Owls eat bagels

Doesn't time fly. Since my last blog, our days have been filled with Evie blowing raspberries constantly and chatting goo goo gah gahs at us, and with Isla bouncing about like a tigger.

Isla has been painting with autumn leaves, and making butterfly paintings:

 and washing up the paint pots:

We've been going for lots of autumnal walks:

and doing gluey craftiness:

Evie sometimes wears proper tops and bottoms during the day instead of just sleepsuits:

Isla chose a princess sticker after having her teeth checked at the dentists, and we had a yummy lunch out to celebrate no fillings:

Evie at tummy time:

Evie has a quick go in the door bouncer for the first time:

We made some 'snow dough' (4 cups flour mixed with 1/2 cup oil) which amused Isla for ages. It is like wet sand and was good for making castles and scooping up

Pirate Isla entertaining Evie with Jess the cat:

Isla and Andrew's den:

Evie's curl:

On Halloween, Isla and I pretended to be owls flying round the garden. Apparently owls eat bagels so we had to pretend we were catching and eating those. She enjoyed watching Spooky Buddies, a film about puppies dressing up for Halloween.

We had a mini firework display in our garden in two instalments. Isla wasn't sure about them. We moved inside to watch from the dining room with Isla on my lap. In the second instalment, Isla's face lit up when we watched the catherine wheel from the living room. We also saw our local firework display from our house, it was quite impressive with big bangs. When we go to Tumble Tots we all sit in a circle to talk about what we've been doing at the weekend at the beginning of the session. Isla explained to everyone how we had watched the fireworks 'with help from mummy to see them from inside' and how they went 'boom'. Everyone thought her description was very funny! I was very proud of her speaking out in front of the whole group. She also was brilliant at climbing a very high 'pirate ladder' and going on the rest of the equipment.

We had a trip to the park this week to go on the swings. We met a friend with lovely dogs which Isla stroked and played ball with. We saw a little boy dressed as a bat. We joined a Rugby Tots session at the pre-school. On the way home, Evie was famished and the only place to stop was the local church for a feed and an apple. Isla liked the 'echo' in the church.

We had a long-awaited trip to the library this week and chose some new books. So far we have read 'The Highway Rat' but have several more to look at. I found a 'Make with Maisy' craft book with ideas in it. Isla helped Andrew make some bread rolls and we also made some krispie marshmallow bars too! We had a visit from Isla's friend D one afternoon. The two girls played with Happyland, play dough, drawings, aqua doodle and started playing 'shopping list' in the two hours together, interspersed with checking us all (mums, toddlers, babies and snugglers) at the doctors with a stethoscope, and racing up and down the hall with the buggy!

Today it has been rainy again and Isla and Andrew went swimming together. This was VERY exciting for Isla and she was zooming around the pool with her arm bands like a little speedy duckling.

Dentist visit and a big pink octopus

Today we went to soft play in the morning. Isla liked going on the green slide best of all, into the ball pit and she managed to find lots of ways of going down the slide. Every time she got to the bottom, she said 'agin' meaning again, and so I helped her out of the ball pit and off she toddled to climb up and go down the slide many, many times!

There was a big pink octopus to climb up too, with a slidey side to slip down onto a friendly crab:

There was a dolphin to ride on too, which is a good skill to learn before visiting Spain next:

After having fun with the sea creatures, we went to visit the dentist. I had been talking to her a lot about what to expect, and Isla reminded me that she had watched Peppa Pig go to the dentist on the t.v. Peppa Pig's dentist is an elephant and Isla kept telling me that we'd go to the dentist and 'elephant come to check teeth'. I think she was much more excited to see her actual dentist than an elephant though! Isla was very good and helped her dentist, who is also her daddy, to examine my teeth. She pressed the button to make the dental chair go back, and she kept saying 'Isla help daddy check teeth' and wanted to stick a mirror in my mouth. She also pulled random things off the dentist table and passed them to her daddy. She didn't mind when the sucky things got switched on. When it was her turn, she sat in the chair and lay back, and opened her mouth for the dentist to have a good look. It was all very exciting, and she chose a Thomas the Tank Engine sticker at the end from Sam the nurse. Afterwards, we went to Pizza Express for a yummy pizza and Chocolate Fudge Cake for pudding. And then went and brushed our teeth of course......... ;)