Scooter boy

Remember the scooters? Yes? They are out in forte again. Little Monkey insists on taking his everywhere.


He scooters to the park, to nursery, to see friends, even to the car that is parked in front of the house... All in deep concentration with his head level with the handle bars. He never forgets it when it's in the boot of the car or in the scooter store at nursery. He reminds us with lots of "scoota, scoota, scoota" screams.

Summer fun

Once in a while we get warm even hot weather. Then we have to react quick and get the paddling pool ready and the BBQ out. Last Sunday was one of those rare days.
Even though the water was ice cold from the hose, it was so hot, it didn't matter. The monkeys spent hours in there.


As is tradition Daddy Monkey was in charge of the barbecue and drinking a bottle of beer.


Little Monkey really enjoyed his food for a change. It's rare for him to eat a whole portion let alone ask for seconds.

Horse

As the Big Monkey wished for a horse for her birthday I hatched an idea... Why not make our own horse.


I screwed parts of an old leather belt onto the old work bench to fix the head on.

Then I drew and painted a horse's head onto a white card board box twice. Next I cut them out and stitched them together. I found a broken broom handle in the garden shed. There are treasures in this shed, I'm sure. It's all about finding them. Right, back to the horse.


The last thing was to add an old pillow as a saddle and that's it. Quick and easy, ready for adventures!

Birdfeeder

The filled halves of coconut were very much in demand this year. So I decided to make my own with the halves I have rather than buy any new ones.
It's very simple to make and I could use all the seeds I already had anyway and some melted suet. The birds seem to really like them and it brought the nearby sunflower feeder to their attention which they now visit regularly as well.

Little Monkey - big bike

Toy shops are a tricky terrain to maneuver. Either the Monkeys want every toy displayed or the shop has some of their products out to play with. In that case the Monkeys want to stay until they starve or are removed by force. So far I have always chosen the second option. But really this is a no-win situation. It's bad mummy in any case.
Last week the object in question was this motorcycle. Sadly (or is that luckily) it was broken so it got boring quite quickly. Not to worry round the corner lurked a toy shopping trolley that Little Monkey had to push around. Back to square one...

Tent town

Still trying to catch up with photos and posts. The weather has been so lovely the last few days that I spend most of my time outside. Watering mainly. Little monkey has progressed from the little spray bottle to the garden hose. Dangerous that. I've been drenched before. It's a erm surprise to suddenly have a freezing shower.
Anyhow, Big Monkey got two tents for her birthday, so she decided to build a tent town.

Everybody loved the tents, once the Monkeys had left, the cat moved in.


The colourful pop-up tent is from Monkey N and while we have no idea on how to ever fold it again, apart from this, it is perfect. Big Monkey even decided to sleep in there on Tuesday. After a few hours she moved into her bed but she slept a few hours in there curled up on her duvets.

One little house...

A few years ago, when Big Monkey was still a little monkey, we got given a play house. While walking home we came past a house where the owner had a clear out and she put the play house and a little tykes slide outside her garden. She really wanted it to go so asked us to take it, not that Big Monkey needed much persuading. Guess what, yesterday while buying a present for Monkey S' birthday we saw this:


Our little play house - 230 £! Wow. Big Monkey was impressed, what a lot of money she said, is it more than our house?
The colours on our house are by no means primary anymore but it's still used most days. Mostly as a Monkey tree for Big Monkey to climb on. Little Monkey likes hiding and opening all the windows.

Big Monkey's Magic Party

On Sunday was Big Monkey's long awaited magic Party. Magic Mel was more funny than magic but she brought a bunny. A real bunny!


This was of course the most exciting part of the whole party. Big Monkey wasn't expecting the bunny hence the look. She did like it though, honest.

All her friends came and had a good time too. Little Monkey was happy as long as he could sit with Big Monkey but as she was the Birthday girl she had lots of games to play and prices to win. He got ice cream though.


Big Monkey thought it was the bestest party she ever had. Even you wouldn't think that seeing the looks she gave to the camera.

A few layouts I did recently

It has been a while since I got round to scrap some photos. Hence they range from the time we had snow to fairly recently.

Big Monkey is 7!

Today was Big Monkeys seventh birthday. I think she had a lovely day, they had a school trip arranged to see a play about walking to school. A topic which made me grumble seeing we live 6 miles from school with no direct public transport. But alas it's important to make an effort if you live round the corner. In any case the play was canceled so instead they spent the morning at the playground in Hampstead Heath. After they had their picnic they went back to school to have some more play time in the garden. Sounds like a birthday during school time should be.


When big Monkey came back from some more playing at her friend's house it was finally time for presents.
She got her very own pets, four Indian Stick Insects. At first she thought she had received a plant and didn't look at them at all. I asked her whether she liked her stick insects to which she said but where are they? In there! But where? she cried... Like I said, there will be lots of fun playing the where-are-they-game... She was very pleased with them once she found them but noticed that they didn't move around a lot or better said, not at all.


You can see them here on the photo, can you spot them? They are the thin sticky things hanging from the leaves. It's easy to find them once you know what you're looking for.
Among other things she also got a Lego game. From Grandpa as you'd expect, he the master of amazon has ordered the Minotaur game. We had to build it before we could play which we enjoyed very much, especially as there were three Minotaur horns and three arms for him which threw us a little. Big Monkey won of course. So that made her like the game even more.

Mushrooms

Three of those were in the organic veggie box this week. So pretty. I just like the look of the mushrooms, so soft.

Another attempt at the "new" playground

Yesterday was another drawing club for big monkey and my turn to do the pick up. Hence Little monkey and I drove to the playground again. This time it was much more of an success. Little monkey realized the fun that could be had here quickly. We started with my handbag taking a quick whirl on the merry-go-round then he ran off to find something more exciting.


He had a good time and contrary to his attire and the sign in the background it was not very cold.



This is really a lovely little playground for little monkeys, I wish ours was like this.

Devon Days - Sunday

It was still cold and wet so we went to Bicton Park Botanical Gardens as there are Glasshouses and an Indoor Soft play centre.
And there were lions to ride on



Bubbles to blow

Rules to follow


Pretty scenes to see


Palm houses to visit


More rules to follow


Petals to run through


Blooms to cradle

More from our days in Devon

In the afternoon we took a ride on a tram from Seaton to Colyton. Of course we had to sit on the open deck upstairs. It was very cold though, I was glad I had little monkey to cuddle up to.


He loved the ride and was busy pointing everything out he saw. Mainly cows and water in the form of a river.
At the end of the line was a big climbing frame which big monkey loved.

Days in Devon

We've been away over the Bank holiday weekend. Sadly the weather wasn't as good as we'd hoped for. Still, that shouldn't stop any monkeys from watering gardens, right? Luckily the cottage we stayed at not only had a little watering can, it also had a little bucket. So much more efficient in distributing water. Dino hat - mandatory. It's cold and there were raindrops...


The little village had a scarecrow festival. The theme was "Australian" although this one had a sign round its neck saying traditional. There were many scarecrows on surfboards and with sun hats though.


Our first proper stop was in Beer to have a walk along the beach to throw pebbles into the sea and collect pieces of crab shells and pretty coloured stones.



It can never be too cold to have ice cream and no trip to the beach can be complete without a cone of ice cream.

Monkeys