Auntie Time

As part of my extended family I'm very lucky to a) have a niece and nephew and b) be able to see them plenty. My brother sees them every other weekend and comes to stay at my mum's house, meaning that I am able to see them at the same time and Bubbah gets to spend time with his cousins, which he adores. They're all within a good age range of each other (Bubbah is two, my nephew is 3 and my niece is 6 next month) which means they can play together nicely and Bubbah loves following them about trying to join in their games. My niece has fallen quite easily into the eldest cousin role of keeping the peace and making sure they play nicely in that tongue in cheek bossy way young children can do so well.





I absolutely love seeing my niece and nephew so much, having been very involved with them and seeing them on a regular basis since they were little. As such we have a close bond and I get greeted with an excited running hug and cry of "AUNTY TASH" every time they see me.




Something I like to keep up is spending proper time with them, taking interest in what they say even if it's putting together every puzzle they own and laying them out on display for the rest of the day (they have a lot of puzzles) and coming up with fun (even if a bit silly) games and activities to do. For their birthday/Christmas presents I tend to get them at least one "craft" thing as they love making stuff (and getting messy) and sometimes said then made/painted item finds it way back to me, proudly presented by a beaming child.


This Easter my brother is taking advantage of them being off school and having them for a few days before all the bank holiday madness. I'll be seeing them in this time and already have a few ideas, my main one being: pizza making! As previously said they love making things and getting messy in the process (mess always make it more fun) so I made up a couple of pizza bases for them, Bubbah and my brother (who wanted to join in too) and tomorrow I'll be lugging them and a load of topping choices over to my mum's house. They have fun, we spend time together and they get dinner out of it; everyone's a winner!