Snails and sunshine

We decided to make some more play dough as Isla is getting through it very quickly. We made some yellow play dough out of salt, flour, oil, water, cream of tartar and food colouring. It is easier to make wiggly worms using home made play dough than the bought stuff! 

Isla finished off painting her castle using the 'two-handed paintbrush' technique. We painted a blue bus on the side at her request:

It has been sunny this week! We've been out in the garden a lot:

Isla wearing a new sunhat that I made for her and just need to trim the coloured ends:

We got our baby-carrying wraps out to figure out how to actually use them! Isla liked using a scarf- wrap to carry puppy around:

 We went to a racing circuit to  have a wander around a car boot sale. The highlight was having our first outdoor ice-creams of the year:

Isla has finished off the week with a bit of a cold and telling us about her teeth bothering her at the back of her mouth. Despite this, we had a lovely day yesterday with a friend to visit in the morning and a visit to another friend in the afternoon! In the morning, the two little girls were shrieking and chasing each other around the garden, then in the afternoon Isla was trying out her friend's amazing outdoor trampoline ("jumpaline" in Isla-speak) and ride-on tractor. We saw our first butterfly of the year fluttering about, along with some bumble bees. Isla found some hazelnuts in our friend's garden. At pre-school, she helped sort out the nappies and was apparently amazed by watching a little boy having his nappy changed! She also watched them all sing a song about pirates, and ate one of the cakes that they had baked during the morning there. She helps water our seedlings at home and was excited when her runner beans germinated. She's also got up to lots of mischief, of course! Cat biscuits in the sink and huge amounts of water on the sitting room rug, as well as putting the plant support sticks into different pots amongst other things. She likes finding snail shells (she calls them sea shells) in the garden. She found a snail with a hole in his shell and told me that he was looking out his window! She found another snail that was a bit poorly and wanted her daddy to fix it....

"I don't like dinosaurs"

Since going to the zoo this week, Isla has been continually telling us that she doesn't like dinosaurs. That is because they have brought the large animatronic dinosaurs back to the zoo so it is a bit like a visit to Jurassic Park with all the loud dinosaur noises going on. She does like playing with small toy dinosaurs at pre-school, it's just the huge life size noisy ones that are a bit scary!

Here are some photos from the zoo. We saw two very cute lion cubs who played with each other a lot. Also lots of snakes, alligators, penguins etc. We were lucky to see some atlas moths in the butterfly house. I forgot the camera so we didn't get that many photos.

Earlier in the week Isla got up to all sorts of stuff. She did some drawings, then hunted for wiggly worms in the garden!

We baked some little chocolate cakes again and went crazy with the hundreds and thousands and chocolate drops:

We found some cardboard boxes to make into a castle, which will appear when we've finished painting it! Isla liked hiding in the box though:

We went to Ikea for lunch (yes we had the meat balls) and to buy a little wardrobe and came out of the shop with a toy kitchen and tent as well as the wardrobe! Isla helped her dad to 'fix things' by putting the kitchen and wardrobe together.

Hiding in her tent this morning with Molly mouse and "eating" some blue cakes (actually wardrobe feet  that we don't need) that she baked in her little kitchen:

Looking out for the bin truck this morning:

Addicted to tractors (and chocolate cake)

Spring finally feels like it has arrived! The weather has been a bit kinder to us and so we've been able to get out in the garden a bit more. Isla enjoyed chasing bubbles in the garden earlier in the week:

Chilling out with her snuggly friends:

Today the weatherman was wrong! They had predicted rain but it was sunny and warm. We went to find some tractors to play on:

....and the odd elephant to ride:

Isla helped her dad with the garden. I planted a new osteospernum and a bright magenta senetti out.

Isla also helped me with baking some mini chocolate buns. Decorating them with hundreds and thousands and other toppings was good fun! Of course some of the toppings had to be tested first to make sure they were up to standard.

We ate the chocolate cakes for pudding after a tasty bolognese this evening:

 Then it was time for Isla to ride upstairs on her spaceship for her bath before bed: