Beatrix Potter day

I really wanted to celebrate Beatrix Potter day this year with a fun tea party. 

 I made a bunch of sheep out of white balloons. 

 

Then I had my mom (she came over for the tea party) read a book about Beatrix Potter while I was finishing setting up the tea party.

The spread:

I made cucumber sandwiches (which I love) in the shape of bunnies. 

We had little donut holes with chocolate sprinkles on them to make them into hedgehogs. 

I also made some scones.

Along with it we had veggies from Mr. McGregor's garden, dip, chocolate pudding in the cute flower pots, and some pink lemonade tea. 

After our tea party lunch we went outside to play the game. 

The girls had to use fly swatters to try to get the sheep from one area of the yard to the other area.

Maddy was sad because some of her sheep popped.

She loved her sheep.

She resorted to carrying them so they wouldn't pop. 

This was a really fun activity!

Afterward we watched some Peter Rabbit cartoons. 

I loved it.

We will definitely be doing this again next year!

May/ June Book Haul

 I'm finally getting around to it!

My book haul for May and June was pretty decent. Most of them were bought in May. 

There was a scholastic warehouse sale in May and I always go to those and get a few things and there was also Mother's Day!

Let's get started. 

I ordered the Berenstain Bears' and the Tooth Fairy after Maddy lost her first tooth. 

She did not leave her tooth out for the tooth fairy. She wanted to keep it. 

I got Jacky Ha-Ha and Who was Beatrix Potter at the warehouse sale. 

We were excited to add another one of the Who was.. books to our collection. 

We began reading Jacky Ha-Ha out loud immediately and... well, we didn't finish it. Not one of the three of us was a fan. We may try again later or we may give it away.

 At the warehouse sale we also got these two cook books. The girls want to start learning to bake more things and so I let them pick out one that they thought looked fun. 

I ordered this book from Amazon a while ago. It finally came!

 

I ordered The Princess Bride from Amazon as well to bring the purchase price up to free shipping. 

The day before Mother's Day Doug sent me to Barnes and Noble to look around. 

Always a dangerous idea. 

I bought some books as well as a blanket and pillow that I really wanted and found on clearance!

The Great Divorce was one of the books I got. 

 

You might remember I was on a search for a beautiful copy of Anne of Green Gables and found one a few months ago. 

Well, then I found this yellow edition in Barnes and Noble. 

I went back and forth but in the end I had to have it. 

So, yes, now I own three copies of Anne. 

I also decided to get this edition of The Secret Garden while I was there. 

I love both of these so much!

Did you get any new books in the months of May and June?

Europe Adventure: Day Seven, Part One- Hill Top Farm

We woke up on Monday, April 11th full of expectations. 

I was worried as today would be one of the things I was MOST looking forward to. 

We had pre-ordered breakfast at our B&B (they leave a paper in your room to do that) and we did not do a good job of it. I ordered poached eggs thinking they were fried eggs (duh) so they were so runny I couldn't eat them. My mom ordered salmon thinking it was cooked salmon. It was raw. Yeah, we felt extremely picky this morning as neither of us could finish our food. I wish I had a picture of it but I don't. It was completely our fault and I have no doubts that if we would have ordered something else we would have loved it. We had some toast and fruit and then grabbed some Zone bars from our room on our way out afterward.

We decided to take the small car ferry across Lake Windermere (only a few pounds) to Far Sawrey. 

It was pretty fun. It was a short ride but cool to ride across the lake. 

 

At Far Sawrey we drove off the ferry and made our way to Near Sawrey to visit Hill Top Farm, the home of Beatrix Potter. 

We got there early so we sat in the car and just got more and more excited while we waited for the ticket office to open. 

When it finally did open we were only behind one family that got there while we were waiting and stood in the rain by the ticket office until it opened - we didn't want to do that. It was quite cold. 

We were able to get a 10am tour time. 

You walk down the street from the parking lot to get to the entrance for Hill Top Farm. 

It was a wonderful walk. 

So beautiful and so peaceful. 

At this point my worries started to fade away. It was no where near as crowded and it was so quiet. Just what I imagined it would be like. 

I've always thought sheep were cute... but after this trip I love them. 

Sheep, like daffodils, were everywhere in England. 

On our way down the road we passed the Tower Bank Arms. It makes an appearance in Jemima Puddle Duck. 

I love that about Beatrix Potter's art. Everywhere we went here we saw scenes from her books!

I was keeping an eye out for Castle Cottage. It is where Beatrix lived after marrying William Heelis. It is across some fields from Hill Top. 

I found it!

the little babies...

Soon we walked through a little gate to the pathway past the gift shop and up to the house. 

We were so excited!

We couldn't believe we were here!

We went right in and explored this wonderful house. 

I couldn't take pictures inside unfortunately so I will just have to say we loved it. 

This house had a special feeling in it. 

It felt happy. It felt calm. It was amazing. You could feel her there.

We were able to see so many of her cool things and the spots she painted into her books. 

There was a wonderful doll house that some children were playing with. 

It was just a fantastic experience. 

After touring the home we spent some time in the garden and took more pictures of the outside.

I took the bag I got for my birthday the year before with me to use this day. 

I had to get a picture of it in the garden. 

The gift shop was small but so much fun and I bought a lot there!

I got the two postcards to frame and put on my book shelf next to my Beatrix Potter books. 

I got a Peter figurine and a Mrs. Tiggy Winkle figurine to match them. They look great on my shelves!

I also got a little Lilliput Lane figurine of Hill Top itself. 

I bought a pencil for each of my daughters- blue for Maddy, pink for Abi.

And I also got a leather bookmark. 

We started out the day worried but were quickly so calm and happy. 

This experience was exactly what I needed at this moment. 

We went on to have such a wonderful day which I will write about more in the next post. 

Hill Top Farm is still one of the best things we did on our trip. 

I will always love this place. 

Next up: Grasmere