Hands up if you like outdoor fun

We try to get outdoors every weekend but lately we have been indoors a lot more than usual with one or other of the Little Ones suffering from some winter illness or another, the weather has been pretty dismal too, rainy dreary days do not make us want to leave the house.

Last weekend we had friends to stay, it wasn't raining and we took our chance to get a few hours of fresh air and some outdoor fun while we could.

The Little Ones were wrapped up warm in winter coats, warm trousers and wellies topped with hats and gloves and we headed to a place not too far away to have some fun.

After being promised a play on the play area on the way back down, we set off up the hill.

It wasn't long before we came across the lovely carved wooden seats and animals that the Little Ones love to clamber on, they were all in a good mood and happy to pose together for a picture. Little 3 was in a particularly jolly mood and flashed us his cheekiest grin complete with a thumbs up which is his eldest sister's current photo pose of choice.

A little further on up and we came across some wooden sheep that hadn't been there before, obviously they were meant for sitting on! 

I am not quite sure who won the sheep race or who laughed the hardest but we were all giggling at the Little Ones by this point and they seemed to be having plenty of fun.

We began our ascent up the steeper part of the hill and as usual Little 1 and 2 chose to trek their way through a leafy muddy gully, while Daddy held Little 3's hand over the uneven ground. We didn't make it right up the top to the viewpoint, the heavy clouds were coming down and the children were keen to get back to the play area.

Back at the play area, each of the Little Ones had a favourite piece of equipment. Little 2 tired herself out running up the hill to slide down the slide over and over, while Little 1 talked the net attempting to get from one side to the other without losing a welly.

Little 3 just loved the wooden tractor and had us all sitting on it and his sisters in the trailer at various times pretending he was driving us around.

It wasn't long before the temperature began to drop and we started to feel a little chilly, time to head home for tea.

The girls found a lovely squelchy puddle on the way back to the car and promptly covered their wellies and themselves in mud but we didn't mind as they were filthy already, we peeled off waterproofs and jogging bottoms to reveal clean leggings underneath and set off for home.

We were all glad we had ventured out and not hidden ourselves indoors as even though it was chilly we had fun.