I had my first day of our school play proper on Tuesday.  It went pretty well, except Mum and Dad didn't come.  They had explained that they were coming on Wednesday to see the more polished and refined version. 

I'm not alltogether sure it was that polished really, seeing as I spent a large proportion of the show wiggling my brand new, super exciting wobbly tooth!  It was lovely to see them in the audience though, in great seats as usual, I gave thgem plenty of waves to make them feel welcome.  Asterwards we had our school christmas dinner which was brilliant fun, and a lovely dinner.
Speaking of wobbly teeth, my front ones is finally out, after what must be months of wobblyness.  It was helped out by Mum, well, when I say helped out, what I actually mean is wrenched out of my head by Mum.  I think we were all pretty relieved, if a bit shocked!
I had my trip to the panto on Thursday, unlike Ned we got to go to Basingstoke on the coach...cool!  It was great fun and really funny, especially thge silly Dwarves (it was Snow White and the seven dwarves).
We had our schools carol concert in the afternoon at the church in town. It was pretty rubbish really, we had to sit on the floor as so many old people had turned up to watch.  The musical element was probably even worse that last years guitars as well, recorders anyone?
We walked back to school and arrive just in time for our street dance lesson.  Christmas themed this weeks to the soothing Christmas tones of Justin Bieber of all people.  Still, we made the best of it and it was good fun.
Friday saw my last swimming lesson of the term, fun week!  It didn't start off as all that fun though, especially for the poor girl having to fish a poo out of the baby pool with a net.  Small pool shut then.  As level 3's, we were allowed ot have our fun week in the big pool instead, what a result.  I took Eva in and made sure she was okay (she's a bit shorter than me).  We had a great time, swimming about, jumping in and floating around on the big floating platforms.  I didn't want to get out!
I finally made my return to Team Kennet this week.  Was good to go back and get amongst it again.
Then, Mum and Dad went out and we got Aunti Trish to look after us.  We were so excited, especially as we got to show her our super mega awesome christmas tree.
This of course meant a brilliant late night and loads of in depth conversations about the world....love it!
Bit of a lay in on Saturday, didn't do much at all.
And then we headed off to the coast for a bit, to East Wittering.  Well, it has been a while.
The sea was pretty rough and we watched a few brave surfers paddle out.
I don't know where Dad's stuff was?  What a wuss.
We had a great time throwing stones into the water:

And chasing (or was it in fact being chased) by the waves up and down the beach as they came rolling in:

It was great fun, until I got a little bit caught out and ended up with a bit of a wet leg. My word, it wasn't half cold!
We bought a sprig of misltetoe which Mum and Dad terrorised us around the house with before setting down to watch Take Me Out.
Another lay in on sunday, Dad popped out to Tesco to get a few mor elights for the tree after Auntie Trish sabotaged them on friday night (well, thats what Dad reckons anyway).
Then we headed over to Anne's for lunch.
She gave us a brilliant job as soon as we arrived, decorate her christmas tree.
Not just any old tree though, one from her garden that Grandad had planted. How cool is that?
Monday was my school disco after school.  It was brilliant of course.  Mr Jones was DJ (is there no end to his talents?)  He was so cool, he even played Gangnam style when I asked him to!

Andy came to babysit for us on Tuesday night.  I think I heard it right when they said Mum was going to the Camp Hopson quiz, and Dad was going with her? 

Weird or what?Anyway, we had a cool time and a little bit of a later bedtime than we would usually have had on a tuesday, cheers Andy.

Wednesday we had our school trip to the Panto.  We didn't go to Basingstoke this year (I think mainly because many people didn't stump up the 'voluntary' contribution towards the coach and what have you last year).  Anyway, Newbury Corn Exhange it was, which meant a walk too.  I was quite happy with that though.

This meant I got to go to Ballet on my own, I got to sit on the front of the car and everything.  I loved it.  I also got the results back from my exam the other week, 87% no less and some very encouraginbg comments.  I was really pleased about that.

We were a bit later back than planned, Miss Walsh told Dad that a sing song had erupted at the railway bridge that lasted all the way back to school.

The show was a very worthy diversion from the main business of the afternoon, eating sweets.

I'm still getting loads of stick for my wobbly tooth collection, Mum's really on my case t get them wobbled out....but it hurts!

I had my re-scheduled and rather late parents evening on Thursday. I wasn't too worried about it even after my shaky start to the new school year. 

Cool thing was that as Mum had to leave work earlier than usual she got to see me at dance class, we did this cool spy themed one.

Turns out I was right not to be worried, well almost.  Apart from being a massive chatterbox i'm doing really well and Mrs. Khosla reckons i'm very bright.  I'll take that.

Then it was friday already, the weeks are flying by in the run up to Christmas.  It was Mr Gilhams last day at our school.

This is a real shame and i'm, sure that one day when i'm an Olympic champion or something i'll giove him a name check for setting me on my way.

We did more rehearsals for the school christmas play, I got commeneded on my super loud delivery of my lines.

I had swimming after school of course, and yet more good news for me this week, i've passed level 3 with flying colours!

And I decided to give Team Kennet a miss again this week so I could go to film club at school. I'm certainly going next week though, thats for sure.  The film was okay, messing about with Alastair and Ben was much better though.

While Ned was at film club we took Mum out for her work christmas do, on the way home we drove through town to get a good look at the christmas lights which I loved. 

Saturday didn't start all that well, there was a fair amount of squabbling and a few raised voices.

This set back plans to go and get the christmas tree somewhat.

But after a bout of prolonged better behaviour we were soon on our way to Yattendon.

We'd already decided we were going to get a monster tree that touched the roof!

It was busier than when we usually go (a wet, dark evening) but there were plenty of trees to choose from.

As usual we settled on one of the first ones we found.

Even if we were rather surprised we were actually allowed it.

We were soon home with the massive beast and we all had a turn at cutting a little bit from the bottom of the trunk before we wedged it into the busket and stod it in the front room:

Our mission statement was definatley realised, we had to chop the top off a bit too to stop it bending over!

Decorating was great fun.

Unless you happened to fall into the tree like I did.  I think I got away with it though.

Unlike most other years we could pretty much empty the entire decorations box onto it without it becoming overcrowded.

We srtood back and enjoyed our handiwork:

Even if the poor old cherub might well get altitude sickness:

Andy and Owen came round in the evening, we treated them to a very impressive dancing display before we went to bed.

Yeah, Gangnam style all the way!

Sunday we went to Auntie Christines for the day while Mum and Dad went shopping.

It was every bit as brilliant as we'd have expected of course, what with Auntie Trish, Darcey, Laura and Owen all playig their parts too.

There was of course baking, craft activities and other Christmas related goings on.

Including a top secret mission into town.

Which I walked into, and indeed back out of without a hint of going on anyones shoulders.

Thanks for a lovely day everyone.

Back to school today then, I made a lovely hat for my School Christmas lunch tomorow.  Well, I say a hat but due to some of my design features it has proved rather difficult to actually make into a hat.  I'm sure we'll come up with some modifications.

We also did a dress rehearsal for our nativity play, the lighting failed, I hope that's been sorted out before the real thing!

I got my silver times tables award at school last week, i've only got a few more to do.  Mum reckons I know them all well enough now, but we can only do one test a week.

He's practicing all the time thats for sure.  I like to chime in with an answer here and there, sometimes I try and get it right, sometimes i'm helpfully silly...ha ha.

I couldn't be doing with ballet this week, i'm putting it down to post

 exam burnout and my usual, trusty excuse of an achey leg.

So no sitting in the car reading for me, cheers Ellis!

In other news, I finally finished my chocolate factory chocolate from Spain this week, amid the intense glare of the rest of the family who have long since gobbled there's up!

Friday was swimming day again, the walk down to the pool was made a lot more interesting after we found some sticks to drag down the metal fence railings. 

They made a great noise!

Back on the subject of swiming, we must be getting near the end of term now?  Anyway, we were being marked again and I put in a very strong performance this week.

Edward and I spent our time wisely comparing progress on our Ipod games, i'll miss these sessions when swimming breaks up.

It was all change this week afterwards though, I decided to miss out on team Kennet to go into town to see the Christmas lights being switched on.  I worked on the basis that Team Kennet is every week, the lights are only once a year and I do love Christmas and everything to do with it!

So we found Auntie Christine in town and waited by the road for Santa.

First up was the ladies on stilts with lit up dresses though, I was so excited:

Once Santa had gone through we followed him into the market place.

Where the snow machine was working overtime.

There was 'snow' everywhere.

And there were loads and loads of people, it all felt really exciting.

There was a bit of a countdown and the lights were switched on, the market place looked really lovely!

But the real glamour was in park way, I don't think this photo does it justice really:

We spent a bit of tim ein the Entertainer toy shop as well, getting a few ideas of what we might put on our christmas lists.

It was the first day of advent on Saturday....I made sure we were up nice and early to get the calendars opened!

I wasn't quite so keen as Ned it has to be said and enjoyed a bit more of a lie in.

Dad threw us a real curve ball by cooking a Saturday roast....I struggled with that concept.

I wasn't bothered what day it was, I polished it off with gusto as usual.

It was the school christmas fete in the afternoon.

We were seriously excited about this one.

Add Auntie Christine, Auntie Trish and Darcey to the mix and we were seriously enjoying ourselves.

As usual we won shedloads of sweets.

Yep, even me as well this time.

We took Darcey to see Santa and everything, what a great afternoon.

Then we all went home for drink and to start on the sweet mountain.

Dad went off out for the night, he was going to see a band, apparently called Ned's Atomic Dustbin? 

Sounds like a great name for a band to me.  I put in a request for a t-shirt and hoped he'd remember.

We settled down with Mum for some serious saturday night tv action before heading off to bed.

Dad was still away on Sunday morning, after seeing to our advent duties we did a mosaic christmas picture each that we'd got from the school fete yesterday.

Yeah, they look really nice if I say so myself.

He got home just after lunch, and he managed to deliver on the t-shirt front, even if it was a little bit big:

I was well pleased with it, well done Dad.

I had Neave's party in the afternoon at Eddie Katz....NOISY TIME!  AFter a bit of a wobble before we went about being left on my own I had a great time and barely even noticed Mum, Dad and Ned leave.

We tended to a few odd jobs until it was time to pick Ellis up.  We turned up a bit early so I could have a bit of a play.  Hugo, Matice and Luca were there which was cool.  We had a rather rough game of rugby on the football court but we were all up for it and there were no tears.