Dancing Princesses

Eva came to play yesterday, so we had a princess dance party in the lounge. This was also Brenna's first time dressing up in a princess dress... and she LOVED it.  Unfortunately, each video ends in tears.

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to our wonderful Daddy.  I agree completely with what my grandma said yesterday while talking with her on the phone, "You are so lucky that Jeff is such a hands-on dad."  He really is. Jeff loves being part of the girls' lives, from playing with them throughout the day, to helping to get them dressed in the morning and getting them ready for bed in the evening. When Jeff returns home from work, excited shouts of "Daddy!" ring throughout the house.  It's a lovely, daily reunion.  The Good Lord has blessed me with such a wonderful husband and father to our girls.

For Father's Day the girls gave Jeff a box of mint chocolates, framed artwork and handmade cards.

As for "celebratory" food, I made the usual meatloaf and mashed potatoes, but shook things up with a coconut cream pie (not completely made from scratch).

Jeff has been riding to work on his motorcycle the past couple of weeks.  The girls love the "vroom vroom" of the engine and seeing Daddy looking rather debonair in his motorcycle gear.... ok, maybe Mommy does more ;o)

Cowgirl Brenna

Cowgirl Brenna makes a regular appearance at the Bolton house.  Her horse (it's Ellen's, actually), Dobbin, even makes a "neighing" sound.  Brenna doesn't make a neighing noise when we ask her what a horse says.  Instead, she makes a clicking sound with her tongue like a galloping horse.  So, she communicates that she wants to play with Dobbin by making galloping noise.  She'll try to walk around holding the hobby horse with two hands, but it quickly proves too heavy for this little cowgirl.  She loves wearing the cowgirl hat, too.

 I just love the tilt of her "Stetson" in this picture and her pouty mouth... so cute.

Day Out at Erddig

Monday was a Bank Holiday, and luckily, a day of beautiful Spring weather.  Having not been to a National Trust property besides Attingham Park in quite a long time, it was due time to visit one we hadn't been to: Erddig, on the English-Welsh boarder, about an hour from our house.  Erddig, pronounced "Air-thig" in Welsh, is "widely acclaimed as one of Britian's finest historic houses... and is a fascinating yet unpretentious early 18th-century country house reflecting the upstairs downstairs life of a gentry family of 250 years."

Here we are entering the property from one of the car parks inside a walled orchard.

Entering the gardens through the workshop, there was very used stove and oven and LOADS of tools for woodworking. (Pictures taken for Grandad ;o)

Then we entered the stables where there were horses and old coaches.  I enjoyed explaining to Ellen that people had to use horses and coaches to travel before there were cars.

Then we entered the fantastic manicured garden at the back of the house.

 This was the best picture of me and the girls... as you can see, it didn't exactly turn out well.

Brenna really enjoyed looking at the beautiful flowers and touching.  Her little finger was always ready to touch... see it in the picture?  So cute.

Here are a few videos of our cutie pitootie 13-month-old toddler walking(!!!) around the garden.

Peek-a-boo!

The "Wolf's Den" was a fantastic area for the kiddies made out of logs outside the garden walls.  There were wooden tee pees, where Ellen pretended over and over that there were storms coming... evening making thunder sound effects!  I loved the fragrance of wild garlic that hung in the air and brought me back to walks through the Englisher Garten in Munich.

 Sitting pretty.

We were on our choo-choo train.

Hi Girls!  We played Three Little Pigs with this wood house.  The girls were safe from the Big Bad Wolf in this house made out of wood.

 And there were stumps to balance on.  We were pleasantly surprised when Ellen got herself up on this stump and stood up all by herself!

 Boo wanted to do everything her big sister was doing.

 The girls loved climbing up this wooden...uh, "thing".

 Brenna saw that Ellen got the top, so off she went, too!

 Brenna is such a determined girly.  Hi Ellen!

We had tear the girls away from the Wolf's Den to have our lunch before we were allowed into the house at 12:40.  We found a long bench beside one of the ponds with ducks to have our picnic on.I h

 The girls were so happy having her lunch on the bench next to Daddy.

Ellen and me at the front of the house, which was far less impressive than the back of the house.

After this, we went through the house, briefly ran through each room trying to find some hidden teddies to keep the girls entertained.  Each room had loads of original furniture.  In one bedroom, I pointed to a chair with a fold-down lid and a bowl in it and asked Ellen what she thought it was.  "A potty!" she correctly answered.  In the bathroom across the hall, I found the shower to be interesting - it was basically a free-standing stall with a metal bowl with holes at the top. The water was collected in a bowl below and a servant would pump the used water back up into the top metal bowl to be used again...eww.  

We had such a lovely day.  Sunshine, pretty scenery and a happy family.

Ellen's Begins Nursery

Our big girl Ellen started nursery/preschool on Monday. She has been looking forward to "school" since the Autumn and every time we'd pass her school, she'd point at it and say, "That's my school".  She's had two two-hour induction days the past couple of weeks and has loved it.  When I picked her up on Monday, she ran up and exclaimed, "I'm a happy girl!"

Ellen is in the "Rainbow Room" and attends 11 hours a week: Monday and Friday 9am-12pm and Wednesday 9am-2pm.  She was so excited to get to take her Peppa Pig lunch box with her today.  It was actually rather strange packing her lunch yesterday - that was a first for me.  

Brenna also started Musical Steps on Monday.  It's similar to Rhythm Time with singing, bouncing, dancing and instruments, but near us in Telford, as opposed to Shrewsbury.

I attempted to take a picture of the girls together before our walk to "school".

This is Ellen's nursery/preschool.

Brenna after her first Musical Steps class on Monday.

Yesterday afternoon was an absolutely beautiful day.  The girls and I had a tea party in the garden - our "tea" was just water, but that meant Ellen could pour it in the cups for me and Brenna.  This picture of perfection only lasted 5, maybe 10, minutes... then we needed to take a walk up to the park.  Actually we walked to a new (to us) park with swings that I found out about over the weekend... it's only a 20-minute walk uphill to get there.

Brenna WOULD NOT keep her hat on despite my putting it on her head over and over.... and we lost it on our walk up to the park... grrr....

 It really was lovely having a tea party with the girls... we even had a bit of real cake.

Happy Easter

Brenna's 1st Birthday

Happy 1st Birthday to our beautiful Brenna.

Many more pictures to come when I'm not so tired ;o)