December - Christmas and other winter excitement

December!
First up, the monthly photos side by side:

25 months (2 years 1 month) old

26 months (2 years 2 months) old

62 months (5 years 2 months) old

63 months (5 years 3 months) old

December was obviously ALL about Christmas, but we did a lot of fun things in the lead up.

Firstly, as mentioned in the November post, we decorated the tree - dwarfed slightly but the street light decorations RIGHT outside our window!

It certainly got us in the mood for Christmas though - and there were a LOT of Christmasy things happening at Finn's school. The big one being the Christmas service (or Jesus Show as called it, and we followed suit) at the church across from his school. The service was all in Manx so it was a bit difficult for us non-speakers to follow, and the songs were a bit hilarious in that we were all basically making it up as we went along - Manx isn't really spoken as it is written so it really was just coming out as gibberish :)
But Finn was excited. The Reception class do the Nativity Scene near the start and he was playing the part of one of the three kings. He looked great and was very proud to be on stage! They also sang a couple songs and it was lovely hearing him practice to himself in the lead up.

His Manx is coming along really well, though if you ask him he doesn't know anything! If you talk to him in Manx though (James and I are also learning) he does understand quite a lot. Unless he clues in that you're speaking Manx to him and then he just rolls his eyes and says "uuuuuuuhhhhh. English, Mum"
Here's one of the songs he learned that clearly wasn't from the Christmas service!

Orry is also picking up a few songs in Manx as he and I go to Possan Cloie (Play group) on Mondays. We love it there. I'm not usually a fan of play groups but I get along really well with the other mums there and because it's quite small and mostly made up of younger siblings of kids in the Bunscoil it's really a nice community. We've solidified some good friendships there - including with big Orry. It's funny to go from London where Orry was such a strange name and we were always explaining it - to here where you have to differentiate which Orry you mean! So he is mostly known as little Orry here (or sometimes littlest Orry depending - there are four currently!), and often insists that he is only referred to as Little Orry, regardless of whether big Orry is about or not! They have a lot of good fun at Possan Cloie though - especially with the dressing up costumes! Which look great on them, I'm sure you can agree.

Speaking of dressing up, Finn decided he needed a 'train track making' outfit - and this is what he came up with! I love it.

They are strange kids though. One dinner time they insisted on pulling the chairs from the play room into this odd configuration... go figure!

And a video of Orry doing "here comes the airplane!" with his spoon... even though we have never done that to him ourselves! He must have picked it up from a video or something...

But anyway, back to Christmas! They other things arranged by Finn's school was a Christmas Fayre with lots of things donated and created by parents of the school to help raise money. I did my part by crocheting some hats (with Orry's ever helpful 'help')

And doing a watercolour painting of the school that was auctioned off in a special auction. I was quite pleased and proud of it in the end, especially as it is only the second watercolour I'd ever done!!

Also, just because I'm proud of it, here is the drawing I was working on for James' Christmas present. It's of Peel Castle and it took me AGES (I was really regretting the decision to do individual stones...)

The school also arranged for a big after school ice skating trip. It was so much fun! Well, for the boys at least. Orry was having a blast being pushed around and 'skating' with my help - which meant my back was aching by the end! But it was worth it for his giggles, and I loved watching Finn be brave and try his best, even without the penguin near the end! It was also great fun being there with all of Finn's school which really are a great bunch of people.

We did lots of non-school related trips out as well. James will often take the boys for a long walk on Saturdays while I clean the flat or do admin or other boring type jobs that are a lot easier without children around. They always take lots of nice pictures to show me when they come back!

During the time off from school we also had a few adventures just me and the boys, while James was at work. The House of Manannin is always a winner, even if it is just to sit and listen to the phones... But a permanent favourite is to go to the wildlife park. I sometimes go with just me and Orry when Finn is in school - and on one of those trips Orry had a great altercation with some peacocks who had the audacity to walk away from him. He proceeded to get quite annoyed and shout 'where you going peacock?!' repeatedly. I couldn't stop laughing!

As you could see from those pics, it really did get time to get the boys haircut - though I didn't want to because I love it when Orry's hair gets curly!! But it was a bit too long and getting in his eyes, so it was probably time. Not before we did some fun bathtime hairstyles though!

We also take trips out as a family. Including a great trip to see a Viking ship burial mound. We misread the map and it ended up being a lot longer walk than we intended but it was a beautiful one - and I bought some fresh eggs from a farm we passed so it all worked out well! We were all happy to finally make it to our destination though. But we did take the short route back to the car (and had a good laugh at how truly short it was - about 1/4 of the time it took us to go the long way!!).

(Speaking of short, you can see this is after their haircuts!! I nearly cried at how short they cut Orry's hair!).

And soon enough we were in the full lead-up excitement of Christmas! Finn had a special early surprise and present when we got a phone call saying that he had one the raffle he had entered in the toy store at Ramsey. We knew nothing about it but played along and then phoned James' mum - sure enough, she had entered Finn's name! And he got to choose any lego set up to £25. This is more than we would ever spend on Lego so he was particularly thrilled to choose one of the 'big boxes.' He could barely contain himself! He got a helicopter and set to work on it as SOON as he got home. But we stopped by Granny's house first for a bit of lunch :)

After the fun in the toy store, Finn needed to write his letter to Santa - with my transcription help. It's pretty good.

He got to meet Santa in person as well, when we went to tea at Milntown. It was a lovely tea with all sorts of treats and activities and a personalised trip in to see Santa and get a little gift. We went with Heidi and her boys (James' mum was unfortunately ill that day, even though it was her who had arranged it all for us! It was a shame she wasn't there but we were all very thankful to be able to go).

And then it was Christmas Eve!! We went to church for the Christingle service - a strange tradition that I still can't quite get my head around (wikipedia's info) but the boys love it because they get sweets and fire! What's not to love...

And then to sleep and wake up on Christmas morning in our own flat. This is actually the first time we have ever been able to do that as we have always travelled to see family on Christmas - so we have never actually been able to have our family Christmas on Christmas day in our own space! It was lovely! We took it very relaxed and everyone had a good time.

Father Christmas was very kind and got Finn both of the things he asked for - and that was all Finn needed in the world, he could have played with it all day. Orry was given a very cool garage thing that again was a big hit... after I managed to put it together that is (I stupidly hadn't realised it needed constructing at all). It's always nice to see that they are truly happy (and that right decisions had been made!).

We then went to James' Mum's house for the afternoon and made our way to Heidi's house for a fantastic Christmas dinner! It was such a lovely relaxing time.
But the fun didn't stop there! We were all very generously gifted tickets to go see the panto which was the Wizard of Oz this year. Finn and Orry were once again enraptured by what was happening on stage (after Orry woke up, of course).

And we took a walk down Summerhill glen which is completely covered in fantastic lights and things to look at and explore. And it also happens to be very close to the Port Jack Chippy which does some great fish and chips :)

After all that excitement we wound down the month with some relaxing family time - using the new fishing nets and heading down to the beach to do some 'fishing.' Unfortunately it didn't last too long for Orry who was knocked unsteady by a wave and fell over, getting drenched. After a few tears and shivering he wanted to carry on playing - and was so annoyed that I insisted I take him home to get some dry clothes on him! But that's Orry in a nutshell. He is very much a brush yourself off and carry on sort of a boy!!
Needless to say they didn't catch anything but rocks... but there will be plenty more options to try!