Yesterday you turned four. I cannot quite believe it. Four years I have been a mumma, I still remember the first time we met as if it were yesterday. You came out into this world with bright red hair, your name was truly meant for you, you are our Phoenix, our little firebird. You are the greatest spiritual guide I’ve ever had, you inspire me to become the best version of myself and I feel so blessed that you chose us as your parents. Thank you for being you. 

Today kind of felt like a repeat of your birthday, but instead of opening presents you were finally ready to truly play with them! I actually slept in until 7:30 which wasn’t like yesterday but you had been awake for a while and had been trying to get daddy to go downstairs with you to play with your magnets. I absolutely love that the first thing you thought about upon waking up were your magnets! Afterwards it was time to go into the garden to play with your new scooter, but before you could do so you absolutely needed your pink hat. When you rushed outside you noticed a tiny green little bug on it and called out to me with such urgency that I needed to come straight away so that I could get a photo of it and then you looked over at the rose again as if it was the first time you’d seen it getting just as excited about it “popping out” as you did the first time you saw it.

The morning was mostly spent playing with your bday presents. You had gotten a new unicorn camping chair and you love it so much and it has become the only chair you want to sit in, we’ve been calling it your throne, your favourite thing about it is that it has a cup holder and you have been bringing the chair with you wherever you go inside the house. Its so cute. You also cannot stop talking about Peppa Pig World, we were there two days ago, and you’ve been telling us you want to go back “now!” so that you can go on the fast rides on your own because you are “brave”. You had gone on your first roller coaster and it scared you a little bit but now that you've had time to absorb the experience that has become your favourite ride along with the log flume which was another one that had freaked you out a bit.

Forrest you were so tired but resisted having a nap,  instead you wanted to be involved with everything, you were full of giggles this morning and loved to be thrown up in the air or to practice your  standing but you did not want to be laid down or even sat up and it took me ages to get you to fall asleep,  you were obviously over tired but did not want to let go. Nixie wasn’t helping very much either, she just wanted to cuddle you and whenever you did seem to be falling asleep she’d manage to wake you up. It wasn’t until her & daddy went to Waitrose to get food stuff for today that you finally fell asleep.  

And Nixie you truly have my heart, I love your sense of style at the moment and I especially loved the outfit you just had to wear when you went to waitrose; your unicorn pyjamas, your wellies even though there was no sign of it being wet out, your new rainbow purse and your sunglasses. 

We had a very late breakfast I guess I should just call it brunch and you requested an egg sandwich and now instead of threes everything needs to be divided into fours. Because you are four years old. You also matter of factly told us that next time you don’t want your egg cooked, that you want to it eat it like slime.

For the past couple of days you have been going through a phase of only wanting daddy.  
This past week I haven't felt very connected with you and it’s been making me feel a bit down  Forrest had been taking most of my attention so today I was determined to get some one on one time with you. I really wanted to spend time in the woods with you so I had daddy drop us off at Blackwater car park with the plan of meeting up with him and Forrest later at the dead trees, they were going to park the car at Hollands Wood and make their way from there. On our way there you wished for rain just so you could see a rainbow,  you are absolutely rainbow obsessed oh and unicorn obsessed too!

We had such an incredible time together, we got ice cream and while eating that we came across an injured hornet which you felt very bad for and you wanted to know why it was injured, I wasn’t sure what had happened but you wanted to watch it for a long time before being ready to continue our little adventure. Whenever you spotted a Hawthorn tree you would get so excited knowing that I really love its white flowers. We had brought with us some more frogs that were ready to be released, so we were on our way to one of our favourite streams, you wanted to hold hands most of the way and it made me so happy.

You also wanted to play chase, twirl around and have lots of races. You have such a fun imagination & on our way to the stream all of a sudden you stopped and said, “SHHHH!” and I said “what is it?!?” to which you replied, “It’s Blackberry! One of the friendly dinosaurs who wants to race us!” I said “Oh ok! 1,2,3,4 go!” and off we ran. Not long after you told me that, “his little brother Apple is here now too with their big sister Pear and their other brother Banana!! They all want to come with to free the frogs!! But hurry we have to run!!” and off we ran all the way to the stream. Once by the water you wanted to have all the frogs on your face (there were about 12 of them) and we did manage to do that but only for a split second before they all seemed to jump off in different directions. We thanked them for our time with us and wished them a good life. As we continued on our little adventure the friendly dinosaurs were still with us but this time there was a T-Rex who was trying to get us! The unicorns came down from the clouds which was also the same place that the dinosaurs lived and gave us rainbows which made us all feel really good and full of love and then they went back home but luckily Banana was good friends with the unicorns and had been given the same special powers and turned to the T-Rex and gave him a rainbow which made him nice and made him into a really small size. We were about to cross a muddy puddle when you grabbed a very big branch and laid it across the puddle so that the T-Rex wouldn’t get dirty. Soon after the T-Rex returned back home to his family in the clouds but first Banana turned him back to his regular size. Along the way we stopped to say hello to the trees and give them love, picked up treasures you discovered that you wanted to give daddy and insisted we put them into our bag. We also spent a lot of time overturning logs and stones to see if we could find any newts or frogs but it must still be a bit early for them because all we found were worms, grubs and woodlice.

I really loved having this special time with you, and we need to make sure this happens more often, I had been really missing being with only you! I received a text from daddy letting me know that he and Forrest were at the dead trees and about 30 minutes later, so were we.  When we had left the house this morning you had been the one to decide what to bring to drink and you were very clear that you wanted water and not juice but once we reached daddy and (a sound asleep) Forrest you had the biggest upset all because we didn’t have juice! 

Walking into the dead trees to our picnic spot the smell of mint was everywhere, I just love this area so much, we hadn’t been here since last year! We had a really peaceful time just relaxing here, Forrest stayed asleep the whole time in the wrap and we even had a visit from some of the ponies. You had been a bit upset earlier that we couldn’t bring your scooter with us so I had promised that before we get into the car, you'd be able to ride it at Hollands Wood campsite which has the perfect little roads for it for you to practice. 

Once we got home you continued to play with your magnets and your unicorn fancy dress outfit and while we waited for dinner to be ready Forrest was busy playing with balloons and his Lemur that you gave him which he absolutely loves, it’s the first toy that he’s truly connected with. I also discovered that he loves having raspberries blown on his tummy which made him laugh so hard each time i did it but then he began to get a bit upset and we had to do a lot of dancing with him until he calmed down and wanted boob which made him fall asleep but unfortunately it was short lived because he did a poo and I needed to wake him to change him which I wasn’t very happy about but the silver lining was that since he had woken up the three of us could all have a bath together before everyone went to sleep.