It’s Sunday night again, and as usual, I’m avoiding getting organised for work tomorrow by distracting myself with photographs and blogging! We’ve had a very quiet day today, making the most of the gloriously warm and sunny weather.

We had a fun morning swim in Brixton (Alex cycled all the way there alongside Matt who ran – Sophie and I got the bus!) and a delicious trip to the wonderful Herne Hill Market which was celebrating its second birthday today. With our shopping bags filled with an array of yummy food, including haddock scotch eggs, tartiflette and popcorn, we headed home to make the most of our new garden with an al fresco lunch.  We pottered around for ages on the grass, Alex digging in the mud and searching for snails, Sophie hiding her cuddly toys in various flower pots and driving her little car around the patio.  Matt and I preferred to lie on picnic blankets snoozing!  Such a relaxing day after a crazy busy one yesterday…

We had a family focused day back in Berkshire, starting at a favourite place – The Look Out.  Once more, we met Matt’s dad, and the boys set off on their bikes on the easiest mountain bike trails in the forest.  I think Grandad loves cycling with grandson, and Alex seemed to hold his own on his new, lighter bike!

Sophie was sad not to be with the boys, but soon brightened up when she remembered how good the children’s play area was!

We enjoyed a picnic lunch together, before enjoying some more playtime, and some teepee building in the woods!

With the children on good form, I attempted to take a picture of my siblings together.  They weren’t having any of it!

But I just about got one that was passable:

Then it was off to Reading for a very special party.  My gorgeous twin nieces have just turned six months old – and so my brother and sister-in-law combined their annual summer party with a naming ceremony.  We had such fun getting together with family to celebrate Lucy and Rose.  Here’s my dad with the children listening to the speeches, and my brother with beautiful Rose:

We enjoyed some surprise entertainment from some hugely talented children – Alex was enthralled!

But the best entertainment was the cake competition!  Nearly 20 families (including my own) baked and decorated cakes to celebrate the girls – and David and Sarah (or should I call them Paul and Mary) were the judges!  Sadly I didn’t win, but the range of cakes was incredible.  They have some very talented friends!

As you can imagine, my children (along with all the others present) found the cake competition very exciting indeed.  I’m surprised they didn’t fall into a sugar coma given how much they sampled.  Here’s Sophie partaking of a cake pop!

And, just what you need when you’ve consumed huge quantities of cake and sugar – a bouncy castle! We could barely keep Alex and Sophie off it!

We all had a wonderful afternoon – just so sad my mum was feeling under the weather and couldn’t make it.  Hope she enjoys the photos!

With Alex and Sophie high on sugar, we decided to stop in Windsor on the way home to see if they could run off some of their excess energy in the Great Park.  They made a good attempt, running around like crazy things.  But not enough to prevent them staying wide awake all the way home in the car when they were supposed to be sleeping.  At least, given their late night, they let us have a bit of a lie in this morning!