Visiting the Reindeer

This week, Isla has had lots of fun visiting reindeer at the local garden centre:

No, not those ones!! REAL reindeer:

They were called Moonbeam and Starlight, so don't think they are the ones that actually pull the big man's sleigh. They were very nice though. The garden centre was very exciting because of all the Christmas lights to look at. There were also some tractors to play on:

After our trip to the garden centre, we travelled on to have lunch with Andrew at Pizza Express.....mmmm yum! With pudding.

Also this week we visited Isla's Granny and Grandad at their house but the camera was out of battery so no photos from us :( Isla loved their Christmas tree, especially the boat and the little wooden santas. We spent quite a bit of time taking the decorations on and off the tree and admiring the lights. We also played with cars and duplo trains. Isla fell in the car box at one stage, which was a bit traumatic. It is a big car box. We had a delicious steak pie for lunch........yum again! We are doing well with lunches this week.

The rest of the week, we have been to toddler group and also playing in the garden with the cats:

This morning Isla helped her daddy to make some pizza dough and also some gingerbread men, owls, christmas trees and stars. They are very impressive. Isla got distracted halfway through by the grapes in the fruitbowl next to her and gorged herself. She certainly has her father's grape gene.

Putting up the Christmas tree

Hello! It's been ages since I last put any pictures on here. That's mainly because Isla's been a bit poorly with a virus and sore teeth at the same time. Here's what we've been up to!

We've been doing stuff at home, building towers, having picnics with Pob, and going for walks:

On Wednesday, Andrew and Isla went to soft play while I did some Christmas shopping! 

On Saturday, we put our Christmas tree up! 

In the afternoon we went on a walk. We saw two lovely dogs, a horse which was very friendly and a bit too interested in Isla's legs, and also a tractor. 

Today is Sunday. We went for a wintry frosty walk this morning. Unfortunately, it was fairly hazardous as there was a raging torrent across our path. We managed to get across though.

The raging torrent

A sheep with lots of sticks stuck to it

Andrew wading across the raging torrent on the way back

Isla's Christmas Advent Train

Gingerbread owls and men

It's been so rainy this week! Good for puddles though. 

On Tuesday we went to Daddy's work and had lunch with him and all his colleagues. On the way in the car Isla kept saying 'see Daddy' and she was very excited to see him when he finished his morning's work! We had a wander around town afterwards and bought some cookie cutters for use later that day.......when we decided to make some gingerbread men (and owls). I used this gingerbread recipe  but with the addition of an egg  to make the dough stick together a bit. Also didn't put in stem ginger or cayenne pepper (!) and the men and owls were yummy. We also bought a couple of christmassy cookie cutter shapes so will be doing some more biscuity type things for Christmas time! Exciting!!

Isla pondering her aquadoodle drawing

Getting a bit close to the camera!

Isla rolling out some gingerbread dough

Making gingerbread men and owls with our new cutters

Our finished creations! We were too hungry to decorate them.

On Wednesday we all enjoyed making some music and going for a walk to check out the puddles. We had delicious lamb shanks for dinner from our old 'Casa Mexicana' recipe. Today is Thursday and Isla is napping after a morning at toddler group. Our local pre-school were doing activities with us today: we made some jam tarts, did some songs and listened to a story. I suggested that we sing Old MacDonald and Isla piped up that there should be a cow on the farm. So we sang about it. Isla also cooked me a plastic green pepper.

Isla's band

A puddle!

A HUGE puddle