July

July saw us going on our first family holiday as a 4 (well it was a couple of days gatecrashing my parents holiday really), we took Zara to the seaside for the first time and had her first experience of paddling in the sea and I shared my guide to Life with a Baby and Toddler

August

August was a pretty quiet month on the blog, with it being school holidays it meant my husband was home and so our days were filled with trips out and about. These included Washington Wildfowl and Wetlands and Adventure Valley,  oh and I got a new car and had to change my views on School Run Mums!

September

September saw Oscar meeting a Dragon, one of my favourite posts of the year as I admitted I Don’t Like Babies. I caught up on our summer holiday adventures and shared our experiences on days out to The Alnwick Garden, Blue Reef Aquarium, South Shields and The Seaside and Durham Botanic Gardens.

October

October saw lots of reviews and competitions on the blog as I launched my Knees Up Mother Brown Christmas Guide, we had a fantastic time testing lots of toys and gifts and I’d like to thank all the PRs and companies for allowing us to feature your products.

November

November saw Zara turn 2 years old and I wrote her a letter, I expressed my concern over the Mammy, Mummy, Mam, Mum issue, I shared Oscar and Zara’s first nursery photos in My Beautiful Children, I shared the story of how I made my husbands Birthday Wish Come True, we went to Durham Lumiere Festival, Kirkley Hall Zoological Gardens, Beamish Museum and I shared the fun we had making our Annual Christmas Cards.

December

After a really busy year of blogging, it was time for Mother Brown to take a blogging break in December.

I’ve had great fun looking back through all my blog posts in 2011 and I hope you’ve enjoyed looking back at them with me. It was a crazy year but a fantastic one. Stick with me for 2012 to see what adventures the Brown household gets up to next….

Kirkley Hall Zoological Gardens is a new attraction which has opened at Kirkley Hall, just outside Ponteland in Northumberland. It’s about a 40 minute drive from Durham. Now when it says “Zoo” in the title don’t go expecting Lions, Elephants and Giraffes as it’s not that kind of “Zoo”. It does however have over 100 species of animal including emus, wallabies, marmosets, pygmy goats, donkeys, meerkats, snakes and many more.

As we arrived around lunchtime, we started our visit by going to the Orangery Tea Rooms to fill up the tiny terrors before we went to see the animals. Zara and Oscar shared a childrens lunch between them whilst Alex and I had some baked potatoes which were truely delicious. There was only one small issue in that the tea rooms only had 2 high chairs available for use when we visited. As one was already being used it meant that I spent the first half of my lunch balancing Oscar on my knee until the second high chair became available. I must apologise to them for the state of the floor when we left but eating one handed whilst holding onto a 9 month old who is eating his lunch as well tends to result in a lot of dropped food

Double trouble enjoying lunch

Once we were all fed we set off to see some aminals with an excited Zara leading the way. At places like this it’s impossible to get her to sit in the pushchair as she just wants to rush around seeing everything. Zara loved seeing the Pygmy goats and the marmosets and as we followed the path around the site we came to the petting barn. In here we saw rabbits, guinea pigs, a pony, rats, mice, gerbils, hamsters but the highlight was letting Zara and Oscar meet a rather large friendly rabbit

Oscar meets bunny

Zara was a little unsure of holding bunny herself

After persuading Zara to say goodbye to bunny we were just in time to watch the keepers feeding the Meerkats. Zara was a little confused by the name Meerkat and kept shouting Miaow at them bless her but I think she could have stood and watched them running around all day.

Meerkat

We also loved seeing the “little monkeys” (marmosets) and the “lizards” (chameleons and iguanas) as Zara calls them

"little monkey"

Lizard

There were so many animals it is hard to mention them all but we had a lovely time at Kirkley Hall Zoological Gardens and would definitely pay to go back there. An adult ticket is £5, children 3-17 are £3.50 and aged 2 and under are free. You can also buy family tickets for £15 which admit 2 adults and 3 children. We will definitely be going back again We are tempted to pop up for the Kirkley Hall Christmas Fair on Sunday 20th November. Entry is only £7 a car and includes entry to the Zoological Gardens as well as the traditional christmas fair. (See their website for details of other events coming soon).