After having to cancel Sophie’s first birthday tea in October when we were all sick, we finally held a little party for her this afternoon!  Inviting all the babies and toddlers from her childminder’s, plus a couple of others of a similar age to her, we had a great afternoon together.  I’d been nervous as Sophie had a horrible cold all last week, and was quite cranky all morning, but the distraction of having her friends over seemed to cheer her up!

Sadly, we took no nice photographs at all, but I’ll remember Alex excitedly opening Sophie’s presents and playing with them before she got a look in, all the children happily cuddling Jacqui (their childminder) throughout the afternoon, Alex and his best friend Sam sneaking off to play in his room away from all the babies, everyone being very well behaved over our pizza tea and Sophie standing proudly in her highchair as everyone sang Happy Birthday to her.  And because Alex had been a good boy all day, he was allowed to blow out the candle on her butterfly cake!

I enjoyed a couple of glasses of bubbly – it seemed only right to celebrate a whole year of Sophie’s life!  Its hard to believe she was a newborn this time last year.

Here are the only moderately acceptable pics we took – check out the return of Alex’s crazy grin!

The party tea was a good close to a great weekend.  We spent yesterday up in London at the dinosaur museum and rocket museum (A.K.A The Natural History Museum and Science Museum).  We go all the time, but this was the first time I remember Sophie really getting into it.  She particularly adored the basement of the Science Museum, a wonderful place for little ones full of things to touch and do.  I could barely drag her away from the water play and the psychedelic textured fun:

Alex had fun building towers on the earthquake trays and then shaking them down:

And they both enjoyed chasing a Dalek around, marking the 50th anniversary of the show!

Clearly they were exhausted after going wild in the museums – here they are on the drive home:

Cute!

Once we were back home and refreshed, we wrapped up warm and wandered down to Herne Hill to give Alex a try on his new scooter (after his old one was stolen last week, much to his total distress).  Sophie was modelling a gorgeous hat made by a friend of mine, Saskia (who I know reads this blog – so THANK YOU!)

We picked up lots of yummy goodies for today’s party, and spent some time in the brilliant “Tales on Half Moon Lane”, the most wonderful children’s bookshop that has just reopened after the awful flood back in August.  I finally made a bit of a start on Christmas shopping whilst Matt was distracting Alex with books!

Can’t quite believe the weekend is over again – they fly by so quickly now I’m back working full time.  But we’ve got lots of lovely things to look forward to in the run up to Christmas, not least the excitement building in Alex!  It’s such fun now that he’s aware of Christmas.  He even “wrote” to Santa on Saturday promising to be a good boy and asking him to bring him a particular train from Thomas the Tank Engine (it’s already in my Amazon basket in the hope that he’ll behave!!).  Next weekend, the advent calendar comes out – yay!

This past couple of weeks has marked a bit of a watershed for me – for the first time in over three years, I went on an international trip – on my own!  I used to travel all the time, both with my job to conferences and with Matt on wonderful holidays.  But since having the children, we’ve prefered to holiday in the UK – favouring cottage holidays to long haul flights.  Many people manage it, but I can’t quite face the thought of a lengthy flight and jetlag with the kids until they are both old enough to watch movies/play games for the entire flight!

So last weekend, I jetted off to Atlanta for four nights for a work conference – leaving the children in the care of daddy (and their grandparents who dropped by for part of my absence to lend a hand!).  I got myself quite worked up at the thought of leaving them for so long, having never really been away from them – and contemplated not going.  But, though my departure was a bit teary, it all went swimmingly.

I did laugh at the first message I received when I landed back at Heathrow – Matt telling me that “he’d done it – the children had survived, the house was still standing and his in-laws were still talking to him”!! But they didn’t just survive – they seemed to have an excellent time.  Matt started his weekend of solo parenting with a very brave trip into London to the Natural History Museum and Science Museum – and the kids LOVED it of course.

Here’s Sophie fascinated by the geological structures of rock (!):

Sophie and Alex were excited to see their grandparents – here they are snuggled up with Grandpa on Saturday evening:

On Sunday. they made the most of a lovely Autumnal day by making a trip to Godstone Farm.  They managed to spend over an hour in the softplay, Sophie now old enough to properly explore the excellent toddler area.  I understand they did also manage to see some animals too.  Here’s Alex looking a tad bemused by a bunny rabbit:

And getting very excited showing Grandpa some geese:

Safely back home, Sophie discovered the little chair that was mine when I was a little girl – she loves to climb, and has now figured out how to get in and out of the seat.  Love this blurry but very happy pic:

So I needn’t have worried – they clearly were absolutely fine without me!  And I must admit, I slightly surprised myself by how much fun I had in the USA.  It was such a treat to get some true “me” time that I made the most of every second.  In my one day off before the conference got underway, we managed to cram in vast quantities of Southern cooking (including a proper breakfast of grits, eggs, turkey sausage and biscuits!), the amazing Georgia Aquarium which has FOUR whale sharks in it, my spiritual home – “The World of Coca-Cola” and a very speedy shopping spree 🙂

You can see my pic here if you are really interested…. but read on below for more tales of Family Agar

Back home in London, and over the jetlag and annoying autumn colds we’ve all been suffering, we’ve had a fun weekend.  Yesterday, we headed over to East Dulwich to stock up on popcorn and brownies from the Saturday market. And more importantly, purchased Sophie’s very first pair of shoes!  She has tiny feet – size 3F!  She was very well behaved in the shop – although wouldn’t pose for the “first shoes” card Clarks make for toddlers!  Here is her pic anyway – she’s looking so grown up (and really needs a proper haircut!)

After lunch, Matt and Alex headed off to Surrey Quays to the cinema to see “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2” – which seemed to go very well.  Alex watched the entire film, although I understand decided to change seats a number of times!

Sophie and I headed up to the King’s Road for a spot of shopping – I have so many birthdays to buy for this month that we got a bit of a headstart without the boys around.  And I actually started my Christmas shopping. Scary.

Today, Matt had some work to do, so I took Alex and Sophie to the Horniman Museum for a few hours.  It was a brilliant surprise to bump into an NCT friend and her two children in the aquarium – so Alex had a blast playing with his friend Max, and I had a great lunch companion!  Here are the boys demonstrating that it is never too cold for ice cream:

And Sophie very chilled out on the second trip around the aquarium showing off her lovely, purple new shoes:

Once we’d exhausted the museum and gardens, we headed back to Herne Hill to meet daddy for a trip to the Herne Hill market (and more chocolate brownies!) and a wander around Brockwell Park.  Matt and Alex made the most of the fact the miniature railway there is now closed for the winter:

Dangerous stuff!

You may remember that back in May, I posted about a family that had really touched my heart.  Jennie’s heart-breaking story of her beautiful daughter, Matilda Mae, has stayed with me and I continue to read – and be inspired by – her Edspire blog.

I’ve wanted to do something to support her work for the Lullaby Trust for a long time now – so when I read about the Matilda Mae Welly Walk at Berkshire’s Beale Park, I knew I wanted to take part.

So on Saturday morning, in the glorious sunshine, we packed a picnic and grabbed our wellies – and hit the M4 bound for Reading.  With traffic a nightmare, we were very nearly late, but we pulled into beautiful Beale Park just in time for the start of the walk. Before I go on, I just want to say that Beale Park is a fabulous place – having spent most of my youth in Berkshire, I cannot believe I have never been before.  It was just perfect for young children, and I’d highly recommend it.

But back to the walk, we joined a huge group of families on the little welly walk around the water gardens.  Alex spent the entire route excitedly pointing out all the bright pink and purple balloons he could see along the way – I felt a bit sorry for the groups close by to us!  It wasn’t long before we arrived at the Boat Museum (which Alex loved) where we were all given little pots of bubbles to blow kisses to Matilda Mae.  Sophie adored all the bubbles – especially the special big ones –  and was fascinated by the wonderful string quartet music accompanying them.

It really was moving seeing so many people and so many bubbles – and such a pleasure seeing the huge number of very excited children loving it.

For the next couple of hours, we enjoyed the great range of activities organised for the day, from a snug story telling tent (where I randomly bumped into an old school friend from 20 years ago!), to a craft room (Alex is the proud owner of a glittery star wand we made together!) and even a lovely music class.  But the highlight for Alex, apart from a chocolate crepe, was a ride around the park in a little train – a great way to view a lot of the animals there.

After lunch, we discovered the brilliant playground and indoor soft play area – and that took care of most of the rest of the afternoon!

The children also adored climbing all over the many animal statues around the place.  Here they are – enjoying a moment of calm together (just before Alex tried to push Sophie off…)

We mustered a little bit more energy (fuelled by crepes) to have a go at welly wanging.  Here’s Alex having a go – and winning a little pirate toy which made his afternoon:

By 4pm, both children were struggling so we bundled them into the car to drive to Uncle David’s – they fell asleep in seconds covered in mud and chocolate – the sign of an excellent day I think!  We spent a fab couple of hours with my brother before heading back into London.  Alex and his uncle made us some delicious pizza for tea and Sophie had a blast climbing up and down the stairs!

It was a wonderful family day – Alex and Sophie seemed to enjoy every minute.  You could tell the Welly Walk was organised by people who really understand toddlers, as everything was just the right pace for them and the setting was perfect.  We spent most of the day giggling and enjoying each others company, but every so often I’d spot more pink and purple balloons or star decorations, and I’d choke up a bit remembering why we were there.  I’m so glad we could show our support in our small way – my only regret is I didn’t seek Jennie out personally to share my support in person.  She should feel so proud of the legacy she is building for her daughter.

This is a real time of change for little Sophie – she’s suddenly transitioning from being a baby to being a toddler.  In the past few weeks she’s been ticking off the milestones like a pro.  Her cruising around furniture has been getting faster and more confident for a while, but she’s suddenly started taking a few steps on her own (although usually I would describe what she does as a controlled fall!).

She also is beginning to stand unsupported more and more – as well as get into a standing position herself without holding on to anything to help her up.  I don’t think it’s going to be long before she really is on the move.  Her crawling is super fast now and she can confidently crawl up a flight of stairs (and just loves doing so – we have to be very careful to keep doors/stairgates shut because if we forget, she can be half way up in seconds!)

Even more exciting is the beginnings of language!  She’s perfecting “mama” and “dada” – but I think her first, and most convincing, word was “cat” – an unusual word for a dog-loving, cat free house, but a cute one nevertheless.  She’s getting better at showing us what she wants with impressive pointing and gesturing, and gets feistier by the day by very vocally showing frustration and anger when Alex pinches a toy or won’t let her play with his trains!

Of course, probably the biggest milestone of the lot is turning one year old!  We’d planned a few little treats for her birthday – with her Grandma and Grandpa down for her birthday day and then a little party tea the following day for some of her friends.  Sadly things didn’t quite work out, with Alex and Sophie a little bit under the weather in the build up to her big day, me struck down with a massive headache on the day itself and then Matt so sick the day after that we had to cancel her party!

Oh dear!

But we still manage to have a few small celebrations.  On her actual birthday, we had lots of fun opening presents together (or rather, Alex very much enjoyed opening them for her!):

Sophie got some lovely gifts (thanks everyone) – she particularly loves her new xylophone and the gorgeous bird mobile we got for her bedroom:

We had birthday pancakes for breakfast and then enjoyed a lovely trip over to the Horniman Museum.  After lunch and a nap, I took Alex to one of his friend’s birthday parties – and Matt took Sophie for a play in Brockwell Park.  He took the camera with him and got some gorgeous shots of the birthday girl.

Can’t get enough of her smile!

And captured a particularly funny series of some dazzling facial expressions:

I can’t believe a whole year has passed since we first met Sophie.  She is such a joy and I can’t imagine our little family without her.