Sophie spent Tuesday morning with Jacqui, our childminder, as part of her gradual settling in – leaving Alex and I to have a morning together.  Since Sophie was born, I’ve had very little time with Alex on his own, so it was quite a treat for me, and I tried to make sure it was for him too!

We started our morning enjoying a scrummy breakfast at the Lido Cafe.  Alex was very well behaved (which was a relief because it turns out that on weekday mornings, the cafe is full of professional people working at their laptops) – a cBeebies sticker magazine kept him occupied until his croissant and milkshake arrived!

He kept looking at the lido trying to spot his daddy expecting to see him swimming there!

We then walked over the park, enjoying the views of London, to the brilliant adventure playground.  It’s a few months since we’ve been there, and I was amazed at how much Alex had developed physically.  He refused to stick to the toddler climbing frames, and instead headed straight for the scarily high ladders and bridges.  I tried to remain calm when he climbed onto frames that were far too high for me to reach him – and thankfully, he managed not to fall off.  He adored it so we must make sure we visit again soon:

Sadly we didn’t have much time as we had to dash into Brixton to go to the toddler cinema at the Ritzy. This was Alex’s second trip to the cinema, having gone with his childminder at Easter – and it turns out he really enjoys it!  He managed to sit relatively still to watch three episodes of Rastamouse (!) and, of course, very much enjoyed munching on popcorn!

All too soon, it was time to head back to Jacqui’s to swap children!  As soon as we arrived, Alex was off playing with his friends and bouncing on Jacqui’s trampoline, so he barely noticed when I left with Sophie!  We ladies had a very chilled out, quiet afternoon.  Sophie did a wonderfully long afternoon nap so I caught up on lots of admin and enjoyed the sunshine in our garden.  When she was up, we had a lovely walk into Dulwich Village to the new cake shop for an afternoon treat.  All in all, a fabulous day.

Here’s Sophie during her morning at Jacqui’s:

It’s hard to believe my maternity leave is almost over.  Sophie starts properly at the childminder at the end of next week.  I then have a week to myself to get organised before starting back at Imperial on 14 May.  How fast has this time gone?

We’ve been making the most of finally getting some proper Spring-like weather – hence my blogging silence.  I’ve been too busy being outside!

Last week was pretty busy with me spending a half day in the office getting ready for my return to work (less than 3 weeks to go!).  That meant that Sophie and Alex spent a half day together with Jacqui.  It felt incredibly strange being on the train to the office on my own, wearing heals and make up and without a nappy bag in sight!  But it all went fine – Sophie enjoyed trying some toast and meeting new friends.  Here she is looking very relaxed with her big brother and her new friend, Jacob:

Saturday dawned beautifully sunny, so we bundled into the car and headed off to Blackheath and Greenwich for the day.  It was pretty busy with preparations in full swing for the London Marathon the next day, but there was still more than enough space to enjoy the beautiful park and views:

Matt took Alex into the London Planetarium to see a special show for pre-school children called Space Safari.  Alex apparently loved the tour of the solar system – particularly because he’s now learned the names of all the planets from the wall stickers in his bedroom (we have to say goodnight to them every evening!).

We then all headed down to the National Maritime Museum to see the Ansel Adams photography exhibition.  It was quite a struggle to actually get Alex into the building as he fell completely in love with the water feature outside:

Once we’d finally persuaded him to enter the museum, he did enjoy running around the exhibits – being particularly interested in lighthouses:

We did manage to check out the stunning Ansel Adams exhibition – at very high speed as neither child was interested (although Alex did like a couple of the pictures of waves crashing on the beach as they reminded him of Octonauts episodes!).  It wasn’t long before the glorious sun beckoned us back outside though, and we found another brilliant water installation to entertain Alex whilst we enjoyed lunch:

It was such a pleasure watching him splashing around barefoot in the sunshine – he’s definitely an outdoors boy!

After some scrummy ice cream and a quick loop of the Cutty Sark, we trekked back up the hill in Greenwich Park and drove home to meet Auntie Katharine who’d popped up to London for some babysitting duty.  Once the kids were safely tucked up in their beds, Matt and I got dressed up and headed down to the Brockwell Park lido for our friends’ wedding reception.  We had a lovely evening catching up with friends, dancing, eating croquettes and huge amounts of cheese – and even spotted the International Space Station passing in the clear night sky above the pool.

Sunday was a bit quieter.  Katharine, Matt and Alex visited the Herne Hill Farmers’ Market to pick up some cakes for afternoon tea, whilst Sophie and I cooked a Sunday roast.  We timed everything perfectly, so Sophie napped while the rest of us ate vast amounts of food!  We’ve finally reached a point where Alex will sit with us properly for a full meal and join in with conversation – it’s a real pleasure to sit as a family!  Just need to get Sophie interested in food now.

With Katharine about, we decided to try and get a picture of the four of us.  Yet again we proved to be highly unphotogenic, with Matt and I showing the effects of an unusually late night, and the children refusing to pull nice faces.  Oh well – we’ll get a good photo one day!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthewagar/8668186427/in/photostream/

The final act of a fabulous weekend was getting Alex through another milestone – removing the sides of his cot!  He was very excited to see his new “big boy bed”, and we were very worried that we’d suddenly have little visits from him once he realised he could get out of his bed for the first time!  But, we gave him a new “Gro Clock” and told him to stay in bed until the sun comes up – and so far he has!  In fact, it appears that he wakes up before the sun rises in his cot, and sits in his bed waiting to watch it come out!  It’s hilarious listening at the door for his exclamation each morning!

I shall leave you with a nicer picture from our mini photo-shoot – me and my girl:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthewagar/8669287052/in/photostream/

It’s been a weekend of culture with family Agar visiting two different museums.

Yesterday, tipped off by twitter, we ventured out to Acton to visit the London Transport Museum depot which was having an open weekend.  Now I’m a massive fan of the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden – it is heaven for Alex with brilliant exhibits and lots of hands-on fun for toddlers.  But its depot turned to be a wholly inappropriate place to take a toddler!

Things didn’t start off well with a 20 minute wait in a queue to get in, but we were still looking forward to seeing some steam trains in action, model railways and other exhibits.  Once inside, we found it absolutely packed full of people and a huge amount of antique transport machinery most of which was not ideal for a toddler to touch.  It was incredibly stressful trying to pull Alex away from exhibits and people’s feet.  There were loads of model railways – but they were the kind that were to be admired from a distance, something Alex didn’t really understand.  Poor boy.

There were some highlights though – we loved seeing the Metropolitan Steam Locomotive No.1, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Underground:

And I was tickled to see a very early incarnation of one of our local buses – we live just off Half Moon Lane:

But we escaped the depot pretty quickly and headed over to Ealing Common for a pub lunch.

Today was much more successful as we popped to our local favourite, the Horniman Museum where we met our friends John and Sladana, and their daughter Sasha. It was a properly warm and sunny day, so we spent a lot of time playing in the gardens there. But of course, we enjoyed the museum itself with an obligatory trip to their little aquarium and musical instrument collection.

After a pub lunch in the packed Florence in Herne Hill, we’ve had a quiet afternoon in the garden.  Alex “helped” Matt mow the lawn with Sophie and I observing from a safe distance!  Here she is showing off her beautiful eyes:

In other news, potty training is going very well with Alex finally pooing in his potty (I won’t share the photographic evidence sent to me by our childminder! Not one for the family photo albums!).  He’s having fewer accidents thankfully, so hopefully the worst is over.  His reward for doing so well was some Octonauts toys – he’s obsessed with the CBeebies programme, and I’ve never seen him so excited by a toy than his “Octopod”:

Before I go, here’s another cute Sophie picture of her enjoying some tummy time this week:

Just a quick post as today was a day of milestones for family Agar.  Sophie spent her very first few hours with our childminder this morning, enabling me to spend some time with Alex on his own.  I felt super nervous about leaving her, even though she sees Jacqui every day and is a very happy and easy baby. I needn’t have worried – she slept, fed and smiled her way through the three hours away. 🙂  Feeling a lot less worried about returning to work now.

So what did Alex and I do with our morning?  We headed off to the local children’s centre for his 2.5 year developmental check with the community nurse.  I was super proud when, after hearing him chat for a couple of minutes, the nurse decided to do the 3 – 3.5 year old check with him.  And he aced it!

He managed all the puzzles, drawing (circles and lines), physical challenges (jumping, catching and hopping), conversation, counting and problem solving brilliantly.  The only things he couldn’t do were draw an “X” shape and build a bridge from duplo – but the nurse said she wouldn’t expect that from a 2.5 year old.  Feel a very proud mummy this evening!

She weighed Alex, finding him still in the 91st centile (which he’s been in since he was 6 months old).  His height has him in the 50th centile – I fear he may have my height genes and not Matt’s.  Oh dear!

We celebrated his success with a trip to a local cafe for a little cake and juice, before heading to Alex’s very first dentists appointment (perhaps not the best preparation!).  Alex got a bit cranky in the waiting room, so we spent the time taking self portraits on my iPhone.  Still got to work on his smile – enhanced here with some dribble:

Sadly, Alex decided he’d performed enough this morning, and when we got into the dentist’s chair, he refused to open his mouth!  Apparently this is normal for toddler’s dentist appointments, so we just need to go back and try again in 6 months!

We headed back to Jacqui’s where I swapped children, leaving Alex to play with his friends for the afternoon and taking Sophie home for some cuddles.  She had a play on her new door bouncer which I think she liked:

We headed into Dulwich Village for a walk and to check out the new branch of Gail’s cake and bread shop which opened there today.  I walked away with a bag of bread and cakes – and a free cookie to celebrate opening day.  All I can say is thank goodness my maternity leave is ending soon – otherwise I’d be the size of a house.

It’s been a busy day – but great fun.  I’m hoping to have a morning a week with Alex for the next few weeks to give Sophie some settling in time and me some time with my boy 🙂  Happy days.

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

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

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

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

Poor Dan:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oooh, what’s this mummy?”:

“This is interesting”:

“Ugh – no more!”:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are my grandparents enjoying a Sophie cuddle:

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

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

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

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

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

And deciding where to sail with daddy:

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

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

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

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

Here are a selection of pictures from the party:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And even attempted some tree climbing:

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

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

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

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

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

Quite proud of that blog title…

The weekend is drawing to a close – and it’s been a weekend that has reminded me how much I adore living in London, and why I can’t imagine us ever moving away.

On Saturday we headed up to the Southbank to visit the Lichtenstein exhibition at Tate Modern.  After a quick stop in the Members room, where Alex admired the London skyline view from the balcony, we headed into the exhibit.  Sophie could barely contain her excitement at her first trip to a gallery:

…whereas Alex couldn’t contain himself, and decided he wanted to run around the gallery rooms making as much noise as possible (I can imagine how annoyed serious art fans must have been at the arrival of Family Agar!). We therefore did a very speedy tour of the exhibition – and what we saw of Lichtenstein we really loved (although some of his brighter work does make me feel like I’m coming down with a migraine!).  I’d never seen his striking seascapes before – gorgeous!

Alex let off some steam in the brilliant turbine hall where there were materials set up for kids to build dens (he was more interested in dismantling other children’s masterpieces sadly).  Here he is enjoying the echoes!

Once we’d exhausted Tate, we headed over the Millenium Bridge (very slowly as Alex wanted to stop a lot to admire the view and the boats!) to wander around St Paul’s and enjoy some lunch. Alex adored his ice cream perhaps a little too much:

We REALLY need to work on his smile!

We had a quiet afternoon at home watching “Monsters Inc” and a lovely family meal, which Alex helped cook – he’s quite a fan of helping out in the kitchen now.  I’m looking forward to him cooking me dinner in the years to come!

We spent this morning at the Herne Hill farmers’ market sampling cheese, apples and cake – I now have a loyalty card at my favourite cake stall there and as I type am enjoying a stunning piece of Chocolate Guiness Cake from Love and Cake 🙂

This afternoon we tried something new.  Since Sophie arrived, we’ve tended to operate in pairs – Matt taking Alex out on trips and activities and me staying with Sophie.  But not today!  I took Alex up to London Bridge on the bus to see (or rather participate) in a performance of “Sensacional” at the brilliant Unicorn Theatre.

This was a light and sound show designed for toddlers – all based around a white square where the children wear white suits and “become part of a digital world of ladybirds, shapes, squiggles and squarks that won’t keep still”.  I was worried that Alex would suddenly get nervous, or refuse to put on the white suit – but he was fabulous.  He was a little cautious to start with, but as soon as the projections started, he was completely engrossed.  It was absolutely wonderful – I felt a bit tearful watching him run and tumble around.  So cute!  Here he is before the show started creating shadows:

And if you’re interested, here’s the promotional film from the production:

There was a great little softplay at the theatre which Alex enjoyed after the show (I had to bribe him with food to drag him away home!).  And we squeezed in a quick trip to look at Tower Bridge:

Matt had a fun afternoon with Sophie, and I think is rather proud that he successfully fed her and got her down for a nice long nap!  So all in all, a wonderful afternoon – and fabulous for me to get to spend some fun time with Alex on his own!

And just to finish off a lovely weekend, Alex made Sophie giggle for the first time!  She’s been doing little giggles for a couple of weeks now, but she did some full blown laughs this evening whilst watching Alex jump around on his mattress!  So fun!

All in all, it’s been fabulous – now I just need to get Sophie out of her horrible nighttime sleep regression so I can get some more rest…!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monkey captions please…

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

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