We rounded out the Christmas holidays with a couple of cool days.

Tuesday was spent at Auntie Christines, we watched some films and ate some chocolate...we like!

Yeah, Mary Poppins was really good.

Wednesday Mum was off with us.  We had a proper low key 'with Mum' morning, involving her doing lots of washing and us playing loads of computer games.

When Dad got home at lunchtime we loaded up and headed to the Coral Reef for a spot of swimming.

Much excitment on my part, not that it lasted long, as soon as I got in the car I fell asleep.  Woke up quickly enough once we got there though.

Being as most schools had already gone back it was lovely and quiet in there, even if we did have to wait for the slides to open.

Slides?  Did someone say slides? I rode them all on my own, even went up the stairs without Mum or Dad .

I kept an eye on her so it was okay.

Best of all though, by half four they were completely dark inside and you had no idea where you were going, I loved it.

It was back to school on Thursday.

This was considerably cheered up with an invite to Hugo's forthcoming birthday party for me.

We weren't too upset to be going back if truth be told, even if we did say otherwise when asked.  I was right back into my reading, well for a bit anyway.

Thats more of a 'bit' than I was.

Friday's school day was cut short by me being collected at lunch time to go to the hospital for a blood test.  I was quite the celebrity leaving while veryone was having lunchtime play outside. 

I had to have a full day at school still.

I didn't get away with not having to go to the fisrst week of swimming lessons though...boo!  I didn not want to go.

I was of course really looking forward to it.  When we arrived we saw Eva (my friend from nursery).

And her brother Edward, my friend from nursery, who just so happened to be in the same class as me.  Add that to a teacher I decided I really liked and I was well up for it.  I was brilliant as well.  You'll have to take my word for it though as Dad was otherwise engaged and didn't see anything.....

Yeah, I don't know what went wrong but i decided i'd rather cuddle Dad than go in the pool.  I latched onto him and would not let go.  Even when Abi turned up and just so happened to be in the same class as me, I wasn't having it.  Luckily I had the same teacher as last rterm even though I have gone up a group so she knew I was usually really good.  Eventually I decided I would give it a go (only after exasperating Dad who didn't know what to do with me).  Within a few minutes I was loving it.

As a reward for being so brave and good at the hospital I got to choose a treat for that night, there was a difficult decision to be made between Pizza Hut and Pizza Express....the ice cream factory was too much of a temptation to resist so the Hut it was.  There were a couple of older kids from school in there as well as Louise from my class and an older girl in a really cool Frank Turner t-shirt.

We went to a butterfly farm thingy on Saturday near Swindon, we had our new christmas camera's primed and ready for action:

As soon as we went through the door we walked straight into Talia from my class at school so that was pretty cool.  We charged around together having a great time.

I took the more considered approach, the place was like a massive greenhouse to keep it warm enough for the butterflies.  There were loads of plants and stuff to make it interesting and there were butterfies everywhere, flying really close and even landing on a ladies head!

As well as the butterflies there were some other small animals, these guinea pigs were up for a cuddle:

I gave my advice on care of guinea pigs, I declared that you shouldn't punch them , or they might scratch your face.  Mum thought this was hysterical for some reason?

This was probably my favourtie specimen (My photo by the way) a massice butterlfy that looked like it was just emerging from it's cocoon:

 There was a load of fish in a pond too, they were really greedy and loved the food we threw them:

Yeah, they were proper greedy, splashing all over each other:

There was also an outside paddock, there were some very vocal Otters, goats, pigs and various birds.  Best of all though was my turkey friend here:

I am actually able to speak turkese you know!  We had quite a conversation, me and Noel.  All the way around the paddock in fact.

There was also Meerkats, lovely lovley meerkats.  There were a few playing outside, but most of them were all in their house huddled up in a massive ball of fur, ears and tails.  I loved them.

I loved the one on gaurd, when he stood up, his head disappeared into the heat lamp shade, we were surprised he didn't burn his nose!

As usual with these winter visits to places like this we were the only ones there at afternoon feeding time so the keeper lady gave us a special guided tour of the animals.

The Otters got raw fish, peanuts and boild eggs for dinner.

The meerkats got a lot of fruit and veg to eat (my kind of dinner).

And then the finale, she let the super muddy pigs out of their pen for a run around the paddock.  We loved it, even if we were mildly terrified of them, what with their size and well, muddiness!

Sunday was a bit of a snooze fest as we got dragged around some well boring shops, the highlight had to be watching Take me Out on the computer as the series had started again on Saturday night.  Mum and I are very pleased about that.

Then it was back to school on Monday for a proper full week.  I had another very uncharacteristic wobble and didn't want Mum to leave me there.  We're having challenge week this week with a visiting clown apparently...I hate clowns......

And i've been embroiled in a bit of a party tussle.  Tegan, Alastair and Tilly are having a joint birthday party in a few weeks time and Tilly has been telling me i'm not invited.  This is in rather stark contrast to Tegan and Alastair who most definatley want me there.......I think she may end up disappointed on this one!

We broke up for Christmas on the Tuesday.  It was a tough day at school, eating what was left of the party food and playing games until lunchtime when we got to go home.

Except I didn't go home, I went to my friend Evelyn's house instead.

And while she was gone Dad and I did Lego, and played Tony Hawks Pro-Skater on the playstation.

It was the first time i'd been home with a friend to play after school and I loved it.  Evelyn had a lovely little doggie to play with and an older brother who produced art work to order (my dragon is now stck to the dishwasher).

When we arived to pick her up it seemed most of John Rankin school was hanging out there, cool.  Even better was having a play on the drum kit...we took some shifting to go home!

Mum had gone out for another work do so we picked up a few bits and bobs from Waitrose for tea (including some last minute chocolate tree decorations) and headed home to watch a bit of worlds strongest man on telly before bed.

Mum had Wednesday morning off with us, we had a lovely lazy time. 

We picked her up from work in the evening and had to go Christmas food shopping.  We were remarkably good this year.

Even if Mum tired of the whole thing very quickly and wanted to get home.

She had all day off with us on Thursday.  We went to see my old friend Ron in the morning but he was out which was a shame. 

Once Dad was home we went to the cinema to watch Arthur Christmas.

After a brief confrontation with a woman who accused Dad of sitting in her seats (turns out her tickets were for the previous day) we settled in to watch the film with another huge portion of John Rankin kids who just so happened to be sitting in the row in front.

The film was brilliant and we really loved it.

After that we went out for tea, to Pizza Express.  I really loved it, garlic dough balls, Pizza's and glass bottles of coke.

I didn't, wouldn't eat a dough ball and my bolognese wasn't spaghetti, just rubbish normal pasta.

We've added another job to the bedtime regime with the introduction of hot water bottles, here's my seasonal effort:

I started all this off when Den and Gail came to visit and bought me a lovely massive cat hot water bottle.  He's proper snuggly.

Mum took us round to Auntie Christines on Friday morning, we had a job to finish off, decorating her christmas cake.

We did a lovely job of course.  Dad met up with us when he had finished work for christmas but he hadn't won anything in the raffle to share with us (some sweets or biscuits would have been good).

Then it was Christmas eve, with the levels of excitement peaking nicely.

We had our annual group outing to the pub, there was a magnificent turnout this year.

Us kids had a great time, the weather was pretty good so we could play out in the garden as well in the pool and darts room, with it's lovely chalkboard:

Once we were home we had to track Santa on NORAD of course and make a few last minute preparations for the big day.

There was also the matter of leaving a little something for Santa and Rudolph and putting the santa please stop here sign outside.  Neither of which went particularly well.

Yeah, first off the new santa cake stand we'd bought toppled over and broke and then Mum tried to bang the santa sign in using a brick...which obvioulsy didn't end too well.

Dad was not amused at all:

And then it was the big day!

We didn't even get up until nearly 8 o'clock.

Even though i'd woken up every hour on the hour most of the night.  Or so I was claiming anyway.

First job was to get the stocking emptied and their contents opened:

If the stockings were anything to go by, the main event around the tree was going to be amazing.

Yeah, the stockings were great, so good in fact that I didn't even venture downstairs for a sneaky look for ages.

But eventually we did make our way downstairs:

Yes, there were plenty of things to open and get excited about:

Even Mum and Dad opening there boring old peoples stuff wasn't that much of a chore this year (maybe because Mum had so much Lindor....)

This year saw a lot of Christmas loose ends tidied up, firstly there was the game Pig Goes Pop which i'd been after for at least three years:

As well as the chocolate coin makers we'd been after for a good while.

Thats not to say all our other stuff wasn't totally brilliant of course as it was.

Yeah, all of it!

Then of course there was my massive tube of Jaffa Cakes:

Auntie Trish was coming round for a 'sleep over' so we were well excited when she turned up, she'd made a real effort and looked very well turned out.

Especially with the sackfull of goodies she'd bought with her too (not all of which were bottles of red wine either).

Soon after Alan and Hayley turned up too, we were all set for lunch: 

Of course we'd eaten a fair amount of chocolates so we weren't that fussed about dinner to be honest.

No, we picked at a few little bits and pieces but that was about as far as it went.

Dad must have decided to have a day off from nagging us about what we hadn't eaten as well which was a result as it meant we could concentrate on pudding.

Since there was no Great Grandma the decision was made to not have a Christmas Pudding this year as no one else really likes it.

This years centrepiece was to be our chocolate yule log (expertly made with precision by Mum rather than thrown in a bowl and mixed up by Dad).

It was Ellis' and myself's job to decorate it of course with the truly magnificent cake decorations that Auntie Christine had managed to get for us after we couldn't find any, ANYWHERE!

Auntie Christine, Saviour of Christmas dinner...hooray!

Aside from a small squabble over 'artistic differences' we did a pretty good job I reckon.

Yeah, Ned banned the slightly grumpy looking snowman and a sign bearing the word 'Xmas':

Of course with the lack of Christmas pud we had nothing to set fire to at the table.  Dad wasn't too happy about this and dug a left over sparkler out of the garage to shove in the chocolate log.

A great idea in principle...except that it sparked all over his lemon tart and stunk the house out with thick grey smoke.

Even with the aid of my brussel sprout lunch, the whoopee cushion took a right old battering, the first present casualty, lasting only until lunchtime:

Grandad and Anne arrived after dinner, it's always lovely to see them, especially at Christmas as Grandad makes a great target for screwed up balls of wrapping paper!

Quite by accident we ended up with a girls and a boys sofa.  Our girls one looked nicer and smelled nicer than the boys one of course.  We settled down and watched the Gruffalo's child for half an hour:

Then the telly was off and it was time for tea.

Didn't eat much of that either, ha ha.

Then it was time for a few games, first off it was a Yahtzee lesson with Auntie Trish:

And when Owen and Laura came round games reached a whole new level with Doggie Doo.

You load the dog's mouth with food, and then throw the dice to squeeze the handle, with each squeeze comes a very satisfying farting sound.

And after enough squeezes the food become a poo and drops out of the dogs bottom, first one with three poo's is the winner:

This saw us quite nicely up to bedtime.

We got to go off to our normal beds while Auntie Trish got to have the exclusive and seasonal 'pine scented' bedroom (the lounge on a sofa).  I let her have my lovely Hello Kitty fleece blanket.

Boxing day, a time to digest what had gone on and spend some time with our new stuff.

As well as having a visit from Den and Gail too.

There was a lot of Lego built.

Quite bit of  slouching about too.

We said goodbye to Trish who finally went over the edge and couldn't take any more, thanks for coming!

I cracked the whip for Dad to finish my Ninjago temple while the rest of us watched my diary of a wimpy kid DVD:

Dad and I had a quick trip down the park just before it got dark, I wanted to take my newly adorned bike out with my camera and cuddly toys in the basket:

Coconut loved going down the slide!

After two days solid in the house, Mum broke ranks and escaped to work on Tuesday.

We had a lazy morning and then ventured out to meet her at lunchtime for some proper decent food at last...McDonalds.

Once lunch was done and dusted we headed to the skatepark at Greenham to try out my new board and super cool new helmet:

I also took my tennis racket and cool coloured tennis balls to have a whack about with, I loved it:

I'm not so sure Dad did though as he had to keep running accross the field to retrieve the balls i'd hit.

I took my scooter for the skatepark and my football for the field.  Dad did a good job a retrieving that too.

Auntie Christine came round with Laura and Darcey later on, that was lovely of course.

It was, it also made sure the next few years of entertainment have been covered with Mario and Sonic at the 2012 Olympics for the Wii:

On Wednesday we had another park outing with my fully loaded basket.

And another tennis wacking session, it's made my arm hurt actually.

And we also tried out our chocolate coin makers:

The results were surprisingly professional actually, but the best bit was licking the containers clean of course:

On Thursday it was a second trip to the cinema.  This time for Alvin and the Chipmunks 3 - Chipwrecked! 

We loved it of course and this time we didn't have to argue with anyone about our seats.

In the afternoon we had to watch the Darts on the telly because there were a few reprobates we know that went.

We watched for ages but only caught occasional glimpses of them.

I gave Dad a special treat by agreeing to go shopping with him in the evening.  It was great actually, we looked at cool stuff and I made sure we got loads of proper food like Pepperami and square crisps.

Friday the call was made, it was ice skating time.  I was really pleased about this, i'd been going on about it for ages as I remembered we went last year.

I did not want to .  No.  Not at all.  Not for me.  I took this photo on my super smart new camera before we went in, while we all still had full use of our limbs and didn't need any crutches:

Hmmm, maybe I shouldn't have been so hasty to go.  Dad fell on me during one fall which I managed to shrug off but the second fall involving Andy had me in tears and carried of the ice by the attendant.

While Ellis was having a mare, I was loving it.  I was doing laps and laps on my own, not even holding onto the sides either.

After a quick time out, I was back on it, this time flanked by two minders: 

Things went well, but would have gone better if maybe i'd been more interested in actually skating rather than performing ballet moves as we shuffled around.

Andy had decided to take on camera duties instead:

So thats skating taken care of for another year and hopefully Andy is mobile again.

That takes us up to New Years Eve then.

Yup, another low key day, just another trip to the park where we enjoyed a few early fireworks in the fading daylight.

And of course another tennis wackathon.

In the evening we went to Abi and Fayes house, along with Kimi and Marney as well as all the associated grown ups.

The little ones are all quite mad, I did my best to avoid them, ha ha.

One by one we all crashed out in various parts of the house.

Until only I was awake, it had turned 2012 and we were celebrating by playing Rat-A-Tat cat (a card game).  We had two games, I won them both, schooling all the grown ups.  I don't think i'll be allowed to play again....

After a monster lie in on new years day we had a burst of energetic fun with Mum's Just Dance 3 game on the Wii.

Apart from a few near misses it was great fun, even if we did find it a bit tiring.

Mum was back to work on Monday so we took her out for lunch again, this time to the pub.

It couldn't come soon enough for me either, due to an administration error, i'd had no breakfast!!!

We had a play on victoria park afterwards, we really love it down there, even when it is cold and muddy!

That brings us up to a our traditional monday cut off point for updates I think?  Things seem to go a bit haywire over Christmas and we don't have any idea what day it really is.

Anyway, we'd like to say a really massive thank you to everyone we've seen over the Christmas period, for the company, the presents, the food and the drink and wish you all a happy new year!

We had our junior school carol concert at a big church in town on Tuesday afternoon.  We were pretty much the last class to arrive (we had to walk all the way from school).  Mum and Dad had both turned up and hidden at the back, I reckon they must have known about the year three guitar recital and taken suitable evasive action.  Once it was done and dusted we had to walk all the way back to school.  I didn't mind, I got to walk with Mrs Douglas and we had a good old chat.

It was my last week of swimming, which meant fun week.

And the one week of the term I was jealous of Ellis' swimming lesson.

We had balls, hoops, big floating mats and also swimming teachers with a hose pipe.  Because it wasn't a proper lesson I could play with Neave as we.  Mum topped it off nicely by turning up to watch.

It was also my last dancing lesson on Wednesday.  The three youngest that took exams each got a special medal awarded to us and everyone who had passed their exam got a really smart looking certificate.  As if that wasn't enough we also got a little present as well.  We got to show the grown ups our small group dance we had to do for the exam as well, which was obviously a treat for them.

It was all rush rush rush after dancing.  We had to eat tea and get me to school for  six o'clock for the opening night of our school play, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

I wasn't allowed to go, so Owen came round to keep me company.  We had a cool time, well I did, not sure how he felt after i'd talked at him for nealy two hours non stop.

The play itself went very well.  My class all had a part of wedding guests (as well as general singers of course). 

I really got into character and enjoyed the dancing too:

Here we all are, 3HD enjoying our own little finale:

It really was great fun and we all did really well. It was also pretty cool because Mum and Dad sat right on the front row do I got to give them a cheeky wave or two.

Massive excitement on Thursday, we got letters from the actual real father christmas.

Yeah, he seemed to know a LOT, even our friends names?

I had another performance on Thursday night, I was pretty tired out by the end of it to be honest.

Friday night we finally went and got ourselves a christmas tree.

About time too, even my teacher thought it was too long to wait.  In fact my only requirement for this years tree was that it was to be taller than Mrs. Douglas.

I loved being greeted by the singing dancing Santa on the way in:

So we selected this one in about thirty seconds and then turned our attention to the man running trees through the bagging machine:

We put it into the back of the car bteween our seats and made for McDonalds, well, it was too late to start cooking.

We had to frop Dad off at the pub for his work Christmas party as well, we knew Saturday morning wasn't going to be action packed.

No it wasn't, we had a very  lazy day and watched Wall E, which was universally liked.

We headed over to Grandad and Anne's for tea as a late birthday party for him and an early christmas party for all of us.

It was rather good as well, we had party poppers and crackers.

I did loads of colouring with Dad.

And I drilled Alan for histoy facts.

Never ones to rush anything the Christmas tree went up on Sunday.

Everything went up very smoothly as well, no drama's with the tree falling over or anything:

The net from the tree made a rather good wedding veil/train when attached to my head with hair grips:

Even Poppy got caught up in the Christmas spirit:

Once we'd emptied the box of decorations onto the tree it was time for the cherub to take her place at the top:

I was made to go to the stupid park in the afternoon because of Ellis.

Sorry Ned but I really wanted to go, even if I did run Mum over on my bike and it may have been really freezing cold.

We helped Mum make some chocolate brownie, we didn't make any mess of course and it all ran really smoothly:

Once the bowl was well and truly empty, Ned let me finish licking duties:

We decided to pose for a seasonal shot with the cat as well:

 We had to finish of writing our cards too:

Monday was pretty cool at school, we had our visiting pantomime performance of Ali Baba. I loved it, even if it was only in the hall.  After that it was party time. I didn't think it much of a party though really, there was no dancing?  Just eating.  I was also told not to wear my party shoes outside by Mum on the morning but seeing as we had a fire alarm I had to make an exception.

We also had our paty today as well, I was much more happy with the school definition of a party.  The cakes that Dad bought me to take along went down a storm and I even helped the grown ups set the food up during lunchtime.

Well I got my swimming report back and i've passed level one with flying colours, roll on level 2 when I get a yellow swimming hat and go in the deep end of the swimming pool. 

Hmmm, yeah great, I get to resume my lessons as well after Christmas, deep joy. 

We'll both be in the pool at the same time as well, but in different pools.

I don't know how Dad will manage to watch us both.

Dancing was back on this week and Mrs Groves had bought us all a pair of tap dancing shoes to wear.  How exciting!  The noise levels were certainly up while we tried them all for size.  

I was glad to leave them to it and do reading in the car, even though it gets dark very early at the moment and we have to have the lights on in the car.

I'm making quit a swift exit from school most nights now so I can get a bit of a go on the skateboard before it gets too dark.  All my practice paid off when  managed to pull very first ollie last week (when you pop the board up into the air).

We went to the Anvil to see the Panto with the school on Thursday morning.  I sat with Tom on the coach and i'd made sure I had loads of sweets to take with me.  The show itself was really brilliant, especially when Peter Pan flew out over the audience dropping glittery bits on us all.  Even silly Jake couldn't put me off with his endless chair kicking from behind.

We did our nativity play last week, a practice on wednesday then a real show on Thursday and Friday mornings.  Mum and Dad came on Friday morning and sat on the wrong side of the hall, I told them where to sit and it made perfect sense to me?  Anyway, it didn't matter too much.  They loved it of course:

And here's my close up, Ellis the 'Binky' (Innkeeper):

 I broke ranks at the end to go and give Mum a cuddle before I had to go back to class.
We got put to work on friday afternoon after school, making pigs in blankets for christmas:

We got them all nicely rolled and tucked away in the freezer, we can't wait to eat them!
We had a lay in on Saturday morning, playing christmas snap in Mum and Dad's bed.
Once we'd finally surfaced we got dragged to the beach.  Reluctantly.
But of course, once we got there we loved it!
We had chips on the seafront at the Witterings:

Took in the fresh sea air:

And of course, collected some rock samples:

Does this remind you of anyone?

We had a trip to the surf shop too of course.
And then we headed home for Sue to come around and babysit.  She has also joined the club of not reading Harry Potter, but we'll forgive her as she'd come out in a bit of a rush and forgotten her reading glasses.
I had Milly's party on Sunday morning.  It was good, there was a bouncy castle and massive dance floor for me to perform my moves.  The catering wasn't to my liking though, hot dogs (yuck), Flump sweets (yuck) and birthday cake with jam in it (yuck).
I was quite happy to take the cake of her hands....
We went to Rich, Oli and Joshuas on Sunday afternoon for a bit of a gethering with all the gang.  It was great fun, Max and I made ourselves at home and tucked into the impressive spread.
And I played with the younger ones, the wooden railway was a particular favourite.  As well as nearly one years old Finley!
Back to school today and we're getting bucketloads of cards.
I had a rather interesting one from Tilly, which she chose to inform me that she hated me with. Nice I thought?  Anyway, it got intercepted by one of the teaching assistants so we'll see what happens there.  We do generally manage to wind each other up though....