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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And showing no fear on a really quite high bridge:

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

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

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

x

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

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

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

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

Alex even went to a jubilee party last week:

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

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

So proud!

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

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

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

So, what have we been up to?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And their cheeky smiles after their little kiss!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And a silly snap of Alex with static hair:

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

So, today is the final day of the holidays and another festive season draws to a close.  We’ve certainly had an interesting, although not entirely optimal, couple of weeks…

The build up to Christmas was lots of fun.  Alex spent his days with Jacqui at various Christmas parties and even met Santa Claus for the first time!  He enjoyed helping us choosing and decorating our Christmas tree (strategically chosen to sit on top of a table so Alex couldn’t reach all the decorations!).  A highlight of every day is the switching on of our lights!!

We finally found a hat that would stay on his head – although I think it makes him look Mongolian!

It does come in handy when we’re taking him out and about!  Matt took him to his very first sports class – trying out “Baby Booters”, a football club for toddlers!  I’m very proud to say that Alex scored a goal in his very first session.  Here he is forgetting that he isn’t supposed to handle the ball (I’m sure he’s a rugby player at heart…)

We spent a lovely family Christmas Eve chilling out at home, watching festive movies and sorting out presents, Alex ending up with an outrageously massive pile of gifts!  We also packed up our overnight bags and wrapped all the presents we have for family as we were due to spend Christmas Day and Boxing Day with family in Surrey and Berkshire.  Here’s Alex and his Christmas tree:

Sadly, Alex woke up on Christmas Day sick as a parrot!  So we ended up spending most of the Christmas week stuck in Herne Hill, doing lots of laundry and trying to entertain a surprisingly active sick child! He got some fabulous presents (thanks everyone), so we spend plenty of time playing with Alex’s new duplo, brio railway, various musical instruments and many different vehicles!!  Thanks everyone!

As we’d been due to be away, we didn’t have food in the house, so Matt and I enjoyed beans on toast for Christmas lunch – and I’m sad to say we haven’t had any turkey at all this year.  For four days we restricted excursions to the park across the road and some thrilling trips to Sainsbury’s, but thankfully Alex recovered relatively quickly and we were able to do what we’d intended and see some of London.

We had a great trip to the Aquarium on the Southbank.  It was incredibly busy, but we were really impressed with how much is on show.  Alex particularly liked the glass tunnel through the shark tank, although his very favourite thing in the place was the plastic igloo tunnel which played Christmas music and was filled with twinkly little lights.  Took us a lot of persuading to coax him out of that!!

Whilst on the Southbank, Alex went on his very first merry-go-round with Matt,  and ate South American food for lunch.  All in all, a pretty adventurous day!!

We also enjoyed visits from our friends Jo P and Katharine – and went on a group trip to London Zoo where Alex enjoyed all the monkeys and we loved seeing the lions and their gorgeous cubs!  I’d never been before, and it was a fabulous place – so compact and accessible, and fabulous for children.  I think Alex will love it in a few months, so we’ll definitely be back in the Summer.  We also took the opportunity of stopping by the incredible lego Christmas tree at St Pancras station – so amazing.  Made me want to be a lego builder!!

On New Year’s Day, we had a bit of a disastrous excursion to Dulwich Woods for a family walk.  We were completely unprepared for the huge amount of mud and steep terrain, so the “walk” lasted about 5 minutes and involved tantrums from all three of us!  But Alex did get to wear his new red wellies for the first time, although he wasn’t that keen.

Yesterday was more successful as we revisited one of Alex’s favourite places – the Science Museum where he went crazy pointing out all the trains in the industry galleries before going wild in the basement kids area!  Here are a couple of pictures we took yesterday of a particularly happy Alex – so cute and smiley!

and my favourite picture of recent weeks (this is his new comedy smile!):

In other news, his repertoire of words is ever increasing, with the latest additions being:

• Choo choo (his current favourite)
• Nana (banana)
• Tree (mostly relating to Christmas trees, so not sure this will continue after twelth night)
• Juice
• Shoes

We’ve been feeling bad for not posting for a while – but to be honest, I’m not that sorry as we’ve been having so much fun we haven’t had time!!

It’s hard to know here to start as we’ve been packing lots into our weekends. We’ve been out and about in London, checking out Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park with Alex’s Uncle Richard, Auntie Margaret and his cousins Thomas and Edward.  It was incredibly busy, very tacky and pretty expensive – but the children loved it! Alex went on his very first fairground rides, trying out some spinning tea cups and the Big Wheel.  He wasn’t much of a fan of the tea cups, but loved pressing his face against the window and door of the Big Wheel capsule (which freaked me out immensely as I watched from the ground – it went really quite high!).  Here he is with his daddy on the tea cup before he started screaming!

And checking out the Serpentine ducks:

Last weekend, we visited the Science Museum again – this time heading down to the basement area which is designed for little children.   I can’t believe we haven’t discovered it before – it was heaven for Alex.  Packed full of sensory toys and experiences, Alex enjoyed funny mirrors, tactile wall coverings and best of all, lots and lots of water!  He got completely soaked, despite the waterproof tabards.  Here he is getting stuck in:

We also made a quick visit to Deen City Farm – we’ve visited a couple of times before and Alex wasn’t particularly interested in the animals, but this time he went crazy for the chickens and turkeys. His favourite thing there was one of the tacky rides – here he is hard at work:

With the days being so short, we’ve been struggling a bit to entertain Alex in the late afternoon, but last weekend we discovered that Crystal Palace have a family swimming session that perfectly fills the slot between nap and dinner. Alex seems to adore being in the water and he giggled and splashed his way around the pool doing a fabulous job of kicking.  We’ll certainly try and get there most weekends now that our swimming classes have finished.

Besides all those exciting trips, we’ve enjoyed some lovely family meals out.  Alex is getting much better at sitting in a high chair in restaurants, and is beginning to get the hang of cutlery.  Last weekend he had a mini roast meal for Sunday Lunch in our local pub which was great, and he’s getting more international by trying Mexican food at Wholefoods last weekend 🙂  One amusing eating habit he is developing is a love hate relationship with ice cream.  He knows he likes the flavour, but that doesn’t stop him wincing and pulling the funniest faces at the cold as he puts it in his mouth!

He’s getting on so well with his childminder – he’s really social and confident.  It’s really noticeable when he’s with us – he’s started saying “hiya” and waving at strangers every where we go, resulting in embarrassed people who feel obliged to return the greeting!!  Very cute.  He’s chatting more and more, with his current repertoire of words including:

• Mama
• Dada
• Yeah
• Bye Bye
• Hiya
• Duck
• Up there – in relation to planes flying over (apparently he even said “aeroplane” yesterday, but I’m not convinced!)
• Get down – whenever he seems his childminder’s puppy
• Mine – whenever his childminer holds another baby (referring to her)

He’s growing up!

It’s been a pretty quiet November so far with no visitors or weekend obligations – so we’ve been trying to get out and about as a family and check out some local attractions.

We headed out to Westfield Stratford City a couple of Sundays ago for a spot of shopping and sightseeing.  It was exhilarating seeing the Olympic Park looking so close to completion – the stadium looks incredible and the torch is enormous!  Felt really quite excited at the prospect of 2012 (and even more so now we managed to get tickets to some of the warm up events in the new year).  Alex was on great form and coped well with being dragged around multiple shops.  He did insist on walking a lot, which was great for him but certainly slowed the purchasing (probably a good thing!).  He had a massive lunch in Giraffe and absolutely loved playing in the little area for toddlers – he insisted on playing on everything.

Last weekend, we headed up to London on a couple of little expeditions.  On Saturday we braved the King’s Road (mostly so Matt could eat his fill at the little farmers market there and I could buy a Cath Kidston case for my lovely new iPhone 4S) – but I think Alex enjoyed the bustle of the city.  He certainly liked the Peter Jones Christmas lights!

On the Sunday we did something much more fun for him and headed to South Kensington and the museums.  We started at the Natural History Museum where we visited the Wildlife Photographer of the Year expedition.  Alex loves looking at pictures, so we hoped he’d enjoy the exhibition – but instead he prefered to run around the dark room, resulting in Matt and I crawling around after him around people’s feet.  Pretty embarrassing, but quite amusing!  We wisely chose to get out of there quickly, and moved on to the Science Museum where Alex loved the LaunchPad and Listening Post.  We’ll definitely be back there soon.

Today we’ve had a fabulous day at Godstone Farm in Surrey with friends. In the news a couple of years ago because of a major E.coli outbreak, we weren’t entirely sure what to expect!  But it turned out to be a brilliant place – we easily spent a few hours meeting a range of animals, exploring the nature trail, playing in the soft play barn and eating a huge lunch.  Alex LOVED it.  Here he is meeting some guinea pigs:

And here’s Matt with Alex and Henry before the tackle the slides:

So we’ve had a lovely few weekends, punctuated with loads of playing in the Autumn leaves in our local park.  We’ve put quite a few pictures on Flickr of park time, but here’s my favourite of Alex running through the leaves:

Just found this in my drafts – obviously forgot to post it last weekend.  So here’s a very late update – with more to follow tomorrow hopefully!

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Sorry we haven’t posted for a while – it’s been a quiet couple of weeks.  Alex has his MMR injection, and another couple of jabs at the end of October and has been a bit grumpy for the past few days.  But thankfully he seems back to his jolly self today and we’ve had a wonderful family Saturday together.

Just thought I’d share a few quick pics from the last fortnight.  Here’s Alex in a comedy hat chatting to his friend Freddie in Brockwell Park:

We survived the clocks changing without too much early morning trauma and we’re all enjoying the Autumn.  Alex likes ripping the leaves apart and trying to eat them, and today had his first experience of running around and kicking all the fallen leaves.  Here’s a blurry pic of him stamping on the leaves:

We’ve been out at a local fireworks display this evening.  Alex was allowed to stay up a little bit later to see his first proper display, and I think he was impressed.  He wasn’t sure at the start, but seemed to enjoy it – and certainly clapped a lot at the end of the show!  He’s sleeping now and I’m keeping everything crossed that the many other local shows don’t wake him up!  Here he is all wrapped up and ready to go this evening (and yes, I’m still trying to get him to wear the silly hat – without much success!)

Matt enjoyed 24 hours in sole charge of Alex last week as I popped down to Southampton to visit Katharine and see Sweeney Todd at the Chichester Festival.  Was a fabulous break packed with chatting and much fun – although I wasn’t able to make the most of a potential lie in as I was on a 7am train back to London to make it in for work the following day!

In other non-Alex related news, our potential housemove is progressing.  We’ve accepted an offer on our house, and excitingly have had an offer accepted on the house we fell in love with in Herne Hill.  Surveys are taking place next week – so keep everything crossed our buyers don’t pull out!  Still to nervous to post photographs, but when it’s looking more likely, I’ll share some…

Just a quick post as I have to mention that on the way home from North Wales, and before stopping in on our friend Tracy for dinner and bathtime (thanks!), we did a whistle stop tour of the University of Warwick campus.  For those of you who don’t know, Matt and I both studied at Warwick in the 1990s and met in the sub aqua club in my final year – so it was a bit of a trip down memory lane for both of us!  I hadn’t been back for a decade, so it was quite a shock to see how much things had changed!

Not everything had though, and here’s our little family posing in front of Rootes – the accommodation we both lived in in our first year in 1996.

Much of the campus artwork is still in place, including the TOIL sign oustide our halls:

But the Union is completely different, so we enjoyed exploring the new building.  I must admit, I found it really rather surreal wandering around the Union with a pushchair – it didn’t feel quite right!!  Here’s Alex and Matt having a look around:

Loving the bright colours (and high ceilings) in the new space:

It was such a good feeling being back on campus – really reminding me of the fun I had and the great friends I made.  I felt really quite nostalgic and a little bit jealous of the current students we saw everywhere.

Just to close, and really for my Warwick mates, here’s Matt and I at Benefactors remembering the WUSAC cocktail party!