Day 333 daddy and daughter

I'd like to share something that someone sent me via Facebook on my daughters birthday at the weekend. Now I know some people may find what this says a little old fashioned, but I thought it was quite nice and these are words I will keep close to me...

Day 306 nap time on daddy

Now this is a moment to savour, it's been months since my youngest daughter has slept in my arms. She use to love nothing more when she was a newborn than sleeping in her daddy's arms and it is something I have deeply missed. But now here she us cuddled up into daddy and sleeping safely, although she is snoring a lot more than she use to but, as the first line said, this is a moment I am happy and I am savouring....

Day 286 smiles

This week it's felt like I've only had pictures featuring the younger of our daughters, so today I have looked to rectify this and give eldest her time in the blogging limelight, so here she is full of smiles and ready for the weekend...

Day 283 poorly girly

Poor baby girl, she's come down with a little bug, she caught if off mummy and so has her sister. She's been that bad with coughing her little lungs she's woken up the last 2 nights, but nothing makes her feel better than relaxing with daddy and getting a kiss, together we are team awesome, I think I'll be getting sick next though...

Day 253 feet up shirt off

It's been a hot day, so hot that when I picked the children up from their weekend at the grandparents house youngest was crawling around in just a nappy. She continued this fashion trend at home and made herself comfy whilst drinking her juice...

Day 250 Trains

Me and youngest child have been playing with the wooden train track today. I say playing what I really mean is I build a track and she destroys it! I suppose she sees that as a game and is having fun that's the main thing...

Day 241 Standing room only

A few weeks ago our youngest daughter stood up assisted, well she's getting quite good at as well as getting in the way as she doesn't sit still anymore. She's too nosey and do has now discover how she can pull herself up in her cot to look at things...

Day 230 feeding time

It has come time to feed youngest and today she was being quite fussy, to the point where she refused food off a spoon and instead would only suck it through the packet herself, she's only 8 and a half months and becoming quite an independent missy....

Day 229 the park

We all went for a family walk and managed to take the girls to the park. Today's picture is youngest enjoying herself in the sea saw duck....

Day 227 standing

It now seems every week out youngest daughter chalks something off her to do list of development. Today this was her caught pulling herself up and standing all by herself aided. She then turned to me to smile to show how satisfied she was with her latest achievement

Day 225 Hoopla

Eldest daughter went to a car boot sale this morning with her nanny. Needless to say she came back with something, a hula hoop. So of course she wasted many an hour trying to wiggle her bum like a professional hula hoopist....

Day 219 Pirates

Yarrrrrrr there be a lot of pirates around these here parts, shiver me timbers and grab me bottle of rum and lets set sail for davey jones' locker,

Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of Rum!!!!!

Day 216 Hiding

Someone's found a new hiding spot....

Day 205 scary

Wow how scary does she look with all her food around her mouth and intense smile!!!

Day 203 Cuddles

It's bed time and for some of us that means cuddling up to our favourite teddy...

Day 201 Caught in the Act

She's so cute but in this picture she looks like she's been caught up to no good....

A Grand Weekend

This past weekend had seen a nice family orientated activity filled one. To start with we had to pick both girls up from great grandpa's as me and OH went out to celebrate one of her friends birthdays on Friday night. After picking up the girls and realising that I had had no breakfast which subsequently meant I needed to pull the car over so I could be sick we found a coffee shop in a small nearby village. There we sat and ate some breakfast/lunch before heading off to our days activities.

Every year Knaresborough have a bed race. This is an event where the streets get closed off to traffic and instead people push 'beds' through the streets in a time trial race.We only moved to the area last year and heard of the race but missed it. So this year I was quite excited to go and thought it would be quite fun. Each year there is a theme. This years theme was of course the Olympics, each team would represent a country and with close to 100 teams there would be a fair representation of the world. Unfortunately due to us typically running late we didn't manage to see any of the 'beds' decorated. We arrived as the race had started. All the beds were stripped off of their decorations and everyone was in the competitive spirit. The beds were racing down the hill which was our vantage point. The atmosphere was nice, everyone clapping each team of contestants spurring them on to the finish line...

Once the race had finished we popped for a bite to eat and a drink, We were told by an old woman about the story of why there was a statue of a cat on top of the local pub the Market Tavern, saying that the cat had a crooked tail and the cat spirit could often be seen at night. The weather started turning cold so eldest child borrowed my coat and anyone could have mistaken her for a mini grim reaper how it sat on her.....

The next day we popped into town, we had seen that in Valley Gardens there was a family fun day themed in the 1940's. We went along taking the children with us. Many people were dressed up as soldiers or wearing styles of the 40's. We saw some steam engines and children's rides from the 40's. Eldest has never been one for rides but today saw her change her mind and actually she wanted to go on the see saw swings, so we paid the £1 entry fee for her to decide 30 seconds later that shes in fact didn't want to be on it....

We sat in the park and took in the view of the surrounding area, as we sat and ate out very typically British lunch of ham and cheese toasties with a spot of tea a marching band went past playing music to entertain us, it was very loud but fun to see...

 After a spot of lunch we walked around.Valley gardens is a very pretty park in the middle of the town. It has a stream with ducks in it, which made eldest child happy as we had finally found some ducks after our failed attempt early this year on our duck hunt, unfortunately this time we forgot the bread...

 After the 40's themed day in the park we decided to walk home, we walked past the stray in Harrogate which over the last week has had a fun fair on it. We stopped by to walk around it, Eldest decided she was going to be daring again and wanted to go on the rides. So she was told that if she went on a ride she wouldn't be able to get off and would have to stay on until the ride ends. She agreed and was allowed on the rides, as she went on her first, she grew more and more daring enjoying more and more daring rides....

 And it wasn't just eldest who had fun, I saw a football game where you had the option to kick a football at either Rooney or Messi and try to knock them over. I thought this was a great opportunity for myself to smack Rooney square in the head....

 Which I successfully managed....

Meaning a prize for daughters....

After all this fun it was time to go home and rest. It's been a long weekend, but also a fun weekend. We have seen lots and it's been nice weather. Hopefully this is just the start of many more great events this summer

Day 163 The match

Of course today is all about one thing, The England game. This year is different, I am not my usual patriotic Englishman saying we are going to conquer Europe or the world, in fact this time round I'm saying we'll be lucky to get out our group. But that doesn't mean I can't wear my shirt and watch the game. Of course this year I'm watching the games with my daughters, youngest is looking a bit worried about the game ahead....

Day 162 Daddy Daughter

This past weekend has seen us all have some good family fun. I have spent time with all 3 of my girls and its been nice. Thankfully the weather has also been nice, so we have spent the large part of it outdoors enjoying different events and doing a lot of walking. Todays pic, is actually 2 pictures, the first of me a youngest enjoying a ride in daddy's arms....

the second of eldest enjoying a ride on my shoulders....

who needs the gym when I've go to carry these two around!

The wonderful outdoors

So Britain has been blessed with sunshine. No doubt that this will be our summer compact into a few days of sunny rays. Up and down the country will see many dust of there summer cosies, and see many pasty bodies see there fleeting moments of the golden sun.

For us we took the opportunity of good weather to take the girls out and do some fun activities. I have been working late shifts this week, which mean finishing work rather late but the upside to this being I don't start work until late afternoon allowing us precious time to actually go do things.

On Wednesday we decided a trip to the park was necessary, we put youngest child in her pram seat and got both children sun creamed up, but forgetting myself as I am rather susceptible to the sun, I turn red faster than the carpet does when you've spilt black currant juice on it! The local park was great fun, it had a section for toddlers and a section for older children. Naturally myself and mummy had to try out the rides for our eldest child, starting with.....

Alas all this heat was too much for youngest who we ensured was in the cool shade in her pram and covered up, she decided to have a siesta....

Once we'd tested the rides for you fest it was only rude that we not test the older rides, naturally to ensure they were safe for other girls and boys but also for our eldest child when she gets older....

However at the park there was danger, there was a very hungry crocodile who needed feeding, unfortunately the crocodile ate me, and then decided to snack on our eldest child, who didn't look too worried about it all....

Once the danger from the crocodile was over youngest child decided it was time for her to wake up and join in on the fun. She woke up gave one of her trademark cute smiles to us and mummy got her out of her pram. Enjoying the sun, the park has an even smaller slide for toddlers, Granted our youngest isn't a toddler, but mummy decided that TV could experience her first slide, mummy grasp tightly to her, but she didn't seem too keen on the experience...

 Once the park was done, we were all feeling the heat, so we decided to stop by a shop and get some ices creams in. We then sat in the cool shade of a nearby tree and enjoyed our ice creams...

 Mummy made eldest a daisy chain necklace and showed her the art of blowing the needles off a dandelion clock which she has now seized upon every chance now....

The next day saw the sun shining again. This time I was off work so it meant we could spend the whole day together as a family and enjoy of what we hope won't be our British summer, but instead just the start of it. Usually on a Thursday we take the children to a ballet class at a nearby play facility. However this mornings class was cancelled as there was only eldest and another child who actually turned up, we guess that most people decided against it as they wanted to take advantage of the sun. No trouble we thought as we were planning on going out in there afternoon after the class we can just go do that now.

Knaresborough is a very beautiful olde town, it's just 5 minutes away from us and has a lovely river flowing through it and some very nice scenes.We decided that it would be nice to park the car up and go for a walk through Knaresborough. As we walked we got to see some very beautiful houses, some showing their age with thatched roof's and some with some artwork...



















Our destination in Knaresborough was to visit the castle, it's an old castle remains, and has some breathtaking fews of the river and Knaresborough. As we arrived we had a look around the ruins and accidentally walked into the middle of a tour which we then quickly left, but I was still punished as I was placed in the stocks...

Once free of these I managed to relax and take in the glorious view. The OH went off and bought some local Fish and Chips for us all to enjoy for our tea as we sat on the grass taking in the local scenery and just enjoying the weather...

Eldest child couldn't decide what she wanted to do one minute she was running around, the next relaxing and the next enjoying the view....

I hope you all have enjoyed the lovely weather, and lets all hope this is just the start of a great British summer!