Thursday, June 28, 2007

Happy Birthday, Spidey!

It was cousin James' birthday today, and he got a fantastic Spiderman costume. Uncle Andy wants to know if they make them in adult size!

He also had a trampoline as a joint present with his mum. In case you'd never realised, trampolines make a very comfy place to open birthday presents...

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Happy Birthday, Auntie Jan

Not sure how the monkeys at Noah's Ark Zoo Farm managed to escape in our car, but they all turned up at the chimps' tea party for Auntie Jan's birthday!

Looking at Ruth's belly, it looks like she's eaten plenty! And, I'm not sure what Hannah was drinking, but it appears that she's slipped under the table!

Noah's Ark

With all the rain and floods recently, a trip to Noah's Ark Zoo Farm to celebrate Auntie Jan and James' birthdays seemed like a really good idea! And, in fact, the sun was beaming down for us!

If you've never visited Noah's Ark Zoo Farm before, then it comes highly recommended! There's a whole mixture of zoo and farm animals: pigs, sheep, rhinos, giraffes, rabbits, alligators, to name but a few. Plus, there's some fun play areas inside and out - which seemed to attract the children more than the animals!

There's also a very, very, very long maze to find your way through. Here's a photo of Andy and Hannah having reached the centre of the maze. (They did cheat and climb over some of the fences, though!)

You can see some more of our photos in our online gallery.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Flower power

Maybe it was all the practice that we've had over the last few years, but this is by far the best sunflower that we've yet managed to grow!

Just in case you're particularly short-sighted, it is actually Hannah's costume for her class assembly. They did the story of the enormous turnip, and Hannah said her lines very clearly again!

PS - you can see one of our 'genuine' sunflowers just over Hannah's right shoulder!

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Pool party

The sun finally came out for the weekend, so we invited Nanny and Grumpy, Uncle Mike, Auntie Jan, James and Bethan around to our house to chill out in the garden and have a splash in the paddling pool.

In the end, it was probably a bit too nippy to have water in the paddling pool, so we just filled it up with balls, instead!

As often seems to happen when the paddling pool is out, a full-blown water fight breaks out, involving 'super-soakers', buckets, and anything else that can be used as a water-based weapon! It was a good job that we had some really trendy towels near at hand!

Saturday, June 02, 2007

Happy Birthday, Thomas (again!)

Having already celebrated his 3rd birthday once this week, when we finally arrived back home from our Yorkshire holiday (6 long hours after we left!), Thomas got to open a stack more presents which had been left at our house!

Hannah and Thomas look like they're going to enjoy the garage!

Daddy looks like he's going to enjoy the train set!

Thomas even got to blow out the candles on his cake again, but it doesn't look as if there's that much cake left!

Friday, June 01, 2007

Smile!

You wouldn't believe how difficult it is to get four children to look into a camera and smile, all at the same time! This is the best that our camera managed to achieve...

We've all had a lovely holiday in Yorkshire, and there were no trips to the local hospital, which was a bonus!

You can see more of our Yorkshire holiday pictures in our photo gallery, if you're interested / bored / both.

Croc-and-roll

It took some doing, but finally the piƱata that Ruth had been given for her birthday was smashed to pieces and we could get at the sweets and chocolates inside!

As part of Thomas' birthday party, we tied the croc to the four-poster bed in the cottage (finally - a use for four-poster beds!), and gave the children a sharp, pointy, heavy, fire-poker to smash it with! We're talking real health-and-safety issues here!

But, winner of the 'Best facial expression while hitting a crocodile with a poker' award goes to Pauline! Remind me not to get on the wrong side of her when she's tending a fire.

The sun comes out!

Even though we had been having a fun holiday, the weather during the week had been pretty atrocious - including a hail storm in the middle of a family hike (Thomas really did not enjoy that bit)! Today, though, on the last day of our holidays, the sun was beaming down. It was definitely ice-cream weather!

Although, Thomas doesn't look like he's enjoying his!

He is enjoying the swings, though! Don't his feet look huge?

It was so hot, in fact, that the children ended up cooling off in the river - although no-one was brave enough to go swimming!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Thomas!

Thomas was a bit like the Queen this year, as he actually had two birthdays!

It was his 'real' birthday on the 2nd of June, but as we were going to be spending most of that day travelling back from Yorkshire to Cardiff, it didn't sound like it would be a great day for him! So, instead we celebrated his birthday on the last full day of our holidays - and he loved it, especially as it meant that Chloe and Anya were at his party!

The hardest part for us was trying to fit in all of his presents in the car with all the rest of our holiday things!

Thomas had an extra-chocolatey birthday cake at his party later on...

...but he was more interested in the chocolate buttons on the top, than in the cake itself!