Evie's first smile and Isla is a tiger

Evie gave us her first proper smile this week, when she was having a cuddle with Isla and I, just before having some milk! She then had some smiles for Andrew when he came home. I'll try to photograph a smile next time!

Isla was very happy at the weekend to have her granny Margaret and grandad glasses to play with, especially enjoying having a new shopkeeper serving her. We enjoyed the bank holiday weekend, doing gardening and eating and playing outside. Evie did quite a bit of sleeping, which meant that I could take Isla for a bike ride.

Evie gave Pob a stroke one evening. The cats had their annual vet trip today and we found they had both lost a little weight since last year! Isla jumped on the vet scales too but didn't need the flea treatment.

Yesterday, Isla went to pre-school in the morning, and Evie went to the gym for a work-out:

It was a very tough work-out:

It was pretty tiring too:

We went to pick Isla up and found that a scary tiger cub had gobbled her up, so we took it home instead. We stopped for a picnic by the park on the way:

Cuddles and cake

Isla and Evie had their last cuddles with granny Ilene and grandpa beard for a little while at the beginning of this week. We enjoyed some summery weather and so were out in the garden quite a bit. We visited the library and park for the first time as just a mum and two little girls on Monday, and then braved Morrisons today. This felt like a big scary trip out, but was actually fine! 

Isla has been enjoying playing with her happyland toys, with random creatures driving random vehicles. We were both very excited to find Applejack's friend, a small purple snail who had been lost for ages, as well as Applejack herself. Today we have been mastering dominoes and are getting the hang of playing the Peppa Pig version. This morning we made a car out of cushions, and Isla drove Violet and baby to the doctors, where the doctor (me) had to give Violet a check up. Then Isla brought puppy to the vet (me again) to be weighed and have some flea medicine put on. We are preparing ourselves for Pob's big annual weigh-in next week! I then became the shopkeeper, selling Isla many lovely items of food, and finally pre-school lady looking after Violet for a bit.

We ran out of greedy snacks this week, and so made a chocolate victoria sponge cake on Tuesday with buttercream icing and crushed flake on top. Then that evening, they were doing the same on the Great British Bake off!! But a bit more elaborately, and without toddlers to assist them. And I managed to avoid cutting either of my thumbs whilst baking a cake...

Evie has had a growth spurt this week, with a non-stop feeding frenzy on Wednesday (a very tiring day, and Isla was so patient with us both) followed by lots of sleeping today. The lovely health visitor paid us our final visit today, measuring a new weight of 10 lb 3 oz and she is certainly getting chubby cheeks (Evie, not the health visitor).

A crayfish and a butterfly

This weekend, Isla and Evie have been lucky enough to have their granny Ilene and grandpa come to visit. We have been in the garden, where caterpillars have finished off all our nasturtiums. One of our pet caterpillars which we have been keeping in a pot inside had turned into a chrysalis last week and on Sunday, granny noticed that it had turned into a cabbage white butterfly! We released it. We have been enjoying eating runner beans grown in our garden.

We went out for lunch and had some yummy fish and chips, as well as chocolate brownie. As we were walking back to the car, we passed a river where we saw a huge crayfish walking along the bottom! It was great to see a crayfish in the wild, however it was a signal crayfish introduced from the States which has out-competed out native species in many rivers.

Earlier in the week, we visited daddy at his work and went out for lunch where Isla enjoyed vanilla ice cream and warm milk for pudding, while I had some chocolate fudge cake and a cup of tea. Very greedy!

Granny took Isla to our village day, despite the rain. They saw lots of tractors and dogs and had a great time. This afternoon, we all took a stroll out in the sunshine and bumped into someone from Isla's pre-school who invited us to come and meet her ponies and excited puppy. Isla enjoyed seeing all of the animals.