Let It Go!

Isla and Evie this morning:

Climbing trees and caterpillars

We have been enjoying the brilliant weather over the last couple of weeks. The last week of the Easter holidays was filled with visiting National Trust properties of Dyrham Park and Stourhead where the children climbed lots of trees and ran about on the grass. Isla and Evie had fun with their cousins at Stourhead and we had a great time there with colourful magnolias and rhododendrons blooming.

At Dyrham Park:

At Stourhead:

This week Isla has been back to preschool again and had a nice time with her friends doing different activities. She said her favourite part was P.E. where they practise getting changed themselves in preparation for primary school. She was pleased to tell me that she won a sticker for doing P.E. well. They were doing letter 'a' and she drew an alien. She also drew a nice picture of Evie. 

We've also been to the park, and mucking about in the garden quite a bit. Sunhats, suncream and lollypop moulds have been dug out and I have planted out sweetpea plants with fingers crossed against slugs and frosts. We potted up our sunflower plants and also planted some courgette seeds inside.

Evie has had another little bug, combined with new teeth coming through so has not been as cheerful as normal unless she is having a cuddle or following cats about.

We went for a little walk and spotted a caterpillar:

 Evie examining a 'bee' as she called it, it is only a hoverfly disguised as a bee:

Easter time

Andrew and Evie have been poorly this week, but we managed a trip to the garden centre for tractor riding and sliding.

Isla and I finished reading Enid Blyton's 'The Wishing Chair' at bedtime and so we needed to take an emergency trip to the library before the long weekend for some more reading material.... and some back-up salami supplies from the shop. We were a bit disappointed with the books at the library as they didn't have any that we were looking for. However, we did find some interesting looking ones called Usborne Very First Reading books. She chose one called 'Pirate Pat' and today she read her very first book herself!! It was a very exciting time as she sounded out the words herself. The book had one page for me to read, then the next page for her to read. She was very proud and excited to be reading by herself.

For bedtime, we have started reading Winnie the Pooh (like my dad read to me and actually the same book) and have just begun reading 'Woof!' by Alan Ahlberg which was one of my favourites. It is about a boy who turns into a dog.

We got the paints out and did some potato and carrot printing. Isla did a painting of an Easter cat and some Easter eggs. Evie liked painting with the carrots. I painted her a bee as she likes saying this a lot. She has learnt to say thank you by signing; it is a bit like blowing a kiss.

We had a day out to Bristol at the weekend. After getting feet measured and buying some smart new shoes for Isla, we showed them the suspension bridge and the Downs. Evie enjoyed eating my Nobbly Bobbly and Isla had an ice cream (and most of my Nobbly Bobbly).

At the weekend we did lots of gardening. Isla and Evie planted some cosmos and sunflower seeds. Isla said it was great fun. She wrote out the name tags for the plant pots and helped Evie water the seeds. The cosmos has germinated after a couple of days inside and the sunflowers took an extra day.

At last we made some chocolate krispie cake nests. We heated a couple of tablespoons of butter with the same of cocoa and syrup and then mixed this with some rice krispies and put some mini eggs on top. And then ate them!

We've been in the garden a lot over the weekend. 

Evie and Isla played with their fairy garden. The fairies had a swim in the sea and played at the beach.

On Easter Sunday, Isla was up bright and early and eager to see what the Easter bunny had brought for her. She found treasure hunt clues which eventually led to her Easter egg. Then she wanted to do the treasure hunt again..... and again and again! Evie got up a little later and had some chocolate egg too at 7.30 that morning.

Doing some painting:

Going for a little bike ride. We started looking at the scarecrows around the village. It is a competition trail with each scarecrow dressed up as a different character for everyone to guess. This year our favourites were the Darth vader, Bananaman, Baron Greenback and Room on the Broom scarecrows. We've been going out over the last few sunny days working our way around all forty-five of them!