Well summer is well and truly here so it's been a whirlwind of being outdoors, wearing hats and being smeared in suncream...yuk!
We went to the Chase with the Halford boys last week, had a very nice walk around:

We found some nice sticks of course:

We did some digging about with our sticks and threw some stones in the water:

I even managed to get a wet foot crossing a rather nifty brdige that Max made onto our own little island:

And then we pretended to be hunting Lions, which did my hayfever the world of good:

Thursday we had another outing to the park by bike, Ned managed to keep his eyes safe this time so that was a good thing I think.
On Friday we had to perform a french song for the Mum's coffee morning at school. Mum is usually at work but she made a special effort to get to this one one as I had asked her a few times. Anyway, we shuffled in and did our bit while Mum stuffed her face with a lovely dry croissant (we had butter and jam with ours later on, ha ha). She reckons I was really good, of course I was!
Saturday Dad must have wet the bed or something as he got up even earlier than me! I heard him creep downstairs though and offered to 'help' with the picnic...he was overjoyed about that. I made sure I woke Ellis and mum up as well for good measure.
Hmm, yeah thanks Ned, we were at the seaside in Mudeford by just after 9 in the morning so it was all worthwhile in the end:

We love walking along walls:

And we love parks:

I was intrigued by the lobster pots, even though they were a bit on the smelly side:

I got my wetsuit on and took dad for a paddle, Ned stayed dry though:

The main reason for us coming was to have the Teddy Bears picnic i'd been planning! I'd decided it was their birthday so we had cakes for them and everything. The truth behind it was that I had so much fun watching Dad try to light Ellis' candles outside on her birthday i was keen to replicate the amusement in a sea breeze:

We snoozed on the way home, just as well as we went to the pub in the evening with Andy, Ben, Rach, Kimi and Marney. We played, we climbed we drank fizzy coke, I visited the toilet several hundred times....

I ate Kimi's sausage and mash, even though i'd already had my own tea...you snooze you lose!!! Actually he didn't go to sleep.....

Even uncle Alan turned up just as the drinks were running dry...good timing or what! Anyway, we'd had a long day so had to go early at about 10:

While we were there I managed to sniff out a few walls to walk along:

Sunday we went to see Faye for the first time, she was really lovely, so lovely in fact that I gave her a cuddle (a picture may surface of this in the future).

Then Andy came round for lunch!
Before we headed off to visit Kin with his dodgy old leg, he's very fast at hopping!

Us kids had a whale of a time while the old codgers sat about on the patio.

It was wear your pyjamas day at nursery today, any excuse to dress up, I loved it! I wasn't so happy when Dad said I had to get chanegd when I got picked up though. I didn't realise we were going to the park to meet up with mum. As luck would have it we also bumped into Owen and Hannah so that was nice, we sat and had a nice cool drink...don't tell Ned!

Finally, after days and days of hot weather, Dad actually got round to getting the paddling pool out.

And I for one couldn't wait. I got in fully clothed while Ned still had the hosepipe filling it up. I got very wet, very quickly indeed:

We left it to fill up while we had a barbecue for tea, once that was all done and dusted we had a mass splash fight in the freezing cold water....it was great fun.

Home news this week...the stairgates are no more. Seeing as I am able to go up and downstairs on my own now and also the fact that I had worked out how to open them dad decided that he'd had enough of tripping over them and they are no more!

And last of all, we;re on a nursery trip to the Cotswold wildlife park this weekend, there's a sponsored animal hunt if anyones interested. We have a list of thirty animals, 30 sounds very ambitious with the amount of picnic stops we'll be having.....

First off, a big welcome to Faye, Abi's new sister! We can't wait to meet you!
I don't know why i've never thought of it before, but the last trip to Tesco's I decided to help myself to the packet of Cheddars (our favourite) that Dad had put in the trolley. Before he realised what was going on i'd got the packet open and stuffed a good few in my mouth! He wasn't best pleased about that...oops! There were rather a lot of crumbs too.
I like to get up stupid early on saturdays so I can watch Toonattick on ITV, it's my favourite (and not on during the week, so I don't mind having a lay in on weekdays). This week I decided to treat myself and take my duvet down with me too, it was lovely and snug. When Ellis finally got out of bed I think she agreed with me:

Mum went off to a work meeting on saturday morning, so we dropped her off and went to see the Halfords, I needed to borrow some Knights gear for Louise's party that afternoon:

Thanks for the clobber Max, I looked the business, even though I do say so myself. The party was great fun, there was only Shimon and I to entertain all the princesses! Mum and dad cleared off and left us to it, we made crowns, ate cakes, rolled about on the grass bank and I won a pop up dragon game. Best of all though was a little tortoise in the party bag that you could squeeze and make his long tongue come out!
While Ned was at the party I had a cuddle up session with Mum, it was nice.
Once Ned was back from the party we had a quick bite to eat and headed to the pub, with a garden to play in:

Trees to climb:

Swings to swing on, I actually managed to learn how to propel it all by myself at long last:

We had a kickabout with the football.....I told Mum and dad to 'watch this' as I hoofed the ball......straight at their drinks, knocking them both over...oooops! I took no chances with my coke after that:

I gave my baby a swing for the first time, she seemed to like it:

Then on the way home Mum and dad stopped for a kebab, I got talking to the chaps in the van and got a guided tour, a can of coke and a kit kat chunky for free. The trick is to ask them if they sell milkshake and then they feel really guilty! Dad wanted to know why I didn't get a bucket of chili sauce.....

So Sunday was fathers day, I don't know why really, he always gets treated like a king and gets to do what he wants anyway. By way of a treat for him we decided to let him make us an extensive picnic and drive us to Legoland!

I had my first go on the carousel on an up and down horsey on my own:

We rode the train together again:

We even played on the splashy watery stuff this time:

And I let Dad take it easy:

I noticed something rather funny this week on the Sainsbury's roundabout. There's a banner stuck to the fence advertising an upcoming Simply Red (who?) concert at the racecourse. Someone had seen fit to draw what can only be described as a 'winkie' right next to the mans nose (apparently it's Mick Hucknall). Mum and Dad seemed to find this hilarious, and of course so did I......although i'm not quite sure why......

We started the week's social activities with a trip to Snelsmore with the Halfords. The grown ups were hell bent on getting to the swing in a tree, we were more interested in carrying the biggest sticks we could manage....
Or trying to walk as slowly as possible in an attempt to open up enough daylight between Dad and I so I could bend down and drink some puddle water!
The outdoor theme continued on Thursday after school with a bike ride down the muddy lane to the other nearby park. We had a lovely time, assisted by my kitchen porter Ellis we ruslted Dad up a number of delicious concoctions (mint choc chip ice cream and tomato sauce anyone?) in our make believe kitchen at the top of the slide. Each course was either delivered by Ellis, via the slide or we just dropped it onto his table from above.
And then on the ride home Ned decided to do something to his eye...
Hmm, it all got very sore and I gave it a really good rub until it was pretty red. By the time Mum was home from work it had swollen up and was looking quite unpleasant by all accounts. She took me to the doctors and they said that they had never seen such a swollen eye! Cool or what? Trouble was we had to go to A&E in Reading....not so cool.
Oh I don't know, I got to go to the Halfords, Emma sorted me out with the biggest bowl of spaghetti I have ever seen, or indeed eaten. the boys then proceeded to make a massive fuss over me all evening, thanks a lot chaps, I loved it!
Well, it all turned out okay for me too, they had special childrens waiting rooms so we sat and watched the Lion King waiting for the doctor to see me. She had a really good look and couldn't really see anything wrong with it, other than suspected conjunctivitis. Mum doubted the diagnosis (Mum always knows best eh?) but was happy that i'd been checked out and my eye wasn't about to explode anytime soon. Either way, it was pretty much back to normal by now, all except the redness anyway. I got some cream to have squirted into it and a McDonalds drive through on the way home as it was too late to have anything else, excellent.
So a rare treat for us on Friday, Mum stayed home and there was no school or nursery, yay!
Which was probably for the best after our late night excitement. We had a lovely morning, playing with Ned's bubble game he had for his birthday, even though Mum did her best to break it by flooding the machine with bubble solution.

On the whole it was great fun, except for the few hefty swipes I took from Ellis' wand.

So after our restfull day we were well up for the school fete on saturday. Dad and I left early in the morning as we were helping set up the stalls and the bbq's and whatever else we could get ourselves into. Actually, Dad did most of the hard work, I played with Noah and George, although I did move some very heavy tables which certainly impressed some of the mums.
Mum and I joined them at opening time and we were put to work right away on the straws in the sand stall. Mum and the other lady on the stall felt sorry for the children who didn't win so started bending the rules a little in the contestants favour.

Uptake on the bouncy castle was surprisingly slow, maybe my reputation has spread?

The fire engine was brilliant, I sat in it for ages:

And the fireman didn't tire of answering my endless questions either:

And then we got to pelt Dad with wet sponges:

I think it may be a good idea to get some of these stocks at home for him actually?

It was a rather tiring day:

Auntie Christine came round to look after us on Saturday night, brilliant!

Once we'd got over the disappointment of Primeval not being on, we really enjoyed some royal event coverage or other, with soldiers on horses with big furry hats and all the rest of it.

So, Sunday then and another first! Ned goes to a party without the three of us hanging around and crashing the do!

Yeah, it was Josh's birthday and 15 of us were going to Finkley Down Farm. I was so excited about it, the rest of the family didn't get a backwards glance when they dropped me off at their house. Obviously details of the day are scant, but I can tell you I won a bouncy ball with lights in it for musical statues (I know, Me, Still and quiet?) and I had enough stickers on my shirt to cover a small island declaring all the animals i'd held or fed.

So Ned was soon forgotten by the rest of us and we headed into town for a pleasant unhurried stroll and along the canal.

We had a relaxing lunch, devoid of Ned's usual mealtime banter and then headed out with my buggy for a walk in the afternoon:

Although I was more interested in drinking from Ned's spiderman bottle, don't tell him!

We even managed a bbq for tea, how very nice indeed.

So, school news then. We had a visit to the year one area today in preparation for my move up after the summer holidays. Best of all was their playground of course. We've also been learning a song in French, Hugo must find that very easy!!!!

Nursery? I love it. So much so that when Dad comes to get me, I have to picked up and dragged out these days.....

I'm 2! Yes thats right, 2! How about that? This means I no longer have a report form given to Dad daily at nursery of what i've been up to. Ha ha, he doesn't know if he's in line to clear up a monster poo, whether i'm going to be hungry or whether i'm going to have a kip. It's much better to keep him on his toes. The ladies at nursery do try to tell him what i've been up to, but I make sure I distract him so he can't take it in.
On our way to nursery we see an old man most days (unless Mum is running really late). He always says hello and I always ignore him. I have now decided that as I am 2, I really ought to start answering him back, so I did! I think he was very pleased when I said hello to him.
As one of the older ones in my room at nursery now i've decided to take a position of responsibility with the younger kids. If they are doing something naughty or that I don't like I tell them off! The ladies at nursery love a little helper.......
It doesn't work at home though, we're starting to have some rather good disagreements over some seriously trivial things.
Anyway, to mark my birthday we went out for a picnic, as well as the food we also had presents:

I got a Night Garden chair all of my own and a little bit of bling:

We had a good old run about:

We ate our picnic and looked rather windswept:

You should have seen Dad trying to light my birthday cake candles in the brisk wind.....

Then we had a bit of a kickabout. Dad had to resort to fouling me to win:

We had a little gathering on Saturday, here's Abi helping me to undo my presents:

We created a bit of a traffic jam in the garden:

And I attended to the important things like cake:

No such candle struggle this time round though:

We did some extreme fancy dress sliding:

And then crashed out:

I had some lovely presents from everyone, my wardrobe is now bulging and I had a sprinkling of really lovely toys too. I'm very lucky indeed, thanks everyone.

Maybe I can get a word in edgeways this week? Ummm, what have I got to say? Dunno really, oh yes I do! I had to have a new pair of pumps for school and I was desperate to have some size 11's. Mum said I could only have the ones that fitted properly and I wasn't to worry about what size they were. Anyway, we went to have my feet measured and I really did need a size 11. I was so pleased it was ridiculous. I loved waltzing into school to show them off to anyone who'd let me.

I still love Primeval. Max and I cuddled up to watch it on saturday and I managed to find it on ITV 2 last night too, that delayed bedtime a bit.

Swimming lessons didn't go quite so well this week. I was first across the pool everytime, but our instructor said I was doing too much running and not enough swimming. To make things worse, Dad agreed with him afterwards, I was not happy.

After school today Shimon and I started dry slope snow boarding (see the following video) before I managed to partially crucify myself on the playground fence whilst talking to my friends on their way home. Oops, Dad had to come and rescue me but it took him a while and I was quite upset.

I've got my first party away from Mum or Dad or indeed Ellis this weekend so that'll be interesting. This also means that i'm not allowed to go to one she has coming up, not too happy about that as it happens.....hmmmm!

Yeah, rumour has it i'm going shoe shopping while Ned is away this sunday, how great is that going to be?

Well we're back!
Indeed we are.
We finished school on Friday for half term and had a sneaky early evening drink up the Bowlers arms with the Halfords.
And I finished nursery for a week too, dragged away from my beloved Eva for a whole week.
I picked all my own clothes to pack for holiday but apart from that we had a lazy day on saturday, acclimatising for our week in the sunshine by lounging about in the garden and having a barbecue for lunch.
Yeah, we laid on our backs looking up at the aeroplanes going over the clear skies above....
Then the next day, we were on one ourselves (after a very early morning start):

We had a slight delay before we took off due to a pukey passenger, she had to be escorted from the plane by a doctor, I hope she's okay now.
Once we were airbourne we adopted our favoured positions, me having a lovely nap spread across mum and dad's legs....
...and me whooping an hollering during take-off, playing DS, looking out of the window (particularly good over the alps) and then pulling the window blind down, much to dad's annoyance.
In what seemed like no time at all we were coming in for landing at Pisa airport.
I announced in my best loud voice that we were coming in for landing, and then we were in Italy at last. I loved spotting our bags coming round the conveyor belt and pretty soon we were on our way to get our hire car.
This took a while if truth be told.....
Yeah but while you lot were queing up, I had a great game of spin the high cafe chair with another little girl, it all went a bit wrong when we span one so hard it toppled over with such force it almost started an earthquake...oops!
We were soon on our way though, driving on the wrong side of the road and everything.
The tunnels we went through on the way were brilliant, loads of them and some of them so long you couldn't even see the end!
When we arrived at the campsite mum and Ned went off to find out where we would be staying and get our keys, dad and I were quite happy in the car with the aircon running full tilt until and old man came over and asked us to kill the engine, I think he was watching Italian Deal or No Deal in his nearby tent and couldn't hear it over the din of the engine. Once we turned it off it soon got so hot we had to get out too, only to find Ned schmoozing Elinor, the lady with the keys for us.
She was of course my new best mate and I latched on to her straight away, paying her plenty of visits during the week to tell her what we'd been up to.
We soon settled in, the sun loungers were to my liking:

The deck outside was met with universal approval, despite the look on mums face here. i think that is a result of the standard of bread on offer. We tried every type of bread from every shop and restaurant we came accross, but it all seemd really quite hard going.

As big brother the top bunk was definatley for Ned, but at least he let me have a little go on it with him, I loved climbing the ladder in there whenever I got the chance unwatched:

I think this baugette was just about passable:

On our first full day we went to the supermarket to stock up, now this was much more exciting than our wednesday trip to Tesco.

Yes, even I was moderatley entertained for a bit, but the pool beckoned in the hot sunshine.

Indeed it did, the top pool was more to our liking than the other one we briefly had a dip in on the first day:

Best of all was the showers, there was a little tap at the bottom for washing your feet, it came out like a raging torrent:

Then it was barbecue time, dad even let me encroach on his territory for a bit of alfresco cooking:

Mum and I had to settle for just looking after the equipment for them:

We made a bit of a mistake with the shopping, what we thought was strawberry milkshake turned out to be cream, called MUKKI of all things!

The site itself was lovely, covered in trees and little pathways for me to explore but best of all were the lizards. Here we are inspecting one of their hidey holes in a wall:

Here's a shot of me posing on some stairs:

And here's a shot of one of the lizards we saw, according to the internet it's an Italian Wall Lizard. I wouldn't argue with that, it was in Italy, on a wall and was most certainly a lizard.

Did we mention how great the pool was?

It was brilliant, all covered in soft grippy rubber stuff, ideal for us little and not so little ones:

It wasn't all grippy though, ha ha!

I took the oppurtunity to try on some alternative footwear:

There was even a little train to shuttle you up and down the hill to the pool:

We had a few quiet moments, I love guess who!

We even had a few trips out and about, here we are in Pisa by the river Arno:

We were of course searching for the leaning tower:

It was brilliant, I loved it, I loved it so much I bought a postcard of it and a small model of it too!

We sat and ate lunch looking at it, contemplating how it doesn't fall over:

I enjoyed my fruit drink:

We wandered around the grounds, it was great for me, lots of steps and ledges to climb:

I amazed mum and dad with my ability to enjoy the architecture, I lapped it all up:

I took a particular fancy to the Santa Maria della Spina for some reason and demanded a number of photo's by it:

Even just boring old flights of stairs were brilliant:

After all that charging about, we decided a relaxing day by the pool was in order. I loved my strawberry towel and cuddling up for a soggy kip:

And I certainly made myself at home, when I could tear myself away from my new found friends:

I always had time and room for Ellis though:

So after were all recharged it was off to Florence. We went on the train this time and if I thought the tunnels on the roads were long the one on the train trip was unbelievable.

So here we are on the Ponte Vecchio a pretty weird bridge with shops on.

Jewellery shops too, I loved them and wanted enough bling to make Mr T struggle to hold himself upright under the weight of it. I promised mum i'd put my own shoes on all the time if I could have some, two American ladies overheard my offer and pledged to match it if she bought them some too. Sadly all three of us were declined.

They seemed to love their rowing in Italy, even in the heat!

I can't believe we've got this far without mentioning the main attraction of this part of the world, the ice cream:

We went to the Giardini di Bobboli for a walk around and some picnic lunch, the entrance was very grand indeed:

Here is the obligatory self timer shot of the week:

And here is a shot I begged dad to take of my butt:

After a long slog up the hill (with Ned in the buggy I might add!) we got some great views over Florence if that sort of thing floats your boat:

Our main reason for coming to the park was to see Bacchus though, we searched for him everywhere:

We couldn't understand any of the maps of the place as they were all in Itailian and we had given up all hope of finding him. We we're heading for the door when we spotted him just by the exit! A naked bloke, riding a giant tortoise. If thats what wine does for you, you can keep it!

We headed on for the Piazza Della Signoria which was full of statues. I was intrigued by them but to be honest some of their facial expressions rather unsettled me:

They didn't bother me, I was fast asleep:

I did a little people watching too:

I slept some more:

We wandered around the Duomo, it was okay I suppose but it was getting pretty hot and we getting al ittle weary:

So we headed back to the railway station to head back to base. Which was a great idea but the information boards were a little lacking and we had no idea what train to get on. Mum went off to find out and came back directing us to platform 16 to board the train that was just leaving.

Dad sat in silence, terrified we were heading off in completely the wrong direction into the Tuscan countryside, never to be re-united with the hire car again.

I don't know why he was so worried, everyone knows mum's a train spotter!
We earned another day by the pool after our cultured jaunt, and seeing as the bread was of such a poor standard we had to ditch the picnics in favour of the poolside catering, result!

Dad was the lucky recipient of my soggy sleepy cuddle up session this time, doesn't he look cool with his sunglasses falling off:

So here we are in our stylish pool attire, a Belgian lady was coveting my sunsuit actually, apparently you can't get them in Belgium:

And I finally relaxed my no photo's rule for this one of me by the best pool ever.

And here it is in all it's glory. I barely saw mum, dad or Ellis on our pool days and made it quite clear that I didn't want to play with them at all as I had my new found band of older friends who were much better fun. Actually, if my mates weren't about I did lower myself to spend a little bit of time with the family.

It was great to have mum and dad all to myself while Ned was far too cool to be with us actually!

All too soon it was time to come home again, rubbish! I really loved every minute of it and made it perfectly clear that we were to come back again as soon as possible.

When we got back to the airport to come home the weather looked none too clever so it was probably a good thing we were leaving:

Once we were inside the terminal building, I found my friend from the cafe chair near disaster the previous week and we wasted no time at all getting into more mischief! We were soon on the plane and heading home, resuming our normal positions of DS and window for me...

...and sleeping across as many laps as I could stretch to for me!
So then it was back to school, nursery and work for everyone...until next time!