We picked the perfect weekend to go on a trip to the country.  For Sophie’s first night away, we headed up to rural Oxfordshire to visit NCT friends Bryony and Dan.  The sun finally came out and temperatures rose enough for us to spend most of our time there outside – hoooray!

We drove up on Saturday morning, Alex very excited on the long car journey about seeing his friend Freddie.  He didn’t quite understand that we were going to a place called Oxford though, preferring to get excited about visiting an octopus!  Bryony was prepared and displayed an octopus picture on her front door for Alex – so her house is now known by Alex as the Octopus House!

We spent Saturday afternoon enjoying lunch and plenty of time playing in Bryony and Dan’s lovely garden.  For pretty much the first time this year, our boys were able to play for hours outside, and you could see them blossom in the sunshine.  Alex looked so happy!

We headed off on a long walk out of their village down to the local river, where the boys played pooh sticks under the little bridge there.  Bryony and I settled down on a hillside for a relaxing gossip and the most scenic feed Sophie has ever had, whilst the boys rolled down the hill and covered each other in grass and leaves.  Alex was in his element:

Poor Dan:

The children were so exhausted after a long afternoon of playing they were all asleep in seconds, leaving us grown ups plenty of time to eat a yummy dinner and catch up properly.

Sunday dawned clear and sunny, so we headed off to the grounds of Blenheim Palace for a walk.  The boys (reluctantly) took turns on Freddie’s scooter and balance bike, and Alex loved walking over the cattle grids (particularly when we told him that there were crocodiles lurking beneath so he shouldn’t put his feet down the gaps!)

Once we’d worn the boys out again, we drove over to the stunning village of Wootton where Dan and Bryony are moving for a big Sunday lunch at their future local pub, The Killingworth Castle (well worth a stop if you’re passing) and play in the neighbouring park.  Then it was sadly time for the long drive home – during which the children thankfully napped leaving Matt and I time to listen to music in peace 🙂

It really was a fabulous weekend away – and makes me want to get up there much more often.  Alex is missing Freddie, asking me all day today if we could go to “Fred Fred’s house”! Very glad that my parents plan to move to that part of the country when they return from the USA in June.

For those of you who love photos, here are more snaps from the weekend:

Back in London now with a busy week ahead.  Sophie will be spending a few hours at Jacqui’s this week so i can take Alex to his 2.5 year developmental check and first dentist appointment! More from Family Agar soon.

As the long Easter weekend draws to a close, I’m glad to have my feet up at last.  It’s been an exhausting few days!  On the potty front, Alex hasn’t had a (wee) accident for two days now and is much happier with the potty and pants.  Phew.  Poos are another story – any mummy readers out there who care to share tips on persuading a very independent 2 year old to poo in a potty would be very welcome…

Enough discussion about potty training!  Amidst all the toilet focus, we’ve managed to have a pretty nice weekend.  We went on an excursion yesterday to the brilliant Horniman Museum for their Easter celebrations.  It was sunny, if absolutely freezing, so we finally explored their beautiful grounds.  The views of London were stunning from the elevated position and it was a real pleasure to actually spend some time outside. Alex loved the musical sensory garden space:

He also enjoyed their special Easter activities, making several visits to see the bunny rabbits and racing around the Easter egg hunt (well, Matt completed it as Alex was threatening a meltdown if he didn’t get a chocolate egg!).  We had a very chilly picnic before heading back to the warmth of our house for the rest of the day.  Here are the children snuggled up on the sofa enjoying “Monsters Inc” (again).

Today we braved the cold weather again to play in the local park.  Alex went on his scooter which he’s finally taking an interest in (only 6 months after his birthday, Michele!) – he’s not yet got the hang of changing direction, but can at least make forward progress on it at last 🙂

Sophie went on the swings for the very first time and looked quite impressed.  She looks so tiny!

Biggest milestone today was introducing Sophie to some solid food.  She’s been eyeing up everything we eat for a while, so I gave her a little bit of baby porridge at lunchtime.  Here she is…

“Oooh, what’s this mummy?”:

“This is interesting”:

“Ugh – no more!”:

I must admit, I’m super relieved to have made it through the past few days!  I’m looking forward to a quiet day with Sophie tomorrow, and I’m sure Alex is looking forward escaping the confines of the house to get to Jacqui’s!  Will be interesting to see how his potty training fares when he isn’t in the quiet of home.

In the meantime, I’m continuing to pray for the arrival of Spring.  Sophie and I were VERY cold at the park today:

Don’t worry – this won’t be a long post filled with toilet stories.  But it’s such a milestone, I just have to mention it on the blog!

We’ve been contemplating trying potty training with Alex for a while now, but with the disruption of Sophie’s arrival and the never-ending cold winter, we’ve been putting it off.  But after another outrageously expensive nappy shopping bill and with four full days with no visitors/activities planned, we had the incentives we needed to give it a go.

So with potties, many pairs of pants and reward stickers purchased and ready, we got down to business on Good Friday.  After a few small accidents in the morning, we had complete success all afternoon which was a great start!  He won’t thank me for this when he’s older, but here he is on the first morning:

Stuck in the house for two days, we’re all going a little stir crazy.  We’ve:

• Stuck stickers all over the potty (see above – thanks Bryony for the idea!)
• Fed the birds in the garden
• Watched a LOT of television
• Made some puzzles
• Played with the sofa cushions (you’d be amazed how much fun this is for Alex)
• Baked star biscuits
• Got to grips with our new “tuff spot” -I’d not come across one of these until reading the incredibly inspirational “Edspire” blog, but this looked like such a fun indoor activity that Matt and I popped to B&Q on Thursday and picked one up.  Alex LOVED his “building site” which we filed with oats and pasta for his diggers.  I’m trying to remain calm about the huge amount of mess on my kitchen floor.  Here he is loving getting stuck in:

and

We have to get out soon or I think we’ll all stop talking to each other – so we need to plan a local trip and see how we get on…  Wish us luck!

The potty training itself is going OK.  Over the two days, he’s mostly succeeded with only a few small accidents.  But it’s been really tough.  Alex has been quite emotional and hard work – not sure whether its being cooped up or losing the comfort of his nappies.  And on top of that, his poor bottom has been really irritated by the pants – I guess his skin is very sensitive, so he’s been quite uncomfortable.  He’s found it all quite upsetting and doesn’t like sitting on the potty itself.  But he’s doing well enough that we’ll give it another couple of days to see if he relaxes a bit.  Fingers crossed.  Not sure I fancy starting it all again!

This week has been all about family.  We’re used to operating as a small unit of four: we don’t have any local relatives – and most are hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away.  But I’m proud to say that this week four generations of women in my family shared my sofa in Herne Hill:

I’m not sure how many people have had that honour – but seeing that picture makes me grin every time, even though we’re not the most photogenic bunch!  I’m so pleased Sophie has met her great grandma, as I met mine as a child.

As you can tell, my mum has been visiting from Michigan, having not been here since November last year.  It’ll be her last visit back before mum and dad relocate to the UK in June – hooray!  As soon as she arrived at my house last week, she started catching up on all the Sophie and Alex cuddles she’d missed:

Mum and I had a lovely, quiet few days together at home and it was fabulous to see Alex enjoying having her around.  He loves his grandma!

He had a lot more relatives to remember on Sunday when we drove out to Reading to meet my grandparents, aunt, mum, brother and sister-in-law for a delicious lunch.  It was the first time my Scottish family had met Sophie, so she got lots of smiles and cuddles – very cute!  Here’s my brother enjoying a cuddle:

We took Alex out to my brother’s excellent local park to stretch his legs as he was going a bit stir crazy stuck indoors.  It was so shockingly cold and windy, we only lasted a few minutes.  We still managed to keep smiling though:

On the way back to London, we stopped into Matt’s parents’ house in Crowthorne where Alex played with some of his cousins who were also visiting, and enjoyed watching his granddad’s tropical fish as usual!  Thanks to Dick and Michele for looking after us  🙂

Our family fun didn’t end there though, as my grandparents, aunt and mum were spending a few days up in London with us.  Alex started off a bit shy with all the visitors in his house but by the second evening, Alex was calling his great grandparents “his friends” and leading them by the hand to show them his bedroom and toys!  Very funny!

Here are my grandparents enjoying a Sophie cuddle:

And Sophie with my Auntie Margaret (if you look at Sophie,  you can see she’s perfecting her raspberry blowing – this week’s new talent!)

It’s been a lovely week – the house seems very quiet now that everyone has gone.  But we need it quiet – next stop….potty training!

And another weekend draws to a close.  They go so quickly!  After a pretty quiet week last week, we’ve packed a lot into this weekend.

We’d read a piece in Time Out about a story centre in Stratford called “Discover”, so we ventured east to investigate on Saturday.  It was the first time we’d been on that journey since the Olympics last Summer, and I must admit I felt a twinge of nostalgia coming out of the jubilee line.  Instead of glorious August sunshine though, it was grey and wet – and our spirits were quite low.

Until we arrived at “Discover” that is…  What a fabulous place! Billed as “London’s only children’s museum is a place where children and their families can enjoy playing, learning and making up stories together”, Alex was in absolute heaven.  Their indoor trail was perfect for toddlers with things to climb, jump on, explore and touch.  Here he is peering out of a bubble:

And deciding where to sail with daddy:

There were fancy dress costumes, art stations and puppets – so many opportunities for making up stories.  I can imagine it would be brilliant with slightly older children to invent characters and adventures.  Throughout the day, there were story telling sessions – but Alex was too excited by all the things to climb on, so we couldn’t persuade him to sit still to listen to a story.  But he did enjoy his journey into space session – especially the countdown to lift off and seeing the moon!

It really was a fabulous place – I’d highly recommend local (and not so local) families to try it out.  There are loads of special events and themed activities all year round.  And it’s right next to Westfield Stratford, so we popped in there for a delicious lunch and ice cream.  All in all a great day out (made even better for Alex because we travelled by both overground and underground train!).

Today we stayed in South London. We had our usual Sunday morning, with Sophie and I at the local farmers’ market, and Alex and Matt swimming in Brixton.  Apparently Alex did his very first solo swimming today holding on to a float (for a few seconds, but it’s a start!) 🙂

This afternoon was Phoebe’s 5th birthday party (how can she be five years old?).  Alex LOVES birthday parties – well, he loves cake and chocolate!  And he certainly loved this one. Not only was there chocolate and an incredible cake (I am totally hiring Catherine for Alex and Sophie’s next birthdays!), but there was a great magician and entertainer.  Alex wasn’t sure to begin with, but as soon as he brought some sweets out, he became engrossed!  He got to try plate spinning and balloon sword fighting (!), got the hang of musical bumps and musical statues and even led a conga round the hall.  He was absolutely exhausted by the end of it, but I know he loved every minute.

Here are a selection of pictures from the party:

Not much Sophie news to report – she enjoyed watching Alex enjoy the weekend (!).  She’s also just mastering the art of rolling over and has had a run of much improved nights – I’m keeping everything crossed that this will continue.  I can certainly cope nicely with a single wake up each night, especially if I make it back into bed within 20 minutes.

And because I can’t resist a cute Sophie picture, here she is enjoying a cuddle with daddy:

Not sure why I’m titling this post “Mothering Sunday” as my Sunday was pretty much a normal (very nice) one!  We don’t really go in for the big commercial days in Family Agar, so I didn’t expect flowers or presents (lovely though that would have been ;-)!)….

Alex did make me a gorgeous card at his childminder’s last week, and the boys brought me a bacon buttie in bed on Sunday morning – so that was rather nice!

Matt and Alex spent Sunday morning at Brixton Rec enjoying some swimming and softplay, whilst Sophie and I ventured out in the cold to the Herne Hill Farmers’ Market for our weekly browse of the stalls.  I’m not sure whether to be proud or ashamed that I am the first person in Herne Hill to collect all the stamps on the Love and Cake loyalty card – free cake for me next week!  In my defence, not all the cake I have purchased has been consumed by me (although I am rather partial to their chocolate guinness cake!).

We met up on Market Row in Brixton to enjoy a scrummy pizza at Franco Manca and a frozen yoghurt pudding.  It was bitterly cold all afternoon, so we stayed snuggled up at home.  We managed to persuade Alex to have a short nap, but he still got a bit stir crazy cooped up at home.  A bit of kitchen art brightened him up – here he is making a picture with macaroni, salt, rice, cardamom pods and mustard seeds (and a few feathers!):

To complete a very pleasant Sunday, Matt and I went out on our first date since having Sophie!  Emma, our regular babysitter (who conveniently happens to be a trainee paramedic!) dropped in for a couple of hours once the children were in bed.  We headed down to Herne Hill to have a scrummy dinner at The Commercial pub.  What a treat – we even managed not to talk about babies the whole time!

Not much else to report.  Alex’s foray into pyjama wearing contines to go well – we almost had a set back when I washed the helicopter PJs!  It took some persuading to get him into digger PJs instead (thankfully Matt found a helicopter picture on the label of the new pyjamas which made Alex happy!).  He delights in showing us his stripey pyjama bottoms every morning – so cute.

Time to sign off – am attempting to try cooking new recipes several times a week (have three shelves worth of cookery books, so have challenged myself to try them all rather than cook the same old meals).  Got a River Cafe pasta sauce on the go, so better go stir.

I’ll leave you with a picture of Sophie on Mothers’ Day – just because I like taking pictures of her!

Last night was a big night for Family Agar – we finally persuaded Alex to give up his grobag sleeping bag and wear proper pyjamas under his duvet!  Until now, he was very excited about his new duvet and pillow, but insisted on also wearing his sleeping bag underneath.  Poor boy must have been overheating every night!

But yesterday, he was finally wooed by some new helicopter pjs and agreed to try them out!  Here he is looking very proud of himself at bedtime:

He snuggled up nicely under the duvet, and when I checked him later, he was still tucked in.  I was a bit worried he’d get cold or confused in the middle of the night, but we didn’t hear a peep out of him.  And when I went in this morning, he was thrilled to tell me about his stripey PJ bottoms and kept making helicopter noises.  So funny!

Hopefully his enthusiasm will continue this evening.  Maybe one day we’ll take the sides off his cotbed…

What an awesome week! Sophie’s sleep regression continues, but we’ve had such a nice few days in the sunshine that I’m not minding it too much!

Last week, Sophie and I had a busy few days whilst Alex was with Jacqui.  We sadly had our final photography class.  I’ve loved every minute of the classes and would highly recommend them to anyone in the area – it’s been such a pleasure to learn something new, to finally get to grips with my camera settings and to focus a lot of attention on Alex and Sophie while I do my homework!  I managed to get a lovely shot for my final homework – wrapping Sophie up in my scarf, I got this picture which I was really pleased with:

Makes her eyes look even more lovely 🙂  The best result from the photography course is that it’s inspiring me to take the decent camera out and about with us, so I hope you notice the quality of picture on the blog improve!

Last week, we also enjoyed another swimming lesson, survived Sophie’s four month innoculations and had a great trip up to London to have a pub lunch with a work colleague of mine.

On Saturday, we had the pleasure of a visit from an NCT friend, Bryony, and her family.  Whilst Bry and I enjoyed a rare girly only lunch out, we left the dads in charge of the children! Alex had a brilliant time playing in the garden with his friends Freddie and Jake.  Here they are making “gruffalo pies” with mud:

Our poor bird bath is now completely full of dirt!  Not that the birds were that interested in it anyway…

After that hard work. they boys enjoyed a well earned cookie – which they closely inspected before consuming:

We then spent a fabulous hour down in our local park, Sunray Gardens, feeding the ducks and geese and enjoying the playground.  The boys had so much fun it was tough dragging them home again!  They had a go on grown up swings:

And even attempted some tree climbing:

For those of you who are photo mad, here are all our snaps from the trip:

Sunday was a lovely sunny day with a real feel of Spring in the air.  I took the children down to the Herne Hill farmers market to stock up on bread, cheese and popcorn (yes, there’s a stunning popcorn supplier – perhaps not from a farm though!).  Alex managed to consume vast quanities of cheese and apple samples, and I enjoyed some delicious dumplings.  Mmmmm.

The afternoon was fun-packed with a playdate with the Hainsworths and a successful family evening meal.  We’re trying to eat more meals with Alex – so he helped me cook up a vat of bolognaise which we enjoyed together.  Here he is busy chopping mushrooms:

Monday had the potential for being a rubbish day as I managed to lock us out of our house as I was leaving in a rush with the children!  This resulted in an unplanned trip up into central London to meet Matt.  But Alex, of course, loved the train journey and the opportunity to see his daddy on a work day!

Here he is ready to go into Hummy Mummies rehearsal, once more sharing his ridiculous camera smile:

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…!

We’ve had a lovely week enjoying lots of visitors – so Alex and Sophie are happy after so many extra cuddles!

Last weekend, my Auntie Elaine stopped in for a flying visit after a last minute trip to the UK to see her dad.  Having not been in the UK for ages, it was the first time Elaine had met Sophie.  Here are the ladies:

And here’s Elaine is trying to tempt Sophie to try a brussel sprout!

Am sad to see Sophie wasn’t that interested in my favourite vegetable! Elaine enjoyed lots of baby cuddles, and Alex loved having one of his favourite books – Hairy Maclary – read to him in her fabulous Scottish accent.

David and Sarah joined us for the day on Sunday and we enjoyed a vast roast lunch, cakes from the Herne Hill farmers’ market, and a lovely wander down to our local park where Alex enjoyed feeding the ducks with his Auntie and Uncle (or is that being fed to the ducks…):

It was a really lovely day – great for Alex and Sophie to spend time with family – the only sad thing was that my dad couldn’t make it as he’d stayed up in Scotland with his dad for a couple of days longer.

More visitors arrived at the end of this week with Auntie Katharine dropping by for a short visit during her half term. Alex remembered that she’d helped him decorate the Christmas tree back in December, and spent yesterday evening asking her where the tree was and where his presents were!  My school friend Marie joined us today with her little boy Harry – and we had a lovely lunch with our babies catching up on a few months of gossip and news.  Here’s Marie with Harry and Katharine with Sophie:

I love having people to visit – anyone else fancy popping in?

What else have we been up to this week?!  Sophie and I have had some lovely days.  We went to a baby concert on Tuesday – a classical performance during the day for parents and their babies/toddlers.  She seemed to enjoy the violin and cello music, and I loved watching the older toddlers dancing up at the front – very cute!

We also started baby swimming lessons this week which was brilliant.  Sophie was fab, not crying at all when she was submerged and seeming to really enjoy being in the lovely warm water.

Alex has had a slightly less fun week after getting an eye infection (trying to get eye drops in the eyes of a wriggly 2 year old has been quite a challenge) – but he’s still been out and about, enjoying a trip to the brilliant Horniman Museum.  Here he is with a couple of his friends:

Monkey captions please…

And this morning he was at the Carnegie Library story time where the featured story was his very favourite – The Bear Hunt.  Here’s super keen Alex up front:

All in all a top week.  And a fun weekend ahead with a trip to Tate Modern planned for tomorrow and a first trip to the theatre for Alex on Sunday.  More soon – plus the latest photography lesson snaps!

I’ve been a bit quiet on the blog front – sorry about that!  It’s felt like a busy couple of weeks, although now I look back at my diary to think about what to share, it seems like we haven’t done very much at all!  So this will  mostly be a picture post!

We haven’t strayed far from Herne Hill since the weather has gone cold again – but we did spend a fun afternoon up in London Bridge at Borough Market last weekend.  Alex enjoys munching samples from all the food stalls (mostly cheese – his favourite!) and despite the very cold weather, he ate a vast ice cream:

He got very excited to see The Shard (tallest building in Western Europe), although declared that “it wasn’t a building, it was a rocket” – which was a fair observation given its shape!

We’ve had some really fun playdates over the past week – which sadly it appears I didn’t take any pictures of!  On Saturday, our NCT friend Helen and her son Angus dropped in on a visit from Cambridge.  Joined by Shelly and her son Ralph, we had a lovely time catching up, eating cupcakes (made by Alex!) and watching the boys play.  And on Monday, NCT friends Tiggs and Shelly and their boys Ralph and Max came for lunch.  It felt like quite a watershed moment as us mums were able to sit in the kitchen eating lunch and chatting whilst our boys played together in the playroom.  No tears or tantrums – it was heaven!  Quite a change to 2 years ago when they were all babies needing constant attention!

Charlie, Phoebe and Henry popped in for a playdate at the weekend, and Phoebe enjoyed a Sophie cuddle – there’s a future babysitter in waiting!

Alex continues to love his days with Jacqui, his childminder.  I get fab photo updates from her – here’s Alex being super keen at a playgroup.  He loves stories – and clearly likes to be as close as possible to the action!

In other news, I put Sophie in some comedy dungarees (doing that thing where I realise she’s growing out of all the clothes we bought when she was born) – she wasn’t very impressed:

Other milestones in the past couple of weeks include:

• Alex has finally started sleeping with a pillow and duvet (very cool dinosaur bedding bought for him by his Great Grandparents and Auntie!) – he gets very excited about snuggling under the duvet.  Very cute!  He isn’t yet prepared to swap his sleeping bag for proper PJs yet, so is probably overheating under so much bedding – but he seems happy!
• He has also stopped using his high chair in favour of some funky new toddler chairs we bought from IKEA – here he is demonstrating what a big boy he is now having breakfast with Daddy:

• Sophie moved from her moses basket into her cot for the first time as she’s outgrown it!  She had a couple of rough nights where I’m not sure she liked all the extra space, but did pretty well last night – so the moses basket will be sold as I have no more need for it now 🙂
• I also discovered that Sophie can finally settle herself to sleep.  My back was beginning to object to all the rocking, so I tried her yesterday and found that she went to sleep really quickly with almost no crying.  Let’s hope this continues so we don’t have to do any horrible sleep training!
• Sophie had her second round of injections – and was incredibly brave, hardly crying at all!  Very proud mum!
• And I started my photography course – but more on that later!#

To close – here’s Alex and Sophie in deep conversation

Had to share a video of Alex reading us a bedtime story! He loves reading “We’re going on a bear hunt” with his childminder so much that it seems he’s learned most of it off by heart! So here is his rendition, with a bit of help from Matt!

And if you don’t know the story, and want to know what Alex is actually saying, here’s the writer, Michael Rosen, reading it:

Just time for a very quick post to share some snowy photos.  I’ve been surprised at how much snow there’s been in our part of central London – what seemed like very light snowfall ended up with a significant amount on the ground and surprisingly challenging conditions!  Have only managed to get the car out on the road once in the past four days – living on a pretty steep hill in icy conditions isn’t fun.

But Alex has had a blast!  He wasn’t sure about the snowfall when he was one, but this year, he has loved it!  He made his first snowman with his childminder on Friday, complete with carrot nose.  And at the weekend, Matt introduced him to his first snowball fight!   He found it hysterical and spent ages scooping up snow (no mean feat in his bulky gloves!) and smearing it on Matt and I!  This occupied quite some time outside our house and in Brockwell Park on Sunday.  Here he is wrapped up in his snow gear having fun near our house:

I must admit, I’m longing for Spring and pleased to see the snow slowly thawing – with a small baby, I’m feeling quite housebound as pushing the buggy through the slush is almost impossible, and I’m scared to carry her in case I slip and fall.  And many baby/toddler groups have been cancelled due to the conditions, so it’s been tough occupying Alex.  Thank goodness for Pixar movies!

Just in case you haven’t had enough snow, here are a few more snaps from the past few days:

Not much else has been going on.  Sophie had a horrid sleep regression last week which wasn’t much fun, but fingers crossed that seems to be improving and she’s back to only waking once or twice in the night.  She’s tough to settle in the small hours, but I’m still getting enough sleep to survived.  Can’t write more as Sophie is just waking up from her nap.  So to close, here’s a happy Sophie snuggled up in a funky combination of clothes

And Alex and I enjoying a bedtime story together:

After all the excitement of the new year, things have settled down and we’ve had a quiet week. Not much to report, but I’m determined to post more regularly so here’s a quick update!

Alex is back at Jacqui’s four days a week and having a blast with his friends every day. He’s just started dropping his post lunch nap (very sad about that!), so he can get pretty cranky by bedtime after a busy day. Here’s a particularly bad photo of him happily cuddling his childminder’s dog, Nelson!

Whilst Alex was having fun, I had an interesting week. It started well with a nice trip into South Kensington to introduce Sophie to my colleagues. Bur then i was struck down with a horrible vomiting bug overnight. Matt had to take a day off to help look after Sophie (I think he rather enjoyed it!). Thankfully I recovered quickly enough to enjoy a wonderful Friday trip into Covent Garden where I met Matt for a delicious Mexican lunch.

Alex had yet another couple of birthday parties to go to at the weekend so is now well and truly obsessed with eating cake. At Saturday’s party, we could barely drag him away from the biscuit and cake table – no wonder he has so much energy!

The rest of the weekend was mostly very quiet. Matt and Alex went swimming and visited the Brixton softplay, before consuming vast amounts of food in Brixton village market. Alex is getting quite international with this choice of cuisine, with his favourite lunch being empanadas, followed by pizza, with churros for pudding! Whilst the boys were in Brixton, we girls were munching our way around the Herne Hill farmers’ market. Yum.

Highlight of the weekend for me was a few hours off! Matt enjoyed (?) 3 hours of solo parenting while I popped into London for a couple of drinks with a friend. I must admit, it felt quite surreal being on my own without a nappy in sight! Quite a treat 🙂

The temperature has plummeted, so we’ve spent a lot of time snuggled up at home working our way through the Pixar back catalogue. Alex is quite a fan. Sophie’s on a bit of a sleep regression, so having to spend a lot of time settling her. Thank goodness for TV to distract Alex (not quite enough, apparently, as I discovered him drawing on the TV in biro on Monday!).

Not many pictures this week – but to close, here is Sophie looking a bit mischievous:

And looking pretty in pink:

Engrossed in a bedtime story:

Finally, comedy pic of the week, Alex with brilliant hat hair after being out in the cold…

After Alex’s long spell of being under the weather, he made a sudden recovery around new year. It was such a relief to have our fun, happy boy back – and made for a fun start to 2013 🙂

Auntie Katharine joined us to see in the new year.  The children slept beautifully whilst we enjoyed scrummy steaks, chocolate orange cheesecake and bubbly – yum.  I’m proud to report I managed to stay up to enjoy the London fireworks at midnight on TV.  Sophie was a super baby and slept till 4am – her longest single stint yet 🙂  Happy New Year!

On New Year’s Day, we drove to Crowthorne to spend a lovely afternoon with Dick (Matt’s dad) and Michele.  Alex was on great form, loving the tropical fishtank (he was convinced it contained a shark!) and the dogs

All too soon, we got to the final day of the holidays before Matt returned to work and Alex to Jacqui’s.  We had a quiet local day – Alex had a very professional haircut (aided by Peppa Pig on the iPad!) and Sophie had her first innoculations (poor baby).  We had both children weighed at the baby clinic.  Not surprised at all to find Alex remains on the 91st centile for weight, weighing in at 12.75kg.  Sophie is a little more petite on the 50th centile, but putting on the pounds nicely!  Here’s Alex playing the public Herne Hill piano with his smart new haircut:

Thursday saw a return to normality.  Alex loved being back with his friends at Jacqui’s – here he is having fun with his friend Ben:

Sophie and I had a lovely quiet day together.  I took her to a trial Gymboree class for babies which was unbelievably cute – she seemed to really enjoy the sensory fun.  Like her brother, she was enthralled by the bubbles and singing.  We’re signing up to go each week – can’t wait!

On Friday, Sophie and I ventured to the Brixton Ritzy “Big Scream” cinema screening to see “Quartet”.  Watching a film about opera and classical music in a room full of babies, many of whom were crying, was not entirely ideal, but I did enjoy it and loved the chance to get to the movies!  Sophie was an angel, sleeping the whole way through!

This past weekend was all about birthdays!  It was mine on Saturday, and I was surprised by an iPad mini from Matt.  It’s a fabulous present, but sadly I am restricted on when I can use it; Alex LOVES iPads, and I’m determined to keep this one sticky finger free!  Alex and Sophie gave me some photography equipment ready for the course I’m going on later in January (more on that soon!).

But there wasn’t much time to celebrate my birthday as we were off on the road to our nephew Edward’s birthday party in Shere.  Alex was in his element with the massive farm-themed bouncy castle.  It’s blurry, but I think you can see he’s having fun:

He really enjoyed spending time with his cousins.  After the party, we popped back to Richard and Margaret’s house for a delicious dinner, and Alex followed his older cousins around and had a fun bathtime with them.

On Sunday, we were off again, this time to Alex’s friend Sasha’s 3rd birthday party in Chiswick.  At Chiswick Theatre Arts, this party had a theatrical theme which Alex took a little longer to warm to.  But soon enough, he was running around, dancing and enjoying all the props.  Here he is occupying the princess throne proudly!

Sophie got dressed up for the party in a gorgeous dress her Uncle David and Auntie Sarah bought when she was born – how cute is this?!:

What a busy weekend – Alex ate a LOT of cake, so I was a bit nervous about a full day on my own with them both.  I needn’t have worried as we had a fabulous day today.  Both Alex and Sophie were on excellent form, and I managed to spend time with each of them.  Whilst Sophie was napping, Alex and I got artistic and did some painting with duplo blocks:

And we made a sock monster!:

And to top off a wonderful day, both children were asleep by 8pm, and we haven’t heard a peep out of either since.  Happy days!

To close, here’s a cute picture of Alex whispering secrets to Sophie: