This weeks big news...Chicken Pox!!!! Here I am during my recuperation at home with Mum in the mornings for a couple of days last week:

I've got a marvellous sprinkling of crusty scabs pretty much all over, but Mums been dabbing them with calomine lotion in her best Florence Nightingale style.
School news, i'm getting a lot more reading books to bring home now. When I can be bothered i'm actually pretty good but there's always better things to do...especially Mario & Sonic at the winter Olympics on the Wii. I'm addicted!
Things have finally settled back down at school after Christmas and the snow and i've even earned extra golden time minutes for being good.
And i've enjoyed being able to choose one of many many vehicles to ride to school to pick him up in the afternoons, even if I did manage to go over the handlebars of my trike and end up in a muddy puddle!
The weekend, finally we went out and about...even if it was to flipping Ikea!
Actually, it was pretty good, we went to Southampton which gave me a little time for some DS action in the car...
...and a kip for me!
The car park was brilliant, the curliest up ramp we'd ever seen, round and round and round up four levels right to the top. The views were even pretty good out over the docks on a lovely sunny morning.
The shop itself wasn't bad either, plenty of beds and chairs to test as well as the kids section.
Where I bumped into my friend Joe from school! Getting out of the shop was even better than going in, they had four escalators like the one at Sainsbury's (where you take your trolley on)!
We called in at a little park on the way back which was nice, if a bit cold.
It overlooked the train track and some of the trains leaving the docks were unbelievably long!
We had a look around a bike shop to keep Dad quiet, I trapped my finger in a bike's bell after repeated ding-dingings.....didn't get much sympathy even though it really hurt and made me bleed a little! I've tried milkng it ever since but still no-ones interested.
In the evening we had our belated family Christmas gathering at Auntie Christines, she loved it of course, dishing out the presents:

We had a lovely evening:

Until the electric shock game came out. I got zapped twice by my own doing and then once again when Dad stitched me up...I was NOT happy with him about that I can tell you!

So after a stupidly late night (gone midnight) what does Dad decide is a good idea on Sunday morning? A walk up Beacon hill of all things!

It was for my school project though, we've been looking at landmarks and places of interest around Newbury. I set off at quite a pace:

I didn't....

And soon took the Mum carry option:

But I managed to keep on keeping on and reached the top first:

We were so high up, we could see for miles:

Yeah, it was okay at the top, I did have to have my hood up though, it was a bit blowy!

We contemplated the scenery:

And then headed down again with as much energy as we had on the way up:

Which meant Dad carried me, but couldn't manage Mum as well.

An afternoon with Mario and Sonic saw the weekend out a treat, before it was back to school on Monday.

And I went back to nursery with my nicely crusty scabs!

Well we're really light on content this week if truth be told. Must be because it's January and cold and dark and wet and horrible or something?
School started out on reduced hours last week due to the snow hanging around, as a result Hugo came home with us on Wednesday afternoon. The teachers gave Dad a mixture of looks from surprise, through fear to all out pity as we left. He played a blinder and picked us up on the sledge to drag us home. I must also thank Ellis as she carried our book bags home for us while we slid all the way home.
Well, I didn't much fancy the sledge still to be honest.
We had a good afternoon, we played with the trains, the lego, dived around the sofa, played Super Mario and even watched G-Force on DVD.
I was still going into nursery with Luca and Matice as the paths were deemed unpassable by buggy, the novelty had worn off this week though so I wasn't quite so happy about it. Especially when their dad got the car stuck in the school car park. Mum helped by pushing and laughing, i'm not sure how much the laughing helped though really?
Straight onto weekend action then I think? Hugo's party on saturday afternoon. How exciting.
Mum, Dad and Ellis hung round long enough to see us settled on the bouncy castle (not quite the all out mindless violence of previous years) before dragging Ellis away for a trip to the town...unlucky sis!!!
Yeah, what a shocker, strapped into the buggy and dragged round town....I did not want to get off the bouncy castle! Still, my time will come i'm sure!
We had a great time at the party and played games and all the rest of it, in fact i didn't want ot leave to come home.
It was a quick turnaround though and we were soon round to Abi and Faye's for the evening. After playing loads of Abi's cool games we settled down to watch Pinoccio.
While the grown ups watched rubbish telly and ate stinky curry. Both Ellis and myself were soon asleep on the lovely snuggly sofa/blaket/cushions that Nick had sorted out for us, chers Nick! It was only Abi who managed to stay awake to see the film through to the end, so well done to her.
Sunday, we went bowling in Reading, which of course means the most stylish of footwear:

And the oppurtunity to see the grown up's pants:

Even Mum joined in with the bum showing (bum crack airbrushed out at her request on this one):

I was at total fever pitch about the bowling, I was just so excited.
And I thought the bowling was okay, but not as good as the fact that it was glow bowling (in the dark) and they were playing some really good music (like Cheryl Cole) to dance to.
Once the lights came up and the music stopped the next best option was the arcade:

And then it was Monday, and back to swimming lessons for me! I was pretty nervous about going back before I went. I don't know why, as soon as I was in the pool I loved it and really tried my hardest, our instructor even got me to show the other kids how to do pushing off backwards from the wall and kicking as I was so good at it.
Dad and I sat right next to the pool, we issued thumbs up and thumbs down depending on how well he was doing.
I'll round out this week by telling everyone to switch off your lights and to walk everywhere instead of driving, to save the polar bears...my latest crusade. It doesn't apply to my Scalextric (now installed in the bedroom...vroom vroom) though.....

Snow then, lots and lots of it! It's been pretty weird around here for sure.
My scheduled return to school didn't happen due to the snow so that was a waste walk to school for mum and me. Still, on the upside, we had plenty of mornings with Mum and afternoons with Dad.
And seeing as Ned wasn't at school I didn't go to nursery either...which was good for a while but in the end became a right pain as I missed Suzy and Eva so much! Not only that, Dad decided to smack me in the nose with the sledge:


Here I am after the tears and massive amounts of blood had subsided, thank goodness Mum was home when this happened. After a long cuddle and a bit of a snooze things didn't seem to bad and Dad was forgiven.
Yeah, it was all rather a shame, I only got one go on the sledge before we had to go home and clean Ellis up. Still, there was better sledgeing to come on friday, Dad had the day off so we took Ellis to nursery, Mum to work and then headed to Northcroft:


We had the place to ourselves (unsurprising as it wasn't even 8:30 yet) except for a few people walking to work with envious looks on their faces.
once I was at the bottom, it was quite an effort to get back up again....still Dad met me half way and dragged me back up:

But even half way was a long way for his old legs:

We had a little play on the park, but evrything was a bit slippery:

We had been there for over three hours when I was finally convinced it was time to leave, lured away by the promise of a sausage roll from the pasty shop!

And while all this was going on I was at nursery, having a lovely time. Well I certainly didn't want to go near that sledge again and anyway, i'm not keen on the cold.

Mum had to go to work on Saturday to make up all the time she'd had off with us over the week so we helped Dad get ready for our visitors, The Halfords and Andy came for the night on Saturday:

We had a lovely time and stayed up really late of course. Max was also much better at Super Mario than Dad!

We didn't do a lot Sunday so yet another weekend has passed with minimal out and about activity.

But it was back to school on Monday, even if it was for reduced hours! It's the first time we'd been back since we broke up for Christmas so we had a lot to catch up on!

So then, New years eve, the last day of the year.
We had a morning trip out to the castle with the Halfords, it was great to catch up with them and have some youngsters to play with.
We went to meet Mum for lunch at the restaurant in her shop, we love it in there, it's so high up and you can see loads of interesting things from the window...not to mention the lovely chips!
We had a low key evening, with a couple of visitors and some Wii action, all topped off with some late presents:

Friday was of course New years day, the first day of the year...not that it made much difference to us at all really. Anyway, we headed off to Grandad and Anne's for lunch with Alan and Hayley. There was some more late presents too....wahey! And because we were at Grandads it was 'screw up the wrapping paper and throw it at each other' time:

We had another game of my Lego Minotaurus game in the afternoon, it was great fun playing with Alan, he really gets into it!
Then it was the weekend, so there was a lot of sitting about to be done of course:

But the most exciting thing of all was a trip to the cinema to see the new Alvin and the Chipmunks film!

I'd never been to the cinema before so it was even more exciting for me. We had really good seats right at the back in at the top of the walkway so we didn't have any big heads in the way. It was a bit like watching the telly, but much much bigger and I soon settled in. I did hold dad's hand though...well it was quite dark!
The film was brilliant of course, I was soon out of my seat and dancing along to all the songs.

Yeah, I liked it too, but I got a bit restless towards the end.

We walked home via the new park in the City Playground:

I hurt my delicate bits on the see-saw:

Sunday we went to Auntie Christines for lunch as we hadn't seen her all over Christmas. This of course meant more presents! Here I am getting down to the serious business of Hama beads:

It's the only time i've ever seen Dad with the iron!

And i've been turning myself into the glove footed monster, scary or what eh?

Dad was back to work on Monday, so that was me back to nursery as well. I enjoyed being back truth be told, but it wore me right out. I did love being re0united with Ned though, I missed him after being together at home for so long.

Yeah, I had a couple of mornings with Grandad and Anne which was good, but it's back to school tomorrow....if it isn't snowed off!!!

So we must issue another huge thank you for all the late presents we had over the last week!