Sleights a fabulous place to hoilday

Hillary holiday 2013 - Manor hall Farm, Sleights Nr Whitby

Hill rolling

Time getting to know Aunty Ashley

Whitby beach, day 1 

Stunning panoramic views around the farmhouse

Gorgeous Whitby

The Super Seven with the Grands

Our Charlie LOVES cake!! (Hillary trait)

Super man poses

Kid's dining

 Super Bear!

Story time in the 'quiet room'

Scarborough beach rockpool finds

Emily was action girl; finding crabs, eels and fish.

Ben wasn't too sure about getting too close! Joseph neither!

Nathan had to retrieve an escapee crab from amongst the bags!

When asked what his favourite part of the day had been, Ben replied ' playing in the dirty sea' aka the puddle around the bottom of the steps!! Joseph invented the game, throw the bouncy ball up the steps and then try and catch it. The four of them loved it. I tried not to think about the grossness of the water!

Sarah had a nap under the parachute

Joseph played boules with Grandad and Uncle Dave - guess who threw the 'jack' in this picture!

Ben and Jack played catch or place the ball onto each others scratch pad!

Seth loves the ball on his pram toy

They sure love to run!

Recreating beach poses

..and then there were three bottoms!

Seth's first trip to the beach

Attempts at family photos where we are all looking were a plenty!

Photo bombed!

Spending money from Grandma Josie

Whitby Abbey photo shoot - the five, the ten, the seventeen.

The Grands and the Super Seven #2

Photo success!

So you can count on them all facing forward when it's funny face time!

Whitby Abbey (sunglasses as filter!)

Love

Emily: Boys, just so you know - you can see his bum!

[Boys hurry to have a look at naked statue's bum then wander around the front]

Joseph: HAHAHA YOU CAN SEE HIS WHIDGEY!!!

JACK COME AND LOOK YOU CAN SEE HIS....

199 steps

Boat trip. Missing Jack -'I like trains and planes but not boats'.....'stop telling me, I'm not coming on'

 Cutie pie 

 'Cuzzi-time'

Wet Wednesday - play gym time. Ben typically spent most of his time in the bus. Wrestle time where Isabelle cam out on top!

Wet Wednesday Wellie Walk

Pals

Time for 'vendgers' aka adventures. 

Joseph, are you coming on an adventure??

Thier adventure of choise was to go up a staircase at one side of the house, through the boys room which led to the unused bedroom at the top of the house and then down the staircase at the other side of the house and back round.

Talk about double trouble!

Dalby Forest -truly 'The Great Yorkshire Forest'

Emily saw a real life badger, we missed it - gutted though we did see a deer on the drive out. 

Amazing park, stunning scenery.

Daddy time

So handsome

Quite like the flat cap look!

Birthday cake - shared with Aunty Caroline

Family scripture time

A holiday highlight - hot tub time, indoors or out, take your pick!

Kids in bed and the adults relaxed even more if it involved an ice cream as well! Aunty Gemma was hot tub Queen - in every night!

Pile on Uncle Stuart time!

The 19

North Landing - Granne has a paddle

Great pals

Seth's first dip in the sea - his expression says it all!

'Venture!'

Exploring the caves with Grandad.
Fabulous day at the beach to end a fabulous holiday.

Manor Hall Farm aka 'The Farmer's house' = one truly fabulous place to have a holiday.

Ben turns four

Ben turned four today.

It was a day of -

Wide smiles

Present opening with squeals of delight

Birthday t-shirts

Cake decorating

Waiting for the cake decorating to set (so tempting)

Birthday singing

Birthday telephone calls

Getting watered by the garden sprinkler

Hill climbing

Pizza picnicking 

Birthday candles blown out by the wind

Cake eating

Baby brother threatening to crawl any day

Woods exploring

Off track pushchair struggling

Birthday boy leading

Tree swinging

Stick gun finding

 Photo posing

Finding presents dropped off whilst we were out

Mummy cuddling

A lovely day for our lovely Ben.

Note - Joseph is wearing a cast on his left arm. Second cast of the year! Small break to his arm a result of a bike accident on Monday.

Why I blog #15

Today I am loving -

Watching  my two older boys playing in the back garden as I wash up.

The fact that Joseph has obediently got changed out of his uniform before going outside and his trousers are on back front. Tuesday is PE day and you can guarantee something won't be put on quite right! Today his jumper was inside out over the top of his polo shirt which was on back to front :) How I will miss it when he doesn't put things on back to front; I'm pretty sure this will probably be in line with an age in double figures and time will have seemed to have slipped through my fingers.

Today I am loving -

Listening to the birds singing. Our garden is still very......rustic :) but it has amazing trees at the bottom of it, separately us from the castle Garth. These trees mean we have lots of birds which sometimes mess on my washing - boo, but always sound lovely.

Hearing Ben firmly say to Joseph as he interrupted him ' Dosiff, I am speaking to my Mummy!' I am loving hearing him become so much more confident with words. He now strikes up conversations with Julie next door unprompted. He has things he wants too and can say and I am loving to see our quieter boy become confident in his quieter way.

Today I am loving -

Moments of pure bliss with our four month old. Giggles when I blow raspberries on his tummy and he grabs my hair; gummy smiles ; wide opened eyes when he's told he's handsome (he totally knows it). He thinks I am an amazing lyricist as I create songs about him to tunes varying from Beyonce's 'if you like it' to the gospel classic ' I will follow Him' They are one hit wonders as I have a memory like a sieve and wouldn't be able to recall them. However, they definitely meet with his approval :)

Superheros

 Some days, the sun comes out and you get to do something extra special for your boys. 

Sometimes, these extra special things are also free which is an added bonus :)

May Day we took the boys, or should I say; 'I' accompanied the boys (Nathan included!) to the Superhero day at The Royal Armouries.

As soon as we walked through the entrance, the boys squealed with excitement when the saw Bobba Fett just casually hanging out in the foyer :)

At times it seemed like they couldn't actually believe their eyes and I'm sure if we'd have left straight after they would have been thoroughly satisfied.

On the first floor, we bumped into a clone fortunately of the friendly type. I'm pretty sure I racked up some 'my wife is not only gorge but cool' points with my correct Star War's character name dropping!

We also bumped into the Parkers and Stilgoes. The children collectively charged around excitedly, we Mums did our best to keep up whilst the Dads seemed to take a more 'Dad- like calm approach' to child shepherding!!

Obi Wan shared some force with us.

  

and the kids shared some more.

Outside we took a few moments to hang out with Iron man, he'd made the effort to come so it would have seemed rude not too! We even thought it would be polite to have some photos taken with him and if it looks like Nathan has his arm around him that's because he does lol!! I'm not sure this wins him any extra 'my husband is gorge and cool points' but he certainly cracks me up with his boyish ways! 

At lunchtime we headed to celebrate Grandad's birthday. He doesn't have a fancy costume or supernatural powers, though he his pretty super and a hero to me and thereby fits well in with the day's theme.

His cake was a-ma-zing; Mum's fruit cake with rocky road on top. The weather was kind and so the grandchildren played for hours in the garden and we got to hang out n chat. 

Great day.

(Seth telling Grandad a long tale about the days' events - so very cute)

Scrummy Seth

This 

 little 

babe

is

totally

delish!

Owl Tote

This is the second of two owl totes I made for two birthday girls in April. They turned out pretty well to say it was a pattern I made up. I was chuffed to pick up the floral 'Amy Butler esque' at the car boot sale a few weeks back  a whole curtain for a whole £1.50!

Here'e Ben at the party he was invited to and for which I made this bag for him to gift. As thanks (from him to me)I had to watch him lick all the frosting off the scrummy looking cupcake.

The pure cheek of it!!