Day 287: Lachlan loves to partay

08/05/2022

On Saturday, day two of celebrations for our big one-year-old kicked off. Lachlan was trying to help Super Mum put the finishing touches on his birthday cake.

Eloise was also keen to kick off the party.

Super Mum had nailed in again. Lachlan’s first birthday cake was inspired by his favourite toy. Lachlan loves skating about pushing his big red bus around, it has certainly found a couple of extra gears recently.

Perhaps we had talked about Lachlan’s party too much, it was early morning and the kids were already bouncing off the walls “Mum, when Juju coming? Mum Juju here yet? Mum me want cake”. We had to go to the ducks to calm them down. What a difference the last month’s sun has made, we had to do something about the hedge and backyard jungle. As always, Eloise was up for the challenge.

Luckily we had a timely bump into the neighbour who kindly lent us his lawnmower. The first time we had used an electric corded mower and the first time we had cut the lawn.

The jungle was tamed and the “food” was ready just before Lachlan’s guests showed up.

There was a bit of dancing in and out of the house with some come again go again rain. The Big Sister provided some candle blowing out assistance. Lachlan loved his big red bus, went down a treat.

After dinner, which was not really a thing, Sophie was with the netball girls at a friends BBQ Hut.

Today there were early calls back home to wish Nali and Grandma Nicholls an Aussie Happy Mother’s Day.

Yesterday Juju and Jane had told us about a must-visit playground that they loved. There was only one place that Eloise was going today, we were back down to Ayrshire, this time to Dumfries House Estate.

The STEM playground had a lot of water play, Eloise was unsure which system to start with. Unfortunately, the Engineering Education Centre was not open. In fact, we were one week early for the children’s festival at the Engineering Education Centre.

It was a beautiful day which turned out to be hotter than we expected.

Eloise and Lachlan did not come all this way to sit and watch the world go by. Eloise led the charge through one of the trickier Garden Mazes we have done.

Glad I remembered these photos lol.

After finally escaping we ended up at another impressive tree playground, good call Juju and Jane. Eloise was at full speed and peaking at the right time.

After some lunch and a much needed ice coffee to cool down, it was back out to chase the kids.

It was playground after playground. The kids were in heaven. Lachlan might not be able to stand or walk yet, but he is getting good at climbing. We made our way through the Estate until we reached Dumfries House where there was a wedding on.

Dumfries House is a Palladian country house in Ayrshire, Scotland. It is located within a large estate, around two miles (3 km) west of Cumnock. Noted for being one of the few such houses with much of its original 18th-century furniture still present, including specially commissioned Thomas Chippendale pieces, the house and estate is now owned by The Prince’s Foundation, a charity which maintains it as a visitor attraction and hospitality and wedding venue. Both the house and the gardens are listed as significant aspects of Scottish heritage. The estate and an earlier house were originally called Lefnoreis or Lochnorris, owned by a branch of the Craufurds of Loudoun. The present house was built in the 1750s for William Dalrymple, 5th Earl of Dumfries, by John Adam and Robert Adam. Having been inherited by the 2nd Marquess of Bute in 1814, it remained in his family until 2007 when the 7th Marquess sold it to the nation for £45 million due to the cost of upkeep.

After a lovely family day in the sun we decided to call it a day and headed back to the car. We did not quite get there as Lachlan had to drench himself first.

All that splashing was not enough for the kids, when we got home they were straight out the back to set up Lachlan’s new swimming pool.

Dinner was a messy affair, lucky we were outside. We have been thinking that Lachlan is our messy child. Turns out we are just missing the Delilah vacuum cleaner.

Eloise then rode into the next dimension and it was time for bed.