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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other milestones in the past couple of weeks include:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And Alex and I enjoying a bedtime story together:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And looking pretty in pink:

Engrossed in a bedtime story:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And we made a sock monster!:

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

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

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: