Wherever your weekend registered on the wholesome stakes, Meghan Markle probably outdid you. Or at least, thanks to the southern Californian sun and her dreamy garden full of blooming blossom and orange trees, her escapades likely look better on Instagram. Where, of course, they were posted.
In case you missed all the cuteness from Meghan’s “small break from work to soak in the weekend” (some content was only posted on Stories) or have been enjoying some offline time in your own weekend, here are all the details we learned about the Sussex siblings.
Firstly, Lilibet is wildly polite for a toddler. And secondly, she appears to play a key role in the making of the Duchess of Sussex's much-talked-about jam.
We saw this during an up-close-and-personal insight, which was shared on Saturday on a series of Stories.
In the first, Lilibet is seen helping her mum make jam on the stove - with the clip showing the bubbling mixture and Lili - with her tiny hands - mixing the jam in a bowl.
Meghan asks for her verdict: “What do we think, Lili?”
Everyone's clicking on...
And Lilibet replies: “I think it’s beautiful!”
The third thing to note from this weekend's Montecito dispatches is that both children 100% have US accents. Something that’s easy to detect in Lilbet’s jam-helping session but also in the next, in which Meghan films a coy pond teaming with fish and a child’s voice - which sounds like Archie - can be heard saying, “Momma, watch this!”
This tracks with what Meghan told Drew Barrymore in March: that, bar a few words, the duo both speak with US accents.
“Oh, some of the words that they still say with a British accent, so they’ll say zeh-bra [for zebra] and what else do they say?” she shared. “They have these little moments where it comes out and because they have very American accents, but they say words that are just like him, and I think it’s adorable.”
Clips of Archie appearing to talk with a US accent have come up over the years and February saw Meghan share an Instagram Story where one of her kids speaks to her offscreen with a distinctively north American accent.
Fourth, we got some more insight into what MM makes for a weekend dinner, with a casserole appearing in the “cosy family weekend” roundup - alongside, yes, more jam. Whether Archie and Lili eat casserole for their own dinner - or have any fussy eating tendencies - remains unknown.
Fifth, we also learned that Lili and Archie appear to love the delights of their garden as much as her mum.
In a Sunday grid post Meghan is seen leaning over a hedge full of big, pink blossoming roses. She’s wearing a black cable knit jumper and black trousers and her wide smile is just visible behind a curtain of glossy mahogany hair.
Three-year-old Lilibet faces away from the camera but is instantly recognisable thanks to her long, red waves - which, sixth thing to note, have grown so long! She stands to her mum’s side, facing Meghan as she appears to pick one of the roses.
The picture is the first posted in a carousel drenched in California sunshine. In the second, Archie gets involved too, appearing to peer intensely (his face also isn’t visible) at a paler, blush-coloured rose in full bloom.
In the final image, he appears to have picked the rose and holds it in front of his face - his darker, almost auburn-toned hair visible in the background of the image.
Seriously wholesome scenes that point to a vision of outdoorsy familial bliss. Indeed, Meghan told People in an interview that Archie and Lili have dramatically altered her life in the best way.
“When your children get to a certain age—when you’re not just playing in the sandbox with them but almost playing in your own sandbox again—it’s super joyful,” she said.
“As a woman, a mom and a wife, to be able to find yourself again—in a way that was always present but that you maybe couldn’t put as much attention on as you now can when your kids are a little bit older—is a wonderful feeling.”
