After Last weeks rather barren output, we've got a sumptuos phot special this week for you (with plenty of video too when it's been put together).
It was book week at school, the culmination of which was fancy dress day with the theme of your favourite book character. There was no one else that came close in my consideration:

It had to be Mr Strong of course! After some rather dangerous looking box cutting by Dad it we had to to was paint, the good bit. The only other detail was his green hat, one quick trip to the fancy dress shop and we were sorted, even if the glittery headgear was a little bit too 'disco':

And whilst we're on the subject of school we had a challenge to see who could do the most sums that gave the answer of 5. I went mad and did two whole sheets worth.

And my writing is now so good that it's officially better than Uncle Alans and deemed good enough to be used to caption our great big wall display of Newbury outside our classroom.

It was of course trampolining day on Wednesday, I'm still really enjoying it, especially as Ned has to miss out while he's at school.

Friday after school, must be time for baking club. On the menu this week, chocolate chip cookies. Dad was responsible for quantities, I was responsible for adding ingredients and Ned was on mixing duties:

We really excelled ourselves this time, they were lovely and we had enough to last all over the weekend too.

Leo came round to play on friday while Disco Max got to get his dancing trousers on. me and Leo have a great time together but Ned seems to find it all a bit too much and crashes out way too early for us.

I've had another burst of interest in photography using Mum's posh camera, here's a few of my shots:

I think they give an interesting snapshot of my life...ha ha!

Paultons Park, the first of the theme parks to open for summer, it was anything but summer while we were driving there mind you, it was tipping it down, there was even some talk of abandonning the trip in favour of drier activities.

As if we were ever going to be frightened off by a bit of rain! I think everyone else was, the place was almost deserted. We got our wellies on and had a great time:

I even found my feet a bit, got on some roller coasters and the bouncy up and down thing. I was quite pleased with myself actually.

And so was I, I got to have loads of rides, many all on my own, we didn't even have to get off on the Cobra and kept going round and round.

Swimming Monday, big, big news....I swam a length of the little pool, with no floats or anything and without touching the bottom of the pool once. Even though I say so myself, it was quite something. I've really got the bit between my teeth on this one now, to the extent that I even got myself dried and dressed afterwards instead of getting Dad to do it for me.

Spring really seemed to be in the air tonight, so instead of our usual after school TV slump-athon we headed out to get some fresh air and muddy trousers. It's pretty hard riding jumps on a bike with stabilisers, so I went for the slightly easier option of the scooter instead:

And I thought I looked pretty pro with the way my school uniform matches my bike:

The playground was good too of course:

Slightly odd one this week as the photographer has been on strike, so no pictures i'm afraid!
Thats not striclty true, we have actually done a lot of this weeks newsworthy and notable activities out of the reach of the camera. As Ned was still on school holidays, I had to let him come trampoling with me on Wednesday once he was finished at dragon club.
Yeah, I loved it too. I can't believe Ellis gets to go bouncing while i'm at school. How is that fair? Anyway, I bounced the highest of everyone, although I was trying so hard to go high I struggled to stay on the middle of the trampoline and was a little bit all over the place to begin with. I soon had it under control though and was pulling some cool moves.
I was a bit shy to begin with this week but soon got up to speed, watching Ned was a real help and he gave me a few pointers.
The games we all played together at the end were brilliant too, except for cat and mouse where I was much to fast as a cat for the little ones (more of a Cheeetah perhaps?). I'm looking forward to more school holidays so I can go again thats for sure.
Once we got home, Ellis crashed out asleep, so Dad and I had a roaring success making some chocolate chip shortbread.
It had to happen one day of the holidays didn't it? Dad came to get me too early from Dragon Club on Thursday. We'd been put into teams and had been designing and making padding for an egg all morning, the aim being that we would drop them from a wall to see if we could stop them breaking. Sadly testing was carried out in the afternoon so I missed everything! That day we'd been chalking drawings of dragons on the floor, when Dad got there I asked him if he could see mine. He had a quick look and identified the single large orange dragon as being my work....I don't know how he did it so quickly, except that my trousers were now a patchy shade of orange.
My last day at Dragon club then, and this was the big one...the Pizza Hut trip! I'd been looking forward to this all week and the day was finally here. We went in a minibus, I got to sit at the back and we had Cheryl Cole on the radio...perfect! It was buffet lunch so I helped myself to three full slices of pizza (with tomato sauce, I actually decided I like it after all) and then two nice big bowls of ice cream factory, heavily loaded with sweets of course. Highlight of my week!
Anyway, we had to go and pick him up late while he was stuffing his face, so we took Mum shopping for a pair of jeans in town. Much as I liked 'helping' Mum in the changing rooms, I soon grew tired of it and fell asleep in my buggy. We then made our way to pick Ned up and went to the carwash. I loved it, all the rollers and squirting water everywhere....well, until Ned decided he wasn't too sure about it.
Well, I was sat in the front and they do all rather come at you! Once the car was sparkly and clean we headed to the aquarium shop. Haven't been there for ages so it was actually surprisingly entertaining. I pointed out some catfish amongst other things to Dad, think he was pretty impressed with my knowledge.
I'd never been there before so I really loved it, there were some really pretty fishes and some really fast ones too.
I asked if we could have a fish tank for home, of course the request was declined.
So it was onto the weekend then and for my benefit it was a trip to the Oasis for swimming on Saturday morning. Ned gets to go every week so it's only fair I get to go once in a while. I had a great time, I loved getting battered by the wave machine and when Ned did his usual swimming charge for the rope accross the middle of the pool I gave chase....and gave a pretty good account of myself (armbands on of course). I actually surprised myself with how far I went under my own steam.
The best thing about the Oasis is of course the slides and I made sure we had plenty of goes on all of them before showing Mum what i'd learned on my recent lessons..she was very impressed.
We headed home for lunch (Tomato soup, bread, pepperami for me) and a dose of Olympic action. I've decided that Hugo and I are going to be Bobsledders when we're bigger, we're both really fast runners. We only have the nationality issue to resolve as I suppose he could compete for France?
Saturday night and we were going to Andy's...yay, much excitment! The grown ups sat downstairs and had to eat their tea while Ned, Abi, Faye and I got to go up and sit on Andy's bed to watch films.
We watched Snow Buddies which featured talking dogs in the snow (so was right up my alley) and then Toy Story 2. A top quality night out, even managed to get downstairs just in time for a spot of pudding...yum.
Sunday, we did nothing, nothing at all. So it was a good job Uncle Slim popped round for a brief visit, even if I did say I didn't like him (what a whopping great fib that was).
Back to school then after a week off, I wasn't that upset to be going back though really. it was good to see my friends again after all.
I'm spending more and more time in Butterflies room at nursery these days. I really love it as all the bigger kids are in there and their toys are so much better to play with, what with the computers, camera's and pretend fully equipped kitchen amongst the other things like the extensive dressing up wardrobe.
It was of course back to swimming lessons and I was really up for it this week. I did really well and we even had to go and do some swimming in the big pool. It was freezing in there though and the little pool felt like a hot tub when we came back.

Trampolining! I've been trampolining at Northcroft in the afternoon. How cool is that then? I was a little reluctant to begin with but I was soon getting stuck in and even threw in a few tricks for good measure by the end of it (turning round in the air and seat drops no less!).
Glad she's having fun while i'm at school! Still, it was our last week before half term so it hasn't been too bad. We had henna tattoo's done by an Indian lady, mine looks really cool. School said they'd last a couple of days, Dad reckons mine would last a lot longer as i'm such a grubby little soap dodger.
I've finally been treated to a new buggy, after my own personal one broke ages ago, i've been having to make do with Ned's rubbish old one for a while. You won't miss us in this one, being as it's very bright Yellow!!!!
Max and Leo came round for a play on friday afternoon, Leo and I headed for Ned's room to get the trainset out.....
...and Max and I played Mario Land on the Wii. Max is really good at it and cleared a section in one short go that had taken Mum and Dad most of the previous evening to finish.
So the weekend then, bit of an odd one this with me having two parties to go to. Saturday was Alastairs, we went to the cinema to see Planet 51 and then it was back to his house for some fun and games and sweets!
And while Ned was at the party we went to Krazy Klub for some Ellis playtime:

When we got there, my bestest friend in the whole world Eva was there, how brilliant! We had a great time together and I was really good at climbing, I even helped her climb up to the slide, Ned has taught me well. We'd arranged to meet up with Kimi too, the cars got a good going over:

And we shared driving duites very nicely.

Sunday we had an early afternoon sofa session watching the Winter Olympics, I loved the short track speed skating in particular. Then it was party time again, this time for Tilly's birthday. A disco in our school hall no less!

And while he was there with his best dancing pants on, we had the pleaseure of Abi and Faye's company. So while Ned was getting out and about at all his parties I saw loads of people too! I think secretley he was a bit gutted he'd missed out.

It hasn't all been fun and games though, I guess it comes to us all at one point or another but it was washing time for my snuggly blanket. It was awful and I spent quite a while with my face pressed up against the washing machine window watchign it go round and round and round. Of course the torment was over once the machine had stopped either as I wasn't allowed to have it until it was dry!

So then, half term and off to Dragon club. I was a little hesitant to begin with and needed some reassurance from Mum. But once i got there they had remembered my name and seemed really pleased to see me. They also had a big tub of Lego that wasn't going to build itself.....

I really loved my journey to nursery as well, me in my new buggy and Ned racing us on his scooter.

Anyway, Dragon club was just as good as ever, indoor skateboarding, jewellery making and these weird go carts that you could skid really well around the kitchen area.

Todays Olympic highlights for me was the Snowboard Cross which I loved, even though dad did keep wibbing to the downhill skiing (which was okay, but not enough jumps).

I had swimming lessons in the afternoon (yes, even in half term!) and I was pretty reluctant to go. This reluctance didn't last long though and I was soon throwing myself into it. I even got used as an example to the rest of the class as my underwater swimming was so good.

Today we met Mum for lunch, we went to the Pasty shop of course and then it was home for a snakes and ladders extravaganza while Ellis was asleep. I gave Dad a right thrashing.

Well we'll start off with a bit of a roundup I think.
Reading....i'm doing okay, but it's very much in fits and starts. Sometimes i'm brilliant, sometimes I just can't be bothered.
My old teacher from last year bought her new baby into to school to meet us, he was really good at pulling faces which made us laugh a lot.
There's been a lot more hanging about after school for scootering in the playground. The ground has been pretty damp which has led to a few wipeouts.
And last of all, I can finally whistle, after months and months of trying. So i'm sure i'll be annoying you all soon with that one!
We've had a great time at nursery lately, my normal room has been closed for decorating meaning that i've been in with the big kids most of the week.
Mum and I were speculating about the possible names of a dog we saw on his walk in the park one morning. Mum came up with scruffy, whereas i decided his name was 'Chicken Nugget'
My scabs are nearly all gone now from my chicken pox, so thats nice as it's been a while!
So then, out and about. We went to Virginia Water on Saturday for a bit of a bike ride:




The picnic was ridiculously late by our standards, we didn't start eating until gone twelve for goodness sake!

We had a good old ride out, probably a bit too far for my liking to be honest but we wanted to get to the waterfall and do some climbing:

Dad and I had a game of pooh sticks, I did him good and proper as his stick didn't even make it to the other side of the bridge!

I decided to vary my route as much as possible on the way back:

And I decided my bike just wasn't fast enough so did my best to pinch Ned while he was answering the call of nature behind a tree:

We did a little shopping afterwards. (After Dad had got us completely lost putting the wrong postcode into the satnav. We ended up at some very posh houses indeed, but we did see a fox mooching about in broad daylight!) I got myself a rather smart shirt and tie combo for a couple of parties i've got coming up....i'm VERY pleased with the tie.

Sue came to babysit on Saturday night, I couldn't get rid of Mum and Dad quick enough. We had a lovley time and I even had a talk on the phone with Charlotte!

We had to cancel our visit to Alan's on Sunday due to very high levels of snot and sneezing from myself, Mum and Dad so it was a lazy day instead, not what we had hoped for.

You'd never think that Ned has actually got a set of proper face paints would you? Quite why Mum decided it was a good idea to use felt tips for this is quite beyond me:

I added a few finishing touches of course!

Several hundred wet wipes later and everything was back to normal(ish).
I'm full of attitude at the moment, I never need any help with anything at all, I know it all and I don't listen to what i'm told. So much so that I actually went all the way to nursery in a t-shirt the other day (while it was freezing cold) because i wouldn't let mum put my coat on. Actually, i think I pushed that one a bit far, she was right, and i've made sure my coat has been well and truly on every day since.
And while we're speaking of outerwear, my coat came home so dirty yesterday dad had to put the washing machine on, all on his own (once he'd rung mum to find out what programme it had to go on). Apparently my coat was so dirty, even the inside was covered in mud!
Friday was the end of our school art week and we had a special assembly in the afternoon. I was really pleased to see Dad and Ellis turn up to see our work.
And I was just a little disappointed that we'd gone to a school assembly with no singing!
Anyway, back to the weekend and a trip to Warwick Castle:

The best bit was first, the park:

Yep, the park certainly passed the Ned test:

Next up was the stocks, fortunaltey there was no spare food to throw at us:

Unlike every other castle we'd ever been to, you could actually go inside this one! I loved it, there were swords to play with (sadly chained down though), loads of weapons lying around and two horses all dressed up in armour which we really loved:

We had a lovely picnic in the grounds and almost had our sandwiches stolen by the ghost tour people.

Then, fully fuelled up it was time for some proper exploring, up onto the ramparts. Of course, I was the advance party:

There were lots and lots of tight, twisty, steep steps to negotiate, but the views from the top were well worth it:

And it was great fun waving to the people down on the ground.

There was even a princess tower to keep the girls happy. We got to dress up as princesses and have our photo's taken.
Truth be told, I took quite some persuasion to get involved, unlike Ned of course, who was well into it:

We took a walk down by the river in the sunshine, but sadly the trebuchet wasn't working:

I spent some of my pocket money on a bow and arrow set. I couldn't get the hang of it to start with but soon caught on and became quite the hotshot with it...sorry cat!

Mum went to work on sunday, the rest of us didn't do much, we built a rather extensive camp in the front room and watched Keeping up Appearances (well I thought it was funny!)

I've been managing to get myself dressed for nursery in the mornings, but got let down badly today when Mum forgot it was fancy dress day at nursery...oh dear. I was distraught, until she left and then I was right as rain. Apparently she felt bad about it all day.....

I'm still doing very well in my swimming lessons, i'm wishing the weekends away so I can go!

This weeks big news...Chicken Pox!!!! Here I am during my recuperation at home with Mum in the mornings for a couple of days last week:

I've got a marvellous sprinkling of crusty scabs pretty much all over, but Mums been dabbing them with calomine lotion in her best Florence Nightingale style.
School news, i'm getting a lot more reading books to bring home now. When I can be bothered i'm actually pretty good but there's always better things to do...especially Mario & Sonic at the winter Olympics on the Wii. I'm addicted!
Things have finally settled back down at school after Christmas and the snow and i've even earned extra golden time minutes for being good.
And i've enjoyed being able to choose one of many many vehicles to ride to school to pick him up in the afternoons, even if I did manage to go over the handlebars of my trike and end up in a muddy puddle!
The weekend, finally we went out and about...even if it was to flipping Ikea!
Actually, it was pretty good, we went to Southampton which gave me a little time for some DS action in the car...
...and a kip for me!
The car park was brilliant, the curliest up ramp we'd ever seen, round and round and round up four levels right to the top. The views were even pretty good out over the docks on a lovely sunny morning.
The shop itself wasn't bad either, plenty of beds and chairs to test as well as the kids section.
Where I bumped into my friend Joe from school! Getting out of the shop was even better than going in, they had four escalators like the one at Sainsbury's (where you take your trolley on)!
We called in at a little park on the way back which was nice, if a bit cold.
It overlooked the train track and some of the trains leaving the docks were unbelievably long!
We had a look around a bike shop to keep Dad quiet, I trapped my finger in a bike's bell after repeated ding-dingings.....didn't get much sympathy even though it really hurt and made me bleed a little! I've tried milkng it ever since but still no-ones interested.
In the evening we had our belated family Christmas gathering at Auntie Christines, she loved it of course, dishing out the presents:

We had a lovely evening:

Until the electric shock game came out. I got zapped twice by my own doing and then once again when Dad stitched me up...I was NOT happy with him about that I can tell you!

So after a stupidly late night (gone midnight) what does Dad decide is a good idea on Sunday morning? A walk up Beacon hill of all things!

It was for my school project though, we've been looking at landmarks and places of interest around Newbury. I set off at quite a pace:

I didn't....

And soon took the Mum carry option:

But I managed to keep on keeping on and reached the top first:

We were so high up, we could see for miles:

Yeah, it was okay at the top, I did have to have my hood up though, it was a bit blowy!

We contemplated the scenery:

And then headed down again with as much energy as we had on the way up:

Which meant Dad carried me, but couldn't manage Mum as well.

An afternoon with Mario and Sonic saw the weekend out a treat, before it was back to school on Monday.

And I went back to nursery with my nicely crusty scabs!

Well we're really light on content this week if truth be told. Must be because it's January and cold and dark and wet and horrible or something?
School started out on reduced hours last week due to the snow hanging around, as a result Hugo came home with us on Wednesday afternoon. The teachers gave Dad a mixture of looks from surprise, through fear to all out pity as we left. He played a blinder and picked us up on the sledge to drag us home. I must also thank Ellis as she carried our book bags home for us while we slid all the way home.
Well, I didn't much fancy the sledge still to be honest.
We had a good afternoon, we played with the trains, the lego, dived around the sofa, played Super Mario and even watched G-Force on DVD.
I was still going into nursery with Luca and Matice as the paths were deemed unpassable by buggy, the novelty had worn off this week though so I wasn't quite so happy about it. Especially when their dad got the car stuck in the school car park. Mum helped by pushing and laughing, i'm not sure how much the laughing helped though really?
Straight onto weekend action then I think? Hugo's party on saturday afternoon. How exciting.
Mum, Dad and Ellis hung round long enough to see us settled on the bouncy castle (not quite the all out mindless violence of previous years) before dragging Ellis away for a trip to the town...unlucky sis!!!
Yeah, what a shocker, strapped into the buggy and dragged round town....I did not want to get off the bouncy castle! Still, my time will come i'm sure!
We had a great time at the party and played games and all the rest of it, in fact i didn't want ot leave to come home.
It was a quick turnaround though and we were soon round to Abi and Faye's for the evening. After playing loads of Abi's cool games we settled down to watch Pinoccio.
While the grown ups watched rubbish telly and ate stinky curry. Both Ellis and myself were soon asleep on the lovely snuggly sofa/blaket/cushions that Nick had sorted out for us, chers Nick! It was only Abi who managed to stay awake to see the film through to the end, so well done to her.
Sunday, we went bowling in Reading, which of course means the most stylish of footwear:

And the oppurtunity to see the grown up's pants:

Even Mum joined in with the bum showing (bum crack airbrushed out at her request on this one):

I was at total fever pitch about the bowling, I was just so excited.
And I thought the bowling was okay, but not as good as the fact that it was glow bowling (in the dark) and they were playing some really good music (like Cheryl Cole) to dance to.
Once the lights came up and the music stopped the next best option was the arcade:

And then it was Monday, and back to swimming lessons for me! I was pretty nervous about going back before I went. I don't know why, as soon as I was in the pool I loved it and really tried my hardest, our instructor even got me to show the other kids how to do pushing off backwards from the wall and kicking as I was so good at it.
Dad and I sat right next to the pool, we issued thumbs up and thumbs down depending on how well he was doing.
I'll round out this week by telling everyone to switch off your lights and to walk everywhere instead of driving, to save the polar bears...my latest crusade. It doesn't apply to my Scalextric (now installed in the bedroom...vroom vroom) though.....

Snow then, lots and lots of it! It's been pretty weird around here for sure.
My scheduled return to school didn't happen due to the snow so that was a waste walk to school for mum and me. Still, on the upside, we had plenty of mornings with Mum and afternoons with Dad.
And seeing as Ned wasn't at school I didn't go to nursery either...which was good for a while but in the end became a right pain as I missed Suzy and Eva so much! Not only that, Dad decided to smack me in the nose with the sledge:


Here I am after the tears and massive amounts of blood had subsided, thank goodness Mum was home when this happened. After a long cuddle and a bit of a snooze things didn't seem to bad and Dad was forgiven.
Yeah, it was all rather a shame, I only got one go on the sledge before we had to go home and clean Ellis up. Still, there was better sledgeing to come on friday, Dad had the day off so we took Ellis to nursery, Mum to work and then headed to Northcroft:


We had the place to ourselves (unsurprising as it wasn't even 8:30 yet) except for a few people walking to work with envious looks on their faces.
once I was at the bottom, it was quite an effort to get back up again....still Dad met me half way and dragged me back up:

But even half way was a long way for his old legs:

We had a little play on the park, but evrything was a bit slippery:

We had been there for over three hours when I was finally convinced it was time to leave, lured away by the promise of a sausage roll from the pasty shop!

And while all this was going on I was at nursery, having a lovely time. Well I certainly didn't want to go near that sledge again and anyway, i'm not keen on the cold.

Mum had to go to work on Saturday to make up all the time she'd had off with us over the week so we helped Dad get ready for our visitors, The Halfords and Andy came for the night on Saturday:

We had a lovely time and stayed up really late of course. Max was also much better at Super Mario than Dad!

We didn't do a lot Sunday so yet another weekend has passed with minimal out and about activity.

But it was back to school on Monday, even if it was for reduced hours! It's the first time we'd been back since we broke up for Christmas so we had a lot to catch up on!

So then, New years eve, the last day of the year.
We had a morning trip out to the castle with the Halfords, it was great to catch up with them and have some youngsters to play with.
We went to meet Mum for lunch at the restaurant in her shop, we love it in there, it's so high up and you can see loads of interesting things from the window...not to mention the lovely chips!
We had a low key evening, with a couple of visitors and some Wii action, all topped off with some late presents:

Friday was of course New years day, the first day of the year...not that it made much difference to us at all really. Anyway, we headed off to Grandad and Anne's for lunch with Alan and Hayley. There was some more late presents too....wahey! And because we were at Grandads it was 'screw up the wrapping paper and throw it at each other' time:

We had another game of my Lego Minotaurus game in the afternoon, it was great fun playing with Alan, he really gets into it!
Then it was the weekend, so there was a lot of sitting about to be done of course:

But the most exciting thing of all was a trip to the cinema to see the new Alvin and the Chipmunks film!

I'd never been to the cinema before so it was even more exciting for me. We had really good seats right at the back in at the top of the walkway so we didn't have any big heads in the way. It was a bit like watching the telly, but much much bigger and I soon settled in. I did hold dad's hand though...well it was quite dark!
The film was brilliant of course, I was soon out of my seat and dancing along to all the songs.

Yeah, I liked it too, but I got a bit restless towards the end.

We walked home via the new park in the City Playground:

I hurt my delicate bits on the see-saw:

Sunday we went to Auntie Christines for lunch as we hadn't seen her all over Christmas. This of course meant more presents! Here I am getting down to the serious business of Hama beads:

It's the only time i've ever seen Dad with the iron!

And i've been turning myself into the glove footed monster, scary or what eh?

Dad was back to work on Monday, so that was me back to nursery as well. I enjoyed being back truth be told, but it wore me right out. I did love being re0united with Ned though, I missed him after being together at home for so long.

Yeah, I had a couple of mornings with Grandad and Anne which was good, but it's back to school tomorrow....if it isn't snowed off!!!

So we must issue another huge thank you for all the late presents we had over the last week!