So – those of you who have read the blog since Alex was born will know that we had a fairly disastrous Christmas last year with him coming down with a vomiting bug on the big day.  This year, I have started to wonder if Alex is slightly allergic to Christmas!  As soon as the build up began in mid December, he came down with a terrible cold that still hasn’t cleared – along with loss of appetite, random rashes, more throwing up and general whining and grumpiness!  Poor little thing.  Here’s hoping next year we’re all well!

But it wasn’t all bad – we’ve had lots of fun and Alex has certainly enjoyed the celebrations, and started understanding what Christmas is all about.  In the days before Christmas, he received a message from Santa which he found hugely exciting.  We had to watch it many times – but it was very funny watching him totally believing it and answering Santa’s questions out loud!

He went to a crazy number of Christmas parties with his childminder, meeting Santa a number of times.  Here he is with some of his little friends hard at work making Christmas cards:

And here is one of the gorgeous cards he came home with – check out the cheesy grin! Love it!

Auntie Katharine came to visit and helped Alex decorate the Christmas tree – and since it’s been up I have been hugely impressed at his self control.  Almost all of the decorations are still on the tree – and he mostly enjoys pointing out the stars, snowflakes and baubles.

Christmas Day dawned wet and thundery (random!) – but that didn’t dampen Alex’s excitment at seeing his outrageous pile of presents.  Santa brought him a shiny new balance bike, although he hasn’t shown much interest in that yet.  Hopefully when the Spring arrives he’ll be ready to whiz around the local parks!  He was much more interested in the duplo fire station Grandma & Grandpa bought him – here he is putting it together with Daddy:

He got some fabulous presents from our incredibly generous families – thanks to everyone for being so kind.  We won’t be running out of things to do (or wear!) for some months!

Sophie was also a very lucky girl on the present front, although was pretty unaware of what was going on.  Here’s she is on her first Christmas Day in a cute outfit from her Grandma. Gorgeous.

Matt and I got the best present ever form the children – both of them having long naps just when I served up our enormous lunch so that we could enjoy all the food in peace 🙂  Happy day!

With the weather a little brighter on Boxing Day, we headed up to Crystal Palace Park to go on a walk with the Hainsworth Family.  We saw the dinosaur scultpures for the first time which little Alex and Henry loved.  Here are Phoebe, Henry and Alex posing for the camera:

And here is Alex in the sandpit!

Over the next couple of days we visited the Natural History Museum so we could check out the dinosaurs (Alex’s current favourite thing) and the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibit, had a visit from my friend Katie and her children Jake and Emily, and popped down to Southampton to see Auntie Katharine’s new house.

To round up the Christmas week, we had a visit from Matt’s sister-in-law and nephews, and from my brother and sister-in-law, all of whom had yet to meet little Sophie.  Here’s my brother and sister-in-law enjoying a baby cuddle!

If you’re super keen, here are all out photos of Christmas week, including loads of our Crystal Palace walk:

To close – here’s a video.  Not one of ours this time, but the fabulous Bergin & Melissa‘s Christmas thank you song.  Posting it here because it’s cute – but also because Alex and Sophie feature (much to Alex’s excitment!)