Easter weekend at the beach and a new tooth

On Thursday, after some playing at home, we went for a big walk to the park. We had a little picnic and Isla got chased around by a little boy which made them both squeal a lot. 

Evie has really been enjoying eating raspberries and happily squishes them with her thumb.

Isla spends a lot of time playing with her cuddly toys ('snugglers') at the moment. She makes up all sorts of stories with them rescuing each other, going to school, and having check ups at the doctors. 

On Friday we went for a walk beyond the park to a forest. We went down a track past some sheep with lambs. At the forest, there was a bluebell dell and it was very quiet amongst the tall pine trees. On the way back, we stopped at the park again, and were the first ones on the new swings!

Back at home, I made some millionaire's shortbread and Isla helped lick the chocolate bowl.

On Saturday, we went to the beach. There was a pretty coastal walk and a great view of steep holm and flat holm islands in the Bristol channel. After our walk, Isla was jumping up and down when she saw an ice cream van!

Then we went on the sandy beach and did some digging, shell hunting and quad copter flying. It was Evie's first time on the sand and she liked feeling it on her toes and fingers, before having a snooze on the beach.

On Sunday, Isla ate some chocolate eggs. She started eating chocolate at 7ish in the morning! She enjoyed decorating some wind up eggs while Evie did lots of bouncing.  This morning Evie woke up with a tooth poking out of her gums.

Cat birthdays, a walk in the woods and a very big expedition

Pob and Monty become another year older this week. Isla made them both cards with feathers on and pictures of a mouse, a bird and a rabbit that she thought they would like. We gave the cats a new toy and lots of strokes throughout the day as well as a few extra biscuits!

We have been going for some nice little walks in the sunshine. Isla pretends we have to watch out for gruffalos in the woods and we all enjoyed seeing the ponies and feeding them some hay. Their names are Millie, Cherry and Crystal. Although sometimes I call the two ponies Cheska and Binky when I forget what they are really called.

It has been great to sit out in the garden, and Evie likes playing on the rug as well as in the ball pit.

Yesterday we visited Westonbirt Arboretum and walked around looking at Gruffalo trail signs. These weren't really that exciting and the ambience of the lovely forest was spoilt a bit by the noise of motocross a few fields away! The new playground with brilliant pirate ship was excellent and Isla really enjoyed it. The trees in the arboretum were as amazing as ever, with lots of camellias and magnolias out in flower. Just spotted one or two colourful rhododendrons. We had a picnic lunch and Isla put some tiles on a wooden shelter.

Today we went for a short wander to the shop to replenish our salami stocks (Isla's favourite food along with grapes) and met our friend with her two dogs. She reminded us about a nice walk past a sewerage works nearby and so we thought we'd try that out in the afternoon after some pizza and a good old jump on the trampoline. The walk took a couple of hours and Isla managed it with lots of piggy backs and a shoulder carry, while Evie had her first ride in the back pack carrier and fell asleep towards the end. We saw lots of animals on our walk: cows, sheep and horses. We found some pond skaters in a puddle and Isla said "look at those wrigglers in the sea". 

Our reward at the end of the walk was an ice lolly - Isla's first of the year!