I’m writing this post as a blogging friend emailed me to check I was ok, It’s been 2 weeks without a postng - and to be fair, that is pretty unusual for me.

So what have I been doing?

Well firstly my brother and his fiancee came to visit us. We hadn’t seen them for six months, my brother’s been serving abroad, so it was really great to catch up. We had a Wii night and played our new Guitar Hero game. They took Erin to Edinburgh Zoo, I didn’t want to disappoint them too much by telling them what we thought of our visit last year. In the afternoon we went ice-skating, it’s been around 18 years since I last skated - and it showed! Erin was keen to get on the ice, she kept pointing to her feet to show that she still had trainers on and she needed skates to get going, we’ll definitely take her when she’s older. That evening we played poker, I came second.

My Grandad also arrived from Wales on Thursday. Friday we went to our favourite haunt - Dobbies. Erin saw the animals and we bagged ourselves some birthday and christmas presents - a barbecue, garden spade and fork, a garden trough, gardening gloves, and a trowel.

Saturday was wet with spells of snow so we headed for the indoor arcade, and then to toys r us, this time for a treat for Erin. She chose this doodle pony by whipping it off the shelf and shouting “This is the one!”

Sunday we celebrated Erin’s birthday with a family tea party (photo above). You can’t really see but it was themed ‘In the Night Garden’ and her Upsy Daisy Doll was a definite highlight.

Monday (Erin’s actual birthday) we went to the soft play and then for lunch.

It’s been a busy busy week!

Stay tuned for the final parts of the ‘Increase Your Blog’s Income’ series…