CHRISTMAS DAY

Well, Christmas seems to be over again as quickly as it crept up on me this year. We had a lovely day, and as usual the boys were completely spoilt. I guess that's bound to happen as they are the only children in the family! It was very exciting for Connor, who knew all about Santa and what to expect in the morning. He was very happy to see the bags they had left out the night before full of presents when he woke up. I was relieved not to see him before 6am (I had been worried that he'd get up to go to the toilet in the middle of the night and go to investigate). Dad and Paul came round in the morning, then we all went to Bruce's sister and her husband's place for the usual giant feast of turkey, ham, roast veges and plum pudding washed down with plenty of wine. Connor and Byron were absolutely shattered by the end of it all! Here are some photos from the day...




















It's hard to overstate just how obsessed with balls and kicking them Byron is. His first present from Santa was a ball, and it took us about twenty minutes to convince him to even look into the bag to investigate any of the other things in there. The next one was a bag of balloons, which he immediately wanted blown up to kick around, and in the end Connor had to open the rest! (by the way, the bag says happy birthday as we had a last minute panic and couldn't find the Santa bags on Christmas Eve!)




















Opening presents by the tree (Byron's new blocks in the foreground)




















Dad and Paul went with their usual philosophy that size does matter, and bought a hot wheels type car track. It looked very cool in the photo on the box, but on opening it they realised it had rather a large number of very small parts that needed to be assembled to get the thing together.















Connor patiently watched while Dad and Paul began assembling it, and they spent about and hour and a half putting it together before we had to leave for Deb's place. They had to come back on boxing day to finish it off! Needless to say, it is now a permanent feature in the boys room, as there is no way we are disassembling it again!!















Bruce and Connor playing with a cog building toy.

And the construction continues...




















Byron gets sick of waiting and takes a bath with his new bath boy















All hands on deck and it was finally done!!!

It's Christmas next week, and getting exciting for Connor, who is starting to understand it all, which is very cool. He gets very excited whenever he sees a Christmas tree, and the first few times we visited our local shops after the decorations were up he would run around like a mad thing, jumping up and down and shouting 'Christmas Tree!!!' at each one as he ran up to it pointing. We got our Christmas tree last weekend, and all decorated it together. Every morning he asks me if it's Christmas Day yet and if we can open the presents under the tree. He's remarkably accepting when I tell him it's not yet, and he hasn't tried to inspect any presents (which is more than I can manage!!). I've been really surprised that Byron hasn't tried getting into them either, but I think he's usually too busy kicking a ball or balloon around. He is absolutely obsessed with kicking balls, and is actually surprisingly accurate and powerful as he throws all his weight behind it. He loves swimming as much as Connor now as well, and has just started jumping into the pool from the side, with a huge grin on his face.

Connor's communicating is coming along in leaps and bounds, and he loves playing pretend fantasy games now, especially when we're out or up in the park. He'll take me to a tree and tell me it's his house, show me all the rooms, and explain where everything is etc. His imagination is really starting to show, it's so cool. He also announced to us a few days ago that he doesn't need to wear nappies at night time anymore, so he is growing up!

Some photos from the last week...





















Connor loves the new climbing frame at the zoo





















Rope walking























Byron finding a decoration for the tree




















Decorating the tree