Christmas 2010

We had a brilliant Christmas, plenty of uptimes with a small down thrown in for good measure; much better this year than we've had in the past.

Christmas for us started on 1st December when we start visiting daily to a brilliant website called NORAD http://www.noradsanta.org/en/index.html Each day there is a new activity for the kids to play on plus a visual countdown to when Santa will start leaving home. NORAD along with google earth allow you to track Santa and his travels across the globe; this really helps with both Becca and Stevie as they don't take to change of routine that well but because they know he is on his way it helps them both. They know that when he gets to a certain part of travels that they have to goto bed so that they can be asleep before Santa arrives; because as all kids know you can't be awake when Santa comes!!! They always know when Santa has been though cos he puts their stockings on their bedroom door handles.


Our stockings awaiting Santa



James with his pressies
from Santa

Becca with her pressies
from Santa

Stevie with his pressies
from Santa

The kids had a wonderful day playing with their new toys; didn't hear much from our Stevie once he'd got his DS working, he got Lego Batman to go with it seeing as he loves this game on the Wii and it was a hit. He also loved his Tonka lorry that his uncle bought him, this is one that you can take apart and rearrange. James got an ipod which he is constantly on (so much so that the charger wire is plugged into the laptop at least 2 or 3 times a day), he loves this but he didn't like the way I had wrapped it for him hehehe; to stop him guessing straight away what he'd got I had wrapped it in bubble wrap so before he opened it he didn't have a clue, his face was a picture when he realised it was an ipod so mission accomplished he didn't guess!! Becca got a tv for her room which she loves plus a Hello Kitty Lava lamp, she also loves the fact that once the New Year is here she'll be getting sky installed in her room so she can watch what she wants when she doesn't like what the boys are watching downstairs, can't wait for it to happen.

My Mum and brother came over to Christmas Day and have lunch with us, the day itself went fine with no meltdowns which was an improvement on last year; the problems started at bedtime when trying to get excited kids to calm down and go to sleep. I'm used to them not going to sleep properly everynight and having to spend at least an hour or two attempting to get them to do this; I deal with it as calmly as I can whilst trying not to lose my temper with them but not their Dad who stopped over due to no public transport, he has to go up and start shouting at them which is not the way to get them to lay down. If anything it actually fires them up, his shouting made our Stevie cry so I went up to get him to calm down so he could attempt some sleep and this is the explanation that he gave for his tears: "daddy shouted at me cos I went into Becca's room but he shouldn't have shouted cos it was the first time I'd gone in there to tell her I was going to sleep. He should have put me back in bed and taken Cuddles mummy. We should ban him from the house until he thinks about how he shouted at me" out of the mouth of babes!!!!

Boxing Day morning was full of arguments and misunderstanding of how to handle things from their Dad. For example with our Stevie you can't just say to him "go get dressed" you have to be more specific like "Stevie can you get a t-shirt, pants and trousers on please?". Dad didn't like it cos Stevie comes running to me saying "Mummy I don't want to get dressed", when I said to him did he want to help Daddy choose him a t-shirt, pants and trousers he went off happily got them out and then got dressed......it def showed that its all in the way of asking it! Dad wasn't too happy but hey never mind the kid got dressed didn't he??? Dad has a lot to learn about how to handle the kids on a day to day basis, he usually sees them on a weekend when he comes over for access time so doesn't have to deal with a lot of the crap that I do every day; I've learnt a few tricks to getting the kids into doing something I want them to do but making them feel like it was their idea hahahahaha

Well I hope you all had a brilliant Christmas and enjoyed having your loved ones over. It just leaves it for me to wish everyone a Happy New Year and to send best wishes for the forthcoming year.