Ciara is four today, so I gathered a few wee pictures over the past four years.

A day old still in hospital...

Chilling out at 7 months

Having a yoghurt experience

Making her own 2nd birthday invites

With her lovely Daddy:

Being cheeky:

TODAY!

We've all been working a bit hard, and needed a bit of a chill out, so we booked an impromptu night away in our favourite mountain resort town. We drove up early Sunday morning and somewhere along the way my tiny DPN slipped out of my hand and down the small gap beside my seat. Gah, much as they might look like bamboo kebab sticks, they're not priced as such PLUS I had socks to knit, so we had to find somewhere to stop, and someone with little fingers to get it out. Ciara saved the day, and rescued my needle and we had a great time exploring a Forest reserve and picking about 10 ripe, wild blackberries. The kids thoroughly enjoyed the 'feast' even if I sustained numerous scratches during my foraging.Our hotel was as luxurious as we hoped with a big spa bath, wee patio with outside furniture and separate room for the girls. We had a picnic lunch in the forest, after Brendan tried to drive us down a mountainbike track , and then chilled for the afternoon. After an early dinner, we headed to the pools for a lovely, warm swim. Staying in for about 90 minutes was luxury after the last couple of attempts (with smallish babies) where I have been lucky to have any swim, and generally not more than about half an hour. The kids went to bed really well and Brendan and I had a lovely relaxing evening. On the way to the pools we had discovered an ENORMOUS blackberry patch, so the next morning, while I cooked a slapup breakfast Brendan and the girls picked some blackberries for our French Toast, and then after we checked out we headed back and collected these:

The container would have been fuller if it hadn't been for... this wee cherub.

When we got home we transformed the goodies into three jars of this...

which are going down rapidly.

And Ciara proclaims it delicious!

Finally, before we came home we went for a blat around town on one of these:

And just to add to the excitement, Issy fell asleep about 500m from the place where we were handing the bike back, so we finished looking like this.

In her relaxed state her wee feet dangled and both her shoes fell off. We didn't notice until we stopped, so then had to spend half an hour finding them. All in all it was a thoroughy enjoyable night away, and we're all looking forward to planning another one.

The Chinese Lantern Festival.

The girls and I went to the Chinese Lantern Festival on Sunday evening. It wasn't supposed to start until 5pm, however we turned up around 4pm and there was still heaps to see and do. We took the bus into town, then the tram down to the festival site. We walked around looking at all the animals and lanterns and it was vibrant, bustling and interesting. We bought some Chinese food from the food stalls for dinner and sat and ate that by the river.

Ciara was fascinated by the Foo Lions, and she wanted some ladies walking along the path to 'be lions'. The ladies were very obliging and gave some good growls.

After dinner we had a Vanilla Ice sundae, which while not Chinese, was exceedingly yummy. We caught the tram back to the bus station and then the girls roared around and ran up and down the yellow lines painted on the floor for the fifteen minutes we had to wait until the bus came. We'll definitely make this a yearly event, as it was heaps of fun, and we're looking forward to being able to stay late enough to actually see some lanterns lit up!