Christmas! And 27 months old...

We're back now from a lovely time in the Isle of Man! Christmas was fantastic and we're very sad to be back to our normal lives in a still broken-boilered cold flat :(
(I wrote this a while ago - but am only just getting around to putting the photos in and publishing it.  So our boiler is fixed now! It's amazing! We're warm!)

But I wanted to tell you all about it, particularly as it is his monthly review time! He is now 27 months old.  Here are his pictures side-by-side:

26 months old

27 months old

We got him to sit in the chair by putting a thing he likes to read in it.  It's a leaflet that came with one of the trains we got him for Christmas.  He HATES the train - it is battery operated to pull his wooden trains - but he doesn't like the noise or the fact it moves or something so he insists that it never gets anywhere near him. But the leaflet that came with it is one of his favourite things in the entire world! It is covered in lots of tiny pictures of the trains that they sell and he could look at it for ages.  Which means that our plan to take his picture that way backfired a little bit.  Here are some of the outtakes...

So all that is left from his December update is Christmas.  So here we go.  Firstly, Finn got an early Christmas gift - his very own little cycling vest so that he can match his Dad.  It's very sweet.

We actually had an entirely early Christmas - we didn't want to pack a bunch of gifts just to bring them all back again so we decided to have our own Christmas before we left.  It was quite nice actually - if a bit chilly!  We had mulled wine and biscuits and played Christmas songs and opened presents.  Finn was surprisingly good at the presents thing.  He totally understood that some were from him but some were not and that we were taking turns.  I was quite impressed at how patient and happy he was throughout.  That's not saying he didn't absolutely LOVE opening presents!  And still asks for presents periodically, not quite understanding that it was a one day only thing. It was a bit of a long drawn out process though because he wanted to play with EVERYTHING as soon as he opened it.  We actually took to hiding the ones we knew were books because it was taking too long to read them all.  Here are some great photos of the fun.

 And clearly he loved his presents as this was his breakfast the following  morning:


Which was also the morning that we set off to the Isle of Man.  Finn is two now which means he gets his own seat (and is full price) on the airplane.  He loved it!  As did his Dad who got the seat across the aisle...

And we happily ventured to the Island.  The weather was truly truly awful with rain and gale force winds and the cold... and yet it was a really lovely time! The flat we stay in when we're there was well stocked with lots of fun new things to play with, and a quick trip to the charity shop got lots of books and puzzles.  It is such a special place to hang out and all three of us truly enjoy the privilege of calling it home for a few days.

Finn continued to be very helpful - here he is helping to put the clean clothes away.

Finn really loves puzzles.  And is surprisingly good at them.  He's a clever little chap!  We got a video of him doing one of the simpler ones.  But I love it because it shows off his new skill: he can read!!

Ok not really - he just memorises things and pretends to read by running his finger along something as he says what he knows it is :)But it's a pretty funny skill. (By the way, saying 'toto' first is his word that means something like reading... I'll get into that more in a later blog but basically if you point to a tiger you just say 'tiger' but if you point to the word you say 'toto tiger' because you're reading it... odd but very interesting.  And for another time)

He is really good with puzzles though.  He's got a little pack of books that can be put together to make a picture of Thomas on the back.  It's actually fairly difficult because all the sides are straight and there's no trial and error of seeing if something fits.  But we got this video of Finn doing it really well!  So well, he surprised even us!


We are so blessed to be able to stay in that flat when we visit.  It's so nice to have a place to call our own and settle down when we're there.  It has really started to feel like another place to call home and we had a great time there.

But the best part of it all for him and for us was the time we spent with family.  Finn woke up every morning asking to go see his cousins or his Granny (or Granny's red car).  He really loved being around everyone.  Sometimes they came to see us in the flat and it was pretty raucous!  These are pictures that one of the boys took while they were all running around having fun.  It resulted in one of my favourite pictures of Finn - he's laughing so hard and so genuinely.  It's brilliant.

Such a delightful bunch, these boys!!

(This is Thomase pretending to be the same size as Finn on the walk back from the bowling alley)

There was fun to be had at Granny's house as well...

Or at the Morris house...

(we were babysitting... they got a lot of cake...)

Or out on a walk on Christmas Day - one of the precious few days of good weather.

And Finn went to his very first theatre show!  We all went to see the Panto of Robin Hood. For those of you who don't know panto, please see here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantomime
It was great fun and he was engaged for the whole 2+ hours of it!  Here he is at the interval (from James' phone... sorry):

This is what we were there for and it was wonderful indeed!

So that was Christmas!
I'll leave you with a few more pictures just to show Finn at his silliest!
Heidi very kindly gave us a lot of clothes that her boys didn't need anymore. Included was a pair of underpants that had Thomas the Tank Engine on them.  He was so pleased when he found the 'hat'!

And lastly he sometimes does things that we can't explain.  He's just being odd and silly and inventive and lovely.  And we discover him doing some odd stuff. Like this:

Not a clue what he was doing it for!  But I love him for it.  We are constantly struck by how blessed and lucky we are to have such a happy and silly boy.  He is a joy.  But there is one thing he is not.  If you ever imply that he might be a monkey - he will correct you.

 "no Finn a monkey, Finn a big boy."