I miss my blog.  I’m struggling to find time for it at the moment 😦 Work has been crazy over the past few weeks, and with school starting, busy weekends and a certain young man’s birthday, my spare time is vanishing fast (ha, as if I have spare time!).  So I will endeavour to catch up as I have lots of photos to share, from our summer adventures in London to a wonderful pirate party back in Berkshire.

But for now, back to that birthday!  A couple of weeks ago, Alex finally turned five.  With a much stronger awareness of time and dates, Alex has been anticipating the big day for some time!  And when it came to it he got confused and nearly forgot, as we were celebrating with a party the day after his actual birthday!

But not long after coming into our room on the morning of his big day, he spotted a big pile of presents and balloons and got stuck in!  It was a real pleasure watching him open presents this year.  There was no frantic unwrapping this year – instead, a much slower, careful approach with time to inspect each gift as he opened it!  He was so lucky, receiving some amazing lego sets, a football goal for the garden, plenty of brilliant books and some beloved Thunderbirds toys!

After a lengthy game of balloon football, we headed downstairs for birthday croissants and pain au chocolat!

With a picnic packed, Alex was in charge of selecting his birthday day trip – so we headed back to Legoland, grateful for our annual passes!  The weather was lovely and we splashed out on the queue jumping cards, so we could have a relaxed day with minimal queueing.  We hardly took any photographs – we were too busy on the rides!  But we all had a wonderful day.

Alex’s favourite ride was the log flume where he got drenched with his daddy!  And Sophie and I got soaked watching them as we didn’t spot the sprays pointing out into the observation point!

The next day, after a lovely swim and a relaxed lunch with my parents and some old NCT friends who were passing through London, we faced the chaos of a 5th birthday party in the local sports club with 25 small children!  Yikes!

Its the perfect venue, as there’s loads of space and plenty for the children to play on, including a bouncy castle.  They were all excited and bright red within seconds and clearly had a brilliant time!

The children didn’t stop moving to allow us to take any decent photographs – but here are a few snapshots of Alex’s friends! Here’s Poppy, Jake, Sophie and Sam:

And Una, Rosita, Arnold, Ralph and Ellis:

Despite the hyper running around, all our guests were so well behaved and everyone sat nicely for tea!  Here’s the birthday boy with his Spiderman birthday cake (and his best friend Finlay!)

He had such a special birthday weekend with some wonderful friends.  Everyone was incredibly generous and he got some amazing gifts.  Best of all, he sat down and wrote little thank you cards to lots of his family and friends.

Here’s my boy celebrating all his birthdays so far – he’s growing up so quickly. There’s no sign of baby in him anymore.  I’m so proud of the young man he’s becoming.