Isn't that a lovely looking house?
It's Arniston House in Midlothian and it was the location for the annual Family Fun Day that the charity my husband works for organise every June. Well, last year was the first year they had one so this was only the second time they have had the Fun Day, but I'm pretty sure they plan for it to be an annual event.
My husband is one of the Scottish directors of Safe Families for Children, a charity who aim to help out families in crisis. They train up volunteers to get alongside families who are having a difficult time and to be there to support them. You can read more about them by clicking above.
The Fun Day is organised so that volunteers can bring the children and families they support along for a fun day out for everyone in a beautiful location.
This year the location was the same as last year, in the Orangery in the grounds of Arniston House.
My first job of the day was to set up a sweetie stall like the one we had done at my sister in law's party. This time we had even more sweeties!
As well as some chocolate biscuits that had been donated too.
The theme for the day was Superheroes, and everybody was encouraged to dress up as a superhero.
Fraser (4) and Ally (8) are always glad of the opportunity to dress up as any sort of superhero! Fraser went as his favourite guy, Spiderman.
Ally thought about his costume for a while and decided to go wearing an old Thor costume that I had made David years ago. You might even remember me sharing it when I made it if you have been reading the blog for a number of years, although I think it may have been as far back as 2011 that I made it! His reason for choosing Thor, when his favourite guy is Captain America, was that he thought there would be fewer others dressed up as Thor. He was right, he was the only Thor there.
I didn't have a costume planned, but when I mentioned the fun day to one of my piano pupils the day before, she suggested that I make some cat ears for myself and go as Catwoman.
So I did. I crocheted two cat ears in the morning before we left and attached them with some hair grips.
There was some great magic to entertain the kids from a magician and there was also live music from the excellent Einstein's Wardrobe.
The children were also kept busy with some games outside. There was a fairly competitive game of football went on and I think there was also some rounders.
I didn't see any of the games though as once I had finished eating lunch it was time for my other job of the day - face painting. Once one person had their face painted there was a never ending queue of children waiting for their turn until the Fun Day was over!
Fraser came in from the games after a while to see what I was doing and decided he wanted to have his face painted too. I told him it would be best if he waited till the end as some of the other children might have to go home before we did. And he waited so patiently! He sat beside me watching while everyone else had their turn, and chatted to the other children waiting their turn. When it was finally time for him to have his face painted he chose to complete his Spiderman look. But he also asked if I would paint the spider that bites Peter Parker onto his hand too! I love this picture of him.
Once the Fun Day was finished and everything was packed away we headed home. On the way we popped in to see my husband's sister to see how she was. She is half way through her second course of Chemotherapy. This course hasn't left her as exhausted as the first one did and she was up and about to see us.
Then back home, via a weekly food shop stop, and once dinner was done and cleared up (at about 9pm!) it was time to prep for the only summer birthday in our house which was the following day, when Ally would turn 9. I baked his cake and James helped me wrap up the presents at the end of a busy, but rewarding day.
Ally was up bright and early on Sunday morning. He did wake up at 7 and ask if that was too early. When I said it was, he went back to sleep and didn't wake again until about 8.30 so it was pretty civilised really!
He brought all his presents into our bedroom and waited patiently, despite his excitement, until everyone was there before opening them.
James (18) had bought him an old Pokemon GameBoy Colour and he was over the moon with it.
His other presents combined his other two loves - Marvel and Lego - and he loved his Marvel Infinity War Lego sets. I tried to take a picture of Ally with his two main presents and was hilariously photobombed by Fraser.
But I did then get a proper photo of just Ally.
While I prepared the Sunday lunch, (which Ally had requested be Pork, apple sauce and mashed potatoes) James decorated the birthday cake for me. Ally had asked for a surprise for his cake and I had decided to make a Ninjago face as Lego Ninjago is another of the Lego series' that Ally loves. I had found a tutorial on Pinterest but James said he didn't need it.
He was right about not needing the tutorial and did a fantastic job of Lloyd, the green ninja.
Our dinner table was decorated with a few extra Ninjago touches.
Here is the birthday boy excitedly waiting to see what his cake was.
And he was pretty pleased with it! I love this picture of him.
Ally had asked his cousin round to spend the day with him for his birthday.
The photos soon got a bit silly and so I didn't get one of everyone together!
Ally said that he had an amazing 9th birthday. He was so appreciative of all his presents and of his cake, and at bedtime he was very sweet and thanked me once again for all his presents and cake and for organising everything to make his birthday so good.
He managed to get all of his Lego sets built on the day, with some help from some eager to help so that they had an excuse to build some Lego big brothers, and was able to spend the evening acting out the Infinity War story with the new sets.
Meanwhile, I showed the boys that there is one game that I can actually beat all their high scores at. None of them have managed to beat me at Tetris yet!
