Did you miss us then? I bet you did, but surely you’ve all had better things to do than be on the internet over Christmas?
Okay then, going way back to the Wednesday before Christmas I accompanied Mum to have her hair cut, how very lady like.
I went to nursery and then made Dad come out and play bikes with me:

I was way too fast for him and made Mum and Ellis freeze on the doorstep watching us. A bit later on in the afternoon we headed over to see Yanna and Fen. We were joined by Nick, Carol, Abi and Andy as well. Melissa sorted us kids out some proper dinner while all the grown ups had to make do with takeaway curry…yuck!!! I love playing with all their toys, and this time I especially liked the dressing up stuff:

We even had special early Christmas presents, I was rather late to bed…..
…and on Thursday morning I got given the choice of nursery or Tesco’s. Rather surprisingly I chose Tesco and helped Mum get all the good stuff in to help tide us over for Christmas.
I had a weigh in with the health visitor in the afternoon and I’m piling it now!
While we were in town I decided I wanted a haircut too, well Auntie Christine wasn’t at work so it was the next easiest way of getting a lollipop. I was really good during my trim though and looked pretty cool afterwards. After tea we dropped Dad off at the pub for his Christmas party which I found intriguing, a party without me!!!
Yeah, and he wasn’t looking too clever on Friday morning! We all walked to nursery with Ned and I in our double buggy to help Dad clear his head (he had a day off work, probably just as well). It was freezing on the way home after we had dropped Ned off but Mum did her best to keep me warm. I’m not so sure about this winter lark. A bit later on in the morning I got taken to nursery for my trial run. Mum and Dad dropped me off with Jess and off they went for a couple of hours. I didn’t mind though, I had a great time.
Yeah, and I made sure everyone in my room knew that my sister was at nursery and I paid her a visit to check up on her.
In the afternoon it was back to nursery once again for our fancy dress carol concert:

We’d put in lots of hard work and performed almost faultlessly for all the parents who had turned up to watch. We even had mince pies and drinks before nursery finished for Christmas.
We went off to the park on Saturday in the double buggy, I love the double buggy! It’s ace, I get to chat to Mum non stop while she pushes, antagonise Ellis and have a kip if I feel like it too. When we got home Slim and Tracey came round to see us:

I reckon I got pretty close to actually having a cuddle with uncle Slim too, never mind, maybe next time……
Sunday we did some Christmas baking…chocolate chip cookies to be precise. They were lovely but unfortunately I had to share them with all the usual suspects who turned up in the evening for board games.
I got have a cuddle with Ben and Kimi:

……while I made a series of apparently hilarious suggestions during a game called outburst.
So then, Christmas eve. Last day of the advent calendar, last day of the fairy visits, last day of waiting for the big man in red to come. We tracked Santa’s progress around the world using on the computer from first thing in the morning it was really exciting.
Then we had a bath to make sure we were all clean and shiny for Santa:

We went off to the big park, it was freezing again, so I got nicely wrapped up:

And I opened my shop for the last time in 2007. Stock was, as usual pretty thin on the ground to say the least:

Once we got home we had to make a few final preparations, firstly the Santa Stop sign was placed outside, his special key left in it's hiding place (we don’t have a chimney) and some provisions were laid out:

We decided that Santa would probably like Ribena instead of booze, even though Dad took some convincing. We also left him a home made chocolate chip cookie and a carrot for Rudolph. I also had a last minute wobble and decided that I would prefer it if Santa didn’t come into my room to fill my stocking.
I had no idea what on earth was going on……
We saw santa getting closer to us on the computer and decided it would be best to get off to bed before it was too late.
Ned got us up nice and early at about 6 am on Christmas day. First off we had our stockings on Mum and Dad’s bed. They were stuffed absolutely full and he was very excited about it. The presents were okay I suppose but I loved the paper most of all. It’s great on so many levels. It looks nice, it sounds nice and it even tastes nice!
We then moved downstairs, here I am getting a cuddle under the tree.

I was in charge of present retrieval from under the tree:

Mum and Dad had some dull old tat, Ellis and I had some great stuff….

It was even raining so I could try out my new Lightning Mcqueen umbrella:

We had some breakfast, did some playing, had a visit from uncle Den who got the full inventory run down of what we’d had so far and then headed out to pick up Grandma before going on to Alan’s for lunch with Grandad and Anne too! Alan had done us all proud in the kitchen.

Except me, here I am tucking into my new favourite foodstuff, bread and butter, so exciting I fell asleep:

After lunch it was more presents….I got the most!!!!

Although I was soon asleep again….
After a lovely dinner and lovely presents the whistle stop tour continued and took us to Auntie Chistines.

More presents, more cuddles and more nice things to eat. A special mention must go to Auntie Trish and Uncle Al here. I unwrapped a big present that was a special Lighning Mcqueen box, that had even more wrapped presents inside, it was so exciting.
I even managed to stay awake for a bit as well:

Presents? Lets just say I’ll be the best dressed girl in the world this year.
So that was Christmas day then, we were all tired out and went straight to sleep as soon as we got into the car to go home….except Mum who was driving!!!
We went to visit Grandad and Anne on boxing day and used the new Sat Nav that Mum had for Christmas. It’s great, it draws little pictures and tells Dad where to go….I love to copy it and shout ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ at him (I now know my left from my right as a result). We watched film about Rudolph and I had my own personal lunch (thanks Anne). I even had the end piece of the yule log, which is usually reserved for Mum.
I sat about in my posh frock looking lovely:

And then I decided to try and pull Grandad’s nose off:

So then, the day after Boxing Day doesn’t have a name of it’s own? How disappointing…we stayed in and played with our new stuff:

I shared my things very nicely with Ned…..he wasn’t quite so giving.
We had a quick dash to the shop for some food, and I chanced my arm by asking for toys and chocolate…even though we had a houseful. Needless to say I got nothing and had to make do with a nice mug of hot chocolate:

Friday we went fancy dress shoppng for New years eve, Ned carried my lunch and milk for me in his new backpack/cool bag thing which I thought was rather decent of him.
We went to Nick and Carol’s for tea with Andy, Alan, Rach, Ben and Kimi. They were having a nice grown up 75 course meal that I decided to liven up a little bit when I returned from the toilet with my trousers and pants around my ankles!
Saturday was a lazy old day again, with a visit from Auntie Christine and Uncle Ian. I can’t believe they had waited soooo long to come and and see all of our toys, you can come round whenever you like you know!
Sunday was time for a trip out, to the Zoo!

I had a lovely al-fresco feed.

I went on the massive slide!
We looked at animals:

The Gibbons were really good, but my favourite were some small birds with brightly coloured heads. For some reason they really made me laugh…..
My favourite was the little train that we had two goes on, although the Meerkats were really good too:

But the most savage of creatures was this, horrible, scary looking beast:

I spent a large part of the day in my new role of official photographer with my new digital camera. Here’s one of some leggy bird:

And here’s one of some rather shorter legged birds:

New years eve was a pretty slow day, I was itching to get to the party at Rich and Kaz’s. To pass a bit of time Dad and I went for a bike ride up the woods and got really muddy. He can clean my bike now.
Finally it was party time, we got dressed up in silly outfits (Bob the builder for me, Woody and Jessie for Mum and Dad:

And a baby-grow for me, what a party pooper!
What a party animal I was, biting balloons and making them pop making everyone laugh and setting a new world record for the most party poppers let off in 10 minutes.

I was a Jedi!

I was part of the most hilarious double act in the history of bingo!

I nearly caused a fight with a ladies handbag just like Dad did many years ago.

And then I crashed and burnt. To be fair it was 2am though.
New years Day we went out for lunch with Alan. He was amazed at just how long I can take to eat such a little amount of food…..
We came home and played some games on the Wii in the afternoon before having a nice early night….
…Because today it was back to nursery and Mum went back to work, which meant that it was Ellis’ first full day at nursery too. We went in the double buggy and it was still dark when we left. We’ve got quite used to getting up late over Christmas so it was quite a shock to the system.
I had a great time, didn’t cry, ate my dinner (although not I decided against my milk), had a nice kip and gave Ned and Dad a big old smile when they came to pick me up at lunch time, even if they did get me woken up. I don’t think Mum had such a good morning, apparently she had 2500 emails, whatever they are?
So now it’s thank you time…
Thanks to everyone who got us such lovely presents, both Ned and I were really pleased with them (and I know Mum and Dad were too, although they have said that they would appreciate help funding a storage unit or maybe an extension). Also thanks to everyone who’s fed us, cuddled us or just spent time with us over the last couple of weeks or so, we’re really lucky to have so many lovely friends and relatives.
Last of all I’d like to give a big thank you to Mum, who’s looked after me so well for my first seven months now that she’s gone back to work. X
No close up this week, but here’s a picture I took of Ellis with my own camera:

Sorry to start with such a shocking image this week, but Owens had a haircut!

Dad did it to him in the kitchen, I couldn’t believe the amount of hair on the floor, if I’d had made that sort of mess I would have been in trouble.
Mum and Dad had got me a top notch fancy dress outfit for the forthcoming Christmas festivities:

A Rudolph outfit, complete with a little padded belly with bells on.
Kimi came round to play last week, we had a great time playing with my toys:

We also went to the park and we both fell asleep in the fresh air.
I didn’t, I made Mum feel sick spinning her round on the spinny pole, Dad had to help her off in the end.
Friday we went to get ourselves a Christmas tree at long last…everyone else has had theirs for ages (it’s Dad’s fault we had to wait soooo long). First off was a dance with Dancing Santa:

It was really cold so I was happy to take the first one we found which was lucky because Mum wanted the first one she picked up. Dad felt a little short changed I think and was well up for dragging every tree there out of it’s bay for perusal.

I was fascinated by the tree bagging machine and loved watching the trees getting shoved through and coming out the other end in a funny sort of sock thing. We tied it to the top of the car, this worried me a little and I kept asking if it had fallen off every half a mile or so. I’m glad to say it survived the journey intact. We had no time to decorate though as we were off to Max and Leo’s for the weekend again!
We played, we ate, we danced, we sang, we fell out, we were friends again.

We played hockey, I had my own special little stick and everything, I really enjoyed it.
I sat and drank with Dad while all this energetic stuff was going on:

Saturday night we had a Christmas dinner with crackers and everything:

And then to top it all of nicely I got another finger caught in another door….it bled a lot and I cried my eyes out. After a kip on mums lap and a plaster I was back on it though, bundling with Max while the grown ups tried to watch the football.


Not quite so close up as usual, but pretty close all the same. I also got my usual semi-clothed cuddle:

No nursery Monday so we had a bit of a lay in and then set about actually putting the tree up at long last:

Dad wedged it in a bucket and then I snipped off the bag to reveal it’s full glory. Dad was pretty pleased that it only just cleard the ceiling:

I was even allowed to decorate it this year, although most of the decorations ended up in one low corner of the tree.
It was pretty good when they’d all finished hanging stuff on it I suppose but I can’t really understand why they’ve got a tree in the house. Still, this is my first Christmas so I’m sure I’ll see plenty of weird and wonderful things before it’s over.

It was fancy dress day at nursery today, I wore my reindeer outfit and all the other children had all made an effort. There were pirates, clowns, fairies and everything and we even had a roast turkey dinner. Santa came in to see us too, Mum and Dad came in as to see him as well, I don’t know why though as he only had presents for the children. It was really exciting to see him up close though. I asked plenty of difficult questions like where were his reindeer. Apparently they were parked on the roof? After that we went into Mum’s shop with me still in my outfit and I drew plenty of admiring glances.
So did I, even though I was asleep for the most part…..
Oh yeah, you can add rusks the the ever increasing list of real food I don't like as well this week.
Here, have your Christmas treat by clicking this link:
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1190556454

Okay then, I was a little naughty at nursery last week. Me and one of the others decided we would shove our fingers up the taps in the toilet to make the water spray everywhere. It was really good fun, although we got caught and had to get changed into our spare dry clothes. Maybe I should have left it there, but we decided to have another turn…..but this time I didn’t have any spare clothes:

So I had to borrow this rather fetching pink top from nursery! I don’t think I was that naughty really though, I’m sure Mum was trying not to laugh when she told Dad what had happened.
The fairy has still been making regular visits, she leaves our goodies in this truck (well, Ned’s goodies anyway. I’m sure I’ll get in on it next year).

Thursday was pantomime day at nursery. We all went to see Beauty and The Beast at the Corn Exchange and I took mum along too.

Now most of the others were scared witless by the beast but not me. I’d been asking Mum about the beast all week so I knew what to expect. Shame she didn’t bring me any sweets like the other Mum’s did though We boo-ed, we cheered, we sang along and we danced in the aisles (well, those of us that didn’t leave in tears did anyway). It was such good fun I didn’t stop talking about it for days afterwards.
I spent the morning playing with Kimi and Rach and had a lovely time, thanks to you both!
As if that wasn’t enough, we went to the pasty shop afterwards with Dad and Ellis.

I didn’t have a pasty, I had milk.

They try and get me to eat some proper food every now and again but I really can’t be doing with it, yoghurts were the latest in a long line of non-starters.
We went round to see Grandma, and as luck would have it she was supervising the Christmas decorations in their big room:

I made sure I got involved in the decorating and the biscuit tin on their tea trolley.

I sat with Grandma while Ned and Dad blew up balloons and then let them go zooming across the room which they found ridiculously funny for some reason.
Andy came round for tea on Friday night, it was my choice as well on the menu. Chicken nugget and chips! Mum and Dad went out after tea but didn’t get dressed up or anything…most odd. I wonder what they were up to at this time of year?
I was good for Andy and drank loads of milk before I went to bed. He was even the only one who has been brave enough to put me to bed in my sleeping bag, good work Andy, I was lovely and cosy.
How wet was it at the weekend? Rubbish. We stayed in pretty much all day playing on the Wii and then betting on the horse racing that was on telly. Dad and I did quite well and won all the money, poor old Mum and Ellis got taken to the cleaners.
Sunday we went to uncle Alan’s for dinner with Grandad and Anne as well.

Alan did a good job of cooking, supplying drinks and chasing me around the house even though a little bird tells me he was up very late the night before and was probably a little worse for wear.

Grandad decided to put the envelope from his birthday card on my head…apparently he likes to do that sort of thing. Oh well, I didn’t mind I got my own back by having a milky sneeze on his jumper.
Yesterday was baking day at Auntie Christine’s, Hooray!!! I was so excited all morning at nursery I wouldn’t even eat my dinner as I was saving myself for the main event. It’s the level of detail that’s so impressive, from the Christmas chefs hat, apron and cake tin, through to my own mini rolling pin and even Christmas plasters for my poorly thumb nail (that has now come off completely….eeewww!). We baked, we sang, we even made paper chains for my bedroom and Laura popped round to see us as well, I think she has some sort of Ned seeking device built in as she always manages to appear at some point when I’m there. Every one should have an Auntie Christine……
I went to town wih Mum and Dad, we did some shopping and then went to have coffe, how very sophisticated we are when Ned isn't around.
So today we went off to the woods to find some puddles. What we hadn’t bargained on was that some of the puddles would be iced over!

They made a brilliant crunching sound as we walked through them and I did really well not to fall over I reckon.
Dad held up some sheets of ice for Mum and us to do some Kung Fu on as well, it smashed really well.
I didn’t even go too deep for my wellies until nearly the end when I followed Dad out into deep, open water. So it was wellies off, tip out the water, remove socks and trousers and get put in the push chair wrapped up in a nice fleece blanket and Mums coat until we got back to the car.
The fool, I stayed in my nice warm buggy and tried to sleep despite the constant bumping over three roots and stoney paths:

Okay then, that’s about all, except for Ellis’ close up of the week:

We know how to live, last week instead of going to Tesco Mum decided we should go to Asda in Basingstoke. How about that then globe trotters?
One of my favourite recent tricks has been to remove my trousers and pants and then hanging my bare bum out of Poppy’s cat flap. I bet Dad would like a go but he’s got no chance with a bum that big.
I’ve been for a weigh and put on half a pound in a week, a good performance by all accounts. The health visitor also said I could give up on solid food for a bit, that’s a result. That slop was inedible!
Friday and everything started turning a bit Christmassy….hooray! Auntie Trish came round with a Christmas Mr Man book and a book with a special kit for sending letters to santa in it.

We read all the stories and I listened really intently. Once we had a good old read we headed off to town to see Santa turn on the Christmas lights. We stopped by Auntie Christine’s shop and got pretend snow thrown over us (it’s still in my car seat) and she gave me a pair of fluffy reindeer antlers to wear:

We were having such a good time in the shop we nearly missed Santa go by and Dad had to run up the street with me to catch up. Did I mention it was raining…hard!!! We hung about in the market place for a bit in the rain before the lights went on and then we tried to find Santa again but he had gone…disappeared! What a shame, and my reindeer antlers got pretty soggy as well.
I slept through all the excitement, and rain.
When we got home Auntie Christine and Owen came round, they had a special present for Ellis and I that Nanny had sorted out for us a little while back. It was a big lorry with 24 little drawers in the back, all numbered. Now apparently a special Christmas fairy makes a visit once a day to leave us a little something in the drawer. Yeah right…..
So Saturday was party day, I was so excited I probably could have burst. But first of all there was the advent calendar to open, how exciting (for Mum). We always have to guess what will be behind the door. Now i'm still pretty new to this Christmas lark so i'm not so good with the guessing as Mum and Dad with their years of advent calendar experience. Finally it was time to go to Judes party, we got to the racecourse early but the party had already kicked off. There was a bouncy castle, a load of sports equipment, some slides and a load of other things to play with, but best of all there was a face painter. I started off as Ned but soon became a scary tiger:

I was in character too, chasing my prey around the hall and roaring as loud as I could. It lasted a little while, until I got a bit of a bump on the bouncy castle, had a cry and rubbed my eyes….
Jude, Alistair, Hugo and I were definitely the party animals, our finest scheme was using the skipping ropes to drag each other around the floor and attempting to remove each others heads with them, in the end the man came and put them away!

After we had worked up an appetite it was off to another room for some food. As if that wasn’t good enough we had a great view of the horse racing too and every time a group of horses charged past the window I led the cheering. Once the food was done and dusted we played pass the parcel.

We got a bit bored without anything to unwrap for ages but we all got a go in the end.

Even if I had heard enough of the terrible music (Dad says it was Shakira). It was the best party ever, even the party bags were ace, they had model aeroplane gliders in them which gave dad and I hours of fun target practice with Ellis at home.
The low point of the whole event was when one of Neds friends, I think it was Edward pointed out that I had a bogey attached to my nose starting a chorus of bo-gey! bo-gey! bo-gey! By all the rest of them. In the evening Andy,Ben, Rach and Kimi came round and I performed my party piece. It involves being put onmy back in a distant part of the room and then rolling over onto my tummy, then my back, then my tummy again, over and over until I have covered several feet accross the floor. To be honest, i've given it up again now though, it's too much effort. If I sit and look a little bit dejected and distant someone will come and get me anyway.
Fairy update: She must have come while I was at the party, she left me a santa chocolate!!! Maybe they were telling the truth?
Is it time for my close up yet:

So after the highs of Saturday we were back down to earth with a bump on Sunday, shopping….urrrgh!!! Dad, Ellis and I did manage to have a bit of laugh as we rode around in the trolley though. Once we got home it was time to watch Shrek. I can’t believe they kept it from me for so long, I loved it. It has made me ask lots and lots of questions though, I think I may need to see it again.
Fairy update: She left a snow man chocolate during Shrek, I must have been really engrossed in the film as I didn’t see a thing!
Back to nursery on Monday and Roses (our ‘teacher’) had also really got the Christmas bug, we had santa suits to wear and she had done a makeover on the home corner to make it look more christmassy, we’ll be whipped up into a frenzy!! Owen came round in the afternoon, he helped Dad cook curry for tea…..I had fishcakes instead!
Fairy update: She must have come during dinner, there was nothing in the truck before tea when I checked but by the time we were finished there was another Santa chocolate. I don’t know how she does it……