We had an amazing Easter! We spent a whole week in Shropshire leading up to the big day, and then had a few days in Scotland after that too so all in all we were away for nearly 2 weeks and made every day count! and have a zillion pictures to show for it so be prepared for a picture overload!
Even on the drive to Shropshire we kicked off our time away with a stop at the ice cream farm, which is our fave! and found out that they have a really awesome soft play area too! plus everything is ice cream themed! from the drips down the slide
to the ice cream cones that you banged your way through and the big style piano topped it all off -one of the best soft plays I've seen for Ella's age for sure!
to the ice cream cones that you banged your way through and the big style piano topped it all off -one of the best soft plays I've seen for Ella's age for sure!
plus there's homemade ice cream in the craziest and yummiest of flavours like white chocolate, raspberry and oreo!
Ella got stuck right into daddy's peanut butter flavour one...with her own little spoon!
and tractors and usually animals to see (but they are extending so the animals weren't there this time around) but oh ice cream farm how we love you!
We headed to Shrewsbury one morning and let Ella loose in Toys R Us which she loved!!
She had so much fun testing out all the mini cars and motorbikes! It's such a great idea to let the toys be played on because oh how I wanted to buy everything for Ella!!!
Her favourite part was finding the cuddly toy aisle and an abundance of monkey's!
Pretty soon she had pulled every one off the shelf and was having a little monkey gathering right there in the middle of the aisle!
You can't come to Shropshire and not go to vast amounts of farm shops! especially when there are none near us...boo hoo! So we went to Battlefield 1403 which is one of our faves, and I had this amazing white chocolate pistachio raspberry rocky road!
and Ella had milk, along with a snuggle from daddy!! I love these moments when she still looks like a baby! She spends too much time on her feet and trying to walk and is becoming a toddler too fast before my eyes!
We had been talking about Hoo Farm for a while - we always see the sign when we're driving away from my parents so we thought we'd check it out while we were there. Note how at the start of our trip we were wearing boots, coats and winter hats...and by the end it was all t-shirts and bare feet!
Ella's favorite thing in the whole world is checking out animals! so she was in her element!
This owl was eating a baby chick! Not sure how I felt about that!! Fortunately Ella didn't seem to realise!
She really loves to 'walk' everywhere now! but she's not walking independently yet so it's her little wobbly one handed walk that she is trying to perfect!
Big cats!
Of course Ella was just as excited to see the cows in the field too!
and oh how she loved the sheep! she giggled away at these guys for ages! and loved sticking her hands through the cage to give them a pet - no fear!
Little lambies!
She was less sure about giving the hedgehog a stroke!
as you can tell from her face!
Loved this cute little pig!
Again, with all the walking! Really, she just likes to walk everywhere she can now!
This goat was coming for a closer look! and Ella was loving it!
Love her little goat audience here!
She does love a good farm park!
On Good Friday we headed to Knutsford to Tatton Park primarily for their cherry blossoms and gardens and a Lindt easter egg trail story time they had in the gardens but it rained! and we didn't fancy running around some muddy gardens in the rain, so we checked out their market instead and look at the size of this giant Lindt bunny!
Ella attended her first Punch and Judy show! She loved the magician before the act began, and liked watching all the other children who were there to see it...but once the actual Punch and Judy began it was pretty loud and she wasn't so sure about that Punch guy and all his knocking people on the head so we made a swift exit!
Right in time for some carousel fun! with the whole family!
which Ella thought was just great!
and we even managed to stop in for some soft play fun at Bridgemere on the way home! Auntie Alli and Granny got involved too!
One of the things we were most excited about was our trip to Monkey Forest! We went when By and I were dating and knew it was somewhere Ella would love because obviously she's crazy for monkey's!!
She even wore her new monkey moccasins we'd bought at the craft market at Tatton Hall the day before for the occasion! and she brought her own little mini monkey to join in the fun!
I'm pretty sure the monkey forest is one of the only places in the UK you can go where they just roam free!
Aside from the monkeys, Ella's other favourite part of the day was this perfect baby height ledge that she could walk around on!
This monkey was rather acrobatic!
'Oh hey there monkey!' Loved the little waves she gave to them!
and her excited face at seeing some more!
Taking a rest with Granny checking out the stream.
and this little baby monkey, what a cutie!
These guys had some serious grooming going on!
Getting in position for the feeding talk...Ella was trying to escape!
and 3 monkeys sharing a group hug!
We headed to check out Trentham and had some delicious lunch at Pieminster! Why don't we have one of these near us! This was a sweet potato, coconut and chilli pie!!! hmmm!
Ella also adored the toy section in Trentham itself and had so much fun playing with all the stuff!
Check out my ride!
She was in love with these little dogs, at first I think she thought they were real!
Standing by herself is a newly acquired skill so I had to snap a pic of her doing it, she gets carried away doing something - doesn't realise she's standing alone, and then gets really excited when she realises and looks around to see if you've noticed too - it's super cute!
My mom made this lovely easter tree after we 'borrowed' ahem, some cherry blossom branches from their village!
We all know my feelings on cherry blossoms!
I couldn't have said it better myself!
We made Ella a little Easter basket of some fun things. The cat t-shirt says 'my favourite day is caturday' which we thought was very appropriate for Ella!
and had got the adorable little bunny bucket to put it all in at a lovely farm shop on the way to Knutsford.
I whipped up a chocolate malt malteser bunny mousse pie!
and my mom cooked us a delicious lamb roast.
Loved the mini eggs scattered around the table!
Ella was in love with this bumble bee headband Granny got her!
We took her outside into the sunshine to open her easter basket. That cute little bunny jumper was a gift from Granny.
She got stuck right in checking everything out...
and seemed especially impressed with her cuddly lindt bunny - and had to give it some immediate cuddles!
and she loved her little basket too!
even better on her head!
and then we took Ella down the lane to the woods upon hearing news that the easter bunny had been!
With a little help from us, Ella joined in on her second ever easter egg hunt (although last year she probably really had no idea what was going on!)
She seemed to get the hang a bit more this time around!
and after finding this basket filled with tons of different types on mini easter eggs she started feasting immediately!
So we let her have a little chocolate stop!
Love this little pic of her in the middle of the woods!
She struck gold with Grandad adding more to her stash!
and then we checked out the little lambs in the field next door!
We watched from the gate but apparently that wasn't close enough for Daddy...
So him and Ella climbed right on over! and Ella took off crawling over to the sheep, 'baaing' all along the way!
and they got right up close and personal to them! It was a real deal Easter Sunday spending it with the lambs!
Ella sitting on the easter bunny's knee - shh don't tell her!!
We also spent one afternoon at Fordhall Farm, just around the corner from where my parents live.
There were some gorgeous new piglets running about, and Ella loved the chickens!
She always has to be at the centre of all the action!!
She's ridden more tractors in this past 2 weeks than she has ever! haha! and here she is just soaking up some of that blue sky and sunshine with Daddy! a little tree climber in the making!
We couldn't finish up our time in Shropshire without a visit to Ironbridge.
It was too sunny not to one day! so we headed there for some Queenie's cupcake and milkshake fun!
Ella got right at home!
You can't beat a milkshake on a hot day! and some chocolate and coconut cookies. It was their £1 take away cupcake special so they hardly had any flavours left which is why we opted for cookies. We got chatting to the owner and told her how much we love her cupcakery and that her snickerlicious cupcake is our fave...
Next minute she brought us these two cupcakes, one being snickerlicious, on the house! She had baked them for a private event that evening! How good is that!
After feasting at Queenie's, she recommended we go feed some ducks which we did as Ella loves feeding ducks and then found this awesome park she recommended! I also think Ella has been on a park tour these past few weeks checking out all the best England and Scotland has to offer!! The wibbly-wobbly's are always a fave!
Our few days in Scotland were brief. Byron had two interviews we went up for. We stayed with our lovely friends Eilidh and Neil who I met at birthing class and little Isaac. Ella had great fun playing with all Isaacs amazing toys and they even shared their bath together and had great fun seeing who could make the bigger splash - Isaac won hands down!!
The following morning the sun was shining so we headed to Palace Riggs. We checked out some more animals, and Ella and Isaac had tons of park fun! they both love a good swing! look at those happy little faces!
I think Ella's putting her arm round Isaac here - little lazy daisy buddies!
It was so fun to be back visiting again and I'm excited for when we will get to see our old friends more and excited for Ella to have more baby friends!!
We headed to Stirling for Daddy's second interview and I showed Ella the park where I played when I was at uni! She thought it was great and was wondering how to ride the sheep!
The sandpit area was her fave! she got stuck right in throwing sand down the chutes...
and grabbing it by the handful!
and we even found this second park with mini trampolines built right into the floor! Scotland really knows how to do play parks well! if only we had fun ones like that near us!!
We finished off by a drive through the highlands near to Crieff, it was super beautiful!
The sun was shining and the views were amazing, can't wait 'til we can explore it more this summer!
