One of our early September highlights was my brother’s annual party – every year he gathers friends and family, gets in a big bouncy castle and throws a lovely party.  This year’s theme was pirates!  Alex and Sophie were so excited about spending an afternoon with their cousins – and turned up decked in pirate hat and sword (which they immediately lost).  Here they are getting into the theme!

Their cousins, Rose and Lucy had brilliant costumes on, and had an amazing time on the bouncy castle – not minding at all how much smaller they were compared to the other children bouncing away!  Grandma stayed close to make sure they weren’t squashed!

Rose in particular was so content bouncing away – giggling when her older cousins made her bounce higher!

As a break for bouncing, we took a break to make treasure maps – Alex took ages designing his route, coming up with a dangerous path to the treasure chest involving sharks, volcanoes and crocodiles!

Best of all was the dancing.  Alex showed quite a talent for musical statues, and all the little cousins had a brilliant time bopping around to their Auntie Sarah’s disco!

I just love this video my brother took of Rose dancing with her big cousins Alex and Sophie – check out those moves!

We had such a lovely time – and left stuffed full of barbecue and sweets!  Cue two hyper children in the car!  Thankfully we didn’t go straight home, and had a run around an old childhood haunt, beautiful Simon’s Woods on the Finchampstead Ridges.

It was the perfect place to burn off a little energy before dropping in at Matt’s dad’s for some playtime with their dogs and a bath!  Here they are looking innocent in their garden – I’m amazed we got this photo at all as they rarely stop running around and being slightly crazy when they are in Crowthorne.

Just before signing off – here are a few quick pics of my duo at The Look Out, where we stopped for a play on our way to the pirate party!  Here’s Sophie exploring what she described as “The Gruffalo’s Cave”:

And our keen cyclists ready for the mountain bike trails!  We’re starting them young!  Alex went cycling with his Daddy and Grandad while Sophie and I had a go with her balance bike.