Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Moments

As 2014 draws to a close, the reality of not writing more blogs sets in - and it's been a great year. We've been healthier than we've been for about three years, and though we are busier than ever - we still manage to squeeze in a lot of good stuff. So here's a photographic recap of some of our happenings...


We built our first proper snowman in 2014! Previous years attempts were pretty poor...


We hit England! Our old stomping ground of Cambridge! Lots of memories...


Lots of cousins...


Even more cousins, here at Kew Gardens...


More cousins and family at the Black Country Museum...


Meeting up with an old college friend, first time since 1997!










Celebrating Mum's 60th birthday in August x


We hit Spain in June! Shame we had to leave...



Batboy! Ready for the next reboot...


Someone turned five in July...



Someone started school in September...



Someone turned 40 in September! I'm cool with it...


                                                         Someone turned two in October....


Here's to a happy & healthy 2015!

Holidays with the Boys

With Rafi off school and Charlie without a nanny until the second week of January, I decided to take the entire week off from work to spend time with them. With Nana here it's been very better as I've been able to spend some time alone with each of them. It's been really, really lovely (and exhausting.. how will I cope with another one!?).  Lots of night and morning snuggles, playing, and trips out..



The house is wrecked with presents and new toys strewn everywhere... but the boys are enjoying their new spoils so much, and as Chas is getting older he's playing more and more with Raf.


Late mornings in PJs... a game of hide and seek with Chas.



Raf takes lots of photographs.. especially ones featuring his favourite things! I love this ornament that he made at school.


And yesterday, after taking Chas out to run some chores as Raf stayed home with Nana, Raf and I headed out for a date: colouring at Run of the Mill. I was so poorly on Sunday (when we were supposed to head out for our date) and I was so grateful that Nana was happy to stay home with the Chas-Master.



The date featured lots of juice and a massive pile of chips, that we almost got through (despite having eaten lunch already). Raf is very attached the his favourite ornament (from Rich and I)... it features a train - that it even came with us.





This is my attempt.. Raf gave it 2 stars as there were plenty of places that I coloured outside of the lines.


Today me and the boys headed to the Children's Museum. We had dropped mum off at the shops so we didn't have a really long time to play, but after renewing our membership we had a fun hour, the boys really excited to play on everything they had time for.



Chas was a bit overwhelmed in the fire engine as it was very noisy...


But they both loved the playground...



And Raf was a very sweet big brother, helping his brother when he needed it. I overheard him saying, 'don't worry, Charles, I'm here to help you'!


I think Charlie's favourite room was the 'ball' room where there are some very cool ball runs, including one that sucks up the ball and moved it along tubes in the ceiling.. he was hooked.







Then they found the car...


And worked together to fix it.




and then the boat...



And then the farm...


And whatever this is called...


Eventually I pried them out of the door to collect Nana, and when we arrived home I caught them having a little hug as they watched the trucks leaving next door.


Raf was absolutely on fire today, being a bit of a dink, but they were such good boys at the museum... though they're both very much ready for bed.