Planting seeds and a pompom hat

Last week was lovely and sunny so we made the most of it in the garden with Natalie. We did some actual playing with the sand pit and lots of chasing about and see sawing.

Isla found a little fly. If you're wondering about the hat, it's an octonauts one that we made:

Evie likes sitting up and playing with toys now. She has started doing a lot of rocking when she is sat up and can move backwards around the floor on her tummy. She enjoys a little music group we go to. Isla joined us for it this week as she was too poorly for pre-school and slept all day long. Evie has been very content and is really enjoying her food especially yoghurts. She tried raspberries for the first time and also met her first rabbit and guinea pig today at a friend's house. She's stopped saying a-boo all the time now and instead says awaawaawaa a lot. Evie loves standing up and laughs when you tickle her tummy and chin, make funny noises at her or let her grab your nose! She's started to get a bit scared of the hoover though.

Pob overseeing the playing:

Our gardening has begun again for the year. Isla planted lots of seeds last week and they have all germinated this week. We have tomato plants, courgette plants, pumpkins and runner beans. Isla had another birthday party to attend at the weekend. They had a bouncy castle, party games (Isla won musical statues again!) and hats and branches to decorate with colourful pom poms. Our decorated branch is on display for all to see:

We made a pithivier using our left over roast chicken. Isla helped brilliantly with the egg wash:

Isla having some puff pastry and pulling a face:

As well as our normal seed growing, we are running a couple of experiments. First of all, we have a runner bean growing in a jar so we can watch it germinating. The jar is a bit small so it will be interesting to see what happens to the shoot. We also have some "fairy" seeds and cress growing and today we set up some carrot tops in water to see if they will grow. Isla is much better than me at remembering to water the plants everyday, so this year we might actually use our own tomato plants to put in the garden rather than killing the seedlings off and buying plants like last year!

Evie is loving the door bouncer and now does proper jumps in it like a baby kangaroo! She bounces all over the place and is very funny to watch.

Sitting out in the garden..... at last!

Now that it's finally stopped raining we have been getting out in the garden a lot. Evie has been sitting out on a rug, feeling grass for the first time, pulling it out, and tasting it along with some mud too! She is back to making lovely raspberry noises and her favourite toy seems to be the ties on my jumper. She also loves putting things in and out of the picnic basket and cups.

Isla's been a bit poorly and avoided pre-school this week, although we have been to the garden centre and to friend's houses for some painting and sticking, as well as out to lunch with daddy on a foggy Friday. Will tell you more about our gardening later as a delicious curry is waiting for me!!!

Evie with dog ears for 'do your ears hang low' song. We were doing it too, honest!

Elvis Evie:

Happy 3rd Birthday Isla!

It was Isla's birthday yesterday and we were all very excited! She opened some presents in the morning. We gave her a trampoline, some books (Winnie in Space, Aliens love underpants, Peppa pig in space) and Kwazi's pad (from Octonauts). She was excited to see her granny Margaret and grandad David later in the morning and was given a doctor's set. We were all given check-ups many times. Then we decorated the sitting room with balloons and bunting and waited for Isla's friends to arrive after lunch:

At Isla's party they decorated masks and hats with feathers and sparkly stickers, jumped on the trampoline and played hide-and-seek before having some snacks and birthday cake!

Visit from Granny and Grandpa and lots of parties!

Last week my mum and dad came to visit, which was lovely! It coincided with my birthday so that made it extra special. In the morning, Isla and Evie and I took a little visit to the aquarium to have a look at the fish. It was a bit dark and very busy, but we saw some nice fish, a lobster and a big octopus. There were loads of seahorses there too.

We had a nice quiet time with my parents, making crumble at home and just playing. We have since had loads of birthday parties to attend. Almost three-year olds have hectic social calendars!