Christmas Pt.II

After all the food and drink this Christmas I have had to knuckle back into training straight after Boxing day to keep the pounds from piling on. The boys have come with me to the gym each day to play in the soft play area whilst I have a workout or a run. Today I heard some magical words from Joshua as we got ready for the gym. He said to me "Daddy, I go gym with you not soft play". I live for the day when my boys can come to the gym for a workout with their Daddy or go out for a run with me, more so than the day when they are old enough to be able to legally buy their Dad a pint! When we left for the gym Joshua even insisted on wearing his "running shoes (trainers)" like Daddy and not his boots. I am so pleased that my enthusiasm for sport is rubbing off on the little guys at such a young age.

One thing which Joshua has not picked up from me is his recent saying "your not my friend anymore!". When ever he gets told off or disciplined he usually comes out with "your not my friend anymore" in a very stroppy tone. Brandon has a habit of mimicking absolutely everything that Joshua does and has now also picked up on this saying, however his ability to string a sentence along is not as good as Joshua's. So you tell him off and he yells back, "best friend" which is quite amusing.

Anyway onto some more Christmas updates. The boys were spoilt rotten with gifts from all the family and on boxing day they received these two matching motorised quads from Nanny, Grandad, Nicky, Paul, Zoe and Amy. Brandon didn't quite seem to get the concept of pushing the button and needed help. Joshua was off and running buy being the little speed demon that he is, was complaining that they were not fast enough. However he has since asked to go on them several times so he obviously enjoys his quad.

Here is nice picture of the two boys wearing their Norge jumpers which Auntie Lisa and Uncle Dave brought back from their recent trip to Norway. How cool are these?

This year was the first year that we decided to buy a family Christmas present and given the age spread this is no easy task. This year we swung slightly in favour of the older generation by buying the Playstation Move. You might think this is a bit advanced for a 3 year old and a near 2 year old, but I can tell you now that Joshua is  a dab hand at the bug swatting game in "Start the party" and is a bit of a know it all when it comes to telling other people what you do.

Brandon just seems to enjoy watching himself on TV and has not made the link that he moves his arms to move on the screen and kill the bugs. Also Brandon has not yet learnt the concept of sharing and taking turns unlike his brother. Therefore we often get the "Brandon Rage" when his go is over and we have to retrieve the controller for someone else to have a go.

Merry Christmas 2010

Before I get into Xmas just a few general updates on the boys. Firstly the house is now cot free. Brandon has stayed in his big boys bed for over 3 weeks now and so Xmas Eve the cot was removed from his room just in time to make space for all the new presents on Christmas day. Both boys seem to want to grow up faster than their age these days. For example Brandon now refuses to wear bibs because Joshua doesn't use one. Also both boys insist on using "big boys" bowls, plates and knifes & forks instead of their child friendly plastic ones because they want to be like Daddy. Finally little Brandon is becoming a bit of a piggy at breakfast time - show me another 1 year old that can polish off nearly two weetabix, a pot of actimel and then still down a bottle of milk afterwards!

So onto Christmas 2010 and what a great Xmas it has been. Both boys were very excited as the big day approached and when Joshua woke on Xmas morning and realised that the beer, mince pie, carrot and milk which he had left for Santa was gone, his little face was a picture. Then when he eventually got into the living room and saw all the presents there really was no holding him back. Fortunately the presents were wrapped in different coloured paper so we told Joshua he could only open the red toy story presents and Brandon had the purple pooh bear ones. As you can see both boys soon started ripping into them.

We all know how much Brandon likes his cars. So Santa gave him and transporter truck with two cars to load into the back. One happy little chap.

Both boys got one of these torch guns and we have had an absolute blast chasing each other around the house shooting imaginary gruffalo's etc.

Go ahead punk, make my day!

Joshua proudly showing us his new Fireman Sam costume complete with torch, axe and walkie talkie (or talkie talkie as he calls it).

And this year I finally have a little helper to mow the gardens. Brandon loves helping me hoover and so I figured he would equally enjoy helping in the garden with his own electronic mower.

Chuggington featured highly on both boys lists and they both got various track sets and trains. Here is Brandon's die cast station.

The boys main present was this ginormous wooden train track set and despite it not being wrapped up, neither of them noticed it in the corner of the living room until around 2pm. The only cover was a bean bag thrown over the top. Even funnier was that Joshua was shinning the torch from his gun under the table and Brandon was pushing his cars under the table and yet neither of them twigged what it was. This present has been the star of the show this year and has proven to be a top buy as neither of them have left it alone. Its just about big enough that they can both play and get around the track without too many fights and train wrecks!

After all that play it was time for the Christmas dinner and both boys did pretty good (mainly with the turkey). For pudding I made them some of my special saucy chocolate hot pots which they both adore.

Joshua with his Christmas bloated look.

What a beautiful little smile (don't be fooled, there is a dark side to this little monster though for those of you fortunate enough to experience one of Brandon's "rages").

Christmas cracker hats don't come in child size!!!!!!!!!!

Finally for today a picture of Brandon wearing the Fireman Sam jacket. We are starting to think we should have bought two of these as there has been a few fights over who wears this. So far Brandon is winning.

1 More Sleep To Go

Well only 1 more sleep till Xmas and the boys are both getting very excited (although I think I am still more excited than them). Last night we went to the Xmas Farmers Market at Barleylands and despite having only just finished dinner before leaving, both boys were on a bit of a food rampage. Most of their time was spent sampling the sausages and bread varieties. So much so that I felt really guilty on the bread stall and had to buy some sour dough and corn flour bread.

A cute picture of Brandon sporting Mummy's gloves and hat.

Also yesterday I had the boys help me decorate the mother of all Xmas crackers. There was glue, stickers, scissors, paper everywhere. But we had fun and the end result is great. The plan is for Santa to fill this with presents, toys and sweets, although Joshua just wanted to pull it as soon as we had finished. The colours were picked by the boys and are fairly festive. Purple seems to be Brandon's favourite at the moment.

And the finished masterpiece. All ready for Santa to come and fill tonight.

The next job for the boys tonight was to leave Santa and his Reindeer some munchies. This includes some beer and a mince pie for Santa and some milk and a carrot for Rudolph. Brandon enjoyed tipping the beer bottle over the mince pie, yum!
 

Cheeeeeeeeeeeese..........

Joshua is more of a milk monster and sorted out Rudolph's little milk bowl.

Then they were placed by the front door along with the magic house key (as we do not have a chimney).

Well off to sleep as I think it will be an early start for Xmas 2010 tomorrow morning.

Fatherhood Gem

I still consider myself relatively new to fatherhood having only been a Dad for 3 and a bit years. But in those 3 and a bit years I have read books, trawled the internet and spoken to many other parents in order to learn as much as I can about being the best Dad possible. In this short time I have accumulated a wealth of knowledge and have often thought that I should start writing down some of my fatherhood tips. However yesterday I was given a gem of a fatherhood tip, the tip of all tips for any Dad and I am just annoyed I never thought of this baby myself as it would have saved me a lot of money over the last summer. I guess you are all on the edge of your seats wondering just what this gem of a tip is by now. Well let me put you out of your misery. Whilst having a manly chat about children with some fellow work colleagues who are all Dad’s, one of the Dad’s asked if I knew the tip about ice cream vans. Obviously I said no. Well get this – tell your children that the ice cream van only plays his music to let people know he has ran out of ice-cream. Pure genius………

Other updates……. Brandon has a girlfriend called Millie and gets very shy when you mention her (how cute!). Joshua and Brandon are both singing “jingle bells” and “we wish you a merry xmas” – I will try and get it on video soon. The PNP Santa videos went down very well. Brandon did not show too much interest in his video, but Joshua was fascinated with his message from Santa and seemed really amazed that Santa had a book on him which included pictures from his birthday, holiday etc.

Santa's Personal Video Message

My how times have changed. As kids we were lucky if we got a letter from Santa. Nowadays the kids get personal video messages from Santa (see links below). How cool are these? And just how did Santa get those pictures from our holiday and know exactly what the boys want for Xmas? Maybe  he is real after all...............

http://www.portablenorthpole.tv/watch/IdP84JUH2dky-esjWextVw

http://www.portablenorthpole.tv/watch/qyrlplQr_UFWs8TPpx3zmw

Little Kicker II

Here are our two little monkeys. The pair of them have now learnt to climb onto our bed and then up onto the shelf that runs across the over bed unit. Now imagine your Saturday morning lay-in with these two herbets leaping off of this shelf onto their Daddy!

Anyway the title of this blog is called Little Kickers II. Why? Well this morning Brandon came along to Joshua's football club as we wanted to make enquiries as to when he could start. The coach first said that we should wait until about March next year after Brandon turns 2 and a bit. However we managed to get Brandon to join in along side Joshua a few times and the coach was suitably impressed with his ball skills and made comments like, "we might need to re-evaluate that one as he looks ready to start now!". This was after he had just pumped in two awesome goals of his own having just watched his elder brother do it. And these weren't ordinary goals. He had to run a 1/3rd of the way down the court jumping over two rows of cones, then run around another cone before heading back to strike the ball in the goal (and he did it twice!).

Other hot news for Brandon is that it has now been 1 whole week which he has slept in his bog boys bed and not the cot. The way things are going it looks like the cot may well be taken out of his bedroom this Christmas (perfect timing to make space for all them new toys!).

Dickens Xmas Market

Staying with the Xmas festivities, today we headed over to Rochester Castle for the annual Dickens Christmas Market. Going there mid day on a Saturday,  2 weeks before Xmas is not one of the cleverest ideas as it took me nearly an hour to find a parking space. Fortunately I dropped Tina and the boys off at the castle to save dragging them all around the back roads of Rochester. Anyway the journey was well worth it as the Rochester Castle makes a stunning setting for a Xmas market.

Some of the pictures came out a bit dark, but they give you an idea of what our day was about. To start with here is me and the boys with a giant snowman.

Where else will you find a Carousel in the middle of a Xmas market with a spectacular view of the castle! Of course I had no chance of keeping the boys off of this ride but given it was pretty big and pretty fast, then I had to go on with them (such a shame).

After the carousel we found this sand art stall which was pretty cool. The kids picked a picture which was pre-cut with sticky sections. So they pealed off one section and then poured a coloured sand over it. Then you repeated for the next sections and so on until the picture was complete.

And here is Joshua proudly showing his masterpiece sand art Christmas Tree.

The Dickens market had various brass bands scattered around and also lots of people dressed up in "Dickens" type of costumes. All in all it really made the Xmas theme well.

Here is a brief glimpse of part of the market with the stunning castle as the backdrop. Its not quite a German Xmas market but as close as you will get in this country. So we all enjoyed a Bratwurst sausage roll, followed by some fresh baked mince pies and coffee for lunch.

Again more Christmas type characters walking around the market.

Here are more and the boys at the entrance to the castle doors.

And this is the amazing Christmas tree positioned right outside the Castle entrance.

Look closely to the right of this picture and you can just about make out little Brandon also hiding in his castle arch.

The boys playing with one of the castle guns.

And sitting on top with the castle in the background. Brandon was fascinated with the view over the medway and was really excited about seeing all the boats.

All good things come to an end and with two very tired boys and some knackered parents it was time to walk along the esplanade and see if we could find our way back to where ever I had parked the car earlier today!