a "Van Gogh" time

Saturday morning and since our coffee machine is feeling poorly, we headed to Lakeland and then treated ourselves to coffee in M&S.  Being responsible parents, we didn't give Beatrice coffee, we gave her a strawberry smoothie.  Being irresponsible parents, we just laughed at the smoothie moustache.

Then it was off to Beth's 4th birthday party.  

Last year all of the girls wanted princess parties.  This year has been so different.  It is fabulous to see their characters and personalities developing and being reflected in their choice of entertainment.  Beth requested a "Painting party".  This of course included face painting....but also body art (tattoos) and nail painting.

There were stations around the room for finger painting, sponge painting and easels for budding artists. Then each of the guests were given a mini canvas to create their own masterpiece.

There was a graffiti wall at the back of the hall.  Baby Gracie's footprints feature at the top right.

The party food brought an explosion of deliciousness and colour.

There was the opportunity to feature in your own work of art with a photo booth (manned by Granda John) where the subjects could choose from a variety of hats, wigs and props to create their perfect portrait.

A miniature Beth (created by her Mum) sat atop her cake beside an easel clutching her own little paint pallet.  After a rousing chorus of "Happy Birthday", I was delighted to capture the irony of the birthday girl with her face painted as a man eating tiger, consuming herself on the video camera.

We couldn't pass up the opportunity for a family photo!

Then the party guests created three teams who did a painting relay.  The first team member ran up to paint the blue eyes, then the next person did a red mouth....This was the winning creation.

Another perfect party courtesy of Shadam.

To watch the party click here or to revisit last years party, click here

Castle Espie

This weekend 3/5 of our household have headed up to Bushmills to join with Grif's Stag party.  Beatrice was very keen to be part of the posse and accepted, with some degree of reluctance, that it was a "boys only" party and so she couldn't go.  Of course she was rather confused when Dilly (our girl dog) was spotted packing her lead.  We reasoned that Dilly would be too sad to stay without Beans, so she could go if she pretended to be a boy.  Grif would probably not be fooled if Mummy and Bea pretended to be male, but Dilly had the acting skills to fool convince him, so with a cuddle and a pat and a "Good Boy Dilly" we waved goodbye on Friday night.

That left us with a canine free Saturday, so we ventured to Castle Espie, with two other uninvited girls.

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Castle Espie is a bird sanctuary that would not welcome two enthusiastic chocolate doggies leaping over their fences and trying to eat the Brent geese.  It did however welcome us most warmly.

Our first adventure was at the duck ponds, where according to local legend, some of the ducks were tame enough to eat the seed from your hand.  We almost believed this tale as one particularly friendly duck began his approach to us.  Unfortunately neither of the girls was sufficiently tame to hand feed him, so we were unable to discover the truth of this myth by scientific study.

Then we began the trail to the hide, trying to spot our "I spy" ducks on the way (I spy a duck swimming....I spy a duck preening...I spy a duck sleeping)   

The website warns us that we are to be very quiet in the hides, so I shared this information with Beatrice on the approach.  With whispers we opened the door to be greeted with the shrieks of a pack of Brownies.  Thankfully we could not have made more noise than them.  In the hide we secured a bird check list (2 points for a black headed gull - 8 points for a Brent goose) and stole some binoculars from the Brownies.  We immediately put them to good use and spotted a black headed gull.  This lowest scoring bird was the highlight of our ornithological adventures.  Beatrice did however decree that we were "bird spies and must only speak in French" which made our stay in the hide most entertaining (as one of us has GCSE French and the other has watched Peppa Pig)

Then it was off to try our hand at pond dipping.  Honestly, the excitement when we found a fly with drippy wet wings as immense!

To discover the stone age secrets of the past the mini archeologists got to brush gravel off information signs.  GENIUS!

Then it was into a canoe to watch the ducklings swim past.  We spotted eight here and zero in the duckery.

I feel it is time to insert some jumping photos so that you too can admire Bea's new welly boots and her jumper.

After a lovely picnic lunch, we played for 15 minutes in the soft play "pond room" until the rain shower abated, then it was off to "Stoat town" and a "Swamp walk".  When asked what kind of animal lives in a swamp Beatrice replied "Shrek".  She was then somewhat disappointed when we saw a swamp but couldn't find an ogre.

We did however find this friendly chap, who made me think of godswoods and want to read a bit more of my Game of Thrones book.  So I'm off to do just that.