Noel 2012

Here are some snapshots of our Christmas. Tristan's first comment was 'where is the snow', he may have had too much of a diet of snowy Christmas songs. The day started at 6.40am which I suspect will be the latest we shall get away with now for a few years!

Grandma came to stay and first up it was stocking time... yes Sam got the understated tiger dressing gown and Tristan the pjs...

Tristan's first sight of the presents under the Christmas tree was a classic!

Tristan was so keen to get presents that he almost fell into Grandma's santa sack!

 Sam soon got the hang of opening presents although he was frustrated that he wasn't allowed to eat wrapping paper. His presents included lots of touch and feel books, a ballpool dinosaur and aquadoodle.

Tristan and papa "we are engineers" trying to figure out one of the toys. Tris's favourite present was the playmobil castle which he had just about given up on receiving.

We had a lovely day until at about midnight Tristan and I both started throwing up and that was how we spent the whole night followed by several days of recovering. I will never eat a sprout as long as I live!

Meeting Father Christmas

We went to see Father Christmas on a barge ( having had 2 years of trains we decided perhaps he would want a different method of transport).

It was Sam's first time and he was happy with his shape sorter (i.e., he chewed it).

Tristan loved the book (Cars) but also the whole lock and Santa's knee experience. His first question to Santa was "am I on the nice list" - there's fear for you! The grown-ups  found the mulled wine good.

Lanterns

Last year we went to the lantern parade and this year we actually made one!

Ours was a 'classic' (/boring) pyramid made at the library as quickly as possible. Some people went to a great deal more effort - we even saw an Eifel tower and quite a few which had been painted and generally glammed-up

We will do better next year!

Tristan on stage

 Tristan won the 'most enthusiastic student' at French school. He was very pleased with himself.

Here's Tristan as an innkeeper in his nativity. It was adorable as they all sang to different tunes and at different times. Tristan did his words ('I'm sorry there's no room') really well and Mary and Joseph were suitably rejected!

He was also a reindeer in the preschool play (unsuprisingly no words this time!).

Look at me I'm standing

(and pulling myself up and generally winning over my big brother to what a wonderful playmate he has by eating his toys!)

Getting ready for Christmas...

...has been more of a logistal concern this year with the two of them. We have constant song rehearsals for the various plays, concerns over where any new toys might fit (there is NO room at the inn!) and add the combination of crawler to pine needles Christmas is quite complicated!

 The Christmas tree is up and it's a big one (we had to cut about 30cms off the top to get it in the room!

I have been quite hands.on this year and have made an advent calendar (draw-string bags) for the boys. My original plan was to have one each for them but actually it took longer than I expected (or than my tedium threshold) so they are sharing. I catch Tristan walking past saying "Sam, Tristan, Sam, Tristan..." at least five times a day while pointing to each of the bags!

We made 'snowflakes'. I had originally intended that these would just be for Tristan's room but he insisted that they made it downstairs too!

Tristan is an innkeeper in the nativity and I have sewn him an innkeeper costume. There is plenty of room for growth so I reckon if he gets a promotion to Joesph or the role of a shepherd some day then it can serve!

 We have started on our Christmas cards. Tristan was very proud of how well he wrote the 's'!

This is Tristan's playroom tree, its for all his makings  (and clashing colours!). Note our first attempt at a paperchain!

More writing - this time our first letter to Santa! In case he doesn't have his glasses to hand it's lego, a castle and garage with cars!

Sam update

Sam is 7 months old now and we have our first tooth (bottom left front). He weighs 8 kilos and is still great at sleeping and eating.

He loves bashing and chewing things.

Swings make him giggle with delight.

He tried a walker for the first time. He didn't really know what it was all about but his feet moved anyway!

 Yes he's still blond and blue-eyed ( not sure for how much longer...).

He still loves his food - pretty much anything especially sweet things (rice pudding is a favourite) and finger-food (breadstick city!).

The social event of the season!

 Tristan's 4th birthday party with the unusual combination of pirate and magic!

We hired a hall for the first time and it certainly made it easier for clearing up - although things like forgetting milk and sugar until we offered everyone tea wouldn't have been such an issue!

This was the cake.Tristan loved it but during the early making stages kept saying "when will it look more like a pirate ship" ( I tried to explain that a treasure chest being squarer was much more within mummy's capabilities!

...and Tristan blowing our the candles.

 We had a magician which kept the pressure off us for Sam looking after and sorting out food (and the aforementioned cups of tea!).

Tristan loved being the centre of attention and 'breaking' all the wands

and playing games with his friends.

Ice skating

A cold Friday afternoon at Millets farm....

...Torvil and Dean watch out!  Tristan (and large orange seal to hold himself upright) is coming...

Manu was surprisingly good at it - I tried and relied on the seal (or Tristan's head) to steady myself, hardly a picture of elegance especially when it came to stopping/ crashing!

Crawling (/hoovering)

Sam's very first attempts at crawling - at just over 6 months. He's after a toy shop bag (to eat the bags rather than the contents).

Now at 7 months he's still commando style but getting quick and unfortunately this extends to hoovering up everything from the carpet still (stickers are the thing I most often find hanging out of his mouth)..

(he's after a mince pie tin here!)

Ensuite

Our latest project has been trying to sort out our ensuite. We nicked some room from Tristan's bedroom (before he's old enough to complain!) when we first moved in but I couldn't really visualise it until it was done. So this is the before - the loo was at the end of the corridor with a door on it and  the opening on the right was the original entrance into Tristan's room:

We built the stud wall and used it as a computer 'room' for the first year!

 A builder took out the wall, built a storage areas above the entrance to the future ensuite and this is it plastered:

 ...and onto Manu for the tiling...

...and the finished resuts (minus architrave and skirting boards but who needs them?!):

Buoyed by the success of this we have stripped out the disgusting pink main bathroom (so the ensuite is communal at the mo.) so there will be plenty more opportunity to hone our tiling and grouting skills unfortunately!

Sam - 6 months

Sam turned 6 (months) on the 1st. We don't know where the time has gone. He's getting blonder but otherwise everyone says (although we don't see it) is very similar to Tristan.

He loves banging things - people as well as toys...

 He's turning into a real boy and is desperate to join in with some proper toys.

... but we still control his clothes so get to embarrass him and dress him up as a cute bear whenever we like!

Hallowe'en

There's a lot of dressing-up in our lives at the moment as all the birthdays seem to be themed (we are getting a lot of use out of the knight and pirate costumes). Tristan vetoed being a pumpkin - it wasn't cool enough as he wanted 'real' wings so we bowed to pressure and turned him into a bat.

Trick or treating was loads of fun and we got a reasonable haul too! It was the first time I had ever been and it was quite a learning curve I now know that the people who commented on how good our pumpkin was were completely lying (I had never seen the 'competition' before, next year I will make much more effort!)

France part 2: the beach

Despite the rain we had lots of fun at the beach.

Building sandcastles (this one took a lot of knocking by the sea with brave knight, Tristan, to defend it!

Rockpooling (many crabs and shrimps have been tracked down).

Introducing Samuel the the sand a la francaise (he predictably wanted to eat it).

...and generally walking about being grateful when it stopped raining! Tristan had the annual task of eating oysters (he had two and claimed to like them - I think its peer pressure!) and of course there was some inevitable diy (a shower to repair)

France part 1: Papi and Mami

We went to France in October. Tristan was very excited (especially by the bunkbeds in the cabin on the ferry). The weather was atrocious unfortunately.

We introduced Sam to his extended French family (and reintroduced him to his grandparents) - and French doctors as he had an infected eardrum.

Tristan showed off his pretty good French and had loads of fun doing things like collecting eggs and riding (although he didn't like it when it went too fast).

On one of the few dry days we managed to pretend to be knights and visit the castle - Tris was quite blood-thirsty and highly  taken with the idea of the English invading France and attacking.