Village day and some rainy walks

Last week we had a couple of lovely lunches out. We went to an American diner for a very loud lunch of hot dogs and fries with lots of onion rings, and also had lunch out with Natalie in a village pub when she came to stay.

Here is Isla at the diner:

At our local village day we enjoyed watching the procession of tractors and floats before looking at the stalls, admiring the dressed-up horses and vegetable competition entries (rhubarb as tall as trees and very long runner beans!) as well as riding in spinning tea cups:

It's been a rainy few weekends but we just put on our coats and went to the park anyway!

At home, Evie has been walking around carrying various things particularly felt tip pens. Isla has been playing doctors quite a bit, with puppy under a special blanket while he gets better. We planted some cress seeds in decorated egg shells and the cress grew quite quickly. 

We went to the outdoor playgroup again and had a fun 'snail' themed session. First of all we had to look for snails around the plants and collected huge quantities. Then we watched them moving along, and were told about snails having their mouth in their foot. We had 'The Snail and the Whale' as a story and then went to deposit the snails away from all of the vegetables at the other side of the park. After that, the children were given some clay and made snails and also had a snail picture to colour in later on. We had a nice snaily morning before having a sandwich at the park where an older girl demonstrated how to use a skipping rope to Isla!

We've been getting out in the garden as much as possible, although it's been colder and Evie is now into vests to keep her snuggly.

Over the Bank Holiday weekend we had quite a bit of rain but luckily Natalie was staying to keep us entertained. We went for a couple of walks, one to the river and one to collect blackberries much to Isla's delight.

The rest of this week we have mainly been messing about at home and going to the park. Oh, and we baked a delicious Devil's Food Cake which was yumtastic. And we have been visiting the library and reading lots of brilliant books including 'Alice in Wonderland', a book about pirate cats and a book about a pirate family. We have been doing some more crafty things too: Isla had a go at sewing and we made a small bag for her to carry home her various leaves and twigs she finds out on walks. We used one of Evie (and Isla's) old baby gros as fabric and were inspired by Red Ted Art.

We have also made a paper shark, and a big crab collage from painted lasagne pasta this week!