Raaah go the Jingle Bells...

Christmas was dinotastic for Ben, Jingly for Charley, and full-on for me and Steve! Think next year we'll stay with family so that childcare can be shared between more than two people ;0)

Thankyou Katie for the boys' presents!! Charley has been wearing his most of the day and Ben can't wait to get into his - I've promised tomorrow we'll play with playdough!

Few more pics here, starting with the chocolate christmas pudding that we got blind drunk (the pud, not us) with the amount of brandy we poured on in our attempt to get a half-decent pic of it being set alight!

Our first Christmas present this year was a lie-in. Technically I'm not sure you can really count it as a lie-in as we'd dealt with a tantrum at 6.30am already and once that was sorted out (thankfully a lot quicker than the last one a couple of days ago) and Ben and I had had some cereal, we went back to sleep and didn't wake until 9.30am when I was desperate to see what Father Christmas had left in the boys' stockings! It took some persuading for Ben to even get the sock from the end of Charley's cot but he did in the end. By the time we'd got downstairs and were attacking the bigger stockings he was beginning to get the hang of ripping wrapping paper open.

Pancakes for breakfast again - and lunch!! Yummy :0)

It took many many hours to open all the presents - it was gone 4.30pm by the time he opened his big present - an ikea kid's workbench. He and Steve built it eventually, with Steve splitting his time between sorting dinner and helping build the bench. I was stuck on the sofa with Charley. He is in the throes of a full-on growth spurt and was feeding every two hours last night and most of today. Ben does like his bench though! Steve did a lovely Christmas dinner with belly pork and roast vegetables, and even Ben joined us to hack at and eat some roast potatoes.

The grandparents and relatives have been very very good and not bought a massive amount of presents for Ben and Charley: now everything has been opened it looks like we might actually be able to find homes for everything!

I hope this next year we'll get the house a lot more sorted. On the way up now. Next Christmas (and birthdays too I guess) they can all go crazy on the present front if they want ;0)

Happy Christmas :D