Bit of a break in normal service last week! There was a surprise holiday but more of that later.....
Way back to two wednesdays ago, there was a card through the door from a courier, Dads birthday present had arrived early. Mum decided there was no way she was going to be able to smuggle it into the house and wrap it up so Dad and I were sent into the collection depot to pick it up. There were loads of van drivers sat around drinking coffee and looking at the internet in their office. When they saw the writing on the box they all asked me if it was mine, it wasn't. The silly old fool had a new BMX. At his age???
Thursday, not my finest hour. Max dropped in on the way home from school as he was desperate for the toilet, while Dad stood outside talking to Emma and Leo Max came back out and then I managed to lock them all out of the house and lock myself and Ellis in. Oh dear. Dad shouted at me to get the stool do I could stand on it to open the door which I managed to do quite nicely. Phew. But then I managed to do it again, even though Dad had put the latch on the door. This time though we were all outside! Oh no. Ellis had to borrow Max's school jumper,
Which I was not pleased about, it was too big and not my colour!
And then we had to walk to Emma's, carrying Ellis as we had no buggy, so that Emma could drive to town to get the spare key from Mum, for us to then walk back home again to let ourselves in. What a palaver. As if that wan't enough excitement for one day it was my first parents evening at school, it wasn't a proper one, just an informal version or something. Anyway, we fed Andy sausage and mash for tea (it's his favourite by all accounts?) and he looked after us while Mum and Dad went out.
They went to see my teacher, in not so many words she said that I was very loud, a real do-er and loved to get creative with whatever was to hand. She also said I was making lots of new friends!
Mum volunteered Dad as a helper in the afternoons and told the lady trying to drum up conscripts that he liked cooking too! Good luck with that one....

Friday afternoon we took a trip to the park, school had finished for the day and a load of my friends were there, eating the remains of their packed lunches and playing in the park. I got to show off my new bike to them too.
But I love it more than they do, I really like bikes and it's not just because Dad makes me or anything:

Here I am trying Ned's old one out for size. Sadly i'm still a little bit on the small side but it won't be long:

The next day however, I was a giant! We went to the model village in Bekonskot:

It was brilliant, I got to walk free range all over the place and managed to eat plenty of paint I found flaking from the railings...yuk!
Here I am waiting for the train:

And in the background i'm off to investigate the burning cottage. It was my idea to come to the model village, and as usual for one of my ideas it was a top day out, there was so much to investigate:

Here's Ellis and I playing on the slide, I am under there somewhere honest!

Saturday night we went to see the Halfords, Max and I had an earl night and watched Star Wars in bed, awesome!

Sunday we had all of Mum's family round for lunch. Poor old Hayley got wrapped up in a game of hide and seek even though she felt poorly. We ate lots, Dad had his birthday cake early and then we collapsed, tired out:

It's hard work, entertaining!

Monday, and no school because it was half term. We had a super exciting morning giving Dad his birthday cards and some more presents, the best of which by a considerable margin was Mario Kart for the Wii, I love it!!!! We went to call for Alastair.....he was out. I was pretty upset about it, I soon cheered up when we went to Pizza Hut for lunch though, Ice cream factory!

We got hoodwinked into a ridiculously early night.....

.....and then got woken up at 4am to go to Disneyland of all places!!!!

How exciting, here we are on the plane for my first ever flight:

We got off the plane, collected our things in record time form the baggage carousel and then headed off to find the coach to take us to Mickey's place. Two coaches and about an hour later and we were in our Hotel. I'd never stayed in a hotel before so that was all new.

Mum did some important looking things at the desk, Dad and Ned got rid of the bags and then we were on our way in to Disneyland!

We didn't hang about either, we were soon on the rides. Mum's favourite was these cars:

They were noisy and fast, so I wasn't allowed a go. Booo!

Nope, but I got two goes so never mind!

I did really enjoy the rockets though:

We stumbled upon the parade, in my signature move I managed to slip through to the front without any problems. I was befriended by an older lady at the front and she kept an eye on me while Mum and Dad had to crane their necks on tip toes to see what was going on.

Here's my view of the whole thing, well, it was a very early start that day!

I did catch the end mind you:

Here's one of Dad's arty shots:

But probably even better than the rides was the characters roaming around. We saw Winnie the Pooh and all his mates, The Chipmunks, Donald Duck and loads more, we'd only been here a few hours too!

So onto the evening, and my favourite bit of the holiday....Dinner time! We ate in the hotel and they had a self service thing going on where basically you dispense Mum or Dad (or even on occasion Ned if I was really desperate) to go and bring plate after plate of lovely meaty grub to my high chair...brilliant! I ate all sorts, all on one plate, lasagne, ham, chips, sausage, chicken, cucumber, beans and that was before pudding!

Yeah, it was pretty good, I got to have chicken nuggets, sausages and chips every night without getting told off by Mum or Dad. I also got to have three puddings in one bowl!

Then it was off to our room, I got a mssive great bed all to myself:

The advantage of us all being in the same room was that once one of us was up, we were all up!

Before we'd even had breakfast we were out in the park and going to see Buzz Lightyear, to help him overcome Zurg:

Some of us were more help than others, Mum got such a high score there was barely enough digits on the readout!

It was pretty misty, but we'd wrapped up nice and warm:

We had breakfast, even my high chair had mickey ears!

I think I like France, where else in the world is it okay to have a couple of ham sandwiches and a mug of hot chocolate for breakfast?
We went on the small world boat ride, I think we all liked that:

Before Dad and I went on the teacups. They were rubbish, complete rubbish, especially after our mega spin at Legoland the other week. These just didn't compare and Dad had the right hump about it:

The carousel was much better:

Yes it was, I had my own up and down horse and everything:

We bumped into ee-aw. After stroking his bum I thought i'd better introduce myself properly:

We went on Peter Pan's flight, billed as gentle fun for little ones......it was truly terrifying. It was pitch black on the whole, with horrible scary lit up pirate skulls and what have you, all the time suspended in some ghastly flying chariot affair. We both cried to get off!

Here we are eating our 'extended breakfast'

What he means is that Dad was such a squeaker him and mum made sandwiches at tbreakfast and the smuggled them out in the rucksack!!!

We went on a lovely old fashioned sream train all the way around the park:

We went on some fairytale boat ride or another. But what I really liked was my first ever roller coaster which was right next door. I laughed and giggled all the way round.

Halloween was just starting and the park was covered in all these strange pumpkin thingys:

We went on Big Thunder Mountain, the runaway mine train. It was the most exciting ride i've ever been on. I went on with Mum and then took Dad on it, even though I wasn't sure I liked it that much first time round. Both Mum and Dad thought it was brilliant though....

We made our way back to the hotel, got ourselves some cosy chairs and some nice drinks and just sat for a while doing some colouring, it was nice to have a little rest.

Another early start and we were back on it. After a little bit of too-ing and fro-ing we were on Crush's coaster (one of Nemo's friends). Now this I really wasn't sure about, at all. Dad seemed to love it though but there was no way I was going on again and mum had to go on her own!
This was more like it:

I got to have my photo taken with the main man:

We hung out with Guido and Luigi:

We went to see a stunt show too, we sat high up in the stand and I loved the man on the motorbike doing wheelies!

There were cars zooming everywhere, doing jumps and turns, explosions, motorbike jumps, men falling from high roofs and goodness knows what else. I was absolutley captivated by the whole thing and barely said a word for a whole hour. A record for me I think?
We treated ourselves to lunch, a hot dog in fact (last of the big spenders eh?).

We went to see Stitch live. None of us had ever really heard of Stitch before.....I don't now why, he's a brilliant blue Alien! He had his own cinema, all the kids got to sit at the front on the carpet and once Stitch was on screen, he talked to us! We talked back, he even took picture of us on his camera and then turned it round to show us.....it was fantastic. Even the grown ups agreed!

I made my own entertainment by managing to get around the elaborate nappy sealing system to make Mum's lap wet...ha ha!

We even managed to spend a few quid in the gift shop, I took rather a shine to this cuddly Tigger:

And I desperatley wanted a Buzz Lightyear Laser gun.
We headed back to the Hotel once again and then headed out to the swimming pool, I didn't even know they had one!!!!! There was a slide and everything, very agreeable!

So one last binge on the buffet and then off to bed.

We had to get up early the next morning to catch a rather fantastic train to the airport, sadly it wasn't a double decker one like the one on the next platform though.

Then it was back on the plane for another good solid hour or so cuddling session. That was once i'd decided to fill my nappy while we were boarding the plane. Oops. As soon as the seat belt light had gone off Dad decided to make a name for himself by changing my bum at 30,000 feet. He only wants the glamour jobs! The reality was far from glamorous mind you, being changed on a fold down table over an aeroplane toilet by that great lummox was quite a trial....

...as was our mission to get home in time for Shimon's (my friend from school) Halloween party!

We made it...just! Mum stayed with me to join in the fun. We followed a witch who left a trail of jellybean sweets until we found her hide out, where there were loads more sweets to be found! On reflection I was mildly traumatised by the whole thing, as was to be expected.

It didn't stop there either, trick or treat night!

We went out with John and Sarah, Andy, the Halfords and even Owen and Hannah tagged along and we had a great time calling on our frineds and family. Our sweet buckets overflowed (well mine didn't as I only took what I really wanted and didn't want to be greedy).

So saturday was back to normal, we all had a lie in, had a little walk to the shop and kept it very low key......nice!

By sunday we were fully recharged and driving Mum and Dad mad as usual, we had to get out!

We went to Windsor and had a ride on their big wheel in the park:

You could see for miles, and could probably seen even further if it hadn't been so grey and bleak.....never mind!
I decided to make really nervous by trying to burrow out of the pod we were in:

Then we hit the shops, most importantly the toy shop. Great idea, I need a few ideas to give Santa.....

And I got a lovely lovely pair of new shoes, i'm really pleased with them!

Monday then, still no school!

I went to nursery though?

Yes, because Dad and I went to the BMX track in the morning....I had to take him eventually I suppose. We rode well, but I soon called time so we could go home and get a few laps in on Mario Kart. Have I said how much I love Mario Kart before?

I love Mario Kart.

A lot.

My new trick is to say a very giggly 'tickle tickle' and then attack your midriff! Watch out!

Mum was off with us today so there was no BMX track nonsense, just a lovely trip to the park. I met an another Max there, he was older than me but we had a lovely game of football (shhhh, don't tell Dad).

And I got to march about in all the leaves and mud in my brand new shoes without dad having a fit!

This weeks big news, i'm sort of saying a few words, actually in context and everything. I can manage to say Ball, Night night and Meow (for the cat). Not bad, but i'm still trying pretty hard and pretty much constantly gibber jabbering, no one else has a clue what i'm on about but I don't care.
I'm still keeping tight lipped about school and i'm still not giving much away. I'm bringing home plenty of my artwork though. Mum and Dad think it's all brilliant, even the rubbish ones I bring home for a laugh.
And I think they are all very tasty, when I can get my hands on them. I still love a good old paper buffet. Hopefully that it's not my diet that caused my recent bout of puking and pooing.....I threw up a banana all over Dad while he was giving me a cuddle, that was a day off from nursery at home with mum while the rear end took over duties...oh dear. It was only a day though and I was soon back on it!
Anyone see me in the Newbury Weekly News last week? In the new school class supplement? No? I was the one with my face all screwed up on the left, squinting into the sun!!!
Saturday then, Legoland, the last day of our annual pass. I think we certainly managed to get value for money out of it this year. Owen decided he'd like to come along too....

Here we are causing carnage on the boats:

I took over at the helm:

...and here's the chaos we left in our wake:

The man had to go and sort it all out, ha ha!

We rode the Dino dipper which is one of my favourites

And I got to play with the snap fit buckles on the rucksack, no joke, this is my absoloute favourite thing of all time!

Can you spot Mum and I on the Dragon roller coaster in all that blurryness? It was brilliant, thanks to Owen for convincing me it was a good idea!

I'm not sure how scary I managed to look?

Sunday we had another lazyish day, it's becoming a bit of a habit these days.
I've been building loads of things with my Lego lately, boats, houses, strange lorries and goodness knows what else.
I'm really happy to just toddle about the house, drag toys in from the conservatory, cuddle teddies, slap people on the legs, wind Ned up and get cuddles.
We baked some cakes for me to take to our special harvest festival at school on Monday, some of them even made it as far as school.
It wasn't all fun fun fun though, we had to go to town...boooooring.
I got to buy a new winter coat, it's lovely and Mum is quite jealous of it. I love trying clothes on and parading up and down the shop in the new clobber.
We did manage to get a visit to the park as well I suppose.
So Monday was harvest festival day. I was pretty grumpy that Mum and Dad weren't coming in to school to hear us sing and what have you like some of the other Mums and Dads were. They explained that if they didn't go to work we'd have no money for holidays, days out or my enormous demand for fresh raspberries.
Max came round to play after school on Monday, we had to pick him up from the playground so I had to show Dad where to go, but on the way I managed to find Alastair and a really, really muddy puddle...oh dear, Dad wasn't happy. Once we were home we left him well alone and sat quietly drawing at the table, we're such quiet, inactive lads!

In the latest of our afternoon outings with the Halford boys, we went up to Donington castle last Wednesday:

I was a right little busy bee, marching all over the place but particularly in the puddles. I love puddles. Sadly my feet are too small for wellies, the only shoes I have are my rather non-waterproof sandals. Oh dear, soggy sock time!
Max and I formulated several plans:

Before we tried to overthrow the castle, using some old sticks. After that we had a walk to see the horses and stand on the bridge over the fast road, I love to watch the cars and lorries zoom underneath!
Thursday evening we had a sneaky visit to the park after dinner as Ned actually managed to stop talking for long enough to eat his meal while it was still light outside. It turned out to be rather brilliant because all the doggies were being taken for their evening walk!
Friday was dress up as a nursery rhyme character day at school, here I am representing Incey Wincey Spider:

Smart or what? It was great fun and we got to have a parade around the hall all dressed up.
The Halford boys paid an unexpected visit on Friday afternoon, we entertained them for a bit and then once they'd gone we headed off to meet Mum who was walkign home from work. I decided to dress as a pirate for the occasion. In retrospect the eye patch was something of a hinderance while on the bike......

Friday night was Rock Band night at Owen's. After having a go at the drums I decided to settle on being the frontman of this otherwise rather ageing boyband:

Ned was sacked though as it was felt the band needed a bit more glamour, i've got that by the shedload, even in my bedclothes:

Saturday was quiet by our standards after fridays late night. We went to town for a walk, I bought a model of a praying mantis that you have to make with my pocket money (Mum and I put it together, it looks really good).
We saw James on his own, carrying all of Laura's shopping back from town on the way down too, she has him well trained already!
We had a barbecue in the evening while the grown up's watched some football match or another on telly. I had a great time playing with Kimi and those Halford boys once again.
So sunday then, and after another late night with the barbecue, we had another quiet one.
We did pop to some open day or another at the library in the afternoon though. They had a fire engine in the carpark that I got to sit in:

And there were various arty things to do inside, I made a lollystick man with funny hair.
Then we got to go to the park for a bit, I loved it. Climbing the stairs and going down the slide all on my own.
I got to display a lot of my new roundabout dismount techniques, some of them didn't even remove any skin from my knees!
Monday then, I was picked up from school and dragged down town to meet Mum at he bike shop, it was new bike time!!!! As usual with this sort of thing, Dad was more excited than me, however I did enjoy riding it into the Kennet Centre and then into the multi storey carpark lift!
I'm glad he's got a new bike as I reckon it won't be long before i'll be able to ride his old one.
By the time we got home I didn't fancy riding it really, just a cosy up on the sofa.....
...I made up for it Tuesday though. As soon as we got home from school I told Dad I had a surprise for him, took the bike out of the garage and zoomed straight off up the street on it!
He looked good on it too considering it is quite a bit bigger than his old one!
We packed up and went to the big new park before the kids from school got up there:

The trampoline made an excellent wrestling ring!
And wasn't bad as a trampoline either:

The big basket swing was fun:

And I got to try out the cornering ability of my new bike:

I loved the park as well, especially all the muddy, gravelly yucky bits. I made sure I was filthy by the time we left!

We still do a good line in humdrum everyday boring things you know. It's still shopping on Wednesday afternoons for example, it's a bit of a squeeze with both of us in the trolley seats these days but it's still pretty fun.
We've also had our fair share of wet afternoons watching Cbeebies, we love the animal programmes in particular.
Leo dropped by for the afternoon on Thursday, we had some fun, played with some toys, watched a bit of telly, y'know how it is:

We went down the park in a break in the rain to, i've really found my feet lately:

Friday lunchtime we met up with Mum and took Grandma for a walk by the canal and to feed the ducks. We attracted about three thousand of them I think and between me and the ducks themselves we made short work of the loaf.

Friday afternoon we went for a walk up at Greenham common with the Halfords. We walked miles and miles and I got to try out my new power rangers wellies.

We found an old rusty pretend aeroplane to have a look at:

But i was more interested in digging about in the dirt and gravel.

Max and I were busy being cool:

Friday night Auntie Tracey and Uncle Slim came round to see us. We hadn't seen them for ages and ages and ages so that was really nice. Trace seems to be well on the mend too.

So then it was the weekend! It was a relativley early start, off to the Coral Reef for some swimming. This place is the real deal and while the one in Thatcham is okay, this one is much better.

I really threw myself into it, literally, again and again!

We had a great time before heading off for a KFC (mum's favourite), I didn't like the chicken much....

...and I didn't like the chips really. Maybe we could share a meal next time.

We all agreed on the ice cream with smarties though. It was lovely.

So we were having a great day, so what posessed them to spoil it all by making us go shopping I don't know!!!

Still, it wasn't all bad as I got a nice new book 'A lark in the ark'

And I got a lovely set of stacking cups to play with.

That night we once again met up with the Halfords, Max and I spent hours drawing fantastically detailed pictures in near silence while the grown ups stuffed their faces with curry, beer, wine and coke. Dullards.

I had a bit of a play with Leo before turning in for the night.

Then Max and I also turned in for the night in his massive bed. When it was time to go home, Mum came to get me, Dad reckoned we looked like Morecambe and Wise in bed together, who ever they are?

Sunday then, very rainy, we stayed in and watched films, read books and ate roasted dinners.

We did have a quick trip out to the office shop where we got some stickers (racing cars for me, Dogs for Ellis).

Back to school on Monday, it's still brilliant! We learned all about safari animals, I was well clued up on all this obviously. We had even watched big cat diary on telly on Sunday like my teacher Mrs Fright.

I'd been asking about going to the BMX track for a while, Monday afternoon was dry so we made the most of it and got out and about:

I was brilliant as usual.

Ned insisted i got in on the act this time around and made sure Dad took his bike with the seat on the back:

I whooped and giggled and laughed all the way down the hill over all the bumps and lumps!

Tuesday at school was Italy day, I made an Italian flag, learned about the Colosseum and even made a pizza! We've got loads of other things planned for the rest of the week so i'll fill you in on those next week no doubt!

Another big one tuesday, my first parents evening at nursery. Mum and Dad (and Ned came too) were filled in on m what I get up to during the day. They told them that i'm a right tom-boy, I love running around the garden, splashing in puddles, digging in mucky mud and riding the scooters about. It's not all rough and tumble though, I like to cuddle my teddies, give out cuddles and kisses and that I also like to sit and comfort other children that are unhappy. I also never cry unless i'm really upset about something. Sounds like i'm too good to be true doesn't it? I am still having trouble with my spoon at meal times, I hold it in one hand and then shovel the food in with the other....not quite sure I have the hang of it yet!

I had a lovely time, I got to see all the ladies who used to look after me, especially Roses who was really surprised to see me and didn't recognise me in my school uniform!