Quite proud of that blog title…

The weekend is drawing to a close – and it’s been a weekend that has reminded me how much I adore living in London, and why I can’t imagine us ever moving away.

On Saturday we headed up to the Southbank to visit the Lichtenstein exhibition at Tate Modern.  After a quick stop in the Members room, where Alex admired the London skyline view from the balcony, we headed into the exhibit.  Sophie could barely contain her excitement at her first trip to a gallery:

…whereas Alex couldn’t contain himself, and decided he wanted to run around the gallery rooms making as much noise as possible (I can imagine how annoyed serious art fans must have been at the arrival of Family Agar!). We therefore did a very speedy tour of the exhibition – and what we saw of Lichtenstein we really loved (although some of his brighter work does make me feel like I’m coming down with a migraine!).  I’d never seen his striking seascapes before – gorgeous!

Alex let off some steam in the brilliant turbine hall where there were materials set up for kids to build dens (he was more interested in dismantling other children’s masterpieces sadly).  Here he is enjoying the echoes!

Once we’d exhausted Tate, we headed over the Millenium Bridge (very slowly as Alex wanted to stop a lot to admire the view and the boats!) to wander around St Paul’s and enjoy some lunch. Alex adored his ice cream perhaps a little too much:

We REALLY need to work on his smile!

We had a quiet afternoon at home watching “Monsters Inc” and a lovely family meal, which Alex helped cook – he’s quite a fan of helping out in the kitchen now.  I’m looking forward to him cooking me dinner in the years to come!

We spent this morning at the Herne Hill farmers’ market sampling cheese, apples and cake – I now have a loyalty card at my favourite cake stall there and as I type am enjoying a stunning piece of Chocolate Guiness Cake from Love and Cake 🙂

This afternoon we tried something new.  Since Sophie arrived, we’ve tended to operate in pairs – Matt taking Alex out on trips and activities and me staying with Sophie.  But not today!  I took Alex up to London Bridge on the bus to see (or rather participate) in a performance of “Sensacional” at the brilliant Unicorn Theatre.

This was a light and sound show designed for toddlers – all based around a white square where the children wear white suits and “become part of a digital world of ladybirds, shapes, squiggles and squarks that won’t keep still”.  I was worried that Alex would suddenly get nervous, or refuse to put on the white suit – but he was fabulous.  He was a little cautious to start with, but as soon as the projections started, he was completely engrossed.  It was absolutely wonderful – I felt a bit tearful watching him run and tumble around.  So cute!  Here he is before the show started creating shadows:

And if you’re interested, here’s the promotional film from the production:

There was a great little softplay at the theatre which Alex enjoyed after the show (I had to bribe him with food to drag him away home!).  And we squeezed in a quick trip to look at Tower Bridge:

Matt had a fun afternoon with Sophie, and I think is rather proud that he successfully fed her and got her down for a nice long nap!  So all in all, a wonderful afternoon – and fabulous for me to get to spend some fun time with Alex on his own!

And just to finish off a lovely weekend, Alex made Sophie giggle for the first time!  She’s been doing little giggles for a couple of weeks now, but she did some full blown laughs this evening whilst watching Alex jump around on his mattress!  So fun!

All in all, it’s been fabulous – now I just need to get Sophie out of her horrible nighttime sleep regression so I can get some more rest…!