Halloween 2011

My kids love Halloween. When I was a kid we didn't really do the Halloween thing. But we do now. Mostly because my kids love sweets. And being given sweets for free is something they love even more!

This was the first Halloween that little Rosie has really been aware of. She was most excited. This year her big sister took her and Barney 'trick-or-treating' whilst I sat in making a costume (but that's another blog post). It was nice to sit inside in the warm whilst they went out together. It was so cute watching them walk up the road in their costumes, all excitable. Tarja said that after every door they knocked on she exclaimed "let's do that again!", making the neighbours laugh.

We carved two pumpkins, both in a 'Nightmare Before Christmas' theme. One was Mr Oogie Boogie, and one was Zero the dog. Rosie was dressed as a cat-witch. She loved her new witch costume but insisted that she wanted to be a cat, so Tarja gave her some makeup for that. Barney wore his new Grim Reaper costume, which was... well... grim.

It's a jolly holiday.... (3)

Rosie, Barney and I took another little summer holiday day trip to the butterfly farm and gardens in Seaforde. We paid for the butterfly house and gardens as it was a beautiful day. When we came out of the butterfly house it was tipping it down outside so we had to go to the cafe and wait for it to brighten up before we could visit the gardens and maze!

The kids purposely wore bright clothes in the hopes that butterflies would land on them :) Rosie got lucky several times. One big butterfly landed on her head where she had a purple butterfly clip in her hair. Then twice they landed on her dress and she was chuffed to bits! Barney wasn't so 'lucky' but he still had great fun filming them with my camera. We also saw the fish, turtles, birds and tarantulas too!

The gardens there are beautiful and I'd like to go back on a better day. We found our way to the centre of the maze (although it is gravel and I was pushing a tired Rosie in the buggy around that maze for about 40 minutes... which isn't easy and is damn exhauting!) and then found our way back out again (thanks to a master navigator... Barney).

Check out the last photo at the bottom.... because its just mega cute!

It's a jolly holiday.... (2)

I've been promising Barney for months that I would take him to Carrickfergus Castle during the summer holidays, and he didn't forget that promise. So we headed off for the day with little Rosie and he was really excited.

It turned out to be a fun and educational trip. We toured the castle and the kids enjoyed the models of ancient castle dwellers that were there. We enjoyed a game of super sized snakes and ladders in the castle tower and then had a picnic lunch in the grounds. We then spent the afternoon on the beach throwing stones into the sea just the other side of the castle walls. It was a really good day out and even little Rosie is a bit obsessed with castles now.

It's a jolly holiday.... (1)

It's the summer holidays and it's mostly raining but we have managed a few little day trips here and there.

A little trip to Tannaghmore Gardens and the free open farm there was nice for the two little ones. They got to see various animals and then we spent ages in the gardens looking at the sculptures and throwing stones into the pond.

Out Of This World

Today we popped into the Island Arts Centre in Lisburn because they had a free exhibition called 'Out Of This World' on for kids. It's on all summer I think. And it is open till 10pm so we headed down at about 5pm and had McDonald's on the way home.

The kids had a great time. We were there for about 2 hours and not one other person visited in that time, which meant that the kids had the run of the place. There wasn't much to it... just two galleries with various arty space things, some dressing up stuff and a few games. If it had been busy it wouldn't have been so good. But because we were alone it turned out to be a brilliant little trip out. The kids particularly liked climbing in and out of the 'space orb'. Photos below.

Having girls

I believe that I have to two most beautiful daughters that ever existed. Just look at them. Aren't they totally adorable? And they love and adore each other, that's for sure.

Tarja is like a live-in Nanny, or a second Mum to little Rosie. She's like a mothers help, and I'd be lost without her! I found these couple of photos that I took a few weeks back and wanted to post them onto the blog so that we can look back on them in years to come.

I hope my daughters will always be as close to each other as they are now.

A 16th Birthday

I'm not entirely sure how.... but somehow I have managed to keep another human being alive for sixteen full years! Pretty impressive, don't you think? It is hard to believe that my first baby boy has just turned sixteen. I wasn't much older than him when he was born. The years are flashing past at a scary speed.

Since becoming sixteen only happens once and is a bit special we had a good old shindig for him, out in the front garden. Shockingly the sun shone for the entire day (it was one of the only sunny days we've had this summer!) which was perfect for outr outdoor party.

Now, in my opinion, one is never too old for a good bounce! So we hired a big adult sized bouncy castle, and some sumo suits for the crack. We erected a gazebo and filled it with air beds and cushions to create a sort of lazy area (which little Rosie mostly hijacked to keep out of the sun) and we kitted out the garage with food, helium balloons and music. Marty was in charge of the barbecue since he's obsessed with fire, and meat.

Family came, and lots of Badgers school friends and it turned out to be a pretty damn good day. I hope he enjoyed it and remembers it for years to come. Happy birthday to my baby boy who is now practically a man!

That chocolatey time of year again.

I really have been very slack at blogging lately. My only excuse is that I really don't get the time. But I have lots to blog about just now so I am going to do a little marathon blogging session before bed time.

This post is basically just a few photos from Easter. As usual we had the easter egg hunt around the garden. This was the first year that Rosie's really been able to join in and enjoy it.... and she was very excited about the whole thing! Running around the garden finding chocolates and then eating them.... what's not to like about that when you're two years old??

Badger thought he was a bit big to join in but I managed to convince him that it was good family fun, and hey, he got chocolate out of it too.

Oh, to be a kid again!