Seedlings, a sweater vest, and the sea! 🌊

Have you ever seen such a look of suspicion and disapproval directed at an ice cream? 🍦This was Jethro's first experience of the stuff and we couldn't persuade him to try it! Probably a good thing really, there's plenty of time to become an ice cream addict (if he's anything like his mum).

We were out enjoying a sunny afternoon in Dawlish, the baby got his first sunhat and we spotted a couple of the famous black swans with their babies (also some yarnbombing):

The boys underneath some blossom:

After saying goodbye to my old car we were fortunate to be able to replace it quite quickly. Our new ride has a glass roof which Jethro finds quite interesting:

🌷 Our growing tulip collection:

Easter Sunday was a fun day, we had 6 baptisms at church and a big bring-and-share lunch together afterwards. After such an exciting morning, Jethro had a long     afternoon sleep and then I remembered that I should take some photos to mark the occasion 🐣 (just look at his angelic face and those chunky hands)

The colourful wallflowers made a nice background, and the bees have been LOVING them too 🐝 

Yellow trousers felt appropriate for Easter...more gorgeous forget-me-nots...and didn't you know that creme eggs actually come from beanie baby chickens? Actually that's a cockerel, never mind. 

Jethro enjoyed having his grandparents visiting for a few days so that he could show off all the new skills he's learned since he last saw them at Christmas: crawling, eating, and making lots of noise!

Devon treated them to lots of rain whilst they were here so one of our wet weather activities was a trip to the House of Marbles. Funny mirrors and funny pottery, we also had a great time looking at all the toys in the gift shop 😄

A glimpse at what it's like to try and cook (or do anything really) with a wild Jethro on the loose:

Another loaf of sourdough 🍞 I've since done some research about why my scoring patterns don't seem to stay very deep after baking so I'm hoping I can improve that with practise. Plus a happy baby eating sardines! Not something I'd ever bought before we starting baby-led weaning but now we're all about those healthy proteins and vitamins 💪😋🐟

Orangey flowers on a quince bonsai, and baby boy showing off his gnashers! Tooth count is now up to 7. 

Life with Jethro is very fun:

A couple of weeks ago we finally had the chance to take our little boy on his first visit to Falmouth! We left early in the morning to arrive in time for church where I went as a student and it was so nice to be back there for the first time since 2019, and to introduce everyone to our baby! Then we had lunch with friends and Jethro played with their little daughters which was soo sweet 💛

Yellow fields from the car window.

At the end of the day we thought we couldn't leave without seeing the sea, so we parked right by our old university campus and walked through the gardens which were looking particularly lovely with an assortment of different tulips popping up beneath the trees...

It was lovely to go back to one of our favourite spots with Jethro too, like stepping back in time but so much has changed since our student days!

 

We had a job getting the pushchair across the sand but we managed it in the end! A quick stop by the sea before heading back to the car and beginning our journey back home again. 

For a while we'd been meaning to get some updated photobooth pictures with the three of us, sadly I think they don't do them in black and white strips anymore to match our old ones but it was cute anyway 😆

Jethro and Juniper in the garden, plus a snail with a pretty shell (removed and thrown into the compost heap, I can't kill them even when they destroy our plants):

Recently we had a sisters + mum trip to Exeter for a look around the shops, Jethro fell asleep in Primark (fair enough) and woke up in time for a picnic lunch on the cathedral green in the sunshine:

He practised his standing on the grass (he can now stand for a few seconds without holding on to anything! 😭) and when we got home he tried on/tasted my purchases:

Who wore it better? 😂 Meanwhile Juniper made herself comfortable on top of a pile of clothes I was about to put away. I said to Ed that she wouldn't be very happy living with a minimalist who doesn't leave things lying around everywhere for her to curl up on!

I am still enjoying my hobby of knitting in the car whilst the baby sleeps in the backseat. Pictured here you can see my current project, a sweater vest! The biggest thing I've ever knitted and at the time of writing I have now completed the back piece and am just casting on the front, exciting! I had to undo lots of it because I'm following this free online pattern which was translated from a different language so is a bit confusing to understand but I'm getting there. This particular knitting session was near Stover Lake before setting off for a nice afternoon walk 🌞

The picture above is a great crested grebe, and below are two canada geese. Some other interesting sightings were a song thrush, a pair of pheasants, and a great spotted woodpecker, plus lots of robins, ducks, and squirrels of course!

Blue sky!

   Jethro has been getting some good use out of his new sunhat:

💛💛💛

Before I go here's an update on some of our seeds: the super speedy sweetcorns and some courgettes too, you can also see a few tomatoes on the left:

🍅🌽🌱

That's it for today, see you again soon for the next instalment of spring with the Spencers!