its been half term this week and we've had a busy few days. on thursday we went to ferry farm park.

liv got brave and held a few animals. i particularly liked the baby guinea pigs. i really wanted one...

liv even rode a pony, which was very brave for her, she normally freaks out at the sight of an animal. she was very proud of herself.

i'm still loving the guinea pigs


how cute is that?!! it fit into one hand. i want it!!!!!!

liv even plucked up the courage to hold a kitten.

there were piglets just running around, and calves and tiny kid goats - so cute!
ty got to ride a car with adz and loved every minute. he kept trying to push adz out the way to drive it himself.

making daddy work hard!

on friday morning we went to an event at sure start with the fire engine. liv went on a school trip to the fire station a few weeks ago and thought she knew it all. ty was too scared to get on.

friday afternoon we went to markeaton park to use the paddling pool. the weather has been beautiful the last few days and we decided to take advantage. we are lucky to have markeaton nearby. it has big adventure playgrounds, acres of green fields, the paddling pool, crazy golf, boat hire, and a train and its all free. good stuff. unsurprisingly, we go there to play a lot.

adz was brave and got in the water to supervise while i sat on the bank and took photos.
on saturday, we went to an advertised pond dipping at a nearby nature reserve. i've lived around here for nearly six years and never knew this idyll was so close until today. they do outdoor concerts in the summer - can't wait!!

there were an abundance of little stickleback fish to catch and soon liv was proficient at getting them. we spent about three hours on the edge of the pond, enjoying the sun and relaxing. if adam had been with us it would have been perfection.
our catch went into a tray so we could examine the findings. we caught water boatmen, tadpoles, beetles and water snails as well as fish.

ty showing a new talent.
we had a great few days. too bad its back to school next week. long live the good weather though!

the exploits of master destructo

we have developed specific coping strategies to deal with the antics of our beloved son tyler. nothing and nowhere is safe in this house. to make matters slightly easier we have resorted to tying up, locking down and generally battening down the hatches in our house.

in the kitchen, the chairs have to be kept on the table, or he drags them around to climb up to anything he wants. previously to doing this i caught him trying to put my ipod in the microwave, (the ipod which is now broken thanks to his efforts throwing it on the floor) and tring to flood the kitchen playing at the sink. also the fridge has to be locked.....

with a velcro strap or he takes what he wants and leaves the doors open. his favourites in here include spreading the butter all over the sofa and taking one bite out of every piece of fruit.

all the cupboards have those fiddly annoying locks in them, but this one has to have double protection so again it is tied together.

still, all this effort does not stop master destructo!! here follows some of his recent exploits:

drawing in black pen on the dining chairs.

drawing in the same black pen all over the wall in the living room. i nearly blamed this one on destructo's big sister as it is too high for destructo, until i realised that he had stood on the chair he had just scribbled on. the sneaky genius.

we got a pattern in black pen on the bedroom carpet, at least on one side of the bed. the other side features an elaborate circular motif in gold pen.

also in the last week, destructo broke into the spare room and found scissors. these he proceeded to test out on our superking size duvet cover and duvet. they work quite well, i can report. this is while i was in the shower one morning. when i came running out on the warning of destructo's sister he snuck into the bathroom behind me (in my haste i had forgotten to close the door - a fatal error) and smeared toothpaste and soap around and dunked my contact lenses in the toilet. thankfully i found him there before he aadded the whole toilet roll and tried to flush (the toilet does not like this, we have discovered. it responds by starting to overflow)

needless to say, it is not a safe thing to do to leave destructo to his own devices for more than about 30 seconds. so i was really taking leave of my senses when i stayed in bed the other morning and left the kids to watch tv downstairs. when i did finally surface, i went down with my heart hammering, fearing the sight that would confront me there. and what did i see? well....

this. i got off so lightly for my negligence that the surprised kids got hugs and laughing rather than the shouting they obviously expected. true, i had lost two whole loaves of bread, all the bananas and a couple of oranges but it was easy to clean up and no permanent damage - wayhey!!!

there may be light at the end of the tunnel. but i'm not taking the chairs down yet.....

mountain climbing by mistake

we decided one saturday to go exploring in the peak district with jess and mike. after going the very long way round we rolled up at dovedale. adam had been there as a child and remembered pretty scenery and some stepping stones across the river. so we parked up and set off. we strolled along the river, eating ice creams and watching the wildlife. the path to the river from the car was slightly downhill, so we knew we had to go back up at some point.
we found the stepping stones and i took photos while adam risked life and limb taking liv across....

...and then came back to carry ty across, who was hard to carry while he twisted and turned looking at the ducks.

adam had plonked liv in a tree for safe keeping while he came back for ty, under the supervision of jess and mike. jess, as you see, has her camera out too. for the alternative perspective of our day see her blog at britishcowgirl.livejournal.com.

adam tried to leave ty in the tree too, but liv didn't like sharing her spot.

she was much happier on her own. the dress sense is all her own idea - hat and gloves on a sunny day - but turned out to be very well planned with the strong winds on the mountain.
you can see some of the stepping stones in the middle of this picture. we decided to take the path leading to the bottom of the picture that started up the hill thinking we would go slightly up and round the back of it to get back to the car. however, it never went round, it just kept going up....and up.....

..and up! great scenery, and by the time i realised we were heading straight for the top, it seemed more sensible than going back down and round the front and up to the car. so we kept going. it was hard work for me. but adz skipped along happily, carrying one wriggling child and guiding the other (who, at 5, totally put me to shame)

they had to keep stopping to wait for me, so i used photography as an excuse to pause so i didn't have a heart attack.

we made it to the top of the mountain in relatively good time (relatively good for having a wheezing, lumbering half dead me there)

the little dots are the cars, which we now still had to get back to. at this point we discovered there was no path down the front, and we really should go back the way we came and round the front. we were too stubborn to do that and tyler was shaking with the cold in the strong winds, so we went down the front anyway, mostly on our bottoms!

a family shot on top of cloud thorpe.

again adam carried tyler, so his balance was more off and he spent the most time sliding on his bum to the obvious detriment of his trousers. (nice bum though!)

finally back at the car, i took a shot of where we had just come from, and at this point i had to admit it really was not a mountain, just a medium sized hill.

well, it FELT like a mountain, thats all i'm saying. we were all proud of ourselves, especially liv who had a great time and never complained once.