So – those of you who have read the blog since Alex was born will know that we had a fairly disastrous Christmas last year with him coming down with a vomiting bug on the big day.  This year, I have started to wonder if Alex is slightly allergic to Christmas!  As soon as the build up began in mid December, he came down with a terrible cold that still hasn’t cleared – along with loss of appetite, random rashes, more throwing up and general whining and grumpiness!  Poor little thing.  Here’s hoping next year we’re all well!

But it wasn’t all bad – we’ve had lots of fun and Alex has certainly enjoyed the celebrations, and started understanding what Christmas is all about.  In the days before Christmas, he received a message from Santa which he found hugely exciting.  We had to watch it many times – but it was very funny watching him totally believing it and answering Santa’s questions out loud!

He went to a crazy number of Christmas parties with his childminder, meeting Santa a number of times.  Here he is with some of his little friends hard at work making Christmas cards:

And here is one of the gorgeous cards he came home with – check out the cheesy grin! Love it!

Auntie Katharine came to visit and helped Alex decorate the Christmas tree – and since it’s been up I have been hugely impressed at his self control.  Almost all of the decorations are still on the tree – and he mostly enjoys pointing out the stars, snowflakes and baubles.

Christmas Day dawned wet and thundery (random!) – but that didn’t dampen Alex’s excitment at seeing his outrageous pile of presents.  Santa brought him a shiny new balance bike, although he hasn’t shown much interest in that yet.  Hopefully when the Spring arrives he’ll be ready to whiz around the local parks!  He was much more interested in the duplo fire station Grandma & Grandpa bought him – here he is putting it together with Daddy:

He got some fabulous presents from our incredibly generous families – thanks to everyone for being so kind.  We won’t be running out of things to do (or wear!) for some months!

Sophie was also a very lucky girl on the present front, although was pretty unaware of what was going on.  Here’s she is on her first Christmas Day in a cute outfit from her Grandma. Gorgeous.

Matt and I got the best present ever form the children – both of them having long naps just when I served up our enormous lunch so that we could enjoy all the food in peace 🙂  Happy day!

With the weather a little brighter on Boxing Day, we headed up to Crystal Palace Park to go on a walk with the Hainsworth Family.  We saw the dinosaur scultpures for the first time which little Alex and Henry loved.  Here are Phoebe, Henry and Alex posing for the camera:

And here is Alex in the sandpit!

Over the next couple of days we visited the Natural History Museum so we could check out the dinosaurs (Alex’s current favourite thing) and the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibit, had a visit from my friend Katie and her children Jake and Emily, and popped down to Southampton to see Auntie Katharine’s new house.

To round up the Christmas week, we had a visit from Matt’s sister-in-law and nephews, and from my brother and sister-in-law, all of whom had yet to meet little Sophie.  Here’s my brother and sister-in-law enjoying a baby cuddle!

If you’re super keen, here are all out photos of Christmas week, including loads of our Crystal Palace walk:

To close – here’s a video.  Not one of ours this time, but the fabulous Bergin & Melissa‘s Christmas thank you song.  Posting it here because it’s cute – but also because Alex and Sophie feature (much to Alex’s excitment!)

I still can’t quite believe Sophie is already 8 weeks old – I seem to remember with Alex it taking an eternity to get to the point where Calpol is permitted (!).  It’s been a whirlwind few weeks as we adjust to family life with two children.

In many ways it’s been so much easier than Alex’s few weeks – we already have a routine with Alex that Sophie has slotted into, and we’re both so much less nervous of little babies!

But, of course, having a demanding 2 year old makes things challenging in different ways.  Alex has generally been really good around Sophie – mostly understanding he needs to be gentle with her.  He’s always stroking, cuddling and kissing her, which is very cute.  He has, however, been quite a handful for me at times, playing up to get my attention.  He’s calmed down a bit now which is a relief – for a couple of weeks, I must admit I did wonder where my lovely little boy had gone!

Sophie is doing pretty well on the sleep front – she’s a pretty poor napper (just like her big brother was!), but is doing ok at night.  She’s now in her own room, so we no longer disturb each other so much.  And right now, she’s only waking twice in 12 hours and settling back to sleep really quickly, which is a lot better than where we are at this point with Alex.  Of course, things change all the time with little babies, so no doubt she’ll have some sleep regressions (or maybe she’ll suddenly sleep through!)

Highlights of her first 2 months include:

• Getting to spend lots of time with Grandma and Grandpa – unlike when Alex was born, mum was around from day one and dad joined her after 2 weeks, so they both got to spend lots of time cuddling the newborn and playing with Alex.  Here’s my dad with her:

• Dad also had the pleasure of accompanying Alex to his very first rugby practice (at the brilliant Ruggerbeez club).  It was freezing and wet, and Alex only managed about 20 minutes before getting too cold.  He’s still a bit young for it, but when Alex is playing at the Rugby World Cup in a couple of decades (for England, Wales or Scotland we’re not sure), we can point to this picture as the very beginning:

• Sophie starting to smile a gorgeous smile at 4 weeks old – Alex didn’t smile for months so this really was quite a treat.  Here’s a very early grin:

• A trip to the Brixton Ritzy cinema at 2 weeks old to see “Skyfall” with us (got to love the Big Scream every Friday morning!)
• A professional photoshoot! Shutterbaby photography did a drop in session at a local cafe, so we took Sophie along for some proper snaps.  Here’s just one of the four gorgeous pictures we ended up with:

• We’ve had some lovely visits from friends, including Katharine, Jo, Bryony, Catherine and Charlie – so many cuddles for Sophie!
• We’ve enjoyed hanging out with Sophie’s little friend Emily – who was born a month before Sophie, but was actually due a month after her!  Here they are having a kick around together this week:

To close, here are all the pictures we took during Sophie’s first month – just in case you want more!

Well – it’s a little late for introductions given she is nearly 8 weeks old! But just for the blog record, Sophie Ann Agar arrived on Friday 26 October, just before 8pm weighing in at 3546g (or nearly 7lb13 in old money).

Unlike her big brother, she was a week overdue – making me wait it out in extreme discomfort! I ended up having nearly 6 weeks off after finishing work for maternity leave, and while I had high hopes for making the most of that, little Sophie made me feel pretty uncomfortable in the final weeks. My hips and back really suffered (turned out she was back-to-back) and I struggled to sleep – so I spent much of the final few weeks watching TV with my mum!

Once I passed my due date, I began to dread the prospect of another C-Section, but a couple of sweeps later (yuck – if you don’t know what they are, don’t ask!) and I went into labour. It built up pretty slowly over a couple of days, and my hypnobirthing breathing did the trick at keeping pain at bay – so by the time we popped into King’s College Hospital on 25 October to see how things were going, I’d made it to 4cm. Because of the previous C-Section, they kept me in – and after much persuading from Matt and I, I was allowed to labour without being strapped up to continual monitoring.

Cue a few hours lolling around in a heavenly birth pool in the hope of a natural birth at last! Sadly, after reaching 6cm, everything stopped – and the interventions began. Twelve hours later, following an epidural (heaven), them rupturing my waters and an hour of pushing, I was back in Operating Theatre 1 for an instrumental delivery (talk about flashbacks to Alex’s birth)! But this time round, the forceps worked and Sophie was born without another C-Section. Not quite the calm waterbirth I’d hoped for, but marginally better than the full surgery I think!

Here she is having her first cuddle with mummy – her face a little bashed up by the forceps:

Both Sophie and I were fine, so we thankfully only had to stay at King’s for 24 hours (a significant improvement on being stuck on the ward for the horrible first week of Alex’s life). So on Saturday night, we dashed home to see Alex before he went to bed. When we got home, he was having his bath with Grandma, so we had Sophie waiting in his bedroom when he came in. I wish I’d had a camera to record the look on his face when he first saw his little sister – it will stay with me forever. He had such a look of awe and excitement – it was so special! Here’s an early snap of the brother and sister:

Here she is snuggled up with Grandma:

And tucked up in her moses basket at home, with the cute mouse Alex gave her keeping watch (Sophie gave Alex a Gordon engine from Thomas the Tank Engine so he LOVES her!):

More on Sophie’s first few weeks coming soon…

Gosh – it’s 2 months since my last post – but I hope you understand it’s been a pretty busy few weeks!!  As you should know by now, we have a new arrival in Family Agar, but before I introduce her to the blog, I feel I need to just write about another big event late in the Summer – Alex’s 2nd birthday!  Things were a lot more fun this year as he is beginning to understand birthdays.  Or at least, he understands that birthdays mean cake, candles and presents!  He can do a pretty good rendition of “Happy Birthday to You” and knows he is 2 years old if you ask him.

So he was pretty excited when he woke on 12 September to a big pile of presents.  He’s really into music, rhythm and dancing, so against my better judgement, and after much pushing from Matt who fancies Alex as the next Dave Grohl, we got him a beginner drum kit!  And since he’s obsessed with the one at his childminder, we also got him a little pink pushchair!  He also got lots of lovely books, Thomas trains, gorgeous clothes and games – lucky boy!

A couple of days after his birthday, we headed to Richmond for a big Agar family gathering celebrating multiple birthdays.  It’s hard to imagine now as I type this in freezing December weather, but it was a scorcher of a day and we had a wonderful time outside having a barbecue and watching 10 cousins playing together.  Alex received a brilliant scooter from Dick and Michele which he insisted on pulling around rather than riding – we’ve got some practicing to do!

Here are some pictures of his birthday week – including a few of him drumming like a real rocker!

A week later we held a little birthday party for Alex – he had a few of his friends round for games in the garden and they had a fabulous time running around.  Much to Alex’s joy, he had a big birthday cake with candles – and we had to relight them multiple times so all the children could have a go at blowing them out (or rather spitting on the cake!).  Here’s the birthday boy with his cake:

Here are some pics of the party

So all in all, Alex had a fun 2nd birthday – and now is obsessed with cakes and candles. Not sure how he’ll wait another year to celebrate again!

October was a quieter month, partly as I was a lot less mobile!  But we still made it down to Kent to see Thomas the Tank Engine Live (yes, real, life size Thomas trains) – Alex was beside himself!  Here he is with “Emily” train:

We enjoyed some lovely Autumn weather in our local park:

And welcomed the arrival of Grandma from Michigan who was staying with us to help with the arrival of the baby:

But more on the baby in the next post – can’t write more now as she’s stirring from her nap!

But how about a comedy video to close – here is Alex at his childminder performing “Incy Wincy Spider”… well, most of it, until he decided he actually wanted a frog toy instead.

Before I get back into regular blogging, I should finish catching you up on our Summer.  [And before I go on, I should apologise – I wrote this two weeks ago, then lost most of it in a computer malfunction, and was so annoyed I didn’t come back to it until now!]

August was of course dominated by the London 2012 Olympics – something I’ve been looking forward with growing excitment since the possibility of a bid was raised.  Despite all the negative press, and our failure to get tickets in the first round of sales, we perservered – and ended up with a nice stash of Olympic and Paralympic tickets.  And Matt was super committed, and volunteered as a GamesMaker for the road race and triathlon.  It was a crazy month for us all – Matt did a lot of very long days in Hyde Park and Richmond wearing his swanky uniform.  And I got used to the jubilee line as I travelled to see the Opening Ceremony rehearsal, swimming, diving, track cycling, athletics, hockey, waterpolo, beach volleyball and the Closing Ceremony.

I wrote a couple of blog posts for work about some of the experience of visiting the Olympic Park if you’re really interested!:

• The Opening Ceremony rehearsal
• The Closing Ceremony

Anyways, this blog is about Alex – so what did he think of the Games?!  Well, he certainly loved having Auntie Jo from Newcastle visiting for the duration of the Games, and of course Grandma and Grandpa who travelled over from Michigan for a visit (and much babystting!) – here is Alex enjoying a story with Jo and my mum:

I took him up to London to see the road race as it headed out of town.  Here he is waiting for the bikes and motorbikes to pass by:

And getting more excited by the helicopters hovering overhead:

We took Alex to the Paralympic Swimming.  Here he is in the Olympic Park!  I’m quite sad he’s so young he won’t really remember the amazing atmostphere, but I’m glad he was part of it!

Apart from the Olympics, we packed lots in to August and September.  We enjoyed lots of local visits to Brixton – here’s our greedy monkey enjoying a massive pizza in Brixton Village:

And speeding around Brockwell Park with daddy:

Here he is looking very grown up on the bus to Dulwich (after telling all the other passengers to make sure they sat down on the bus!):

We had some brilliant playdates in the sunshine – enjoying our little garden for the few days of British summertime.  Here’s Alex and his friend Sasha enjoying his ball pit:

We had an amazing day at the Herne Hill Velodrome with Matt’s dad watching Kierin racing.  Alex LOVED it – I think the combination of speeding bikes, motorbikes and the starting gun was a perfect combination! I can’t wait till Alex is old enough to get on a bike and try out the fabulous velodrome!

Just to close – here are a few of our London 2012 photographs.  Most are pretty rubbish, but it’s a fabulous reminder for me of a brilliant Summer!

Right readers, today is my first official day of materity leave, with our new arrival due in just over 4 weeks time.  I’ve finally managed to handover my job, put work stress behind me, and find some time to catch up on real life!  So expect much more regular blog posts from now on (well, at least for the next few weeks until life becomes hectic again!!).

I have a lot to catch you up on, so I shall start with our recent holiday to Wales.  Following last year’s successful visit to a cottage in Abergavenny, we decided to head back to the Brecon Beacons for a quiet family week, this time staying a little bit nearer Brecon itself.  We rented the gorgeous Tower House for a week – and for any of you looking for a great cottage, I’d highly recommend it – it was heavenly.  Here are my boys checking out the view from the garden:

The cottage overlooked a farm, so Alex enjoyed spotting sheep, chickens and tractors – he’s getting very good at shouting “cock-a-doodle-doo”.  And with both a massive box of brio railway inside the cottage and an enormous, enclosed trampoline in the garden, he really was in heaven.  And Matt and I were too as, perhaps because of the fresh air and super dark nights, Alex slept amazingly well, sleeping till after 8am every morning 🙂  Here is a very amateur video of alex giggling on the trampoline:

Feeling well rested and refreshed, we packed plenty in to our week away.  With lots of family and friends in the region, we interspersed sightseeting with reunions – starting on the way to Brecon with a visit to see an old colleague of mine, Eve, in Cheltenham.  We enjoyed a lovely lunch with her beautiful family – and had the very surreal experience of her oldest daughter, on being asked what we should call our baby girl, suggesting the name at the top of our short list!  A sign perhaps?!

When in Brecon, we visited the National Showcaves Centre for Wales – a slightly surreal, but fun, mix of unusual cave formations, life sized dinosaur models and a farm!  Luckily, Alex adored it – getting good at pronouncing different dino names and loving getting dripped on in the caves!  Here he is with his new, cuddly T-Rex (!).

We also stopped by the Cantref Adventure Farm, a pretty tacky – but totally child focused – petting farm / play barn.  Alex discovered a love of guinea pigs:

And particularly enjoyed riding on mini-tractors and the super long sledge ride:

Our final Alex focused day was spent at the Brecon Mountain Railway where we road an old stream train along a mountain lake.  Alex was more impressed than this picture suggests!

Thankfully, not every day was spent at toddler attractions – we managed to get out into the hills in our hiking boots for a short walk.  Not quite the full day hikes of our pre-baby days, but certainly a muddy ramble with fabulous views.  Alex enjoyed being in the backpack (and Matt’s back survived an hour of Alex’s weight!).

We also finally got round to visiting a Red Kite feeding centre, something Matt and I have wanted to see for ages.  Turned out to be a bit of a disaster, partly because the local farmers had been working their land during the week and the red kites had been filling up on voles and other small mammals and therefore weren’t hungry – but mostly because it turns out to be a pretty bad idea to take an excited toddler into a bird hide!  After about 2 minutes of him shouting “sheep”, “eagle”, “tractor” at the top of his voice, we’d had enough glares from the binocular-wielding spotters – so we fled!  We saw some beautiful red kites from the comfort of the car park instead!  Oh well – maybe next time!!

The other highlights of the week involved visiting family.  We spent a wonderful evening with Matt’s family at the farm near Carmarthen – it’s sad that we see them so rarely, so we loved the chance to visit (and Alex adored his first experience of a real, working farm).  He spent quite some time afterwards reciting all the things he’d seen during his visit – “tractors, chickens, cows, dogs, kittens…”.  I’m kicking myself for taking absolutely no photographs at all – too busy chatting!

We also visited Matt’s old school friend Luke, with his wife Laura and gorgeous baby girl Isla on the Gower, as well as another former colleague of mine, Amy and her family, in Bath on the way home.  Brecon really is a great place for us to visit as it gives us such an opportunity to catch up with people.  And just to top off the visiting, we stopped in to see my brother in Reading for his summer BBQ party and then to see Matt’s parents in Crowthorne on the way home!  Phew – I think that covered our entire family in England and Wales!  It was a wonderful week that really felt like a holiday.

For those of you who haven’t seen all the pictures already on Flickr – here’s a quick slideshow of all our holiday snaps:

Catching up with my blog again – it’s getting harder to find time to keep things up to date 😦

Where was I?  After the wonderful spell of Summer weather, we were plunged back into the cool and damp weather of 2012 just in time for a family week off.  Our childminder took half term week off, so Matt and I took the three days after the jubilee weekend as annual leave and had a bit of a London holiday.  Despite the weather, we had great fun!

Our only dip into the London jubilee celebrations (apart from very much enjoying the 4 day weekend!) was a trip to Hyde Park to the Sainsbury’s Jubilee Family Festival.  Turned out to be a disaster, with a 45 minute queue to get in the door, huge queues for everything inside, high barriers around the demonstration and parade area so Alex couldn’t see, and a woefully small “children’s area” which was immediately over capacity meaning we couldn’t see Thomas the Tank Engine or Fireman Sam – poor Alex!  Despite the disappointment, Alex enjoyed the train and bus journey, splashing in puddles in Hyde Park and watching the motorbike display from daddy’s shoulders!

We missed the jubilee river pageant as we travelled down to Shere for our nephew’s 6th birthday which had a brilliant pirate theme which Alex loved (and in fact, he still has a helium balloon in his room in the shape of a pirate ship from the party).  We all ate large amounts of cake, and Alex again demonstrated that he has no idea how little he is as he tried to follow the big boys on the inflatable slides and bouncy castle.  We took a little break from the big boys, and headed into a little play area where Alex loved riding the mini motorbike:

On the first bank holiday Monday, we travelled to Polesden Lacey – a gorgeous National Trust property near Leatherhead with several friends and their children. Here’s Alex taking very seriously the instruction to always wear his entry sticker:

Alex tried out his new wellies and had a complete blast jumping in puddles!  The older children enjoyed a traditional Punch and Judy show (so politically incorrect!) and all of them tried out mini golf together.  It was a fabulous place, well worth another visit.  Here’s a slideshow of pictures form the day:

Katharine joined us for the second half of the week, and we all trekked over to Greenwich to visit the Cutty Sark.  We’ve wanted to do that for ages, and it didn’t disappoint.  It turned out to be a great place to take a toddler – lots to explore and pretty safe and open.  It’s incredibly impressive standing under the ship and seeing it’s full scale.  Katharine helped us get some lovely pictures, including a rare family shot or two:

Other highlights of the week off were exploring the amazing new children’s playground in Brockwell Park (although i’m not sure if Alex was disappointed that there were no longer any diggers in the park as the construction is complete!).  Here he is loving one of the many slides:

And showing no fear on a really quite high bridge:

We concluded the week celebrating little Henry’s 2nd birthday at a birthday party with a strong hint of choo choo trains, much to Alex’s delight.  With the exception of making himself a little bit sick drinking bubble mixture (!), Alex had a fun time eating more cake than sandwiches, and completely missing the point of “pass the parcel”!

It was a lovely, relaxed week off – made even more special by two date nights for Matt and I.  We took advantage of babysitting offers to visit the cinema and check out the London Nocturne bike race in Smithfields (well worth a visit next year if you like cycle racing!).

Anyways, dinner is ready, so will sign off now – but expect another update soon on what else we’ve been up to in June.

x

Had I known that the British Summer was only going to last a week, I probably would have made a little bit more of it!  We were certainly caught unprepared, as Alex had no Summer clothes at all, or suitable bedding for a very hot bedroom.  Thank goodness for Next Directory 24 hour ordering!

Newly decked out in shorts, tshirts, a pair of sunglasses (when he agreed to wear them) and a Thomas the Tank Engine sunhat (worn almost never) – Alex loved spending all day outside.  He discovered a new love – the trampoline – where he seemed to spend most of this time as his childminders!  Here he is bouncing with his friend Martha:

Jacqui took the children to a local park which seemed to be defying the hosepipe ban, and running sprinklers in a little water park!  Alex apparently wasn’t keen on taking a direct hit from the sprinklers, but clearly he enjoyed himself:

I spent part of my day off with him, lazing around Crystal Palace park with some friends and their toddlers – here are the boys, Freddie, Jake and Alex exploring:

Alex even went to a jubilee party last week:

Comedy photo of the week 1 – Alex trying on sunglasses in the supermarket:

Comedy photo/story of the week 2 – After consuming a vast amount of food at the little jubilee party he went to, Alex apparently disappeared into the kitchen and returned with one of the big baguettes saved for the grownups.  Here he is seeing how much he can cram into his mouth:

So proud!

[Just spotted that I never published the following picture post, written a couple of weeks ago… so belatedly, here it is.  More to follow!]

Can’t believe I haven’t blogged since Easter!  It’s not because we haven’t been busy, doing lots of fun things – I think it’s because the weather is so poor that I’m less inclined to take pictures and share them!  The forecast is looking up, so hopefully it won’t be another month till my next post!

It’s been a busy few weeks.  We’re really settled into our new house – to be honest, I rarely think about the old house and feel like we’ve been here for years.  Alex has adjusted brilliantly – and I think really enjoys all the extra space to run around in.  He particularly likes the long hall with its wooden floor – perfect for his little trike!  And, now we have a little play table and lots of railway track, the playroom is becoming very popular!

So, what have we been up to?

We’ve met some new faces – saying hello to little Elliott who came to visit with his big brother and parents, Dave and Bergin – here’s Alex not managing to be quiet whilst Elliott sleeps:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/beglen/6934636540

And all of us gathered in Alex’s new playroom:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/beglen/7080720365

We celebrated Matt’s Auntie Joan’s 80th birthday with the Agar clan – here are some of the cousins playing cars:

We’ve visited the London Transport Museum with the Hainsworth family (although I think Alex and Henry enjoyed the train ride into London more than the museum):

We’ve enjoyed the first Imperial Festival (shameless work plug), and loved climbing on the vintage fire engine:

We’ve had a blast at the Dulwich Festival, having a great time on the big slide at the Goose Green Fair in East Dulwich:

and the merry-go-round at the Dulwich Park Fair:

It’s been a fun month – now we just want Summer to arrive so we can get outdoors a little bit more!  Fingers crossed it’s round the corner 🙂

Just a quick post this morning to say we’ve had a lovely long Easter weekend getting settled in our new home.  I got a bit concerned we weren’t going to fit into our posh new street when Alex arrived home from his childminder last week with a tattoo!!

But thankfully it’s beginning to fade so I don’t think we’ll be shunned by the neighbours – phew!!

We’ve had a fun four days together over the long weekend, with our very first house guest trying out the spare room.  Katharine came up from Southampton for a couple of days – she took Alex to a music class on Good Friday, before a big family pub lunch and game of table football.  Alex got a bit excited by the football, opting to play all the balls at one time.  We were still rubbish at scoring, despite having 10 balls on the table to choose from!

We also spend a fun few hours at Godstone Farm in Surrey on Saturday, where Alex petted rabbits and guinea pigs, saw baby chicks and lambs and had brilliant fun in the giant soft play.  He even managed to navigate through the older children’s area, to go on the huge slides with his daddy.

On Easter Sunday, Matt’s dad came up for lunch and a house tour – I attempted to cook a big roast in our new oven, which turns out to be quite ridiculously hot.  Must dig out the manual as I’m cremating most things I attempt to cook – whooops!  We spent lots of time on Sunday in the local parks as Alex was going a bit stir crazy indoors – here he is running around Ruskin Park:

Monday was gloomy and wet, but we had lots of fun with a visit from the Hainsworth family.  Alex and Henry enjoyed playing together in the new playroom, and Alex attempted to join Matt and Phoebe in a game of Princess Snap – not sure Phoebe was very impressed with Alex slamming his hands down on the cards with every play!

After naptime, and with no friends in the house to play with, Alex got a bit grumpy – so we braved the drizzle and headed down to North Dulwich station so he could partake in his favourite hobby – trainspotting:

Not my usual bank holiday Monday activity – and I must admit, Matt and I were longing for the sofa and a movie after 10 minutes of standing in the cold waiting for trains!

Things are back to normal now – Matt’s back at work and Alex is at his childminder.  I’m making the most of a bonus College closure day (best thing about working in a university) and am heading up to the Queen’s Gallery to check out an exhibition of photography from Scott and Shackleton’s Antarctic expeditions – exciting!

More soon – and perhaps some photos of the new house 🙂

After apologising in February for being the worst blogger ever, I’ve just realised that I didn’t post at all in March!  It’s been a fairly frantic month though with work craziness and moving house – but more on the latter in another post (and none of the former as that’s dull!).

What has Family Agar been up to for the past week weeks?!

March opened with a trip over to this side of the pond for my parents which was great fun.  Despite not visiting since November, we’ve seen them on Skype ever week – and it was a lovely surprise to find that Alex knew exactly who they were when they turned up at our door!  He even has a name for his Grandma – he seems to call her “babaar”.   Not entirely sure why he chose that, but it’s very cute and I’m sure tickled my mum!

We had a lovely few days with them, including a big Sunday lunch with my brother and sister-in-law – a Michael family reunion!  Shame Alex was on hyper form and wouldn’t sit still in the pub!  Mum joined us at Gymboree and Dad took Alex off to play football in the park.  Sadly I seemed to take no photographs at all of the visit (sorry about that) – but we all had a lovely time, and it rushed by.  Mum’s back in May for a longer trip, including some babysitting for the first time (!) so that will be fun – and of course, we have our weekly Skype chats and peekaboo games!!

In mid March, luckily coinciding with some gorgeous weather, we headed down for a weekend in the New Forest with Katharine.  When not trying to chase Katharine’s cat, Max, Alex enjoyed a lovely trip to Lepe Beach where he discovered the joy of throwing stones into the sea!  Here he is with Katharine – who is restraining him running right into the waves!:

After playing on the beach, Alex helped Matt with his ice cream (much to Matt’s distress, it turns out that Alex enjoyed it very much and didn’t do very well at sharing it!).

We also visited a petting farm, great country pub and fabulous softplay – and even found time for a lazy Sunday morning enjoying warm sunshine in some open land deep in the forest. Heaven!

Other highlights last month including the first Hummy Mummies concert – Alex and I spend our Monday afternoon’s at a choir for mum’s and tots which is a complete blast!  I get to sing in a choir (although am finding singing pop songs is quite a contrast to my usual choral repertoire!) and Alex gets to run wild with loads of other children and toys!  We did a little concert in a gorgeous local church for the daddies and children – and here it is on film.  You might enjoy Alex’s many stage invasions!

(if you’re really interested, there’s a nice piece about Hummy Mummies on p65 of Living South magazine, featuring a pic of Alex and I – http://www.hummymummies.com/2012/03/living-south-magazine/)

Those are the highlights of the month – apart from that, we’ve been enjoying the sunshine by spending as much time as possible outside – in parks and at the station looking at trains!  We also made a lovely trip back to Berkshire for Sunday lunch with Matt’s parents – stopping in at The Lookout for a runaround:

To close – here’s Alex with his “friend” Martha at his childminder!

And their cheeky smiles after their little kiss!

I’ve been a completely useless blogger this month – sorry everyone.  It’s been a manic few weeks of work for Matt and I, and I must admit that I’ve been using every free minute to try and get on top of things (not very successfully).

But let me spend a few minutes this Saturday night trying to remember what we’ve been up to for the past three weeks.  It’s mostly been quiet for us all, with Alex enjoying his days with his childminder, and us staying pretty local at the weekends.  We had a fabulous trip up to Tate Modern with some friends and their children, enjoying lunch up in the members room.  Despite the fact it was freezing, the children all loved running around on the roof terrace – the grown ups didn’t enjoy supervising them in the bitter cold!  Here are all the children (plus our friend John) – note, Alex refusing to pose like everyone else!

As the weather has been so cold, we’ve spent lots of time going swimming up at Crystal Palace which Alex adores!  He was joined by his cousins Jessica and Max last weekend which was a nice treat which I hope we can repeat soon.  And most weekends this month, Matt’s taken Alex for a few hours to give me some time off 🙂  Luxury for me and fun for Matt (I think!) – they usually pop to music class or Brixton soft play together, but today since the weather was so warm and sunny, they spent the day in Dulwich and Brockwell Parks playing football with some other dads and their toddlers!  Here’s Alex having fun at Brixton softplay:

Last weekend we had a visit from Katharine – so we spent a fun afternoon with her at the Horniman Museum.  Alex spent most of the time running at speed around the aquarium there, mostly ignoring the fish!  We enjoyed cake in the cafe 🙂

In non-Alex news, Matt and I have had a couple of days of this month to visit the Olympic Park.  We were lucky enough to get tickets to some of the London Prepares events – the track cycling world cup in the new velodrome and the diving world cup in the aquatic centre.  It was such a treat to get a first glimpse of the incredible venues and to see some professional sport.  It’s made me even more excited about the 2012 Olympics – not long now!

Not much more news I’m afraid.  To close, a couple of comedy photographs.  Alex trying out a new television viewing position:

And here’s our favourite picture so far this month – Alex and his favourite fruit:

With such a mild end of 2011, I kind of hoped that we’d managed to escape Winter – but clearly I was wrong.  Temperatures have plummeted and as I type this, I can see snow in the garden.  The cold has made entertaining Alex more challenging, as leaving the house takes twice as long because of all the layers he’s wearing.  And I am now enjoying daily battles over glove and hat wearing (getting the best success out of a hat that fastens under his chin and gloves on a string!).

We’ve still had plenty of fun though.  Now the Christmas holidays are over, we’ve been seeing friends when we can.  Here’s Alex and his little friend Jake, spending an afternoon in a Dulwich pub!

We braved the elements last weekend, heading down to Godstone Farm for a day out.  Alex adores it there.  When we finally managed to drag him out of the amazing play barn and softplay, he was really engaged with the animals.  He’s learning lots of animal names and noises which is hilarious.  He enjoyed petting rabbits and guinea pigs (although I’m less sure they enjoyed the encounter – we’re still learning how to be “gentle”).  He shouted “baaa” at the sheep, and made friends with a tiny pony (yes, this really is a pony and not a cow!).

The pony tried to have a much on Alex’s finger shortly after that was taken, and Matt and I had a terrifiying couple of seconds when we were a little concerned the horse might have munched it right off! Thankfully all digits are intact!

Apart from that trip, we’ve generally stuck to South London, enjoying “Bea’s Baby Bop” music class yesterday and a trip to Brixton soft play today. Yesterday afternoon, we enjoyed afternoon tea with some of our NCT class.  Our friends Shelly & Pete had prepared an incredible spread of sandwiches and cakes, and we all had a fabulous time chatting and catching up.  It’s great seeing the boys together – there were four 16 month olds there having fun.  I can’t believe how much they have all grown!  Such a shame we didn’t manage to get the full team of seven little men together!  Maybe next time.

In other news, Alex met a new babysitter on Friday night as our former one has just moved back to Australia (we miss you Jess!) – which meant Matt and I went on a date night.  We tried out a local pub/restaurant called The Crooked Well in Camberwell – any fellow South Londoners reading this must try it.  We had a scrummy meal and a really relaxing evening out!

But this biggest excitement of recent weeks was waking up this morning to a pretty impressive snowfall!  Alex didn’t really know what to make of it – and looked genuinely confused looking outside this morning.  We dressed him up in wellies and a snowsuit my parents bought him about a year ago (which thankfully just fits him today!) and marched him over to Sunray Gardens across the road.  He was pretty tentative about walking in the snow – we don’t think he likes his wellies – but he seemed to enjoy it and just about managed to throw a snowball.

Here’s a slideshow of snaps from today – love his red nose!

It’s been a pretty quiet couple of weeks, with both Alex and I suffering from colds.  Never seen so many tissues used by so few people!  Despite all the coughing and sneezing, we’ve had a lovely January so far – exploring some more local attractions as a family which is always fun.

Last weekend, we followed a tip off from a friend, and headed off early on Saturday morning to the National Army Museum in Chelsea.  We’d heard that they had a good, new children’s play area – and it was certainly true!  With restricted one hour slots to prevent the room getting too busy, we thankfully managed to get into the second session of the day.  Alex loved every minute – exploring the entire soft play all by himself and getting super excited by the tunnels and slides.  It was great to see him being so confident and independent, and playing with other children.  Cute!  He wasn’t quite old enough to enjoy the dressing up area, but he also loved the play table with little cars, tanks and trains!

We took the opportunity to have a quick look around the excellent War Horse exhibition as well.  It was a great little museum, and we’ll definitely be back – would highly recommend their kid’s zone to other London friends with little ones.    Here’s Alex contemplating a career as a peace campaigner:

Today we tried out another local kid’s play area – the Play Zone at Brixton Rec Centre.  I can’t quite believe we’ve never been there before because it was absolutely brilliant.  A huge softplay frame in a massive room, Alex was able to climb up all of it – and we could go too as it was lovely and spacious.  Considering it was a Sunday morning, it was really quiet, and we easily stayed for over an hour.

Here’s Alex very bravely making his way across a little rope bridge (it took him a few attempts to pluck up the courage!)

After we’d worn Alex out in the softplay, we explored the little Brixton farmers market (yum) where Alex ate an embarrassing amount of the sample food and then headed into Dulwich Village for a scrummy Italian lunch.  It’s days like today that remind me quite how much I love living in South London.  I don’t understand why people move out of town when they have children – I can’t imagine a more diverse and exciting range of things for Alex to do than we have on our doorstep here in central London!

In other news, Alex is enjoying all his fabulous Christmas present toys.  He’s completely in love with his first brio train set, both his London buses (!) and his electric guitar.  We’re now trying to get Alex interested in duplo (mostly because Matt and I LOVE lego, and the quicker we can get him into that the better!) – but at the moment, he just loves tipping the entire box over the floor:

Classes are back up and running after the Christmas holiday – and Alex has already been back enjoying baby booters (football for toddlers!), baby bop (music for toddlers) and gymboree!  I’m very excited because Hummy Mummies (a choir for mum’s where children can roam around the rehearsals) is opening a new class on a Monday afternoon – so we’ll be doing that from February.  Hooray – singing again!

I’ve just been watching “One Born Every Minute” which always makes me think about my own birth experience (not something I particularly enjoy recalling) – so instead of dwelling on that, I thought I’d do a quick blog about the past week or so as we’ve had a lovely family start to January!

And it’s been mostly about  birthday celebrations which has certainly been fun.  Last week, Alex was invited to his first two proper birthday parties.  So I spent an exhausting couple of hours last Wednesday at the third birthday party of one of his friends from his childminder’s – Amelia.  The children had loads of fun at a brilliant soft play in Beckenham – although Alex wasn’t impressed at having to stay in the toddler corner, much preferring to attempt to follow his older friends into the main area.  He really doesn’t accept he isn’t three!  Biggest challenge for me at the party was to stop Alex eating the entire birthday cake – he turns out to be a massive cake fan (well, who isn’t?!) and doesn’t like to be restricted to just one piece!

The following day, it was my birthday – a much quieter affair thankfully!  I had a lovely day though, with Alex accompanying me to lunch with a friend in town.  This involved a train ride – which seems to be Alex’s favourite thing.  He spent the entire 10 minute journey shouting “CHOO CHOO” very loudly – felt quite sorry for all the other passengers after the first few excited yells!  Here he is literally glued to the window:

Alex was very well behaved in the restaurant, even managing to attempt a little bit of colouring in (when not trying to eat the crayons – his teeth went green!):

On my birthday afternoon, some friends and their children came round for more cake and a playdate.  And then Matt and I enjoyed a celebratory steak for dinner.  Lovely day all round!

It was back to work for me on Friday – a nice one day week.  Alex seemed happy to be back with his childminder after a break of two weeks – although I wasn’t sure what to think when she sent me this snap of him during the day!  Some sort of punishment technique?!

We had a good weekend, despite two completely failed attempts to take Alex swimming.  It seems that Crystal Palace is a pretty popular place for family swimming at the weekend – and it was full both times we tried to go.  Such a shame as Alex enjoys it so much.

On Saturday, my brother and sister-in-law came up for the night – which meant even more fabulous Christmas presents for Alex!  They’d not seen him for a while, so it was fun for him to hang out with his auntie and uncle on Sunday morning.

Sunday saw the final birthday celebration of early January – another third birthday party, this time for Alex’s cousin, Edward.  We spent a brilliant hour at “Specky’s pirate ship softplay” in Guildford – a fabulous place for kids – followed by a hilarious meal at Pizza Express. I felt a little bit sorry for the other diners when we turned up with a large number of small children – but everyone was very well behaved, and true to form, Alex consumed a vast amount of salad, dough balls, pasta, ice cream and cake.  No wonder he was wide awake and chatting most of the journey back to London when he should have been sleeping!

Here’s Alex loving Edward’s enormous tractor birthday cake, complete with indoor fireworks:

And a silly snap of Alex with static hair:

To close, here’s a video from a couple of weeks ago which never fails to make Matt and I laugh.  It’s Alex filming himself – and the squeak you hear at the end is Alex picking up a big toy car and attempting to smash it into the phone.  The last thing you see is my hand stopping this!  I love his noises!