Afternoon at the beach

We spend the last afternoon of August at the beach, it was hot and sunny and the perfect place to go to. We haven't been enough this summer really... The kids had so much fun! Dylan was in the water for most of the time and Emily enjoyed playing in the surf with the boogie board and crocodile. It was just so much fun to watch them both. Apart from being in the water they also made sandcastles, dug holes, wrote in the sand, blew bubbles and had sandy bottoms. That's what summer's all about.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cupcakes

A while ago Emily made some cupcakes and it just occurred to me that I never shared the photo's Better late than never I guess. Anyway, my little lady loves helping in the kitchen and baking is definitely one of her hobbies. One this occasion I wasn't allowed to help her...she wanted to do it all herself. she did wonderful and the cupcakes were very yummy.  

 

 

Love them...

I sure do love my two munchkins!  

Zoo days

   

  These past few weeks we've visited our local zoo a number of times, Simon works there as a safari truck driver and the kids (and me) absolutely love going in with him. Usually we go on the safari ride, the kids have been lucky enough to be able to sit in the front with their dad, it makes them feel very special!  Afterwards the kids take me to their favourite playground where they play all afternoon long while I sit on a picnic bench under a tree with a book. Heaven! Of course we do make sure we see our favourite animals each time. Dylan and Emily love the cats, big ones and small ones and I adore the giraffes. Simon has made a very special new friend at the zoo...her name is Rutie and she's a lioness. Every time she sees him she gets up and stalks him... Very funny to watch but I'm sure that if she ever escapes Simon's had it!  

 

 

Playing blog catch up

  I am so behind with this blog.  With school out and busy summer days I seem to not get much done. Let's see if I can play catch up... First up, in June we had fathers day

  We were planning on surprising Simon with breakfast in bed but he kind of messed that one up by coming down early! Instead he got all his presents and cards in the sofa, followed by a nice breakfast of eggs, bacon and homemade bread. Later on we walked to the play park followed by a nice family lunch at Simon's dads house. We had a great fathers day.   Late June we visited a farm. To say the kids loved it would be an understatement! The climbed up the tractors, stroked all the animals, went for a tractor ride, did a farm scavenger hunt and played farm games. Dylan absolutely loved the lambs and they seemed to love him back, so cute.

  With the end of the school year approaching the kids had sports day at school. Both of them did so well and were excellent members to their teams. Very proud of them!

  We've been really lucky with the weather so far these summer holidays, we've had a couple of beach days and zoo days and lot's of lazy days at home. I'm sure we've got many more amazing days to come.

My little superstar reader

 

Last week we took the kids to the school circus, which they really really enjoyed.

When the show was finished and we started heading back home the assistant headteacher came up to us to have a word about Emily.

I must admit, our first thoughts were "oh no, what has she done now!".

I could have never guessed what he was about to say though...

He congratulated us on Emily's fantastic reading skills.

He told us he had done some reading with her earlier that day and that he, in all his years of teaching, had never come across a year 1 child who could read as well as Emily.

He said she was amazing!!!

I can't tell you how happy I am that he came up to us to tell us all this.

I am so incredibly proud of my little superstar reader!

Owls

Every Saturday when we go into town there's one thing we always HAVE to do...

go and say hello to the owls from the Owl Sanctuary. Emily especially won't go past without at least spending ten minutes stroking every owl, she adores them.

You can only imagine how excited she was when there was an open day and she got to

see and hold every owl they had. She could have spend a whole day there giving them all her love, it was really adorable to see how taken she was with all of them.

Dylan wasn't too sure about being so close to them but after a while he relaxed...a bit.

The owl Dylan is holding is blind, and while he was holding him the owl snuggled all the way into his armpit, it was so sweet, I wish we would have taken a photo.