First camping of the year in the Lakes

We're back from a long weekend camping outside Keswick.  Both children get very excited about camping so we were looking forward to it a great deal.  The weather was mostly lovely, the scenery was lovely, the campsite was lovely (if crowded).  However, Marisca wasn't.  She was poorly - ended up being an ear infection, which made her very drowsy and very grumpy.  It was probably a better weekend for all of us to be out camping rather than at home - Marisca did get fresh air and Tom had lots of running around and playing while Marisca slept.  Although we only managed one aborted walk, I did get a run in, up the little hill of Latrigg, and Tom and I got out and about to Castlerigg stone circle for some climbing, running, photographing fun.  A good weekend, but we're looking forward to kickstarting camping and walking again at the end of June!

10 years

We don't normally write anything these days that's not about our children.  But earlier this month we had a whole weekend away without them, to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary.  We spent the weekend in The Pigsty up at Robin Hoods Bay, enjoying lie ins, moorland walks, and pottering around shops, all just the two of us.  Of course by the time we got home we were very ready to see Marisca and Tom again, but it was nice to have time together. 

Rainbows

One of those coming of age posts.  Being 5 Marisca is now Rainbow-eligible, and so here she is ready for her first visit.  Rainbows is at church with her favourite church friends who run it (they are older than me but they're still my friends Daddy), and so we're sure she'll continue to have a lovely time, as she did today.  She's already got a stall to run at their Spring Fayre next week.

Happy 5th birthday

Our girl is 5.  So we had a party.  And being a 5 year old girl, that party was a Frozen party.  It turns out that there are a lot of Frozen birthday cards with '5' badges on them.  But they're all the same and are now all in our house!

In a somewhat random order here are some highlights:

Party tea, I clearly managed to achieve what is almost photographically impossible: a shutter speed fast enough to capture a picture of party rings actually on the plate.

The birthday girl.  Just a nice picture really.

We watched Frozen while waiting for 2:30 to tick around.  This gave Marisca the opportunity to show off her very pretty very frozen very twirly dress that Elspeth had sewn.  Check out the twirl!

My favourite game was pin the nose on Olaf.  Particularly as, unlike some parties I have known, there was clearly no seeing through this particular scarf.  At least 4 of them managed to locate the poster, which was a good start.

Pretending to be Elsa.  Awww.

Playing pass the parcel with the girls (and Tom).  Maia, Erica, Poppy, Emily, and Kinza.

And although she wasn't expecting to win any prizes, her being the birthday girl, Marisca excelled at musical bumps, and there's not much judgement to be had in that game, so she had to win.  And was very excited, as you can see.

Birthdays are tiring but a lot of fun.

Easter again.

Well the last post was from my phone and these are camera pictures so, well, it's just easier to keep them separate.  And if I didn't post this you'd not get to see the children enjoying eggs or (another) lovely day, at Yeadon Tarn.  Marisca's getting very confident on her balance bike, and Tom is still growing into his scooter...

Easter weekend

It's Easter Monday and it feels like summer - a beautiful hot and sunny day, and after playing at a local garden centre we spent a nice afternoon in the garden.  The first weekend of the year where we've had the back door open all afternoon with children wafting in and out.  Marisca did have a good time looking for minibeasts and exploring in the garden before falling back to her natural tendencies.

And Tom will thank me for this in future years...  He's just decided this weekend that he wants to wear pants so we're going with it.  So far false positives outnumber the messier mistakes and he's doing very well!

A walk in the woods

Back on Mothers' Day we had Grandma visit us and went for a little walk in the woods.  I've just found the photos on my camera and it's striking how cold it looks - this was only 3 weeks ago, a clear contrast to the Easter photos I'll post later tonight!  All 5 of us walked, as more-or-less evidenced below, but I spent most of the time walking with Tom which was brilliant as he did really well with the walk and had a lot of fun.  And I had fun photographing him too.