Christmas 2011

Well the great news is the boys were clearly very good boys throughout 2011 and subsequently Santa paid us a visit on Christmas Eve. He finished off the Guinness and mince pie whilst Rudolph drank his milk and ate his carrot. In return he piled high the Xmas tree with lots of goodies for the two boys. Joshua and Brandon's face was a picture when they woke up and realised Santa had been. We managed to stay fairly disciplined and kept the boys out of the living room until they were washed, dressed and had breakfast. However I fear this could be the last year we get away with those stall tactics before tucking into the pile of presents.

Once breakfast was done and dusted the boys wasted no time tearing into their presents.

Brandon opening his Thomas Tank Engine mega block set. He absolutely loved his mega block trains and often has me building big snake tracks for him. So this will add nicely to his set.

Joshua tucking into his new Lightning McQueen CD player which he now has for his bedroom. Joshua loves playing music and often operates the conservatory CD player himself. So we decided it was time he had his own CD player and could play his music in his bedroom.

The CD player soon made it into his bedroom and then it was almost as if we had fast forward 10 years into teenager territory as he cranked up the volume and shut the himself in his bedroom!

Ladies man Brandon with a lipstick mark on his cheek!!!

Its Mr Potato head. Check out that moustache!

One of the most amazing things for me this Xmas was simply being able to help the boys set-up their toys and to then play with them! In fact I told Tina not to get me anything as I knew I would be having so much fun with all the boys toys. It wasn't long before Brandon had me set-up his mega block train set.

This was the boys opening one of their joint presents from relatives in Norfolk. Brandon wasn't parting with his Disney Cars play-doh set though.

It wasn't too long before the play-doh set cam out and Joshua found it most amusing to use his new Bob The Builder drill to drill through his play-doh car.

Brandon however carefully used a plastic knife to scrape off the excess play-doh from the edge of his play-doh car.

After opening all the presents and getting lunch out of the way we decided to reveal the boys joint main present. Due to their keen interest in air hockey during this years summer vacation we decided to get them this amazing 13 in 1 games table.

First we had a spot of football.

The air hockey..........

The snooker is a bit difficult for Brandon at the moment and I fear the cloth might get torn. He seems to fail to understand two key rules, 1) you have to hit the white ball first and 2) you have to take it in turns. Joshua has picked this up pretty quickly and has a fairly good cuing arm already.

Then there is table tennis. It will be some while before we get a rally of more than 1 going. This game tends to be more a case of hunt the ball at the moment.

The star game however has to be the basketball. As everyone knows Brandon had a very good throwing arm on him and absolutely loves this games. I would say he hits a good 50% of his hoops.

Anyone who follows this blog will know that there was only ever one Xmas present Joshua wanted this year - a fishing rod. Clearly he is too young for even a junior rod, however I did manage to find the boys these small plastic crabbing rods and reels which I was hoping would meet their needs. Joshua's face was a picture of disappointment when he opened this present and he made it very clear that he wanted a bigger rod.

However after lunch we took a walk over the park and hooked up some bread to their rods for a spot of fishing. The boys were very disappointed not to catch anything so I told them all the fish were sleeping. Now that Joshua has used his rod he likes it and if you ask him what his favourite present is, he will respond with fishing rod.

All good fisherman need some decent head gear to keep your head warm. Check out these stunning animal hats with built in scarfs and gloves.

So we say fair well to another Xmas day, boxing day was even more manic with yet more presents and food. The next task is to now find homes for all the new toys! For me there will be two lasting memories from this Xmas, 1) the understanding and excitement of the boys knowing that Santa was coming with presents and 2) the change in the types of toys the boys received. Gone are the smooth primary coloured plastic toys and now they seem to be getting what I class as proper boys toys, i.e. Lego, action man, pirate ships, tonka trucks, train sets etc. I actually told Tina not to bother buying me much this year as I knew I would be getting some much entertainment playing with the boys and their toys - I wasn't wrong or disappointed there. All that being said, I now need a rest from building toys, putting stickers on toys and installing batteries!!!