As much as I am excited to meet our baby boy very soon, I am also really enjoying these last few weeks as a family of three. Although life will change for the better, there is no denying that it will change and that for a while Ernie’s needs will take priority over fun days out with Darcie. I’m making the most of this time and loving thinking of little things for us to do to spend quality time together before our newest member arrives. This weekend there was a fun fair set up locally to us which we went to on Saturday afternoon and then on Sunday we went strawberry picking at Pickwell Farm. These were both little outings that Darcie absolutely loved and made for a lovely family weekend together.
The fun fair was set up just down the road from us, it was small, much smaller than I was expecting, but then Darcie is only tiny herself so really it was the perfect size. There were the usual selection of fairground rides, most of which Darcie was too young for but the ones she was able to go on, she absolutely loved! First there was the carousel or ‘the horsey ride’ if you’re an adorable little two year old with a scruffy ponytail. Darcie adores the carousel and loves sitting up on the horse by herself. Because she is young she has to have an adult stand with her but she gets so annoyed if she actually feels like you are holding onto her. Dan had to just hover around her ready to catch her if she fell, otherwise he’d get a stern look from her and his hand quickly batted away.
Probably her favourite part of the fun fair was the huge inflatable slide and bouncy castle. When I say it was a huge inflatable slide, I’m really not exaggerating. Dan went up with her (I feel I’m justified in using the pregnant card in these situations) and even he looked tiny standing at the top of the slide. I don’t think she’s ever seemed so grown up to me as she did confidently clambering her way up to the top and she was so, so happy as she went down it too. There was also a much smaller slide that she was able to go up by herself. Able to is the wrong wording, she definitely was able to do the big one herself too, but that would make me way too nervous! She spent ages climbing up to the top and throwing herself down it to where her Daddy was waiting below.
She loved just wandering around the fair too. There was so much for her to look at and lots of bubbles for her to play with!
Sunday began with a lie in for me and then breakfast in bed for all of us. Dan made bacon and egg club sandwiches which were perfect to wake up too. Darcie happily stole bits from our plates despite having already eaten her body weight in Cheerios while Dan was cooking. Then we went strawberry picking which is something that I’ve been looking forward to taking her too, ever since we went last year. I wrote a blog post on it last year which you can read here, but the long story short is that she loved it! Last year she had only just really started confidently walking so it was even better this year as she was able to run around the fields picking as many strawberries as her little hands could hold. I kept saying to her to look for the ‘big red ones, not the little green ones’ but instead she kept bringing me tiny ones and saying ‘green one Mummy’. She finally got the hang of which ones were the good ones and then proceeded to eat more than her fair share. Safe to say we certainly got our money’s worth and it was such a lovely morning out together too. Darcie is such a fruit fiend that I think taking her strawberry picking is probably even better to her than an Easter Egg hunt!
When we got home Dan cooked homemade burgers and we spent the rest of the afternoon sorting out the house, putting some new prints up on the walls and generally trying to ‘nest’ and get the house ready for Ernie’s arrival. We finished the evening off with some homemade strawberry tart, also made by Dan who was definitely Chef of the day, and settled down to watch Love Island, making the most of Darcie actually being in bed on time.
All in all it was such a nice family weekend! I’m going to try to write more of these kinds of posts because they are so lovely for me to look back on and to remember all of these family days.
I hope you had a good weekend too, what did you get up to?