Cousin William's Christening and Garden Fun

On Sunday Steve and I had the honour of becoming William's godparents at his christening. Everyone got dressed up - this was the only photo of both Beth and Toby in their glad-rags as Toby was not in the mood to pose. I was dreading the service as the thought of keeping the kids relatively quiet and under control for 75 minutes was rather daunting. However, it was a lovely service involving the children and the church had an area especially for children with books, toys and colouring.

After the service there was a party at the local cricket club with a magician (much to Beth's bewilderment!) who also made balloon shapes. Adam and William's other cousin, Lydia, was wonderful and looked after Beth for much of the afternoon leaving Steve and I free to chase after Toby. I feel rather ashamed to say that I did not manage to get a single photo of William on his special day.

School finished last week for the summer so we now have no classes or anything much going on . . . (ahh, six weeks of endless days). So yesterday we headed off to see grandma and grandpa. The weather wasn't great so we spent the morning in the swimming pool. We haven't been for ages but it didn't take Beth long to get over her fear and she was soon swimming back and forth between grandma and grandpa. Toby wasn't so sure and wasn't too keen at all. I suspect his skin was a little sensitive to the chlorine and he's been rather clingy recently due to lots of teeth popping through.

After lunch we went out in the garden for an explore. I say that as their garden has really shot up since we were last there. Beth helped to dig potatoes and pull carrots and kale for dinner along with scoffing raspberries straight off the bush. She also had a great time cutting a bunch of flowers, something she doesn't get chance to do in our garden since we only have a few flowers.

Toby, when not diving for the pond, enjoyed pottering around playing with puddles, the wooden wind chimes (that he loved) and the wheelbarrow - obviously taking after his gran who I've been told had a love of wheelbarrows as a child! We all spend quite a bit of time looking at the frog in the pond who despite a lot of encouragement, refused to move.