Aaron's Blog

Archive for the ‘Christmas’ Category

Here are the boys (and Kelly!) meeting Father Christmas at Trago in December 2014. Each of them got a little present and told him (apart from Coby) what they wanted for Christmas! Aaron asked for an Ambulance and Ben asked for a remote control Transformer! 😉

Before Christmas, Aaron had to dress up for a pre-school Christmas party, and Aaron wanted to dress up as an Elf, so here are some pics of Aaron the Elf. 😉

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Aaron had been very excited about Christmas from the moment we put the Christmas Tree up, but unfortunately on Christmas Eve, he got ill with croup again.  We had just gone to bed when we started to hear Aaron coughing badly and then crying and wheezing. So we got him out of his bed and brought him in to us and the poor boy started to get get flustered with not being able to breath properly.  It was getting so bad that we almost took him to casualty which would have been an absolute nightmare on Christmas Eve.  Luckily, Kelly managed to calm him down and he came into bed with us for a little while and nodded off until he was calm enough to go back into his bed. Suffice to say, we didn’t sleep much after that as  we were both keeping an ear out to hear him breathing, but he was fine for the rest of the night and slept right through.

On Christmas morning, Ben was the first to get up, with Aaron not far behind but he didn’t look and sound very well. His little voice was all croaky and he looked quite pale. He was excited though when he saw that his stocking was brimming over with presents from Father Christmas! It didn’t take him long to start digging in and opening presents, and even started munching on chocolate that was in his stocking! Thank goodness he was enjoying himself still even after the awful night he had had!

Once the stocking presents had all been opened (and some fully eaten!), we went downstairs and Aaron went a little mad when he saw the huge amount of presents under the tree! He was saying ‘Wow…wee’ quite a lot! I had to stop him from diving straight in and unwrapping the first presents he came to! It took most of the morning to finish opening the presents, and by this time, Aaron was so excited he was being a little naughty! Some of the presents he had included a new Spider-Man ride on bike, Rex from Toy Story, a Spider-Man figure, clothes, chocolate, some nice new books, a new toy bus, Penguin Race game, Robo Fish, lots of little toy cars, Mario Kart Scalextric (joint present from Father Christmas with Ben) and many other items which he loved!   He was so interested in playing with his new toys that he didn’t eat loads for Christmas Dinner, though I guess he wasn’t feeling up to it much due to his croaky croup, although he was fine with chocolate! He spent the rest of they day playing, apart from a few cuddles as he was tired, and showed Nan Nan and Pops and Grandma and Grandpa Tony some of his presents on the web cam before tea time.

In the end, Aaron had a lovely Christmas day and seemed to be much better by bed time. There were no croup attacks that night, thank goodness, and he had a decent sleep which helped a lot!

Here are some photographs of Aaron on Christmas Day.

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A couple of weekends before Christmas, Kelly and I booked up a surprise weekend for the boys at Butlins for their Winter/Christmas spectacular. We managed to get a really good deal for the 3 nights so we couldn’t turn it down really! We didn’t say anything to the boys until just before we left on the Friday, so when we told them, they were ecstatic! Ben was jumping around and hugging us and Aaron was following suit, probably because he was too young to understand fully what was happening! 😉

So we got up there on the Friday late afternoon and went to our apartment (no free upgrade this time!) and unloaded our gear. Kelly had made pasties for us so we had those quickly for tea before going over to the Skyline to view the evening shows. We saw a show called ‘Winter Wonderland’ which was basically a Christmas musical, which was great. The boys loved it, as well as the lightsaber toys we got them as all the other kids had something similar from the shop! We then went in the arcade and saw a couple of other shows in the main pavilion. The boys had a great first evening and didn’t go to bed until quite late!

On the Saturday, we got up a decent time and went swimming. We had a good hour or so in there and the boys enjoyed going around the ‘river’ section where the current pulls you along. Was freezing when we got out though!! We then nipped home for showers and then went to the pub for lunch. It was very good this time and pretty quick, which was a relief as the pub was pants when we last visited Butlins in July. We then spent the afternoon in and out of shows (inc Superslam Wrestling where Ben and I got some autographs and Ben hi-fived a wrestler!), and also stopped in the arcade occasionally. All the shows we saw were great and good fun to watch. The highlight of the day was the ‘Skyline Snowstorm’ which started off with a few songs from the Skyline Gang, and then a countdown until the snow commenced.  It wasn’t actual snow mind, but small bits of silver glittering paper fired into the air via some very strong fan units. The effect was great though and was just like a snowstorm. The boys loved it and were ages playing with the glittering paper by picking handfuls up and throwing over myself and Kelly. Very good fun! We then had to go off to see Father Christmas at 18:45 as this was the timeslot we had been given. We first had to walk through the pouring rain to the front of the building and to the entrance of the winter wonderland, and then through a very well done walk that included Christmas ornaments and settings, until we got to an Elf who let us in to the queue to see Father Christmas.  There was a bit of a wait which included meeting the Gingerbread Man (and a photo) and counting how many present images were hidden around the area.  When the boys met Father Christmas, he was asking them questions and Ben was answering nicely and then they posed for photographs by myself and a redcoat guy, and then they each got a box of chocolates. We then made our way out through the rest of the Wonderland and back outside. It was very good and very well put together!  The evening actually got even better when, later on, I won a large Minion soft toy on my first go on the grabber machine in the arcade! I was so excited I was shaking as I hadn’t won anything on those machines all year! 😉 Ben then went and claimed it though! Cheek!

On the Sunday, we went to Bob The Builders Yard where we spent hours last time as the boys went around all of the children’s rides. For some reason this time, Aaron didn’t like half the rides which was a shame! He started crying on several of them so we had to have them stopped to take him off! We saw several more shows during the day, with the best one being the Pantomime ‘Beauty and the Beast’ which a lot of the entertainers from the other shows acted in (inc Skyline Gang members). The Pantomime was great and very funny! Aaron slept nearly all the way through it, but we enjoyed it very much even though we weren’t in the most ideal of places! We also went to a craft workshop afterwards where the boys made a cracker each. Ben got in a mood in this as he didn’t want Kelly to help! So she had to ask for a new one to start again and then let Ben do it all on his own! Tut! Aaron also had to dash to the toilet there as well which was typical, but luckily there was a little toilet in the craft area! We saw other shows, including the Snowstorm again, which were all very enjoyable and had some more time in the arcade and Ben went in the soft play area next to the arcade. We won several little toys on the 2p machines (we were addicted!) and had great fun, although by this point, we were quite tired and couldn’t quite believe it was Sunday evening already! The boys also got a large Christmas balloon each during the afternoon – Father Christmas for Ben and a Snowman for Aaron.

Sunday night was a bit of a nightmare as Ben woke up crying lots and wouldn’t go to sleep as he said he had earache and his cough started up badly again. Kelly ended up having to sit up with him for half the night, which was not good seeing as we had to pack our things and drive home on Monday. I was a little worried about the lack of sleep and having to drive for a couple of hours, but we managed it OK. We quickly went back to Bob The Builders Yard during the morning and had a last wonder around again (and packed the car in the rain!), before leaving Butlins and parking in the car park at the sea front (across the road) to have a bite to eat before setting off home.

We had had another great time at Butlins and enjoyed every minute of it (apart from losing Aaron for 5 minutes on the Sunday night!) and would love to go back again sometime soon.

Here are some photographs of the holiday. 😉

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As Ben was getting excited for Christmas weeks before, so was Aaron. He didn’t really know what was going on again as he was still small but was very excited about the Christmas tree! 😉  He kept putting toys under it for the few weeks that it was up before Christmas Day, I suppose he thought it was presents!

On Christmas morning he didn’t wake up early like he normal does but slept in until 7am like Ben did, until I went in and woke them up. Once they were awake and saw the over-filled stockings brimming with presents, they were right on!! I picked Aaron out of his cot and he grabbed his stocking and dragged it into our room, along with Ben. We plonked him down on the bed with his stocking and he dived in, although he sometimes seemed more interested in what Ben had. Aaron opened a few presents then came across the first chocolate present, and that was that then!  He wouldn’t open anything else until he had dug in to his chocolate! 😉

Eventually, he finished opening them all and had some really nice stocking fillers and we then had to put them all back in and go downstairs to see if Father Christmas had arrived and left any presents behind for anyone! I think Aaron’s words when he walked through the door and saw the huge amount of presents were ‘Wowee!’  He had been saying this a lot at the time, especially when he saw any Christmas lights (which he loved!). Both boys tried to dive in but we got a drink first (and they both had some more chocolate!) and then we proceded to opening the presents.  We usually open one at a time but the boys had to open one each at the same time, which did actually speed things up! I think Aaron played with every toy that he opened and also tried to have a go at anything Ben had opened as well, so they both had great fun although there were a few tantrums!

Aaron ate all of his Christmas dinner as well as some starters of fruit, even though he had been chomping on sweets and chocolate all morning! Im not sure if he had his usual morning nap as it all went by in a bit of a blur, so he may or may not have! I don’t think he did as the excitement was probably too much for him to sleep! 😉

When we spoke to family online later on in the day, like Ben, Aaron tried to show as many of his new toys to them as possible (via Google Hangout) but he was getting tired and teasy at this point. The boys both went to bed at a decent time (must have been about 7:30pm) and actually slept very well during the night, so they must have been completely worn out by all the excitement of Christmas Day!

Some of the presents that Aaron had were a moving truck which made noises, Junior Tag and books, Mickey Mouse play set, a soft Mickey Mouse cuddly toy, a Fireman Sam magnetic drawing pad, some new clothes including pj’s, sweets and chocolate, toy helicopter, a magnetic and chalk easel (which was for both of them), a Pirate ship and castle (which was for both of them), a Spider-Man tent (which was for both of them, a Peppa Pig moving car, some new lego and blocks and much more! Thanks to everyone that bought him a present, he loves them all and plays with everything all of the time!

Here are some pictures from Christmas Day and the ‘Night Before Christmas’.

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