We’re at the end of April, and it’s the first month this year that we’ve finished the month and I’ve looked back and thought what a great month it’s been. All of the others seem to have been plagued by illness and bad weather, but April has treated us really well and been the most wonderful month.

It was the month when Max turned 4, and we had a wonderful time celebrating, with a little party with family and his nursery friends at our local soft play. It’s hard to believe my little baby is now 4 years old and will be starting school soon, but it’s so wonderful to see him blossoming and growing in confidence.

We’ve had trips to Chessington, to Claremont Landscape Garden, to RHS Wisley, and gone on various bluebell hunts. But the happiest memory of the month has to be our trip to Bluestone in Wales, which we’ve just returned from. I’m yet to write up the full blog post, but suffice to say we had very mixed weather, but it didn’t dampen our spirits one bit and we had the best time. We’d all reached the point where we desperately needed a bit of a trip away - Max has been struggling a bit with the new issue of sharing his things with Ben, John has been having a tough time at work, I’ve been feeling generally exhausted with the lack of sleep, and Ben just loves a new place and new scenery to look at.

We took Ben swimming for the first time and it amazed me just how much he loved it. Max was never a great fan of the water, and although we did baby swimming lessons with him, he hated them and we soon abandoned them in favour of just taking him to the pool occasionally ourselves. But it’s only been recently that he’s warmed up to water. Ben on the other hand absolutely adored it, beaming away and splashing around. So much so that when we went again the next day, once he saw we were in the changing rooms, he started smiling and giggling and it was clear he knew exactly what was coming. It’s funny how two children from the same gene pool can be so different.

We had just one day of good weather and we knew exactly what we wanted to do with it - head to the beach! It was the thing that Max had been most excited about, and we definitely made the most of it by heading to both Tenby and Saundersfoot. We bought an overpriced bucket and spade, dug holes, built sandcastles, collected shells, went rockpooling, and flew a kite. Our photos this month were taken right at the end of the day, our last day of the holiday, and I think we all have that end of holiday look about us - glowy, relaxed and happy.

Linking up with Dear Beautiful for the Me and Mine Project