Yesterday was bank holiday and where we wouldn't really mark a bank holiday with doing anything particularly special usually, we decided that actually we'd take an extra family day this week and make the most of not having emails to reply to or send, or Lego to pack and take to the post office. Adam is off every Monday, as he works part time (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) in his regular job and runs his business the other days (Monday being his busiest day) and I usually work Mondays (though if it wasn't a bank holiday, today would have been my last before I go on maternity leave), but the station that I work at is closed on bank holidays, so I take all of the bank holiday days off as annual leave. It's nice because Adam's off so it's an extra day for us as a three during the week.
As a family, we really love nothing more than being outside exploring and breathing in the fresh air. I suppose when you spend as much time inside on the computers as much as Adam and I do, it's a very welcome change. It's great that Ethan is so fond of outdoor life as it forces us to take a break, I sometimes think if we didn't have him - our eyes may have turned square by now.
We weren't sure whether or not it would be open, but we decided to pack our rucksack and head over to our local farm. We've been before and it really is a lovely little farm, it's not huge, but it's also not expensive. We find that taking a stroll around to see all of the different animals takes just the right amount of time before we all start getting tired and/or hungry.
As a family of veggies, we're big animal lovers and really love being around different animals and learning about them. It's lovely to see that Ethan is as fond of animals as Adam and I are - he finds them very exciting and is always so respectful of them, which makes me feel very proud.
Ethan's changed a lot recently, I feel like he's suddenly become very independent. He's been so much nicer to be around too - we did have a bit of a rough stage a month or so a go where literally everything involved a tantrum. He's growing up and part of growing up is learning how to behave and we've seen big improvements and a huge decrease in the amount of tanrums and things like hitting out that he was doing. It sure makes things a heck of a lot easier and nicer!
He really enjoyed feeding all the different animals at the farm. He helps us feed the cats every morning and evening at home by passing us their food sachets and biscuits, he always likes to be involved.
A rare family photograph of us all looking at the camera, smiling and getting a half smile out of our little man. It may seem like it from some of the photos I upload here on my blog, but in reality, Ethan's a typical toddler and is not really a fan of the old ' family selfie', he'll often pull his best death stare or just simply look away from the camera when we attempt them.
This donkey was such a sweeiet, though he did make Ethan as unfortunately he decided to start 'hee haw'ing very loudly just as Ethan was about to reach out and stroke him! Ethan wasn't sure quite what was going on and so we had a few little tears.. but the moment very quickly passed and was soon forgotten about! ;)
Donkey and Ethan five minutes later - friends again! ;)
We got home just in time for lunch, where we had vegetable soup with bread for dunking, quiche, grapes, a little yoghurt for this little man followed by a few Organix snack crisps. Daddy took this photo, he was trying to make Ethan laugh and look at the camera, but Ethan thought that laughing at me was so much funnier!
Ethan took a particularly long nap after lunch - it was around 3 and half hours long! For the last three days he's napped much longer than usual, it's great having him around but it's also been great for getting things done. After his nap we had our simple, yet all time favourite, dinner of pasta with tomato and mascarpone sauce.
Afterwards, we snuggled up together on the sofa and watched Despicable Me on blu ray. It was the first film that Ethan's ever sat through and just watched - I'd never seen him so still and silent before! He's a little obsessed with the minions from the film after discovering them on YouTube via his favorite song - Happy by Pharrell Williams. Later Adam and I snuggled up together on the sofa again to watch the brand new episode of our favorite show on television - Game of Thrones.. which of course, was awesome.
We had such a lovely family focused bank holiday. I'm so glad that we decided to take it easy rather than to fit in lots of chores, work or jobs. Family time really is the greatest time of all. :)
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