Nathan is my friend at school, because i'm really fast on the bikes at playtime. These sorts of things are really important when you're nearly five. Shimon though, he's just my friend, fast or not. He came to our house on Friday after school, it took us ages to settle on what toys to play with:

He stayed for tea and then we took him home, I went straight in and made myself at home and we had a quick game of hide and seek with his dad and little brother before I was convinced to get in the car and come home!
Yeah, he was good fun Ned, you can have him round again!
Saturday then, shall we go to the beach?

It was freeeeezing!
Yep, it was, but at least we weren't as silly as the windsurfers.
We collected some shells:

Had a wander about:

Threw some stones:

Sat in the sand and pretended it was August:

Did some digging to generate some heat:

And of course, I had an ice cream (waking up the man in the ice cream kiosk in the process).
On the way home we even went to the chippy...perfect!
Sunday Mum went to work, boo! But it was Ben's party....hooray!
First of all though we had a lazy mortning with Dad, he's getting quite good at that. We also had a visit from laura, Aunti Christiner and Laura's doggy. The cat wasn't too keen but we loved her!
So then, party time. It was the first one i'd been to since I started school so I was pretty excited. There was a bouncy castle in a hall and it all had a pirate theme:

So that was good for a bundle or two.
Yeah, I joined in much to the apparent surprise of some of the mum's who were watching. I'm not scared of a bunch of five year old boys on the rampage though.
We had food, including a home made treasure chest cake (are you taking note Mum?)

Mum turned up half way through so dad could help drink Bens dad's beer and she also got to meet some of the mums and dads she misses only doing the morning drop off at school.
Then the main event, auntie Christimes for sunday dinner. I had a meat mountain and managed to consume beef, chicken, lamb and pork in a single sitting, fantastic or what!!

We even had left over Christmas crackers:

With big hats:

Yeah, big hats indeed:

Auntie Trish and uncle Al even bought us a present over, well it was for Dad really.....a sledge!

And then of course it snowed....quite a lot.

I went to school......

....and I went to nursery as usual.

Once dad picked me up, he gave me the choice of swimming lessons as normal, or playing in the snow.....I chose swimming. I pointed out that the snow was 'ruddy cold' It was great with a reduced class and I was brilliant as usual. We even had to jump in the deep end of the big pool and swim all the way down using a float. I won (not that it was supposed to be a race, but I won anyway).

You big wuss, we went out playing in it at nursery! It was great. We did fruit tasting too, I loved the grapes and the strawberries amongst other things. I didn't go much on the lemons mind you.....

I went home with Shimon's (my friend from school) after school on friday, no dad, no Ellis. We went back to his house, we played with his toys and we had tea together, it was brilliant. Shimons Mum said that we were both really good and she hardly even knew we were there at all! He's coming to our house this week.......
Yep, I got Dad all to myself all afternoon, but i'd rather have had Ned to be truthfull.
Saturday we had to go into town, as usual mum had to put up with all three of us whingieng and crying (yes, that includes Dad).
To make it even worse we went to see Auntie Christine and she didn't even have any sweets in her shop!
In the afternoon we hung about the house for a bit, I did the old muzzy hiding trick in the Nemo truck, just like Ned used to:

Muzzy? What muzzy?

Mum and I played Mario Kart a bit, and Ellis showed us her bum:

Until I fell off:

Then I stole Dad's new bike magazine and had a good old look at it:

In the evening we went to Max and Leo's, we had some pretty engrossing telly to watch before we fell asleep and hogged most of the sofa:

Sunday and it was swimming time again, I was on a charge! Down the slides on my own, marching around poolside and even jumping in, I was well up for it!

Yep, and I dazzled Mum with some of my new found skills that i've honed in my swimming lessons!

After that it was off to McDonalds for some lunch and then on to Toys R Us to get some presents for my upcoming friends birthdays. As if that wasn't enough for one day it was off to see Grandad and Anne! The teddies scaled the lofty heights of the lights again.....

.....and Grandad got the train set going too.

Back to swimming lessons on Monday, this week we had to swim through a hula-hoop held under water...I was first though and made it look easy!

I made quite a splash myself at nursery when I decided to duck my head into a big dirty puddle......it wasn't quite as good an idea as i'd hoped it would be. The water was pretty mucky and rather cold. They took me in pretty quick and I got a shampoo and blow dry though!

My list of words is growing by the day, I think this is most of the commonly used ones so far (in addition to the animal noises and what have you):

Wart (water)

Sheet (paper/magazine)

Book

Pakka (as in Makka Pakka from night garden)

Daisy (as in Upsy Daisy from night garden)

Eat (when I want some food)

Ellis

Nose

Eyes

Ears

Mouth

Foot

Sock

Shoe

Boots

Cake

Nana (as in Banana)

Cuggle (as in cuddle, Mums current favourite)

I've been colouring lately, almost all my free time is taken up with unhurried colouring, I love it.
Yes, he really does. What he doesn't love anymore is CBeebies though (unless he's feeling a bit delicate or something). It's a shame, i'm just starting to really get into the night garden but ned won't have any of it!
Well, it's rubbish isn't it? I'm more of a CBBC kind of chap these days, especially Basil Brush!
I don't mind, while he's watching I just chatter away to Dad. He doesn't have a clue what i'm on about most of the time but I do throw in the odd real word here and there.
Max came round after school last friday, we put our orders in and settled down on the re-arranged sofa to watch Spider Man 2, with a mug of hot chocolate for me and a nice cup of tea for Max. Apparently we're like a couple of old men!
Weekend catch up then, after last weeks puke fest. Saturday morning, up and out early and off to the zoo (Cotswold Wildlife Park).
First stop was the gift shop, I spent my long overdue pocket money on a giraffe head on a stick, it turned out to be a genius purchase, it seemed to charm all the animals out of their warm shelters. The normally elusive rhino couldn't resist a good old look:

I only got it around my nose a few times from the relative saftey (and warmth) of the buggy. I was desperate to escape however and run around under my own steam.

I soon managed to get out of my wheeled contraption, and marched straight over to the lions:

They couldn't put it off for ever and we soon succumbed to the lure of the park (and the picnic):

It was great fun:

...most of the time!

I made friends with this lovely litle goat:

And this pig frightened me half to death with a loud, well timed grunt while I was at close quarters:

The meerkats also loved my Giraffe:

And I deperatley tried to snag a Lemur to take home with us:

Did I mention I have a nice new pair of trainers.....with laces! Expect to see a lot of this for the foreseeable future!

Penguins! Even they looked cold!

Day two of the weekend was a trip to JJ's. Finally.

I made friends with some older lads and pretty much disappeared. Dad only found me when he spotted me in one of the new observation pods above the big slide.

I ran Mum ragged for a good while, but even I was pretty happy to play on my own or with the other kids.

We stayed for lunch as well, what a treat! We were there ages, mum and dad's easr must have been ringing!

After that we went to see Trish and Al......

We played Mario Kart on the Wii, we ate biscuits and sweets, and we tried out Trish's new car for size:

I closed my eyes and wished really hard that we could get a cool car too:

Swimming again Monday, it was a bit better this week though. We got to do some jumping in and had to pick up stuff from the bottom of the pool! Still no match for the Oasis though....

So the weekend then, we had great plans, go to JJ's, run off some steam and even stay for dinner for the first time! How exciting.....
....until we got past Kingsclere and I had a good old puke! Turn the car around and head back home, oh dear.....
Yeah, I was proper cheesed off I can tell you. Still, we went home and watched Lilo and Stitch, had a snuggle and was promised we'd go on Sunday instead.
I was fine and dandy again by the time we got home, so after lunch we decided to go to Snelsmore for some fresh air and a spin on my new trike:

How cool is that? I made sure my legs looked to short to reach the pedals so I got pushed all the way round.
I took my bike too, I did plenty of skids but got more than I bargained for on a patch of ice. I was pretty soon spread out on the floor and smashed my bell off the handlebars i'm so tough:

But not tough enough to lift this log up and smash it back down through the ice:

Dad had a go, but we couldn't break the ice at all.

We had a skid about on some of the big frozen puddles:

And did some more riding:

Caught up with the wildlife:

And skated about on a some more frozen puddles:

It was really quite an adventure with everything so frozen and white!

So Sunday then, Mum came to get me out of bed, and found me covered in sick again....oh dear, sorry Ned, no JJ's again!

Hmmm, so what excitement did we have on Sunday instead? Gardening!!! Well to be precise I got to rake up leaves. It doesn't compare to JJ's at all, although i did quite enjoy it (but don't tell anyone).

I've been playing 'Animal bingo' on the way to nursery with Mum in the mornings. I love the horsey on the Nags Head sign, The Dolphin on the Dolphin sign, the big Gorilla on the cheque cashing place and the doggy on HMV.

I pretty much take myself to school, I set off at warp speed and i'm at the gate waiting for Mum and Ellis to catch up when I get to the gate. I'm also in no real hurry to come home in the afternoon either and can spend the best part of an hour running around the school playground with my mates before Dad manages to get me to come home with him and Ellis.

Yeah, i've got used to my afternoons without Ned now, I used to pine for him, but now I enjoy leisurley trips to Tesco and serene afternoon naps!

I had another swimming lesson on Monday, Dad still reckons i'm doing realy well but it's pretty boring to be honest. We didn't do any jumping in or larking about under water...maybe it'll get more interesting?

So we saw the last day of the year out in style. We got up late, watched soem rubbish telly, ate lunch in our bedclothes before picking Mum up from work and getting ready for party time!
We helped Dad prepare the guest quarters (Ned's room), you can see us testing out the airbed in the video at the bottom.
It was a largely civilised affair, if you can count clenching 50p pieces between your buttocks and attemptimg to drop them into a pint glass civilised (we actually broke two pint glasses doing this). Oh and the chocolate game was truly terrifying, the amount of noise a group of chocoalte frenzied grown ups can generate is quite scary. We thought that the intergalactic stormtrooper police had been despatched to investigate claims of noise from other residents:

But it turned out in actual fact to be Max!
It was a pretty late night......
Next day we had just finished breakfast when Uncle Den and Auntie Gail arrived (it was getting on for lunch time to be fair). They were off to a barbecue of all things.....don't be giving Dad ideas like that! We eventually ventured out to Tesco in the afternoon to buy a new kettle (I hope your eyebrows grow back quickly Dean).
There's been lots of camera activity around the house of late, even i've got in on the act:

We went into town to see mum at lunchtime so we actually had to get dressed before midday.
Auntie Christine and Laura Came to see us Friday night. Mum and Dad slipped off to the curry house by all accounts. Fools, they missed the final of worlds strongest man!
I had to help Dad with the computer:

Saturday we went to a place called Ikea, it was quite unbelievable. I was actually really excited about the whole outing, we got little bits of paper and pencils to play with and got to ride around in the trolley grabbing at everything within reach.
I didn't share all of Ellis' enthusiasm for the whole venture but the kids department was great with spinny chairs and slides and what have you.
Other than that we sat about a bit:

Whinged a bit:

Tried to get ourselves on the internets:

And remembered the true meaning of christmas once again....Hot Wheels!

Sunday then, a trip to the Oasis, but with Andy and Owen too!

It was ace, we rode all the slides, splashed in the wave machine and best of all Owen taught me how to bomb!

We also learned how to hide our coloured bands so we didn't get chucked out when our session was up!

So monday then, back to nursery for me and without so much as a backwards glance at Mum I was back on it. I was quite glad to be back in a way!

Back to school for me too, although not proper school, more of an all day lunch club really. Hugo and I made ourselves lovely necklaces that i've barely taken off since bringing it home. I've also been enrolled for swimming lessons, how cool is that? So straight after school we were off to Kennet school pool. We were there nice and early so I sat pool side talking to my instructor, I told him that i'd learned to bomb yesterday and he was really impressed...I think we're going to get on just fine. The lesson itself was really good, if a bit short. Dad said I tried really hard and was always first to try something and closes to the instructor to listen hard to what he was saying.

I quite enjoyed the spectacle of it all but was glad I didn't have to get changed and wet and cold. We sat watching, ate a banana, had a chat and read some books...lovely!

Back to proper all day school today, Dad didn't come to get me until ten past three! I had a great day and was still buzzing when I was collected.

But what about me Ned? I come home from nursery pining for you and I have to have two whole hours with Dad until we can come and get you.......

I'd just like to say thanks to Mum for doing her best to keep me warm on the way to nursery on the last couple of freezing mornings. I know i'm a tough customer but you do a good job!

So happy new year everyone and hope to see you all soon!