…but I’ll write a blog anyway!  It’s 11.20pm on Sunday night.  I really should be asleep, but my mind is whirring.  Too much going on at work and home to completely relax!  Working full-time (and extra time!) and having two little ones is absolutely exhausting.  We’re learning that we have to be pretty regimented at organisation or things fall apart – food shopping ordered for home delivery at exactly the right time, laundry closely monitored or we run out of clothes (especially Sophie who can go through several costume changes per day at the moment!) and diaries carefully planned so we can drop off and collect the kids.   Sometimes it’s hard to fit in some fun!

But we try to where we can!  It’s been a tough old week.  Alex is going through a difficult emotional patch – and this week i’ve witnessed tantrums of epic proportion, including one commute to Jacqui’s house which involved a 15 minute stand off in the park because he wanted to walk a different route.  It’s sad to see our normally happy little man so angry – so I’m hoping this is a short phase.  He’s clearly had some fun times this week though, as these fab photos from our childminder prove.  Here he is having a brilliant time with his two best friends Sam and Rosita!  I love getting pictures of his day when I’m at work – never fails to make me smile and miss him at the same time!

We’ve just finished a very quiet weekend, enjoying the glorious sunny, autumn days.  On Saturday both children were on amazing form – such a pleasure to be around and a lot of fun. Alex managed the entire day without a single strop and Sophie was her happy, smiley self, finally over all the illness of the past fortnight.  Alex got to choose Saturday’s activity, so he selected the “Fish Museum” or Horniman Museum to the rest of us.

He loved the bus ride up there – or more specifically waiting for the bus – as he found immense amusement watching cars and buses crush conkers in the road.  Look at the joy on his face:

His giggle really is infectious as Sophie soon found it funny too!  At the museum, we did our usual exploration of the tiny aquarium – particularly good now that Sophie enjoys it too.  Alex spent ages counting jelly fish and Sophie liked the tropical tank.  Once we’d exhausted that, we wandered around the galleries and even tried a “hands on” session, touching lots of the museum’s masks (although Alex quickly bored of having to be gentle so we headed out to the gardens!).

As luck would have it, it turns out there’s a farmers’ market at the museum on a Saturday – so that was lunch sorted.  Ham and cheese galettes all round 🙂

Then it was back home for a Sophie nap and a movie for Alex, before we headed out to his friend Arlo’s 3rd birthday party.  With a pirate theme, Alex loved the pirate cake and jelly and ice cream.  He is loving this spell of parties!

Today, we spent the morning over in Brixton swimming which is always fun – am so happy to have two water babies!  And to make it even more perfect, Alex’s friend Rosita was there so they splashed around together for a while.  Once we’d dried off, we popped into Sloane Square to investigate scooters.  Alex has used his micro scooter so much, he’s completely knackered it!  Despite a number of replacement brakes, it’s gradually disintegrating – so he is now the proud owner of the next model up (which should apparently last him until he’s six!).  Sorry Grandma / Nanny Michele – I know we should have waited until Christmas, but I don’t think his current one would have lasted another couple of months…

We ended the day at our local park in the evening sun – here are my babies playing together (still no great photo of them both – must try harder!)

Right – enough rambling on – really must go to bed!

Night all

x

Alex finally had his promised birthday trip to London Zoo on Friday.  Having had it cancelled on his birthday because Sophie was sick, Matt and I managed to take another day off to take him out on a trip by himself.  I’m not sure he grasped that it was a big deal to have the undivided attention of mummy and daddy as he asked where Sophie was quite a bit!  But it’s a nice tradition to start I think!

We had a bit of a disastrous journey up to Regents Park, missing the train and the bus and then selecting the slowest bus route in the capital.  But Alex was very good and we finally arrived at lunchtime.  We almost didn’t get Alex through the front door as there was an excellent playground right outside – but thankfully he remembered his love of penguins and so we headed in!

It was lovely and quiet in the zoo and so we got a great view of everything.  Alex adored the penguins – and they seemed to really like him and his scooter, much to Alex’s amusement!

After some lunch in the fabulous new Terrace Restaurant in the zoo, we explored the rest of the park – particularly enjoying the butterfly house, lions, tiger, monkeys, gorillas and komodo dragon. And, of course, the merry-go-round – Alex riding on a horse on his own for the first time!

Alex LOVED the bug house – making me look at locusts, cockroaches, maggots and tarantula (lovely!) – I was pleased to see the tarantula again, having met her before at the zoo’s “Fear of Spiders” course a few years ago (and yes, I am no longer afraid of spiders!).

We had a peaceful Saturday, with a trip to “baby booters” football in the morning for Alex and a nice walk to the park for Sophie.  After lunch, with the weather really bright and mild, we decided to get the train up to London for a spot of shopping and sightseeing in the city.

We headed to St Paul’s where we found some people celebrating World Peace Day with bubbles! Alex was in heaven as the sky filled with hundreds of bubbles and he joined in with lots of other children running around trying to catch and pop them.  He particularly loved the massive bubbles and the nearby water fountains.

Sophie was a little less impressed, and fell fast asleep in her buggy (in the garden where Matt and I had our wedding photos taken five years ago!)

Today has been all about birthday parties.  This morning we had a fabulous time at Jake’s 3rd and Emily’s 1st birthday party.  Held at “Diddy Dinos” in Crystal Palace Park, we had the entire nursery and garden to ourselves.  The children had a brilliant time running/crawling around – and we enjoyed huge amounts of food 🙂

Here’s Sophie and the birthday girl, exploring the pirate ship together:

Sophie was very brave – taking on a dinosaur:

And having a go at driving for the first time – helped by the Agar boys:

The highlight of the party for Alex and Sophie was the trampoline – they had a brilliant time bouncing together (so much so that for a few minutes I contemplated forking out for a trampoline for our garden, before Matt reminded me that it’s (a) nearly winter and (b) our garden is tiny!).  Here they are giggling away:

After much Fireman Sam birthday cake (yum), we headed back home for an hour of chill out time, before venturing out to our second party of the day – Alex’s friend Sam’s 3rd birthday party in Sunray Gardens.

Cue more running around for Alex – this time playing football and hide and seek in the bushes.  And of course a lot more cake and chocolate!

Alex enjoyed more bubbles (bit of a theme of the weekend):

And Sophie enjoyed cruising along the railings smiling at every passer-by (she is such a flirt!)

Here she is with her new friend Una:

It’s been a lovely – if slightly exhausting – weekend!  Roll on the next one, but first we have to survive a full week at work!

In hindsight, I think I was probably crazy to think that having Alex’s third birthday party at home was a good idea!  I did a very half-hearted search of local halls contemplating hiring one, but never really got round to it.  And then suddenly I found myself with 17 children aged from 0-11 years old (and their parents) descending on us on a damp and chilly Sunday lunchtime!  Yikes!

Thankfully, it actually turned out brilliantly. Phew.  The rain held off and so we were able to use the garden giving us plenty of playing space!  We’d hired some garden toys from the brilliant Tippee Toes which Alex found so exciting when he spotted it – I might have to buy a slide for the garden now!

Here are Alex and Sophie testing out the rockers before our guests arrived:

We managed to squeeze everyone into the house, and the children had a brilliant time running around playing with every toy they could get their hands on. We had a relatively calm contingent in control of the playroom and garden:

And then as the sugar levels increased, a slightly wilder grouping running riot upstairs.  We managed to squeeze seven children into Alex’s tiny playtent:

The girls had fun trying to cram into Sophie’s cot and everyone enjoyed playing hide and seek:

After a super simple lunch (thank goodness for M&S), the moment arrived that Alex had been waiting for all weekend – his cake!  We’d had a number of tantrums over his wanting to eat his cake before his friends arrived, and when it finally was time to dig in, he was super excited.  So much so, that I think he forgot that birthday cake is traditionally accompanied by singing – so the look on his face when all his assembled guests sang him “Happy Birthday” was priceless.  I very nearly cried he looked so overjoyed!

Alex had a wonderful party – and enjoyed some incredibly generous gifts from his friends.  Huge thanks to Ralph, Jake, Emily, Tom, Lucy, Rufus, Liezl, Sasha, Hattie, Tom, Connie, Thomas, Edward, Rosita, Sam, Matthew and Hedley (and all their brilliant parents!).

One person I shouldn’t forget is Sophie – who loved her first experience of a birthday party!  She soaked up as much attention as she could – monopolising the attention of her next door neighbour, Hattie, who kept her smiling amid all the chaotic toddler action!  She had a fabulous time – only 6 weeks until her first birthday!

Today we celebrated Alex’s third birthday – I am amazed I am actually the mother of a three year old! It feels like yesterday we were in hospital meeting him, although it’s hard to imagine him not being part of our lives!  I intend write about properly what Alex is like at three so we remember some of the funny things he does and comes out with – but for now, I just want to remember today.

It wasn’t quite the birthday we’d been planning. Now Alex is three, he’s able to anticipate and get excited about things – so we’ve been counting down the sleeps until the big day. He was so excited last night when it was bedtime that he practically giggled himself to sleep! And this morning he bounded in to our room to find balloons and presents in our bedroom. Such a lovely start to the day to see his beaming smile.  He was delighted to receive some new books, a pirate costume (!), a gorgeous clock for his bedroom (thanks Granddad and Nanny Michele) and some toys and skittles.  Sophie loved the wrapping paper of course!

Sadly, Matt and I had had a pretty bad night with a feverish Sophie 😦 We’d both booked today off so that we could have a special day just with Alex at London Zoo, but instead we ended up taking Sophie to the doctor and sending Alex off to his childminder for the day. Thankfully he absolutely loves it with Jacqui and I think had a wonderful birthday with all his friends!!

From what I understand of his day, he ate a lot of cake and chocolate  – so Alex’s perfect birthday I think! We sent him off with a “Jake and the Neverland Pirates” birthday cake which I hear he had almost as soon as he arrived at Jacqui’s:

And to match his cake, Jacqui gave him some Jake figures which he completely adores and won’t let near his baby sister!

With Sophie on much happier form (phew), we picked up Alex a little early and headed home for a fun evening of more presents which had arrived today.  He had great fun trying out his new binoculars in the garden (although most of the time he tried to use them the wrong way round!).  I think his favourite present was an old fashioned zig zag racer – I couldn’t get him into bed tonight without him managing a few successful descents!  And the closest he came to a meltdown tonight was when Sophie attempted to play with it!

She and Matt focused their attention on the massive jigsaw that arrived from the USA (thanks Auntie Elaine!) – and Alex adored the monster book that arrived in the same parcel (had to read that three times this evening).

He went to bed one very happy and exhausted boy.  Thanks to everyone for their generous gifts – he loves them all.  And thanks to Jacqui, Mark and “big” Alex for making Alex’s day full of fun and love.  We’re rescheduling our zoo trip for next week so his birthday will go on a bit longer!

But next, it’s his birthday party…  more on that soon.

To close, here is Alex on 12 September (or thereabouts) since he was born.  He’s growing up fast!

Whilst writing this blog, Alex managed to fall out of bed – cue a big bang above my head!  Too much sugar today I think!

As I sit here in my kitchen hearing the rain on the window and wearing a woolly jumper and slippers, I fear the lovely Summer may be over.  But we packed in lots of fun whilst we had sunshine over the weekend.  Someone commented to me the other day that we seem to manage to do lot of exciting stuff with the children – but I just think it’s because we live in London, there’s just so much to do! Many people choose to move to the country when they have families – but I think this is just the best place to be with little ones!

We started our weekend up the road in West Dulwich at Ruggerbeez with Alex.  I try not to be a pushy mum, but it’s no secret that I’d love Alex to enjoy rugby! We tried the highly recommended rugby class when Alex had just turned two, but he was a bit young for it and wasn’t much of a fan of following instructions in the rain!  But it went much better now he’s nearly three.  He still had trouble paying attention to follow the instructions (but I think that was his current penchant for ignoring authority!) – but when he did take part, he loved it!

He loved kicking the ball (future Jonny Wilkinson?!), enjoyed the obstacle course and liked playing “What’s the time Mr Rugby Wolf?!”  I think we’ll take him next week and see if he still likes it then.

Sophie and I enjoyed a nice walk around Dulwich Village while the boys were at rugby, and then we all headed up to the Southbank to check out the Woodland Garden on the Queen Elizabeth Hall rooftop!  The sun came out on cue and we enjoyed wandering around the surreal but beautiful space – it was great scooting territory for Alex.  I love the views of the river you get from up there.

Once we’d exhausted the garden, we ambled along the South Bank – Sophie having a nap in her buggy whilst Alex played in the big temporary sandpit.  He loved watching the skateboarders doing their tricks in the skate park there and was particularly impressed at the person doing jumps on a scooter!  We walked right along the river to London Bridge to pick up ice cream in Borough Market (it’s worth the walk for panacotta flavoured ice cream!) and cakes from Konditor – I’m sure we burned off enough calories to justify them…

On Sunday, we started our day with a fab family swim in Battersea – Alex is obsessed with the elephant slide at the Latchmere pool!  Sophie just loves being in the water – she goes a bit mad spashing and laughing.  Once we’d coaxed them away from the waves, we headed into Kensington for a spot of lunch and a trip to the Princess Diana Memorial Playground (thanks David Poteet for the recommendation!) – I’d not been there before, but it was really worth the trek over the park.  Based on a pirate ship, the playground was enormous.  Alex was in heaven with lots of sand, water, climbing frames and the huge ship.  He rather terrified us by immediately climbing right to the crow’s nest on his own – but he did a great job and managed to get down again – phew!

Sophie enjoyed it too, managing not to eat too much sand and loving cruising around the rocks and wooden boats

I made a pretty poor attempt at photographing them together – they are not very cooperative!  I have much respect for professional child photographers!

I’ll get one of them both together one day – even if I have to pay someone else to do it! Any volunteers!?

We walked back to the car via the Serpentine Gallery to see what this year’s Pavilion was like – and we weren’t disappointed.  Sou Fujimoto’s installation was stunning and made the perfect climbing frame!

We’d parked at my office, and Alex had a fun time climbing all over the Imperial College Lions – here he is having a good roar (one for next years prospectus maybe?)

Got an exciting week ahead as my baby boy turns three years old – how is that possible?  More on the birthday celebrations soon…

The reality of full-time working and parenting is hitting home as I find it’s already Sunday night and I have masses of admin and work to get done – and little time to do it!  So, in order to not get too far behind with the blog, i’m going to update you on our last week in photographs….

We enjoyed a gloriously sunny bank holiday Monday doing something fairly unusual for within the M25 – we went fruit-picking!  I must admit, we were a little nervous about taking Alex as he’s rather partial to strawberries and we were concerned he’d eat everything before we paid for it – but we thought it was worth a try!  And I’m glad we did – Crockford Bridge Farm was absolutely brilliant.  Really pretty and peaceful, with a wide range of fruit and vegetables to pick, it was such a pleasure seeing my very urban son picking strawberries and raspberries as well as some delicious looking corn-on-the-cob.

Sophie particularly enjoyed chewing the corn husks!

There was a good restaurant in the garden centre next door which also had a huge aquatic centre selling tropical fish which both Alex and Sophie loved looking at.  And best of all, there was a great adventure playground and ice cream parlour on the farm.  We easily filled the day there and it was wonderful to be outside in the warm sunshine all day – made me remember why I live in London and not Edinburgh!  It was slightly unfortunate that after dinner that evening, Alex decided that the fruit was yucky and opted for a yoghurt for pudding – but Matt and I enjoyed a delicious crumble (thanks Bry for the recipe!)

After such a busy few weeks, we chose to spend this weekend a bit closer to home.  Yesterday Alex had a fun morning playing with his friend, Arlo, in the Brockwell Park Adventure Playground:

And we spent the afternoon at Myatt’s Fields, enjoying the water play and fabulous playground.  We did attempt to get Alex on his balance bike, but he couldn’t be persuaded off his scooter!

Today we took our friend David, and his son Josh, to one of our favourite places in London – Greenwich, where we explored the Cutty Sark.

After lunch and some Meantime Ale, we then let Alex partake of one of his very favourite pastimes – playing in the water features at the National Maritime Museum (and getting very wet in the process!).  This time, Sophie could also join in, finding the waterfall ideal for some cruising practice.

We took the river boat back up to London Bridge, which is always fun – such a great way to head back into the city and a treat for Alex who was excited about being on a “real boat”, although he kept announcing the anyone that would listen that we were about to crash!  He’s still working on his quiet voice!

It’s been a lovely weekend – I fear one of the last of the Summer – so I’m glad we spent as much of it as possible outside.  Here are my family just chilling out in the garden – heaven.

Before I go, just some major personal news, I had my very first night away from both children this week!  I spent a night up in Manchester with work where I was speaking at a conference and collecting some awards on behalf of my team.  I had a wonderful time – and even stayed out dancing until 2am.  How unlike me – but what fun!

Last week we ventured up to Edinburgh for a week long family holiday – the furthest we’ve been from home since having chidren!  And our trip kicked off with some major excitement – Alex and Sophie’s very first flight!  I’d been a bit worried about the flight as I could only get seats on an evening flight after their normal bedtime, so was scared they’d be overtired and cranky, but it worked out brilliantly.

Alex was so excited to be at an airport surrounded by planes and Sophie just loved the attention she got from everyone she met – she just smiled and giggled!  We were flying with Virgin Little Red and they were absolutely brilliant with the kids.  Alex was invited behind the check in desk to press the button to send our bags along the conveyer belt and he was given rather too many chocolate biscuits and sweets by the cabin crew!  And I think it blew his mind to take off and be above the clouds.  Such fun.

We arrived at the little cottage we’d hired for the week pretty late, but Grandma and Grandpa had popped in earlier and set up the children’s rooms so they could go straight to bed – phew.

We were staying in a gorgeous cottage on Parkley Farm in Linlithgow – a lovely town West of Edinburgh.  The website doesn’t do the cottage justice – it was absolutely stunning and perfect for families.  I’d highly recommend it. The views were stunning, the cottage itself luxurious and the location really convenient (both for visiting my family and reaching all the attractions)

We sadly didn’t spend much time in lovely Linlithgow, but we did spend a fun couple of hours with my family down by the loch and old Palace.  Once more, Sophie loved the attention:

And Alex loved scooting with his Grandpa down by the loch:

One of the highlights of being up in Edinburgh during August is that the city comes alive with the Festival and Fringe.  I hadn’t expected to be able to partake of any of it with such small children, but was delighted to find there’s a massive range of day time performances for children – so for three days of the week we headed into one of my favourite cities in the world and saw:

• Aliens Love Underpants – live onstage!  One of Alex’s favourite books, and a great performance.  Alex managed most of it without fidgeting and loved the songs and puppets in particular!
• Tiddler and other terrific tales – based on a collection of brilliant Julia Donaldson books.  Alex enjoyed the bits based on stories he knows and loves (Monkey Puzzle, Tiddler and a Squash and a Squeeze, but got a bit bored in the sections he was less familiar with)
• BabyO – Sophie and I finally got to see the Scottish Opera BabyO performance, something I’ve been keen to do for years.  We both LOVED it – an amazing sensory experience of touch, texture, sight, sound and song.
• Jazzamataz – amazing jazz and jive for toddlers.  We all loved this (Matt even had the honour of being singled out to show the chidlren how to do an elephant noise – I think he’s still traumatised from having the microphone thrust in his face!)!  Here we are waiting to go in, and then learning how to do jazz hands!

As always, I couldn’t get enough of the buzz on the streets with music and performances going on everywhere – although the crowds were a bit overwhelming at times for Alex and Sophie.  We did get Alex to experience his very first bagpipe music – and I think he liked it!

We had a great few hours in the brilliant Museum of Scotland – initially just an escape to picnic in the dry, we found some excellent galleries focused on interaction for children.  Alex, unsurprisingly, was drawn to the trains and dinosaurs (!) and Sophie liked climbing up the mineral rock samples and investigating the funny mirrors:

After the craziness of the city, we made sure we made time for some more refreshing activities.  We spent a fabulous afternoon at the Beescraig Country Park enjoying some fresh air. It was lovely to take a peaceful walk / scoot through the dense forest and even better to discover a massive adventure playground!

Given we were so close to the Forth estuary, we tried to spend a couple of days by the water.  My parents took Alex, Sophie and I to a beautiful village called Cramond for an afternoon while Matt did a spot of mountain biking in Peebles.  Whilst Sophie had a lovely long nap with her Grandma, Alex and I accompanied his Grandpa on a walk along the gorgeous sea wall (and visited the stunning little ice cream parlour).  I seem to have taken no photographs, but it really was lovely and I hope to go back again to check out the yummy looking pub!

We also spent a lot of time down at the bridges of Queensferry (North and South!).  One of my favourite places, Alex quickly decided he loved it too because of the huge number of trains chugging over the Forth Bridge and the many boats out on the water – and of course, pebbles to throw into the sea!  It was at Queensferry we finally managed to get a decent picture of the four of us (thanks mum):

Alex and his Grandpa got very wet trying to dodge waves on the sea wall – and on a much calmer day, Alex and I explored the waters edge together:

Check out this lovely mosaic of the beautiful bridge – we found it at North Queensferry station, having actually taken the train over the bridge on Alex’s insisting!

Of course, no trip to Edinburgh with children would be complete without a trip to the Zoo and Deep Sea World!  Edinburgh Zoo was quite a struggle with two little children being on such a massive hill – but it was worth the effort.  Alex was a great age for it – loving the monkeys, lions, pandas, zebras and penguins (he particularly enjoyed the afternoon “penguin walk” when they release the penguins to have a little stroll!  Sophie was less impressed (this picture makes me giggle)

Our final excursion was to Deep Sea World – always going to be a hit with my fish-mad children!   With one of the longest underwater moving walkways in Europe, Alex was in his element – I think we went round it 8 times checking out the sharks, rays and crabs.  He just loved it.  Sophie was particularly interested in the glittering piranhas – and they both enjoyed watching the seals:

Alex was even brave enough to feed a live locust to a lizard (something I don’t think I’d do) – he’s still talking about it and demonstrating how the lizard ate the locust nearly a week later!

Phew – what a busy week!  But I’m forgetting the most special bit of all – seeing the children spend lots of time with their Great Grandma and Grandpa!

It was surreal and rather nice to see my children playing in the house where I spent so much of my childhood with my Grandparents and Auntie!  It was particularly fun to have my grandparents bring out a box of the little matchbox cars my brother played with when he was little and watch Alex immediately play with them the same way 30 years later – my grandparents’ path is really good for rolling cars down!

Phew – what a long blog post!  It really was a great week away, and I think we’ll be back next Summer to do it all again! I won’t deny it was exhausting at times, but worth the effort – and it was all made so easy by all my family. Thanks everyone!

I’ve crammed in as many pictures I can, but here are all 110 from the week away!

We’re midway through two wonderful weeks of annual leave (or at least we were when I started writing this post!). Our childminder is enjoying a well-earned rest, and we are packing in as much family fun time as possible. I know I am going to be shattered by the time I have to return to work!

We’ve managed to squeeze in plenty of admin – all of us have had haircuts (even Sophie who had her crazy fringe trimmed for the very first time so she could see properly – and so I didn’t have to keep putting her in comedy top-knots!)

We’ve had new shoes, the car’s been MOT’d, Sophie went to baby clinic for a weight check (!) and our grass has finally been cut.

But mostly we’ve been concentrating on enjoying ourselves!

We spent our first few days in London, starting with a trip to Battersea Zoo. It’s a while since we’d been and Alex loved exploring it anew. The lure of the amazing adventure playground there was pretty strong, but we did manage to see all the animals before we let Alex loose! He loved the meerkats, monkeys and donkeys (!) and Sophie enjoyed the space to crawl around. We nearly persuaded her to crawl down the meerkat tunnel, but she didn’t get very far! But their favourite thing of all was, of course, the playground.

After the zoo, Alex and Matt explored the Thames Path, checking out the Battersea Power Station up close, and inspecting the “Cranky cranes” along the river (you’ll need to watch Thomas the Tank Engine to understand why Alex enjoys that!). Meanwhile, Sophie and I enjoyed a ladies trip to Sloane Square the Peter Jones! Fabulous first day of the hols.

Over the next couple of days, we stayed pretty local to Herne Hill enjoying some quiet time. There was plenty to look at locally given the recent flood – Alex is fascinated by the massive hole in the road and huge number of diggers repairing it!

We’re now swimming each week as a family – Sophie LOVES splashing her brother in the water, and Alex is doing amazingly well swimming with his “SwimFin”, and is now able to swim widths on his own using just his fin and a float. Brilliant! We visited a great little pool in Battersea which is super shallow and warm, and has a little elephant slide and regular waves. We could barely get Alex out of the water to go home!

But I called this post “Escape the the Country” – so I should move on to our first little holiday of the Summer! My parents are settling into a little village called Blakesley in rural Northamptonshire – and we paid them a visit for a few days. It was the first time we’ve ever visited my parents since having children as they’ve been in the USA until recently – and they went to town! We arrived to find bedrooms set up for both children, including funky bedding for Alex and a cot for Sophie. There was even a fully stocked toy box! On discovering this, and the fact that there are cows at the end of the garden, Alex was in heaven!

Things got better on our first full day with a visit to the Rookery Open Farm near Towcester. We were in danger of not seeing any animals at all as the main entrance of the farm contained an enormous soft play. Even Sophie loved it, making the most of the massive baby and toddler area:

But we did make it around the farm itself, petting rabbits and baby goats – and Alex learned (and now loves) the words “cow pat” thanks to the fields we passed! We even conversed with gobbling turkeys (which Alex found quite hilarious)

Best of all was the massive outdoor playfield full of diggers and tractors to climb on. We had one very happy and exhausted boy by the end of the morning

We calmed things down a bit later in the day with a visit to the beautiful National Trust house – Canons Ashby. Alex was initially disappointed that the gravel paths made scooting impossible (and I struggled a lot with the buggy), but he quickly brightened up at the prospect of learning to play crocket with his dad!

The house and gardens were beautiful, full of flowers, produce, bees and butterflies – I really enjoyed a peaceful walk around, as well as the delicious lunch and cake we enjoyed in the lovely tea room there. I’d highly recommend it to anyone passing by.

A big benefit of my parents’ new location is the fact that it’s only a 40 minute drive to our NCT friends Bryony & Dan – so we took the opportunity to enjoy a quick day trip to their new house in a beautiful village in Oxfordshire. Alex and Freddie had a blast running around their stunning garden, inspecting the strawberries and little pond – as well as climbing the many apple trees.

And when that all got too much, they played with every single one of Freddie’s cuddly toys!

In the meantime, Bryony and I had a bit of time to catch up with our little girlies (before the heaven’s opened and soaked us all!):

A lovely day – one that I hope will be repeated soon!

On our final day in the Midlands, we went on a day trip to Milton Keynes (yes, I know – not an obvious choice for a rural break!). But we’d heard they had a massive artifical beach set up for children and a helter skelter! Once we eventually found it in the enormous shopping centre, Alex enjoyed it for a few minutes – but he was much more taken by the dinosaur mini golf:

Actually, Matt was most enthusiastic about the golf – Alex prefered the massive animatronic T-Rex that roared at the players periodically!

After enough urban sprawl, we headed back to the village to enjoy a lovely ramble around the local fields followed by ice creams in the garden. Heavenly.

We had a lovely few days away, made so easy by my parents being super prepared for us, and really relishing the opportunity to play with their grandchildren! Matt and I even got to enjoy a date night at the local pub – what a treat!

Must get this published now – so I’ll save the second week of our holiday until another day. Coming next… our first flight with children, attempting the Edinburgh Fringe with a toddler and fun with the Great Grandparents!

But before I go, here are all our snaps from our trip to the country in case you want more!

A couple of weeks ago, Sophie turned 9 months old!  I continue to be amazed at how quickly time is passing – here she is excited about reaching that milestone:

And perfecting her big brother’s photo grin:

I keep looking back on the blog to see how Alex was doing at the same age – and it looks like they enjoy the same toys at least!

Sophie’s 9 month “birthday” was my last full day at home with them both before going back to work full time – and we had a lovely, quiet day together enjoying the sunshine.  We spent our afternoon at Belair Park in Dulwich with my friend Katie and her children, Jake and Emily.  While the boys were running riot in the playground fuelled up on biscuits, I got to enjoy some picnic blanket cuddles and giggles with the baby girls:

Our friend Tim, and his fiance Asal, popped over last Saturday during a trip to the UK from California and we had a very British picnic in a windy and slightly muddy part of Brockwell Park (sorry Asal!).

And on Sunday, we enjoyed a flying visit from Auntie Katharine last weekend – and took her up to the Thames Path for another gorgeous family walk.  Alex discovered the fun Design Museum sculptures:

And to close – here’s some sibling love!

I’m sorry I’ve been silent for a while.  Work has been crazy and and when i’m not working, we’ve been having too much fun to stop and write about it!  Will try harder so I don’t get behind.

We’ve been having a brilliant South London summer, packing lots into our weekends.  A couple of weeks ago was the highlight of the Herne Hill social calendar – the Lambeth Country Show.  We go every year, enjoying the massive range ot activities and food. This year there was jousting, camel racing, farm animals, and loads of food and craft.  But all Alex was interested in was the funfair!  My poor parents and aunt had come to explore the fair, but they didn’t get to see very much of it!

Alex wanted to try everything and showed no fear.  He particularly adored the runaway train ride which he insisted on doing more than once.

Alex also loved the inflatable section, climbing up the scarily high slides and flinging himself off with abandon – I can hardly watch!

Sophie and I went on the merry-go-round – not sure what she thought about it, but she didn’t cry, so I assume that means she quite liked it!

That weekend also saw my final ever Hummy Mummies concert – I’ll be back at work full-time from September, so sadly won’t be able to go to rehearsals anymore 😦  It really has been a fabulous thing to be part of – such a highlight of the week when I was on maternity leave.  It’s been particularly fun seeing it grow over the past 18 months from a really small group to quite an impressive scale.  Last week’s concert was accompanied by a band and was great fun. And afterwards, Alex got to have a go on a real set of drums!  I really do think he’s got the musical gene – he loves music and rhythm, and given he’s only 2, made a really good attempt at playing!  Matt was very proud!

The day after our concert and trip to the show almost ended in disaster.  After an early morning swimming trip to the Brockwell Park Lido, Matt made the mistake of walking Alex home via Brockwell Park – past the funfair and country show.  When Alex realised he wouldn’t be going on all the rides again, a tantrum bigger than any I’ve witnessed ensued.  It was incredible – and quite something to witness for our fellow bus passengers!

Thankfully he eventually calmed down and we all enjoyed a fabulous afternoon walk along the Thames Path from London Bridge to Rotherhithe.  The weather was stunning and the walk really peaceful – Alex scooted along to his heart’s content and we all enjoyed watching the boats and Tower Bridge being raised.

I know I say this all the time – but I really love living in London.  It’s on unplanned walks like that that we always discover hidden gems – this time the brilliant little Brunel Museum, some delicious homemade cakes and cookies in a Rotherhithe cafe and the intriguing looking Rotherhithe Picture Research Library.

We’ve been making the most of our membership at the Horniman Museum (or the “Fish Museum” as Alex calls it).  Sophie is finally fascinated in the aquarium there, so we can quite easily while away an hour checking out the fish.

And our Sunday afternoon activity of choice is a bear hunt around Dulwich Woods – last week we even managed a long walk there without Alex asking to be carried once.  Quite an achievement!

Here he is trying some tree climbing with Daddy

Right – having taken about two weeks to finish this post, I shall publish it now – but expect another soon as I have lots more pictures to share 🙂

x

Here’s a very belated post about our crazy camping weekend last week!  Following the success (!) of our first trip last year, it seems our “Whiskey & Ginger” camping weekends are becoming an annual tradition.  So, with this year’s destination of choice being Pevensey Bay in East Sussex, we made the drive South with combined feelings of excitement and trepidation.  With five toddlers and three babies, it was always going to be an interesting experience!  But with the weather sunny and hot, the beachside location was perfect and quite a stark contrast to last year’s water logged New Forest site.

Family Agar drove down on Saturday morning to join those who had pitched the night before.  We made a bit of a detour to show Alex Gatwick Airport – we thought he’d enjoy watching the planes land and take-off – but it seems very few planes seem to use the airport.  In half an hour, I think we only saw four take-offs and landings!  Not sure why London needs more runways – Gatwick looked very underused!

We were soon back on the road, joining the day trippers heading to the coast.  Traffic was slow, so it was an enormous relief to get to the site and out of the car.  Alex was delighted to see his friends – and we were delighted to get a cold drink!  Matt had lots of “help” pitching the tent this year (although despite the assistance, he still got into trouble for pitching too close to the camper van in the next plot from the over zealous warden!):

Once the tent was pitched and we’d had a picnic lunch, we all headed to the beach – just a 5 minute walk from the campsite.  Alex had his very first swim in the sea, and all the boys enjoyed splashing around in the shallows and throwing pebbles (Sophie prefered to try and eat them!)

The beach was so quiet and peaceful – and so warm, it was hard to believe we were still in England!

We spent all the rest of our weekend at the campsite where the boys just ran wild – it was so nice for them to spend so much time outside exploring in such an inviting campsite:

Our tents were gathered around the childrens’ playground (great for the boys during the day, a bit annoying in the evening when the older children came out!).  The boys particularly enjoyed pulling their camping chairs up alongside the slide and quizzing the older children as they came down.

They flew kites, shouted at the trains coming past on the nearby track, played with water pistols, and like last year, randomly enjoyed playing in the parked cars. This year, one of them sadly discovered Bryony’s nail polish in the glove box and proceed to paint the inside of her car and their legs bright pink!):

And they loved going on a bear hunt with Bryony – it’s hard to see, but they are all holding a piece of string and following her around the campsite – very cute (and surprisingly well behaved!)

I shouldn’t forget the girls of course, who enjoyed meeting each other and generally making mischief around camp.  Sophie in particular couldn’t be trusted as her crawling is improving such that she could sniff out any food lying around and eat it:

The boys did manage to have a little bit of quiet time (about 10 minutes!)- – courtesy of Fireman Sam on the iPad before bed:

All the children settled down pretty well in the evening (when we could persude the boys to stop playing) – leaving us grown ups time to catch up properly over burgers, whisky and ginger wine and beers.  It was surprisingly cold when the sun went down, so we all gathered around Rob’s fire pit (much to the annoyance of Matt who was sitting down wind and kept getting a faceful of smoke!)

Sadly, our trip deteriorated when we turned in for the night around midnight.  As I was about to go to bed, Sophie woke up and decided she didn’t like her travel cot. Cue much screaming – a lot of sleeping on me – and very little sleep for Matt and I.  Alex amazingly slept through it all and woke refreshed at 7am!  One year we’ll go camping and I’ll actually sleep!  I’m thinking of taking a separate tent for myself next year!

The bad night didn’t dampen our spirits as the weekend was wonderful!  We had a quiet Sunday morning packing up camp and enjoying a delicious pub lunch at The Star – which had an amazing adventure playground to use up the last bits of the boys’ energy!  Then it was back on the road back to London – Alex was asleep in the car within seconds.

It was a pretty lengthy drive back as the M23 was closed – thankfully we spotted that fact in time and managed to find another route home. Some of our fellow campers took 8 hours to make it back!  After a quick stop at a water play near Crystal Palace, we enjoyed a quiet evening back home – and a lovely long sleep in our beds.

Here are all our collated best snaps from the weekend from all the campers!:

Thanks to Helen and Rob for organising this year – and all our friends for making the trip so much fun!  It was great this year seeing the boys properly interacting with each other – Alex hasn’t stopped talking about “his friends” since he got back!  Here’s to next year!

We’ve just had the most wonderful few days – but now I come to blog about it, I find I took almost no (good) photographs.  Useless!

With rather fabulous timing considering the stunning weather we’ve had over the last few days, I switched my days off and had a bonus Friday at home with Alex and Sophie. I say “at home”, but the sun was so glorious, we spent very little of the day inside.  After a quick trip to Herne Hill for supplies and Sophie’s morning nap, we packed up the picnic basket and swimming costumes and headed off to Ruskin Park to splash around in the paddling pool and enjoy an al fresco lunch.

Alex immediately found the water fountains and had a brilliant time getting completely soaked – he particularly enjoyed riding his scooter through the shallow water!  I swear he’s becoming surgically attached to it!

I particularly enjoyed bumping into a local friend Nici, and her boys Harry and Joe – so I had some fun company for the picnic, and Alex had some playmates.  It looks like Joe and Alex will likely be in the same school year of the same school, so it’ll be great fun to watch them develop together!

Once I finally dragged Alex away from the playground, we slowly walked home in the afternoon heat so Sophie could nap (although in the end she refused to) and Alex could chill out with a movie.  We then headed off to East Dulwich for a fun Hummy Mummies rehearsal where Alex had a great time playing with lots of dolls in a princess tent – no gender stereotypes for us!

When I got home, I realised I didn’t really have any food in the house for their dinner, so on the spur of the moment I took the children down to Pizza Express for tea.  It was only when I sat down on my own with two high chairs that I realised this had the potential for disaster – but they were both brilliantly behaved and it was actually quite enjoyable!  Here are my lovely dinner companions:

Saturday followed much the same model, with Family Agar selecting another local park for a day trip – this time Myatt’s Fields (a brilliant local park with stunning facilities for children – Alex and Sophie are regular visitors with their childminder).  They have a fabulous water play which occupied Alex for quite some time – sadly I didn’t take a single picture of him.  Whilst the boys were splashing around,  Sophie and I enjoyed chilling out in the shade of a tree:

It was so relaxing – a word I don’t often use to describe outings with the children!  After a delicious picnic, we all enjoyed ice creams in the sun (even Sophie who sampled some strawberry ice cream and pulled hilarious faces as the cold shocked her and then the flavour kicked in!).  Here are the duo patiently waiting for daddy to bring their ice cream:

When we got home, the boys headed off out to the Bermondsey Carnival in Southwark Park, while Sophie passed out asleep on me (so cute):

The boys had a more lively time, dancing to live music at the carnival and enjoying a stroll along the river (terrible photo below!)

The day got even more exciting with the arrival of the Hainsworth Family, visiting us for the night from Zurich.  Alex was so thrilled to see Phoebe and Henry again, I was worried we wouldn’t get any of the children to bed!  But thankfully we did – leaving us grown ups plenty of time to catch up on the last few months over a scrummy bbq and bottle of bubbly in the garden.

Sunday was all about catching up with friends – after some quiet time at home in the morning enjoying stories:

bubbles:

and cuddles (check out the spotty pants!):

We headed back to Myatt’s Fields to meet up with lots of friends and their children – only to find the water play was broken.  I’ve never seen so many disappointed children, made worse when the water came on for a few seconds to massive cheers, only to break for good!  We still managed to have a nice time chatting and letting the children enjoy the adventure playground.

We moved on to our friends Ben and Nicci’s house for a late afternoon bbq – and the Wimbledon final.  I’ll forever remember watching Murray reach his first championship point – only to have Alex run in and announce that he needed a wee wee!  I did, thankfully, manage to watch the moment when he won – and Alex certainly enjoyed all the cheering!

It was a truly lovely weekend – and we have the promise of another wonderful weekend of friends next week as our annual camping trip fast approaches.  I’m just praying it’s a little more successful for Family Agar than last year – at least it doesn’t look like we’ll have to face torrential rain this year!

Right – really must be getting back to my work inbox – but I’ll leave you with a little video of Sophie, who seems to find our Scottish rugby ball completely hysterical (her thoughts on the state of Scottish rugby!?)

What a brilliant weekend!  The sun’s been shining and Family Agar has been busy.  Saturday saw us heading to the Wild West for a Cowboys and Indians party (a.k.a Reading and my brother’s summer gathering!).  But more on that later…

We took a bit of a meandering route to the party.  Our first stop was an unscheduled one in the Surrey Hills (caused by a rather grumpy and hungry Sophie not enjoying the long car journey) – whilst I fed her in a car park, the boys paid a visit to the Hogs Back Brewery.  Matt claimed this was so we could buy provisions for the party – but I note several bottles of beer have appeared in our fridge…

After this short detour, we headed off to Crowthorne to visit Matt’s dad.  With the sun shining, we didn’t leave the garden for the duration of our visit, enjoying an al fresco lunch.  Alex helped his Granddad feed the birds and the fish, whilst Sophie did some relaxing yoga with Kazmer!

I’m surprised Alex didn’t fall into the pond, he loved watching Granddad’s big fish swimming around!

We then headed to The Look Out in Bracknell for some quality playtime in the brilliant adventure playground there.  Here’s Sophie on the swings showing off her two teeth

and Alex clearly had fun!

As Sophie’s naptime drew nearer, we packed everyone back into the car and let her sleep as we drove on to Reading – to my brother and sister-in-law’s annual Summer party, themed this year on Cowboys and Indians.  As soon as we arrived, Alex sped off to the bouncy castle, and stayed on there for much of the afternoon!  Only the discovery of the joys of water pistol fights tempted him away from bouncing!!  I’ve had to pop out today to buy him a water pistol as he hasn’t stopped asking for one since we got home!

Whilst Alex was running around like a crazy thing, I enjoyed some relaxing time with Sophie and my parents in the sunshine!

Here’s Sophie getting into the spirit of fancy dress with her daddy and her Uncle David:

It was a fabulous gathering – as it is every year.  Thanks bro!  With two incredibly tired children, we made a quick stop at my parents’ hotel in Reading to get them ready for bed, before driving home to London.  Thankfully we managed to transfer them into their beds without too much trouble – and enjoyed a couple of hours with our feet up!

After such a crazy Saturday, we stayed very local today – making the most of the sunny, hot weather in Herne Hill.  Sophie and I met the boys after their weekly swimming session (where Alex swam a width on his own with a float and his swimfin!) in Brockwell Park for a picnic.  Alex splashed around the paddling pool and Sophie stole most of his lunch!

After a quick ice lolly at the market, and a trip to the toy shop for a water pistol, we headed home to relax.  It wasn’t long before the new pistol got put to good use – taking on our neighbour Tom over the fence (note, Matt taking on an 8 year old by himself!)

We spent most of the rest of the day lazing around in the garden.  Heaven.  It’s fun just watching Sophie manoeuvre herself around the grass – she made some forward progress with her crawling today, and is very confident at rolling and shuffling – so she can pretty much reach anything she wants.  I think in a matter of days she’ll be picking up the pace.  Gulp!  Here she is wearing a proper summer dress for the very first time.  She’s growing up so fast!  And is still such a happy thing:

Just time for a quick photo based post.  Sophie is eight months old today – it’s scaring me how quickly time is flying by with her!  She’ll be one before I know it, and then I imagine I’ll blink and suddenly Matt’ll be walking her down the aisle!

She’s doing really well at the moment.  She seems to be loving her days with Jacqui, our childminder, and is so happy all the time it almost shocks me when she cries!  She seems to find her big brother hilarious and is quite content sitting watching him a lot of the time (and he loves trying to make her laugh).

I’m quite alarmed at how close she is to being on the move (imagine the chaos then) – she looks like she might master crawling in a matter of days.  She can already make her way around a room very proficiently by rolling and shuffling around, and she’s getting really strong at sitting up on her own.  She doesn’t really look like a baby anymore 😦

She certainly seems to have enjoyed all our recent visitors.  On Saturday, Katharine came up for the weekend.  Alex loves his Auntie Katharine and seemed very proud to show off his scooting skills!  We all walked over to Dulwich Village (after a failed attempt to catch a bus to the Horniman) where we enjoyed some Italian ice cream and a wander around the park.  Alex does love his chocolate ice cream:

Back home with the weather a bit gloomy, we snuggled up and watched “Wreck it Ralph” – Alex’s current favourite movie.  Sophie enjoyed a snuggle:

and Matt and Alex came close to falling asleep together!

On Sunday, Matt and Alex headed off swimming as usual (this week successfully trying Alex out with a shark fin float which he loved).  We met them afterwards for a quick go on the Brockwell Park train:

We followed this with a trip to the Herne Hill Market to stock up on vast quantities of cake – ready for the arrival of my parents.  They’d been travelling around the country visiting family, and were back with us for a few days while they firm up their new place in Northamptonshire.  Here’s my dad with his granddaughter:

It’s going to be great for the children to see more of their Grandma and Grandpa now they are back in the UK.  And we’re off to visit Granddad in Crowthorne on Saturday which Alex is very excited about (in fact, he saw a cyclist in a yellow jersey on a book the other day, pointed at him and said “look it’s Granddad”!)

To close – here’s me and my girl (taken by Alex!)