I’ve been very envious of all the snow pictures I’ve been seeing all over social media last week – it was just cold, wet and a bit miserable here so we’ve had a quiet week at home. We did make it up to Cumbria on Saturday to visit my in-laws but that’s about as far as we went.

The rubbish weather, combined with the fact that at the moment the best time for Gabe to nap is right in the middle of the day, means we’ve spent a lot of time at home. Gabe really is into everything now and always wants to be doing whatever his brother is doing. Toby is getting better but he does get frustrated when Gabe destroys his latest Duplo creation, or knocks over another tower. I don’t know about the rest of you who have more than one child but I feel more like a referee in a wrestling match than a mum half the time!

Gabe is at that fabulous age though where he is learning so much and showing he understands a lot, even if he struggles to communicate himself yet. We got the boys a play kitchen for Christmas and it gets played with in one way or another every day. One of the things I got to go with it was some ‘cutting fruit’ – it’s wooden fruit that velcros together and then there’s a knife to practice cutting it in half. Gabe has loved it since day one but mostly just to carry about with him or throw across the room (a current favourite game that we are trying to discourage!) but today he was playing quietly by himself and I turned round to see him actually using the knife to cut the fruit! He wasn’t quite managing it but it was lovely to see him trying…

And Toby is just like a sponge at the moment too – he’s really come on with his numbers and letters recently and he’s always coming out with something new that makes you think ‘how do you know that?’ This week’s Living Arrows picture of Toby is such a common sight in our house at the moment – sitting watching CBeebies and playing with Duplo in his pyjamas…