Typically while Simon has been out on the West Coast of the US, Oliver has been really not well – his temperature has been spiking up to 40 degrees C.  Vicky has been struggling to keep his temperature suitably regulated – pretty sure this happened the last time Simon was away 🙁

Anyway, Oliver is now on the road to recovery and the temperature back to normal – just struggling with his sleeping habits – he seems to think getting up 3 or 4 times a night is acceptable and that he can expect milk every other time he wakes….

On other matters, Elliot has surprised us this week – see below – a note from mummy to daddy

Elliot has drawn on his jigsaw with biro and just said to me mummy like what I done I been naughty…….so I said that’s very naughty darling why did you do that???

The response was a classic……….”because I can”. What a cheeky little monkey

Oh my…

We drove down to the ThomasLand Magical Adventure yesterday – it was nice an quiet in the park so Elliot was able to go on all the rides he wanted as often as he wanted 🙂

It was really nice since there was (obviously) a Christmas theme with snow on the ground and the buildings.  There was lots of heaters around the place to keep the walkways warm, but they were actually not really necessary for yesterday – it was a modest 7degrees 🙂

It ended up being a full day out with us not getting home until 8:15pm, and the boys were pretty much straight into bed.

Today, we are going to try to get all of the Christmas decorations up on the house – will see how we get on since it has just gone midday and daddy still has not got the decorations out.  oh, AND we need to go and buy a new tree…

He seems to be a little behind Elliot (from our recollection and looking back in this blog over the last three years) in terms of his being bothered to motivate himself to do things like roll over and sitting up etc.  Alas, Oliver is on the ball for sitting on his own finally.  He has also found chocolate (or choclick as Elliot prefers to call it presently)……

NICE 🙂

Like all kids, he is already particularly fond of the Cadburys Milk Chocolate goodness that comes in tins at Christmas time with “Roses” written on the outside 🙂

We are trying out using eBay to sell some of our old gear – particularly relevant given that we decided that we ARE going to do the California 2 year trip 🙂 Vicky has listed Oliver’s first car seat (Jane Strata) plus the ISOFix base for it (he outgrew the setup a couple of weeks back), his swing (think we used it twice… 🙁 ), the old Jane AutoCot that we used for both Elliot and Oliver).

We will see how we get on and then consider selling off more stuff that we think will be of use to others – then in the new year we have a 7 series BMW to sell, and various other things that we will need to either skip or find a new home for 🙂

We took the train as previously advertised, and visited the Christmas Markets in the city.  They were slightly disappointing although we did manage to find something to keep the biggest boy entertained…

Not long after, he fell asleep in his pushchair – he stayed asleep while we walked around the city, and also while we got the train home, and only awoke as we got off the train – OK so daddy woke him accidentally just as we boarded the train, but he soon got back to sleep – lucky daddy !!

Daddy is VERY pleased mummy persuaded him to take the pushchair for Elliot – it would have been a VERY different day trip had he not been able to sleep in the pushchair. We had lunch @ Pizza Express and wandered around much of the city.

BOTH boys slept for much of the time there – great result – only challenge is that the eldest does not want to sleep now – he just come downstairs @ 20:11 – he was in bed @ 19:00.  Giess he will be going to bed @ same time as Mummy and Daddy tonight….

Big Christmas light switch on in Ossett tomorrow – we are going to do our best to attend – only lived here 6 years and not managed to attend one yet 🙁

We went to Halifax to the optician this morning – daddies’ eyes are OK it seems, the recent batch of contact lenses are apparently faulty 🙁

We then tried to park the car to go and see Grandma, only to find nowhere to park AND the rain simply got heavier and heavier – so we aborted and went home (no umbrellas or other water resistant goodies for the push chair etc.

Yesterday we went to Sheffield’s Meadowhall and watched a little 3d story and we were then fortunate enough to meet Father Christmas – the boys were given a little gift from the main man, and had their photograph taken with him.  Elliot asked FC for a rocket and some cars 🙂  He was not as shy as perhaps we expected him to be.

Tomorrow, weather permitting we will head to the Christmas market in York – hopefully the train will take us there.