Our baby turns four!

Well, she did over a week ago.  My excuse is out internet connection has made it really difficult to upload large quantities of photos.  But, better late than never, here is an account of her day.  There was a certain theme to her birthday... pirates!  A playmobil pirate ship (loved by her and Alec and Ethan!) A pirate princess dressing up costume, soft toys of Jake and the neverland pirates... you get the idea ;)

We decided to visit Dudley Zoo, as we hadn't been there with the children, and we had heard they had improved it quite a bit.  So off with set, with Sophie's gruffalo I had made her for her birthday.

As we got there, the heavens opened, but fortunately we were able to remain in the car until it passed.  There were torrents of water racing down the hill, so there was a bit of dam buildinng going on, as well as racing wood down the torrent!

I took Luke, Alec and Ethan up the chair lift, but Sophie was too small (much to her dismay) so Stuart and Sophie walked up and met us at the top.

A bit of exploring of the castle.

The grey clouds threatened the whole time we were there, and we could hear rumbles of thunder too, but the weather was kind to us.

And of course, downpours of rain prior to our arrival meant there were lots of puddles for Sophie.  In fact, I think she could have quite happily stayed splashing in the puddles the whole day long!

The parts that they have done up have enabled people to get up really close to the animals, such as this penguin.

This tiger was one of 130 left.  A beautiful creature, a shame it has to be in a zoo, but when faced with extinction I guess needs must.

We spent ages watching the giraffes stripping the bark of the trees.  Sophie, for some reason, wants to ride on a giraffe, but fortunately she was happy just to look at them.

Another area that has obviously had alot of money spent on it is the lemur walk.  These funny creatures share the enclosure that you walk through, and amaze you with their acrobatics.

These meerkats were funny, they followed me with their gaze wherever I went.  It was only when their zoo keeper arrived I realised why, She wore glasses and had her blonde hair tied back.  I guess it was a case of mistaken identity!

Sophie and I fell in love with this little fella.  He was scrabbling around in the dirt finding morsels to eat, rubbing soil between his hands and picking things out.  I was watching Sophie singing as she did the same (not picking things out to eat though!)

There was a little fairground, which Sophie wanted to have a go on, and as it was her birthday we agreed!

 Same went for the candyfloss!

 Then it was home for a birthday tea, and of course cake!

 

So a belated birthday blog post to our big little girl!