A Royally Long Birthday Weekend

Weekends are always amazing but especially when you have extra days to spend together and a little someones third birthday.

Davis had Friday off due to the UK bank holiday and Monday as well because it is celebrated here as Easter Monday.

We crammed a lot of fun into 4 days. And with those 4 days came a lot of pictures (warning- massive amount of photos...)

To start out her birthday weekend, Daddy came home with flowers for M on Thursday evening. 

On Friday we visited the Discover Children's Story Centre which hosts interactive family exhibits featuring established or up and coming picture book illustrators. We saw the Oliver Jeffers exhibit, who is well known for his story The Day the Crayons Quit. His books are quite popular here in the UK we've loved reading them since moving here.

In the exhibit, the settings of his books are set up so that you can play around as if you are a character in one of his books.

We also listened to a reading of one of our favorites Guess How Much I Love You.

In addition to the illustrator exhibitions, the centre has a fantastic indoor and outdoor play area where your imagination is required. There are also places to picnic and if we return we will be sure to bring one, as there is not much food sold for purchase.

On Saturday, I had my hair colored before our date night. Glamorous, I know.

Usually our date nights involve dinner out but we decided to step it up a notch this weekend. Time Out is an amazing resource for things to do around the city. Did a little search and grabbed tickets to the 500 year celebration of Hampton Court Palace before it sold out. It was fun wandering around the palace grounds and the light and firework show was very impressive. They did run out of food so that was pretty disappointing. It was quite a trek to get there (over an hour by train) but we both agreed that it would be fun to return to check out more of the grounds with M.

On Sunday, we celebrated Easter and began the day with an egg hunt. Then we went to Kew Royal Botanic Gardens for more Easter fun.

Monday we celebrated M's 3rd birthday. We started with breakfast at Aubaine and then headed to Hyde Park for her first bike ride on her new balance bike. It was our best weather yet this year.

My mom arrived from Colorado just in time for M's birthday tea.

I seriously cannot believe this little one is now 3! 

Hope you all had a nice holiday weekend with the ones you love!