I don’t really have much new to say about my two boys this month. Toby and Gabe still spend a lot of time squabbling, and Toby does like to deliberately wind his brother up. But they are also spending more time playing nicely together too – Gabe still wants to do everything his brother does.

With the Easter holidays Toby and Gabe got to spend a lot more time with each other than usual. They mostly had a great time but I think they were both ready to return to the routine of school and preschool and having a bit of time apart again.

They even shared a bed when we went on holiday – well we pushed the two single beds together (mostly because Gabe isn’t used to a bed and it helps stop him falling out). We definitely need to think about getting Gabe out of his cot at home soon and they are both very excited about the prospect of getting bunk beds.

Anyway, in the absence of anything new to report I’m just going to share some pictures of Toby and Gabe together that I’ve taken over the last month.

At the start of the Easter holidays it was my dad’s birthday so we made him a cake together. I think it was the first time I’ve managed to bake with both boys at the same time without them fighting over something! I don’t often think Toby and Gabe look much like each other but sometimes I catch them with the exact same expression on their faces and you can definitely tell they’re brothers. Like their concentration when licking the cake mix off the beaters!

They were very proud of the finished cake.

I don’t dress Toby and Gabe in matching clothes as often now but they do still have a few things that match, like these crocodiles from Maxomorra. This picture was taken at soft play round the corner from us – I ended up having to go in to help Gabe get to the top level because try as I might, I just couldn’t get Toby to help him climb up.

Toby can be a helpful big brother sometimes though – as you can see in this picture taken on holiday in Yorkshire when he was helping Gabe down the slide. I’m not sure that Gabe needed any help but still, it’s the thought that counts…

As I already said, Gabe still wants to copy everything that Toby does, and he can often be found lying or sitting next to Toby to see what he’s doing. When I took this picture Toby had just laid down on his tummy to play with something and it was only a matter of seconds before Gabe was lying down next to him.

We were at the park yesterday and Toby had been pretending part of the climbing frame was an ice cream van. Sure enough Gabe wanted his turn too, so this is him selling Toby an ice cream. Most of the time with things like this Toby is happy to play along, even though he knows Gabe is just copying exactly what he has just done.

And then of course after having pretend ice creams they had to have a real one too, and there’s those matching expressions again…

And the last picture for this month’s Siblings post was taken last week at Martin Mere wetland centre. We’d been doing their Easter Giant Duck hunt, and at the end the boys got to pose with some giant ducks of their own…