Poppa's personalised present

I was a little late in arranging a Father's Day present and hastily looked on pinterest for ideas and saw one where 3 children held the letters 'D-A-D' and decided I'd pinch that.  But I didn't just want plain pictures but decided to let the kids personalise them.  We had loads of boxes left over from the wardrobe and bunk bed and so cut the letters and asked the girls what they would like to do.  They both wanted a bird theme so we chose a colouring in picture for Fiona and a collage from an old calendar for Lydia.  I printed out some words in blues and green for Michael and wrapped his letter in string and then let him stick the words on.

The tricky part was then the photo's; getting the to line up and smile and hold their letters so they were visible was not straightforward but these were the best 4.  I had left it too late to get the printed with photobox and so used our printer and photo paper.  The quality wasn't amazing but I actually liked the aged effect.

 I had originally planned to put a picture in a frame but the children wanted to do something with the letters so i found out old cork board and pinned them to it instead.

So Daddy got a personalised collage with a bird theme which was then followed by us going to birdland which roughly an hour away.  We recently purchased annual passes but it is the first time the children and I have been.  It was a bright day but not hot or windy so I didn't have to think about wellies, or sun cream, just the picnic!
I took so many photo's that I decided to collate them using picmonkey so that it wasn't picture overload.  There are lots of tools on there for editing but I am mostly just using the collage function.

Since it is Birdland I thought I should include some of the birds I managed to catch through the meshed fences.  The penguins and flamingo's were a big hit with the children.

  There is also a play area which was a great end to the visit and it is cleverly situated next to the lovely flamingo point cafe where they had a selection of lovely colourful birdhouses on the walls.

I may well steal this idea for our garden!

A big draw for us was also that there is a dinosaur area which our little boy loved, although also a little intimidated too.  The statues are placed within a woodland area so the children had fun finding them and there was an option to engage in several trails too.

I couldn't resist taking a few pictures of the beautiful flowers in full bloom around the park area and am now looking forward to getting out with my camera again soon.