Introducing Ellis!

Did you all miss me? Wonder if we’d been abducted by little green aliens from outer space? Or maybe Dad sold me on Ebay? As I’m sure you’re all aware by now there has been a new arrival in the household, but more of that later. In addition to all this excitement Dad managed to break the computer, tried to fix it and only made it worse the fool. So a big thank you to uncle Alan who sorted it all out for me.
Okay then, get comfy because here comes a big update!
Going back three Fridays ago, Owen came round with his new bike. Well I was told it was a new bike but it looked more like a big box to me. I helped them unpack it and then supervised Dad and Owen putting it together. It was quite a nice looking bike, but not as nice as mine! Soon after the house started to fill up as England were playing their first match at the new Wembley stadium. It was pretty dull so Chard and I did skateboarding in the garden instead for most of the first half. When we came in I realised Kimi and Abi had come round to see me too, so I ‘shared’ my toys with them nicely (if a bit reluctantly).
Saturday morning we were all set for a picnic, we had the food and the bikes loaded ready to hit the road when Mum decided we should probably stay a bit more local. You can’t get much more local than the garden. By late afternoon things were starting to happen, it looked like I was soon going to get my new brother! Laura and James came to look after me for a bit while Dad took Mum to the hospital, we had an ace time playing in James’ fancy new car. Mum and Dad were soon home again and Mum still had her tummy so it looked like another in a long line of false alarms. I turned in for the night……
….and when I woke up Mum and Dad were gone and Auntie Chris was at home with me. She fixed me a lovely breakfast before taking me back to her house to do some baking, We got a call from Dad mid morning to say I had new sister called Ellis.
For all you stats fans out there, my official weight was 8lb 4oz's, I was born at 07:05 on the 3rd June 2007 at Basingstoke hospital. My name came to Mum one morning when she woke up apparently, i'm glad she gave it plenty of thought.
I wasn’t too pleased with the news to begin with as I really did have my heart set on a little brother to play with but I soon came round to the idea. We made some extra special shaped biscuits for everyone (Dad got a bike, Mum got a boat after her more ambitious umbrella broke and I made little Ellis a teddy bear) and then went out for a drive, during which I promptly fell asleep. I woke up when we got to McDonalds though and impressed Uncle Ian with my impeccable food presentation techniques. Dad came and picked me and Auntie Chris up in the evening so we could go and have a look at the new one:

Here she is with a very relaxed looking Mum

Here she is with a very tired looking Dad

And here’s one of her by herself in her little crate in the hospital, she looks a bit mean here I think, I better watch myself in future. She has more hair than Dad!
I'd better speak up for myself here I think, I had been through it a bit that morning and I think I look pretty good!

And here’s one of all of us!
Auntie Chris finally came in to see us after hanging about in the corridor for an age and switched between dishing out the blessings, crying, speaking to all the other new mums on the ward and having a good old nosey about the place. She looked to be in her element. Ellis was really tiny but I wasted no time in getting a cuddle with her and giving her a load of kisses. I guess a little sister isn’t quite so bad after all. Dad and I went home to bed on our own, the boys club in session for one last time….
Ned's cuddles were really lovely, if a little 'enthusiastic'
Next day was Monday, so it was back to nursery to for me to show off to my friends about my new little sister, or ‘My Ellis’ as I was now calling her. Dad came to pick me up but I was in for quite a surprise when I got back to the car, Mum and Ellis were there!

Here we are in the back of the car together for the first time. Once we were all home it was bath time! Ellis had her first ever bath and I washed her hair for her, I made a good job of it too. I then had a bath myself and even made my own hair wet by going under water to show Ellis how brave I was, I think she was impressed. We’ve started a new bedtime ritual where Ellis gets into bed with me to hear my bedtime story:

I think she knows the Lion King word for word already.
Hmm, I think he must only have one book.....
So Tuesday saw the start of the social whirlwind of visitors. It was great to see you all but it’s all a bit blurry to go into detail. I’d like to say a great big thanks to everyone who came round and had a little play with me and bought me and Ellis a present, it was like having another birthday!
Yes, i'd also like to thank everyone for all the lovely cuddles and presents, what a lovely welcome to the world I had.
After a few days Ellis started to look a lot nicer than she did when she first popped out!

Saturday was barbecue time at Andy’s. I had a great day, running around like a loony all day with Yanna and Fen:

I decided to sleep all day.
Sunday was back to the social whirlwind again with visits from Slim and Trace and Nick, Carol and Abi.
Monday after nursery we went to Bucklebury farm park.

Mum helped me dig in the sand.

Dad cuddled Ellis for a bit.
I like quite like cuddling Dad, Mum reckons i'm a Daddy's girl already as he can normally stop me crying.

I showed Ellis how good I was at climbing and Mum explain to her exactly what I was doing.
I decided to sleep though it all, except for the climbing demonstration.
Wednesday we took Ellis for her first trip to the supermarket, what a lucky girl.
Yeah, guess what? I slept through it! We did go and 'register' me in the morning though at Mum's old school. I'm all official now!
Thursday I didn’t got to nursery, we went to a theme park near Bournemouth airport instead. It was brilliant. I have a pretty poor track record with fairground rides as most of you will probably remember, but this was different!


















I had such a good time, we rode on elephants, bounced on trampolines, rode a space ride, raced cars, crawled into a crocodiles mouth and best of all we rode on the rollerskate (or rollercoaster as Dad insisted on calling it) even though I wasn’t quite tall enough!
I thought i'd carry on doing what I do best and slept through it!
Friday night Andy, Ben, Rach and Kimi came round for a curry. I tried most of the things on offer……..except the curry!
Saturday we had a bit of a lazy one. Mum helped me wrap dad’s fathers day present which I struggled to keep secret. The issue of muzzies also came to a bit of head today. I’ve been nicking Ellis’ at every opportunity which has lead to a bit of a crack down from Dad resulting in me only being allowed one white one at a time and zero tolerance of my clean washing basket raids.
Thanks to Nick and Carol for getting me the nice pink and yellow muzzies, the toe-rag still tries to pinch them though. I do much more spewing than him so I think I should get first dibs!
Sunday was father’s day, we gave him his present (boring old t-shirt and shorts) before getting him to sort out our picnic, we were off to see Sonia ride her horse Jim:





She made Jim dance, jump and race and it was all very impressive. I really enjoyed it all with Alan showing me around. Jim even had his own lorry to ride home in!
Guess what.....I slept!
In the afternoon Max and Leo brought Emma and Dean around. Max and I went wild as usual.
So then it was all back to near normal on Monday with Dad going back to work.
I've been pretty good at night but made sure i'd give Dad a hard time by having a very uncharecteristc noisy night, just what he needed!
So that’s all for now, I hope you’ve all managed to get this far and we’ll be back to more manageable updates next week. As you can see i've decided to be really good and let her share my blog with me!
Maybe i'll do more than just sleeping this week and i'll some more to tell you about next week......but then agai.........zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

False alarm...

Another week of Mum at home and no Baby then.

Here’s me and Mum discussing the finer points of breakfast cereals. The weather was lovely, so when we got home I persuaded Dad to get my paddling pool out:

I had a good old splash about but couldn’t tempt anyone else in with me. We had to take Mum for a doctors appointment to have a check the baby was okay and as usual it ended up with them having to have a hospital visit for what turned out to be another false alarm. Alan was drafted in to look after me at very short notice in case Mum had to have the baby that night so it did act as a good practice run (don’t worry Auntie Chris, you’ll be involved when it happens for real).
Thursday morning and everything was back to normal, no new baby and back to nursery. I think Mum was a bit disappointed so Dad and I did our best to lay low (but didn’t really succeed).
Friday afternoon we went to the pub:

I’m not sure what sort of shoddy establishment it was but they didn’t serve Ribena, or indeed any form of blackcurrant at all. They tried to fob me off with lemonade:

But I wasn’t too sure if I liked it:

Still, the garden was ace and we played on the swings:

After that it was Alan’s birthday, we went to Pizza Hut (he’s very classy)

As an added bonus Andy turned up with John and Sarah as well as Abi with Nick and Carol and Chris and Katie. I didn’t bother with a Pizza and just had cheesey garlic bread and the ice cream factory:

Saturday morning we all had a massive cuddle up-lie in session until half past ten and then I helped dad wash the car. We went to town in the afternoon and popped in to see Auntie Chris, this week in the loony bin they were dressed as pirates! Mustn’t complain though, I got a sack load of chocolate coins and a pirates pistol, Jim Lad!
Sunday was wet, so wet Dad didn’t even go out on his bike. We hung about the house, watched the motor racing on telly (rubbish, no crashes) and then went to see Nanny who had just got back from her holidays.
Monday was wet. Very wet. We went to the big city bright lights of Basingstoke to get the new baby a buggy to ride around in, got a bag of free Spiderman stuff from the Sony shop (Spiderman 2 on DVD, a Spiderman Alarm clock/colouring book/poster) had a McDonalds for lunch and then went to Toys R Us.

I rode the bikes, scooters and pedal cars around like a loony at racing speeds. Dad was proud (or at least relieved I didn’t break someone’s leg). I spent the last of my birthday money on Emily the engine and a Lightning McQueen racing car so I was very happy indeed. We all love Toys R Us. After that we dropped in on Trish and Al:

Poor Trish even braved the elements to get me some ribena and some lovely biscuits from the shop. We played with my new toys and Al’s ‘vintage’ Lego before I sniffed out the grapes…
When we got home, the ‘pit crew’ of Dad and I assembled the new buggy and I performed a full 74 point safety inspection (by sitting in it and cuddling up with a muzzy):

It seems to be fit for purpose.
Tuesday was back to nursery again and once we were home I decided I would like to ride my scooter to the local park. I scooted really well and stopped nicely at all the road crossing points, they were really pleased with me. We didn’t stay at the park long and I was soon enjoying going down the big hill on the way home. We pooped round to see Kimi:

I understand Dad has copped some stick for not providing pictures of him so I hope this one will do. He’s two weeks old now, and Dad told me to watch and learn as Ben sorted out his nappy as this would be my job when the new baby of ours arrived. Not sure about that…..

Welcome aboard Kimi!

Been loving my horse lately:

He’s been in bed with me and everything.
Big news on Wednesday was the arrival of little Kimi! (He belongs to Ben and Rach) How cool is that? A new little friend for us to play with, I’m pretty excited about it all I can tell you.
In the afternoon we took mum food shopping for the first time. She loved it, makes a nice change for her. We managed to spend more than twice as much as normal though so I don’t know if she’ll be allowed to come again. I managed to turn the passport photo booth into a seaside rescue helicopter…..
Thursday afternoon we had Nanny round for tea. We decided my hair looked a bit drab so we did it up a bit with mum’s fancy paperclips:

She let me eat her ice cream as well:

Friday we went to the races after nursery!

we sat and watched the horses going around the parade ring before going to put a bet on the ones I liked the look of….it didn’t really pay off. We didn’t have a single winner.

I must admit to shedding a few tears after my umpteenth disappointment, I’m sure I’m not the only one to do so at the races. In the evening ‘My’ Andy came round to look after me while Mum and Dad went out. Everyone’s a winner.
Saturday we met up with Alan and cleard the last few bits and bobs out of Grandma’s flat before going round to Chard and Kaz’s for an FA cup Barbecue. The football was rubbish by all accounts but the company was ace:

I had a great time going through the fridge with Chard and watering the garden with Kaz:

Sunday morning dad went out on his bike, he was gone such a long time Mum and I were going to send out a search party! When he did finally arrive home, Mum and I decided to hide from him. He came in and called out hello and I managed to stay silent. He walked around the front room to see where we were without noticing that we were under the table and headed off upstairs. I couldn’t keep quiet much longer and he must have heard my stifled shrieks from upstairs and came looking for us again, firstly in the toilet before finally finding us under the table. Ace hiding Mum! We popped out to find a present for my new friend Kimi! I managed to slither up onto the sofa between Ben and Rach to get a ring side view of the little chap. Photo’s soon I promise…..
Monday we went to town in the afternoon and popped in to see auntie Chris. She’s got some more cooking supplies in for me to make some fancy pastry with her soon. I’m looking forward to that already….Once town was done and dusted we went to Fantasy Land because it was pretty rainy. I gave Dad a special treat and let him play with me (well, there wasn’t many other kids to play with). I had a great time.
Tuesday Dad came to get me from nursery on his own, on the bike because Mum had gone out in the car! I was pretty distraught, it’s the first time they haven’t come to get me together since Mum has been off. I soon got over it once we were on the move and enjoyed the ride home. Mum was home by the time we got back and I wasted no time helping her finish her lunch before settling down for a cuddle up session and a nice snooze. We had an early tea and went to the Nature Discovery Centre in Thatcham:

I played on the big slide, ordered Mum and Dad about and had a great time playing with three older boys who raced me to the top of the castle, I beat them every time!

Then it was time for bed.
It’s been pretty non-stop since Mum’s been off, I reckon Dad and I will be pleased when the baby gets here, Mum goes back to work and we can have a rest!

Boys Club Disbanded

So Friday was the last day of the Boys afternoon club, it was Mum’s last day at work! No more lazy afternoons watching the horse racing.
We celebrated in style by doing a few odd jobs and going to the pasty shop!

We sat downstairs and ate sausage rolls, read the surfing magazines and I even had a little dance when the mood took me! When we got home, I decided I’d like to try a little dentisty:

We used Stinky Zebra as our patient. He had to wait in the waiting room while my assistant (Dad) sorted out my tools and I got kitted up. He had to have al ot of work done and several visits to my chair…. Mum went to the pub with her work mates so she was late home (Sarah dropped her off though so I got a quick cuddle from her). Once she was in though we had her in the chair to make sure everything was in order in her mouth too.
Saturday we went to Grandad and Anne’s for lunch and then we went out on the scarecrow hunt! This year the theme was Nursery Rhymes so I was in my element!



We walked round for ages finding them in peoples gardens before it started to rain really hard and we went home! In the evening the gang turned up to gamble on the Eurovision song contest. In a very shrewd move I sloped of to bed and missed it.
Sunday was still wet. We went shopping in Reading to get some things for the new baby, I’m really excited about it still! After that we went to Yanna and Fen’s house. When we got there Fen was fast asleep and Yanna was still not home. I played with their toys anyway….. Fen was soon awake and Yanna was soon back and we went out in the garden and everything. We hadn’t seen them since before we went to Milton Keynes and they went to Tamworth which means I got a late birthday present (in Christmas paper!) a Nemo etch a sketch type thing, smart! Yanna and Fen’s Mum even has a real life Mini to drive around in, how excellent is that. I got to sit in it and play with the steering wheel and the knobs and everything, it was lovely.
So Monday came around and Mum took me to nursery as usual but instead of her going to work, she went home to watch daytime TV! They both came to pick me up which was nice and we took Mum to hospital for her last Baby check before the big arrival. Everything is okay by all accounts so we’ll just have to keep on waiting. We went out for a walk in the evening after tea. We picked dandelions and blew all the seeds off of them, it was great fun. A bit further along there was a man walking his dog so I simply asked him if his dog had had a poo! What’s wrong with asking that?
Today I got picked up from nursery by the tag team and it was off to the Coral Reef for swimming. I don’t know how mum ever had time to go to work…..

Bike Jumps!

Ongoing Ned issues: Getting my hair wet at bath time. I hate it, still. I don’t mind in the swimming pool or anything like that, but in the bath….NO!
Thursday afternoon we went to the nature discovery centre in Thatcham. We hadn’t been there for ages and I really enjoyed it, there were loads of other kids to play with. Once we were home Chris and the lady of leisure Laura came round. I played hard to get for a bit but soon had them zooming cars across the floor before showing them how good I am on my bike outside.
Saturday we moved Grandma from her upstairs flat to a ground floor one with access to a bit of a garden. I helped Dad and uncle Alan with all the heavy stuff before sloping off for a well earned kip:

After that we headed around to see Slim to wish him a happy birthday. We didn’t stay long because they were going out, but we did stay long enough for a bit of cake and a kiss:

So Sunday was race day, I’d been getting excited about this one all week. We got up early and drove for ages, I was so excited I didn’t even sleep. We arrived at the top of a hill where there were some tents and a nee-nar (ambulance) and Dad signed in (Mum and I also got asked if we were in the queue to sign in! Yeah, a three year old who couldn’t ride without stabilisers and an 8 month pregnant woman). I was dad’s race support crew for the day, I helped him build his bike up and check the gears were working okay before turning my attention to some of the fine detail that often gets overlooked:

I sent Dad off up the start ramp for his first practice run and we waved him off down the hill. A good while later he re-appeared in the back of a great big army lorry with his bike stowed in a trailer! None of this pushing back up the hill lark, how civilised. The lorry looked great fun and I wished I could have had a go, I bet it was better than the bike ride down. He had another couple of goes, and I kept Mum busy while we waited for him to re-appear for another go. Then Andy, Nick, Carol and Abi turned up, brilliant.

We had a lovely picnic in the high winds:

I tried to give Abi a few pointers with her crawling and ate my own body weight in Sausage rolls. Dad didn’t want any, he’s an athlete apparently. He didn’t look like one, flat on his back because his neck ‘hurt a bit’ Then it was race time, he had two chances to maim himself against the clock. I conned Andy and Nick into taking me a bit further down the course to see some action (thanks for carrying me Andy)

We stood and watched as the riders zoomed past. Then it was Dad’s turn, I was a bit disappointed he didn’t wave as he went past to be honest!

We filled in the time by making a makeshift bike out of old bits of wood:

He was soon back up the top and then it was soon time for his second go. We stayed a bit nearer the top this time, and as he went past we shouted some words of encouragement at him, this time he did acknowledge us at least by shouting back at us as he went past. I think it’s fair to say he isn’t going to set the world on fire with race times but at least it gets him out of the house. I’m quite up for a go at it myself ‘When I’m bigger’ (which is my new favourite saying at the moment).

I also got to sample the delights of portaloos for the first time. They’re great, just like a real toilet but with much less space. Mum, Her belly and me in one was quite a squeeze!
So, bank holiday Monday and it rained. That’s the first time that’s happened for a while so we celebrated by staying in, watching the Lion King and having a snooze. Lovely.
Today I was in the big kids room again at nursery, so Iwas pretty beat when Dad came to get me. Nevertheless we still went down for a play in the park on the way home. As we sat on the seesaw, gripping the hand rails for all we were worth in the gale force winds I asked Dad why there weren’t any other kids playing there today…..

No pasty shop shocker

Now Mum takes the car to work Dad and I have to leave nursery on the bike and then try and find whereabouts she has abandoned it in town so we can load the bike onto the back and take it home before going for our weekly shopping jaunt. I find this all extremely interesting and love to help dad get the bike rack on. Once Mum was home and we’d had dinner we went out into the garden for a kick about:

Not really fair playing with Mum, it’s two against one.
Thursday I took my Spiderman and Venom to nursery…..Spiderman won:

Dad reckons he can fix him with some super glue. We went to the park for a bit and I latched on to a girl about my age and her mum leaving Dad to hang about like a psare part. I don’t know why he doesn’t bring a book or a newspaper or something. I only need him when I fall over and start crying.

Once we got home Dad finally decided it was time for Mum’s birthday cake (well I suppose it was right in the middle of easter and my birthday):

I’d decided some time ago that we were going to do a camera shaped cake, I was in charge of decorating it with chocolates. I had to obviously test a good few of them to make sure they were okay before mum got to eat them. I also helped by blowing out her candle for her.
Friday afternoon I helped Dad build his new bike frame up, I expect he would have struggled without me. We also had a visit from Andy and then Chard and Kaz but I was pretty grumpy and not particularly good company, sorry chaps.
Mum worked her last Saturday before the baby comes, so we took her in to work. When we got home I helped Dad clean the car and he gave me the job of getting all the soap off it with the hose pipe. I did a really good job and only got him a little bit wet. I also had a play with Luke and Amy, on my tractor, scooter and bike. We went to meet Mum for lunch (NOT the pasty shop!) and in the afternoon we went to see Nanny:

Trish and Al were there too, and I had a great time playing cars with them. Auntie Chris came to look after me in the evening and we had a lovely time together as we always do.
Sunday morning Dad had sloped off up the woods so it was down to Mum to supervise my painting single handedly:

I made a right old mess! Once Dad was home I helped him cut the grass and then his hair. After lunch we went looking at new baths. It was pretty weird because none of the toilets had water in them?
Mum was off on Monday, we had a walk down to the little shop. I like going with mum because she buys me sweets. I took ages to choose as well, good job Dad wasn’t with us. There’s been some very odd talk in the house about Dad going bike racing so I’ve been reading up on it in his ‘Dirt’ magazine. I like the pictures of the jumps best and I thought I’d try his helmet on for size:

Bit on the big side perhaps? Nevertheless, when i'm bigger i'm going to do BIG jumps!
I came home and had a lovely long kip on the sofa before Dad came home and we went to the Coral Reef swimming. It was good to have Mum with us for a change and we had a great time. I managed to hang around long enough for the big slides to open, Mum said we were coming out of the bottom faster than anyone else!
Got up early on Tuesday morning and switched the telly on, instead of Beebies or the News it was on a music channel. I took one look at the drummer and decided I wanted to do that when I was bigger (Dad informed me I was watching Green Day). Had another kick about in the garden before going to bed (wearing no trousers or pants but socks and sandals) and deciding I would sleep with my head at the other end of the bed for a change. Mum got half way down the stairs before I called her back to re-arrange me, it was a bit too weird.

London

Well we’ve been enjoying the sunshine still with plenty of trips to the park and out in the garden.
Thursday we met Mum for lunch, got some pasties and went to sit by the canal, it was really nice until I up-ended my vanilla smoothie all over her handbag and trousers. Ooops, she had to go to a meeting in the afternoon to with her lovely splattered trousers. Sorry Mum.
Friday night the poker gang came round so I got to see everyone before going off to bed, Abi went to bed in my old room, she’s just discovered she can make loud noises!
Saturday morning and it was a rare family outing to the supermarket, me and Mum had a great time but I think we slowed Dad down a bit. Once that was done and dusted we were off to London to see Emma, Dean, Max and Leo:

The weather was lovely so we made the most of it, even Leo came in the pool.

Dean topped up the pool with a couple of buckets of hot water which made it all the more pleasant although we couldn’t tempt any of the grown-ups in with us.

Max helped me test out my ready bed, it all seemed to be okay.
As is the norm on these visits, we soon got rid of our clothes and played Eye Toy on the Playstation:

Andy arrived later in the afternoon and we had a barbecue, I got to eat my specially selected mini sausages.
Next day we had breakfast outside:

Before I did a bit of modelling for my new saucy calendar:

We rode bikes for a bit and the later in the afternoon we went to ‘Top Golf’ and hit some balls. I shared Max’s clubs, they were a bit heavier than my plastic ones but I gave it a good go. Max was really good and even little Leo had a go! Then it was time to go home, I had a lovely sleep on the way back.
Monday was a bit different at nursery, I got to spend the day in the next room up with all the bigger children. I had a great time with them and got to play with my old mates Jude and Hugo so that was good.
Baby update: It still hasn’t popped out yet. I’ve been giving Dad the low down on what he’s going to have to do once it arrives and making sure that the little one has been getting plenty of cuddles from me via Mum’s belly.