In our garden

Today we spent a lot of time in the garden. Granny helped Isla get some water and Isla spent some time pretend painting the garage door. They also did lots of real painting and secret ice cream eating when I wasn't looking! They went to the park too and had various tea parties and played at shops.

We have a few extra pets these days: a grasshopper in a jar and some caterpillars on the nasturtium leaves. Here are the caterpillars, which hatched yesterday and today:

The caterpillars hatched from yellow eggs:

They will turn into cabbage white butterflies. As well as nasturtiums, we have tomato plants which have just started to set:

We also have some triffid-like courgette plants and we ate the first courgettes from them this evening with our dinner:

The rest of the vegetable patch/sunny flower bed is looking nice too:

My wiggling belly

Below is a video of Isla's sister wiggling about and wanting to join in with Isla's fun at 41 weeks!

Playing and drawings

MONDAY

Isla enjoyed visiting some friends yesterday for ice lollies and playing with many peppa pig and hello kitty toys and a thomas tank engine train set. She read some books to her doll and her granny in the afternoon as well as playing shops. We made some chocolate fairy cakes in the morning, to take to our friends' house however there are not many left to show you. Isla helped crack the eggs in the bowl (this caused great excitement!) and spooning flour in too. She was very insistent that these cakes didn't need to go into the oven and would be ready immediately after spooning the mix into the cake cases, however that is not the way of the cake. Her other main role after they came out the oven was testing the icing and and sprinkles before, during and after they were put on the cakes. 

TUESDAY

Today Isla went to pre-school after some scrambled egg for breakfast. She repeatedly told me that she didn't want to go and that today wasn't Tuesday, but she gave me about a billion kisses when I dropped her off and kept coming back for hugs until I really had to go. She had a wonderful time, of course. When I picked her up, I snuck in to watch her before she saw me, and she was enthralled by a storybook being read out to all of the children. She told me afterwards that she had enjoyed pre-school and said 'thank you for taking me to pre-school today mummy can I go back on monday and tuesday please'.

After lunch, Isla did some drawings with her felt tip pens and stuck her new stickers on to make some lovely art work. As well as this, she made a special sword out of the felt tip pens.

Isla's felt tip sabre in action:

Isla's picture of an African jungle with a lion and some elephants at a watering hole, a penguin in the sea and a special dog in the park:

Isla's picture of a bee in a flower along with a lot of sparkly dogs:

Our tribute to the new prince:

This afternoon, we enjoyed some snacks of cakes (the ones Isla made yesterday), apple and nectarine in the lovely garden:

A cooler day

Today is a bit cooler and not as sunny outside. We went to Dyrham park to show granny the tadpoles, however in the 10 days since we were last there, all the tadpoles had turned into frogs and jumped out of the lake! Instead, we found some fish in a different pond (which Isla tried to fish for with a little straw rod) and also saw dragonflies and the swan. Isla had great fun running up and down the grass after our delicious picnic. We found some trees to hide in while waiting for the bus, and saw oranges growing in the....... orangery of course! After our trip on the bus back up to the car park, we stopped for delicious ice cream at the Marshfield Farm ice cream parlour. I was very greedy and had a rocky road sundae, Isla and Andrew had chocolate fudge brownie ice cream and granny had raspberry pavlova. There was lots to do there as well as eat ice cream - there were tractors for Isla to play on, puzzles to do, and we had a look at the calves on the farm too. I think we will be going back there again very soon!

Picnics, chocolate cake and grannies

Isla out fishing in the paddling pool with puppy:

A trip to Dyrham Park where we saw loads and loads of deer:

A picnic at Dyrham park:

A caterpillar on the grass:

A waddler by the lake:

A tadpole in the lake:

Looking at all the baby frogs:

Granny chasing Isla about:

A HUGE chocolate tray bake we baked:

Our dining room with hot tub!

Kiwi flowers in our garden:

Isla painting stuff in the garden:

One of the roses flowering in our garden:

A picnic in the park with granny: