A brief resurgence of skittles last week:

I won!
We had a book fair at school last week, I badgered dad for days to take me after school and he finally relented. I got a Lightning Mcqueen activity book, with 1000 stickers! There are still a few things in the house that have escaped decoration so far....
I got one as well, an animal one with flaps to lift up, I love my books.
After we had sorted our books out I made the most of being able to have a good old poke around in the bigger kids playground, it was really rather good. Even better was that the after school club came out to play too, which included Hugo. It went sour pretty quick though after I fell out of the playhouse window, blaming Hugo for my rather rapid descent. Dad reckoned it was a very good fall, so I made sure I blew a load of soggy wood chippings at him that I had collected around my mouth while I was on the floor, ha ha.
So saturday after our breakfast (croissants are my new fabourite, well, the jam is actually) we packed up and headed off for the seaside.
We did indeed, the weather was lovely and by the time the sat nav had sold us a dummy we arrived late enough to start on the picnic:

I did a little sun bathing:

And once we'd had our fill:

We headed off for an explore.
I had my shoes and socks off within seconds of getting on the sand, so it was paddle time:

It was also digging time of course:

Here I am just before I decided to completely take the plunge and fell over in the water:

Dad was worried i'd get cold so we had to go back to the car, I didn't want to leave and made that very clear.

I didn't mind too much....

....We were going to go back on the ferry across the harbour mouth. We drove onto a big old ugly boat and soon enough we were chugging accross the water, exciting or what?

We had a lovely kip on the way home, before Slim and Trace came round on saturday evening. Lovely, more people to show my room to! I do love to show people my room.

Soon after Abi bought Nick and Carol round too so we had a little play together before it was bed time whilst everyone else showed up for cards. How rubbish we got put to bed?

Sunday Trish, Al and Carrie-Anne came to see us with a chest of drawers for my bedroom. Excellent, more people to take upstairs and another perfect canvas for several hundred Lightning McQueen stickers, thanks!

In the afternoon Dad took me for a spin on the back of his bike which was nice.....

...and Uncle Alan took me for a spin in the Aygo with Mum to see grandma in hospital. I managed to acquire a tub of ice cream and a piece of fruit cake (although I didn't like the cake much). It's all about timing.

Just one more thing, Kimi has a new sister! How smart is that? She's called Marny by all accounts and we can't wait to meet her.

I can say her name already, i've been practicing all afternoon.

So then, I rounded out half term week in the company of the Halfords, I reckon I gave Ellis a run for her money in the muddy, wet trousers stakes for once with our extensive program of outdoor activities! We went for a walk at the Chase on Wednesday, the Discovery Centre on Thursday and back to the castle on Friday (complete with beautifully decorated paper aeroplanes). I had a lovely week, even if Max and I were a bit of a handfull on Thursday (sorry Emma, and Dean for that matter, hope you get over your injury soon).
I was packed off to nursery, Mum had to drag me away from the boys in tears a couple of mornings. Still, the trikes at nursery have been getting a good going over by myself.
So then, the weekend. At long last it was haircut time! We went off to the barber shop and because Mum was with us, the barber lady got a full run down of what was required. This differs somewhat from Dad's approach which usually consists of as few words as possible and the thought that the more hair is removed the better value for money the haircut. I rode home on my scooter and tried to knock a house down by crashing in to it, HARD! The house won.....
Then it was off down the park, it was sunny and warm and we loved it! I went up the climbing frame and down the slide about 347 times and still hadn't had enough when we got dragged off home for lunch.
I was pretty reluctant to leave as well......it was nice to be out and about without a load of layers on!
We raided the dressing up stuff Saturday afternoon, Officer Ned:

Ellis the builder:

Dad makes a massive error of judgement and teaches me how to blow a whistle:

Then I helped Ned do his Roary jigsaw, well, more like undo it really:

Sunday, swimming at the pool I have my lessons at. I amazed Mum with my new aquatic skills.

And I actually got to get in the water rather than watching Ned have all the fun!

Back home, get the dinner on. I decided I fancied a go at peeling spuds!

It wasn't quite as exciting as i'd hoped to be honest. Going to see Yanna and Fen was though, yay!

We dropped mum off at the hospital to see Grandma and carried on over to the Law household. It was lovely and we were all playing so nicely that when it was time to go and get Mum we didn't want to leave. So I didn't, and sent Dad and Ellis off to the hospital to bring Mum back to stay for a little bit.

We couldn't stay long though as it was....

...back to school on Monday, Shimon and I greeted each other like 'long lost lovers' according to Mum.

I was back to watching Ned swim during his lesson, boo!

It was pancake day as well, i'd already had one at school so that was more than enough for me, I don't like them.

Neither do I......

So then, sponsored bounce at school last Friday, I managed 76! I forgot to bring the paperwork home so you'll have to take my word for it and pay up!
It's school holiday time already! We broke up on Friday afternoon, Shimon came round for tea and play.
Yes, Leo had already been round for a while by the time we had to come and get you two from school, we'd been playing with all your Lightning McQueen cars and giving Dad a nice quiet time of it.
Yeah well Shimon and I soon put a halt to all that! Oh, and thanks very much to Laura for her super prompt sponsor money delivery.
Saturday and we actually had a proper day out, it's been a while! We went to the railway:

Yep, we got our tickets and even though the train wasn't going to leave for another 20 minutes, Ned thought it would be best for us to get on and get sat down straight away:

We waited......

...and waited......

Until we finally moved off, I could barely contain my joy to be moving at last:


You wouldn't have said that if we'd missed it would you? I like to be sure.
We rode along the track and it was all very good, if a bit light on tunnels.
We did see plenty of sheep and the like though...baaaaa!
There was even a playground at one stop half way along:

There was a special guest on board the train, a dragon called Idris. Apparently this particular dragon lives in Ivor the engines firebox. He must like the warm! I'd we'd never heard of Ivor or this Idris, but apparently it was popular back when mum and dad were young.....anyway, we really liked Idris and his frequent visits up and down the carriage.

We even sat and ate our picnic on the move, how cool was that? Watching the countryside roll by, eating sarnies and sausage rolls!

When we got back the station, Ivor himself was doing short rides up and down the track in his brake van. I asked the man if I could wave the green flag to get him moving and he said yes:

I loved all that responsibility!

I didn't, I though you and mum were off forever, never to return, I was glad to see you come back again:

I loved standing on the bridge with all the other spotters:

Especially when Ivor went underneath, covering us up with a cloud of steam and smoke:

Mum and I stayed put and kept our distance from the anoraks:

But we relented in the end, even I loved noisy, steamy Ivor puffing away!

Once we got home, dad got youtube going and we watched a good few episodes of Ivor the Engine, I loved it!

On sunday we had a flying visit from uncle Slim, he thought out chocolate cake making looked really good...but was glad to get out clean I think! We had Grandad and Anne and Alan and Hayley round for lunch and to enjoy my chocolate cake. I was glad to get lunch out of the way so I could get Hayley up into my bedroom to play, sadly Alan came too......

Monday then, first day of the holidays, and I was off to spend the morning with the Halfords. Great! I took some convincing that we should go out up the woods but once I was knee deep in mud, well over the top of my wellies I knew it was the way forward!

I'm still going to nursery so i'm missing out on all the fun.

Today with the Halfords it was a trip to Donnington castle, on the trail of a wicked witch, we found a bit of her broom! In the afternoon it was Alastairs party, hooray!

It was at the school hall and they had an entertainer. My old friend Ted was there who I haven't seen since leaving nursery:

We played parachute games:

Dad had to pretend to be a jellyfish (very good he was too), but he got away lightly compared to Alastair's dad, who wee'd himself in front of everyone:

I went along too, had a great time, but please excuse my fashion nightmare of clashing colours:

There were party games, food, dancing and magic tricks too. The complete afternoon I reckon?

So, snow then? Plenty of it! School was closed because the heating had broken down!
Nursery was still open though, fortunatley my new favourite Gary (the Cook) managed to battle his way in through the blizzards to keep me fed and I had a re-union with Jess who came to look after the kids in our room duting an impromptu staffing re-shuffle. Lovely.
Luckily for me, Emma said she'd keep me company for the morning while school was shut, poor old Max still had to go though........I pretty much chewed her ears off all morning, oh, and she had to rescue me from the top of the big climbing frame in Wash Common, so a double big thanks is in order I think. It wasn't all fun fun fun being off school though, as I was about in the afternoon I had to go to Tesco's with dad and Ellis, Boooooooo!
As you all probably know by now, I wasn't that fussed about the snow on the whole, but I did enjoy a running snowball fight on the way home from school on Thursday enough to give in to dad's suggestion we try a little sledgeing, the trouble was that by the time we had got round to it everyone else had pretty much dragged all the snow off the hills. Still, we got Dad to give us a ride round on the sledge:

I love the snow, we went out in it pretty much everyday at nursery!
I went to Shimon's for tea again on friday night so that was great fun, I was tired out by the time I got home.
We had a pretty laid back weekend:

Although it was Hugo's birthday party on Saturday afternoon. As usual, I make sure I gatecrash all Ned's invites:

Here's me and the birthday boy:

And here we are again, lurking in the top of the goal:

I enjoyed the little ones area:

I didn't enjoy mum smashing my face in on the big slide very much though!
It was a great party, albeit a slightly soggy one when I covered myself in squash...oops! A few of our old mates from nursery also happened to be in Krazy Klub too, so that was extra fun!

Sunday was another leisureley affair, mum and I made a chocolate cake for our pudding, Abi, Nick and Carol came round for a visit in the morning.

Yeah, I loved having Abi round, I repeated her name for the rest of the day actually.

Swimming again Monday, this week I managed a forward roll under water!

I posed for a few pictures for dad:

And did a lot of bouncing:

Ah yes bouncing. Which brings me on to this fridays school activity, a sponsored bounce on a bouncy castle. I'm so excited about this one I can hardly wait! If anyone wants to sponsor me (per bounce, for a minute) then let my agents (Dad or Mum know).

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.....