. We know you have had to overcome so many challenges. We know that some days things will be more of a challenge for you than other days and we are not always as patient as we should be. We don't always get it right. Sorry. But please know that we love you immensely and always have and always will.

Since Trinity came along, you've shown what a brilliant big brother you are - caring and kind. Of course, you are big brother to Daniel too but you were just a baby when he was born so it's like he's always been part of your life. These days Daniel appreciates having his big brother to encourage him and help him with running and gaming - the hobbies you share together.

Of course we are proud of what you've achieved at school but also of your extra-curricular activities like your running and your volunteering with Park Run and Boys Brigade and Summer holiday church club. All of which put you out of your comfort zone and yet you still do it and do it so well.

I suppose at this stage, we should also mention a bit more about your other big love - gaming! And yes we are proud of you being the World Record holder of the Highest score on Crossy Road.

Did we ever think we'd have any kind of world record holder in our family? No. But did we always know that you would be capable of achieving anything you set you mind to? Yes - without a doubt.

When you were a toddler, people used to comment that you used to think of doing things that wouldn't even occur to other children of your age (usually related to climbing somewhere you shouldn't or escaping to somewhere you shouldn't). We fought so hard for you at school to be understood. We sided with you when the teachers just didn't get it. In the end we realised that most the time you were being held back academically because the teachers couldn't keep up with you! I remember you complaining to me that you'd finish your work and that they wouldn't let you move onto the next page of your workbook. That's just insane. No wonder you thrived with homeschooling! And when you went back to school - to schools that understood and knew what you were capable of - well just look how amazing you have been and still are!!!

So your 16th birthday has been a bit strange. We couldn't go out for your usual McDonald's so we made our own at home. And I couldn't home-bake you a cake like we normally do but we managed to make the shop-bought cake themed in a way you liked.

And now you have a whole new chapter ahead of you. A-levels and beyond. And we know you'll smash it Josh. Happy birthday 16 year old!

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