I am sitting at my kitchen table trying to ignore the call of the last few Cadbury’s cream eggs that make up the children’s Easter stash, and can’t quite believe the weekend is already over.  It’s disappeared in the blink of an eye, but judging by the ridiculous number of photographs I’ve just sorted through, we’ve managed to pack quite a lot in.  No wonder Alex actually asked to go to bed this evening!

We started with a Good Friday doing some of our favourite things in London.  We spent the morning at the National Army Museum in the brilliant kids zone letting the children run wild!  It’s such a great little soft play, with number restrictions and really accessible kit, so even little ones like Sophie can navigate their way around on their own.  I was too busy chasing her to take pictures, but here’s a quick one as she proudly crosses a bridge by herself.  I’m gutted to learn that the museum will close for two years next week for a major refurbishment 😦

After a pub lunch in The Florence in Herne Hill, we wandered over to the velodrome for the Good Friday open day.  Normally, Herne Hill hosts a major cycling meet on Good Friday, but sadly for us locals, that was moved to the Olympic velodrome this year 😦   We still enjoyed a few races and watching people try out penny farthings (!), before heading home to play with our new garden toy – a water and sand table.

The children were so excited when we set it up and carefully put sand and water into the two main compartments.  As soon as they got their hands on it, they transformed it into a murky, muddy swamp by mixing everything up!  What a mess – but they had so much fun!

On Saturday, our carefully made family plans were slighty scuppered by a major chip in our windscreen, so instead of driving together to my parents’s place, I ended up leaving Matt at home waiting for a repair man and taking the children out on my own. Determined not to miss out on the trip we planned, I took Alex and Sophie by bus, tube and train all the way to Beaconsfield to visit Bekenscot Model Village and Miniature Railway!

It was so busy with families, I doubted my sanity for attempting it alone, but Alex and Sophie were completely enthralled with it all.  Alex was beside himself because of all the little trains chugging around the place and shouted “train!” to the nearest person whenever one passed.  Sophie was intrigued by it all, taking ages to walk around as she kept stopping to point and look (and also to pull the petals off lots of the beautiful flower there – whoops!)

We enjoyed a relaxing picnic and then a long time playing in their fabulous adventure playground – Sophie repeatedly climbing up the tallest slide she could find and Alex loving the pirate water canon game.  After ice creams and a bit of a magic show (!), we ended our visit with a ride on the little steam train which chuffs around the village.

It really is a great place – and rather conveniently at the midway point between home and my parents’ house – so I suspect we’ll be visiting pretty often!  Matt picked us up with a gleaming new windscreen and we headed up the M40 to Northamptonshire for the weekend.  It was a beautiful evening, so we headed straight out to the village playground and playing fields, Sophie insisting on pushing her buggy the whole way:

Once we’d finally made it to the fields, we whiled away an hour playing football and enjoying the lovely little playground area:

Once we’d tucked our two exhausted children into bed, we enjoyed the peace and quiet of beautiful Blakesley and an early night to prepare for the inevitable sugar rush that Easter Sunday would bring!

Sure enough, Alex woke excited about the prospect of chocolate eggs! But we made him work for them, setting up a little Easter Egg hunt in the back garden! They had a great time, and were surprisingly thrilled with the little cuddly chicks and lambs they found in some of their eggs in our attempt at limiting the sugar consumption!

They did, of course, enjoy some chocolate before we were heading back out to the playing fields again, this time for the village egg hung and duck race!! Amazingly, 300 cream eggs had been distributed around the massive field for a mass of local children to seek out. And find them they did. Warned they were allowed no more than 5 eggs to ensure everyone got something, Alex decided that meant he HAD to find five. He easily found one, but then couldn’t find any more. Poor Matt then got dragged around the field by Alex in a desperate bid to reach his quota! And find them he did! Alex is nothing if not determined!

Once we’d hoovered up the remaining cream eggs, we joined the villagers at the local stream fot the annual duck race! With over 200 little plastic ducks purchased and flung in the stream, what followed was a hilarious “race” where most of them got stuck in weeds and by the bank. The water wasn’t particularly fast flowing, so it was a fairly lengthy race, but Alex loved it. Sadly his duck didn’t win, but it was quite an experience for a city boy!

After exploring the stream a bit more, and trudging back to the village through the fields, we stopped in at the pub for a refreshing drink 🙂

For the rest of the day, we attempted to ration chocolate consumption and intersperse it with lots of outdoor play to work it off! We managed to leave enough room for a lovely family roast to end the day – all in all, a very happy Easter!

This morning, we had to head back into town, but we broke the journey at the RAF museum for a bit of a run around and some lunch. Alex and Sophie made us spend most of the time in the children’s play area of course! But we did manage to see some of the exhibits too…

We ended the weekend in our local park, feeding the ducklings and enjoying the playground.  Alex managed to climb right to the very top of the “spider’s web” by himself so was very proud for the rest of the day!

Time to sign off – that cream egg won’t eat itself…

I don’t remember Easter being such a big deal when I was growing up – but it seems the Alex and Sophie are enjoying an amazing range of Spring and Easter activities in the run up to the holiday!  My shelves are filling up with homemade Easter rabbits, baskets and egg pictures (almost all of which I should add are not due to some sudden artistic inspiration on my part, but rather the fabulous variety of activities they get up to with their childminder, Jacqui!).

I don’t often write much about what the children get up to during the week, as I’m obviously not there to witness it, but I’ve received so many brilliant pictures recently, here’s a snapshot of what they’ve been doing whilst I’ve been slaving away at my desk (thanks to Jacqui and her daughter Alex for all the pics!)…

They’ve made Easter baskets and painted paper eggs:

They’ve been on an Easter egg hunt (and judging by Sophie’s chocolate smeared face and empty basket, were highly successful):

They’ve visited baby animals at the brilliant Surrey Docks Farm:

They’ve made and painted cardboard robots (Sophie perhaps helping her brother a little too keenly with the paints!):

And they’ve generally had a completely brilliant time!

I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to see so much of what my pair get up to when I’m at work – my poor work colleagues have to politely admire every photo as it arrives in my inbox!!

But back to my camera, just a few snaps to share from last weekend when we stayed very local and quiet after a series of busy trips and playdates.

Last Saturday, I took Sophie to a local music class in East Dulwich while the boys got the car serviced down in Wimbledon (and partook of a nice walk along the river there and some playground fun).  We spent the afternoon together enjoying the sunshine in the Brockwell Park adventure playground.  We were there at the right time as Alex immediately found his friend Isabella (who he plays with on most days with his childminder) and then we found our NCT friend Jonathan and his son Arlo.

We walked home with Jonathan and Arlo, and as they crossed the park, Alex and Arlo played a very surreal game where they repeatedly attempted to fall off their scooters.  Perhaps they will be stunt men.  They found it hilarious:

On Sunday, after a fun swim in Brixton and a Mexican lunch in the market, we travelled up to central London to watch a bit of the marathon.  We nearly didn’t make it, as we found a fun little glass sculpture which Alex completely loved – and he and Matt spent quite some time making shadows and silly shapes at each other.

But we did eventually reach the race and found a good spot to watch the runners for a while.  I always get quite choked up watching everyone run past, and since we were at mile 26, we were so close to the end that it was really emotional!  But Alex soon had us giggling by pointing out all the fancy dress costumes!  He laughed for ages at seeing a runner dressed as a banana!

We didn’t last very long and instead headed up to Green Park for an ice cream and run around.  We spent some time at the beautiful Canadian war memorial there.  A really accessible water feature, it was great watching the children splashing around and enjoying the space.

We ended the day back in brilliant Brockwell Park, making the most of the fine weather and the excellent sand pits!

I almost managed to get a lovely picture of the two siblings – I just need to sort out Alex’s camera smile…

Last weekend we found ourselves with no pre-arranged plans or playdates, so we did some inpromptu trips with the kids based on the weather forecast!

Saturday looked dry and sunny, so we took the children on an Easter trip to Godstone Farm in Surrey. A top favourite of Alex’s, and one of the nearest places for us to start feeling like we’re out in the country, we all enjoyed our day.  There were lots of animals to pet, including some tiny chicks and rabbits (any bunny fans, I assure you, Sophie wasn’t about to hit the rabbit pictured below!):

A new addition to the farm is a dinosaur trail which was clearly the highlight of Alex’s day!  He dragged us there first to seek out a T-rex.  The trail was really well done, with great sound effects, plenty of large dinosaurs and even an opportunity to dig for dino bones in some sand!
We hadn’t spotted the den building area before, but we had a fun game of hide and seek there for a while!

Eventually, after we’d exhausted the tractor rides, soft play, picnic lunch, den building, dinosaurs and animal handling area, we got to see some actual farm animals!  Everyone particularly liked the pigs and their huge broods of piglets!

Isn’t Sophie growing up?!

We made one final stop in the huge adventure playground before heading home – everyone enjoyed an ice cream and Matt encouraged Sophie to play on some entirely age inappropriate play equipment!  She did love the very long slide (until she bumped her forehead sliding off the bottom of it – whooops!)

Sunday was much gloomier, so I consulted my London for Kids guide and headed to the Barbican to explore the tropical conservatory!  It’s a real gem in the middle of all the concrete.  The children loved peering into the carp ponds and exploring the network of paths around the plants.  Alex even managed to find the elusive turtles basking in their little pool!

We even managed to get some pictures of us all looking at the camera together – here’s me and my babies!

Once we’d exhausted the conservatory, we stopped for lunch in the Barbican restaurant and had fun looking at the massive fountains and water features on their terrace (which alarmingly had no barrier – so I spent some time trying to persuade the children jumping/falling in!).

With the weather getting worse, we dashed into the brilliant Museum of London for a quick play.  Here are my cheeky pair investigating the fancy dress!

I feel like there’s a recurring theme with my blog – posts are becoming less frequent and I start each one with an apology for my absence.

So I will just say that it’s been another busy fortnight packed full of lots of long hours, a few gorgeous little baby cuddles, some excellent adventures with the children and a couple of frustrating bouts of illness for all of us.

Just after my last post, Sophie and I were struck down with a bug which got in the way of a short trip I had planned to visit some girlfriends up in Newcastle – a proper girly trip for the first time in years.  Needless to say, I was gutted to miss out on wine and gossiping!  But things soon improved with the arrival of Katharine and her gorgeous daughter, Emilia, for their first trip up to London.

Cue the first set of wonderful little baby cuddles. Emilia was an angel, sleeping beautifully and seemingly fascinated in watching Alex and Sophie career around the house.  So cute!  We had a lovely visit from our university friend, Kate, on the first day of Katharine’s visit.  While us ladies were enjoying  a leisurely lunch and catch up, Alex went to his first proper fancy dress party, finally having an excuse to don the NASA outfit my parents brought him from the USA – how cool does he look!?  Sophie loved wearing the cap afterwards!

On Sunday, we headed over to Ealing for a 2nd birthday party.  A friend had taken over a rugby club hall and brought in some fabulous entertainers for the little ones, so Alex and Sophie had a wonderful time.  Now that Sophie is confidently walking, I took the opportunity of trying her out in a proper party dress – and she loved it! She was enthralled by the skirt and looked unbelievably cute running around the party

Here are our wonderful houseguests – Katharine and Emilia!

Last weekend saw a return of Spring sunshine, so we spent as much time as possble outside.  Having read about a mini steam fairground in Battersea Park, we headed off with a picnic after a quick morning swim in Brixton.  We slowly meandered at Sophie’s walking pace along the river, stopping to inspect leaves, sticks, rubbish (!) and stones, before settling on a bench for lunch.

We explored the peace pagoda up close for the first time, and with all the beautiful blossoms on the trees, it felt like we could be in Japan!

Finally, we made it around to the steam fair, much to Alex’s excitement.  He immediately began negotiating with us about how many rides he could go on!  Thankfully there were only a handful of beautiful, traditional rides so he had a crack at most of then.  He’s getting braver, and went on the tall helter skelter on hsi own and some faster solo rides.

Sophie was getting too sleepy to enjoy much, but we did do one attempt at the Merry-Go-Round before it was time for her to nap in her buggy.  Matt and Alex went off to explore the brilliant children’s adventure playground while I wandered around the lovely, quiet lakes and gardens with a sleeping toddler.

Mother’s Day brought an opportunity for more baby cuddles – this time with a very tiny pair!  We headed out to Berkshire to meet my beautiful new nieces, Rose and Lucy!  Aren’t they gorgeous!?  Quite a handful for my brother and sister-in-law, but so very sweet!

On the way, we stopped in for a play at The Lookout where we met my parents for an hour.  I love this picture of my dad with Alex and Sophie wandering off to explore the woods.  They seem huge compared to their new cousins!  The children had a brilliant time as usual in the playground, even playing together a little bit (despite her expression in the picture below, Sophie did enjoy the slide with her brother!)

The final highlight of Mothers’ Day was a wonderful lunch with Matt’s family in Crowthorne.  The weather was mild enough for the children to spend most of the time in the garden, and Sophie was clearly quite taken with her older cousin, Honor, who was also visiting!

To close of this post, here are my lovely boys – having great fun on Grandad’s garden swing!