Dinosaur

Today della made a dinosaur. This is it... 

Bye bye della

This weekend simon has taken della on the train to visit gran Helen. I picked a very excited PC Collins up from nursery (she made her police hat at nursery that morning) and took her to the station to start her adventures.

Them she waited for daddy to collect his tickets... 

Then time to run to the toilet...

And finally a big kiss and cuddle bye bye.

For now I'm enjoying some quiet time while della gets up to some adventures with daddy and gran Helen. I'm looking forward to her telling me all about them tomorrow. 

Gym club

Every Tuesday morning we go to gym club. It has a 12 month waiting list, I can see why, della loves it!

They have all the adult equipment and after an organised warm up it is a complete free for all. Today we learnt about using your arms to balance. 

Here della is bouncing on the trampoline 

Here she does some swinging on the rings... 

Then some running and bouncing, of course... 

Another Sunday afternoon

Another trip to the allotment... 

A morning at the park

Anna has been staying with us this weekend. This morning we headed out to the park to play...

From the drafts folder...

It turns out that I sometimes write blog posts and then forget to even post them. So here is one with pictures from about three months ago!

At last, bootsale season is back!

Cutting veg can be the most fun in the world, ever!

Comfy in her chair at Gran Anne's

Eating biscuits her friend Asta

Eating biscuits with her friends Asta and Henry

Sharing - well done Della

Excited about reading with Granda

The same but different

When we had our American chums stay someone left a copy of Vanity Fair magazine in the lounge. For the days after everyone left it was of great amusement to Della. The high end fashion photography caused her much amusement with questions like:

What's that funny hat for?
They are cuddling with no clothes?
Look, she has an owl on her arm... And so on...

It also made her properly realise that not everyone is the same. She commented (while looking at the best dressed pages) that one man had a brown face but the other people had yellow faces. In the following film (sorry - quite a long one) she reviews the fashion of the best dressed people and tells us that Beyonce has a yellow face, not a brown one.

After the forest...

We went to stay with Grandma and Granda for the night.

 

Della was very excited to see that Granda had built her a sand box. She loves to build sandcastles - they have a sand pit at nursery and I'm convinced she spends her outdoor time there either climbing up steps or building sandcastles. She also remembers the times we have been to the beach by recalling things such as 'cold water' and 'Della chilly'.

 

 

 

We also went scrumping. Finding food for free is always exciting but this time Granda took us to a play where he used to play as a teenager. Him and Simon proceeded to climb tree's (like they were in fact teenagers again) and collected a bumper stash of very lovely plums. We also bagged a considerable amount of very sweet and pleasant blackberries - bring on the crumble. 

Happy birthday Granda

Last weekend it was Granda Len's birthday. We met with GranAnne and Granda in Hamsterly forest which is in Co Durham. We had a brilliant day!  

No birthday party is complete without party hats, a picnic and a cake!!

Obviously, Gordon didn't miss out on the adventure and fun

Della likes to pull her funny face at us as she knows it will always make us laugh!

My favourite picture of the day...

pretending to be birds with party hat shadow beaks and coat wings

Ready with burning candles to sing happy birthday 

Then time for a plodge in some pretty chilly water!

Then an explore in the woods looking for mushrooms

The funny face that makes us chuckle!

A little fall

We went to the park the other day and in a fit of excitement, shouting 'look Mammy' after just going down the big slide on her tummy Della came a cropper. 

She fell onto her face and mouth and although was a very brave girl letting me finish my conversation with a friend, I quickly realised she was bleeding from her lips and mouth. It has settled down now but was clearly very sore. Her gums were black and blue for a little bit... 

So after that we spent the day cutting and sticking on the living room floor giving lots of cuddles...

It was fun. 

After everyone left...

We didn't really know what to do, so we went to the pub.

Back in York 2

Bluet and Della did lots of good playing in York and Della very much enjoyed playing with Caroine too. 

After Breakfast

 the boys took the girls into town to see some training at the railway museum. Apparently they liked it lots. After their visit me and Emily met them at the Lamb and Lion which has a very nice beer garden over looking the walls and the minster. It has some interesting church pews in the garden which provided a perfect place to play (and for Bluet) play with the stones.

We ate some lovely food 

Then while Ben and Emily had a stroll round town Della and Bluet did some more bonding in the garden - this culminated in playing in a chilly paddling pool - even though the weather was glorious.

We got the girls some bubbles - these always go down very well in our house!

We did some al fresco dining...

Sitting on Uncle Ben

Playing in the house