This weeks biggest news was my first school sports day.  It was brilliant.  I'd been practicing by running home from school as fast as I could evryday for weeks so I was ready for action.  It was ovely to see Mum and Dad sat out on the field to watch too.

My first race of the day was the hat race, which was pretty much a running race, with a stop mid way up the track to put on a hat.  I was super excited before we set off:

And I made a goood start:

I didn't do quite so well at stopping to put the hat on though and pretty much trailed in last.  I didn't care though, I was just happy to be outside on the field on such a nice day with my friends and family.

We watched the other classes race and cheered them on before it was time for my second outing in the hoop race.  Again, based on a running race but with two hoops to pass through along the way up the track.  I was dead fast:

And managed the technical hoop negotiating aspect of the race a whole lot better than i'd managed the hat in my earlier outing.  I crossed the line first I think, it was pretty close but i'm going to claim it:

Dad sloped off after the proper races but I managed to get Mum to stay for the other games and even the picnic.  I got a bit boo-ey....seemd to do the trick.  Having said that I haven't really been myself lately so it was nice to have some extra time with Mum.

I also did really well at dancing this week, after a bit of a clingy start on Dads lap I got well into it.  In fact at the end, our teacher said it was some of the best dancing she'd seen in ages and awarded me a gold star sticker...I was pretty chuffed about that!

I got to do loads of reading of course, deep joy.  In fact, I decided to carry on reading during the drive back home afterwards as well, anything to get the book finished, it just won't go away on it's own I suppose.

I had my school trip on Thursday, to Richard Benyon's house, Englefield Estate.  It was a good day out actually, I loved wearing my cool wellies all day and looked like a proper farmer in my jeans/shirt/jumper combo.  There was all sorts to see, but of course i'm not letting on what I saw or got up to.  One thing I did do though was talk to one of the gardeners over there who gave me plenty of tips on how to get the best out of the pear tree in the garden.

Auntie Trish babysat for us on Friday night.  We discussed many deep issues like love, life and death.

We ate some sweets and denied we were tired as long as we could.

We had a trip to Toys R Us on saturday morning to buy some presents, I decided to have a good old spew up on the way.  I'm fine with 3 hour trips to Wales or Cornwall but 20 minutes of Dads country road driving to Basingstoke and it's face in the bag time!  It wouyldn't have been so bad but we were all out of wet wipes and sick bags.  A bit of quick ruslting in the back of the car found a Romney Hythe & Dymchurch railway carrier bag and a bottle of water in the glove box...we got by!

We headed home, I was off to a party for Louise's birthday.  It was a Harry Potter themed party so I got my cape, school uniform and wand out, messed up my hair and got Mum to draw me a lightning bolt scar.  I was good to go!

While he was there Mum and watched Tangled on DVD, Dad tried to ruin it by snoring all the way through it but it didn't put us off.

I had a great time at the party and came home with loads of cool stuff, thousands of sweets and my own owl as well as a new sparkly wand which was quite an improvement over my chopstick from the chinese takeaway.

We went to pay Anne a visit on Sunday, we all helped give her hedge a trim in exchange for lunch.  A good deal I thought?

Back to school on Monday, but we were both really excited.

Yes, I was going to Neave's after school.

And I was having Tegan round!  Finally.

Neave's Mum tried to wind me up saying it was green cabbage for tea, but I would have been quite happy with that!

Tegan and I spent about an hour thrashing out potential deals for swapping our Moshi Monsters before we got on the PC for some more Moshi Monsters action, then we wathced a little TV before having a sword fight, giving the cat some loving and then having tea out in the garden.  After tea we had a good old bounce on the trampoline.

All I have to say is that even though I though my bed was super cool, Neave's is even better, it has a slide!!!!!

Well it's sure been a while hasn't it?

Yeah, sorry about that, there's been various things going on over the last few weeks, some good and some not so good.

So we'll try and give you a round up of the last couple of weeks.

First of all I suppose the biggest event of the year so far was the Queens Jubilee.  We'd been preparing for days at school.

Yeah, for our massive family picnic on the field.

It was a great afternoon, Dad came along, so did Darcey, she bought Laura and Auntie Trish along too!

I managed to buy back one of the cakes that i'd made:

And I reckon Darcey looked pretty cool in my crown too!

I spent a lot of the afternoon with my friends, it was a great afternoon and we loved it!

Once we were all done at school we helped Dad make the final preparations for our camping trip.

Yep, we'd checked the weather forecast religiously and still decided that Wales would be a good idea!

We sent our advance party of Andy and Owen down earlier than us with the tent.

So while we were sat in the services, enjoying a lovely happy meal they were busy putting the tent up, ready for our arrival.

They'd done a good job too, all we had to do when we got there was run arond the tent tripping over the guy ropes and make our beds.  Mum was particulalrly impressed with this arrangment it has to be said.

When you say make our beds, we left that to Mum while we went for a walk to the beach with Andy and Owen.

So here's our setup for the weekend (note union flags on the doorway):

Saturday morning the sun was out so it was time to hit the beach:

And then it was back to camp for fun and games.  Mum and Dad's airbed had gone down overnight, it made an excellent wrestling prop:

And proved to be a great place for a little al fresco snoozing:

We then settled in for the night, the weather had turned pretty bad.  Not quite as bad as our ill advised camping trip to Croyde last year, but pretty bad none the less.

It was raining, a lot.

And it was pretty windy too.

But it didn't keep us awake for long....all that fresh air sure makes us tired.

And the boys must have done a good job putting the tent up as we were warm and dry all night!

Sunday was my actual proper birthday, how cool, my birthday in a tent (even if there does seem to be a general decline in the quality of my birthday locations over the last few years, Florida when I was 3, Barcelona when I was 4 and now Wales for 5.  It doesn't bode well for next year does it?):

It was really cool to have presents in the tent, i can't believe there was even room for them in the car, what with all of Dad's camping parephenalia and booze.

I did some Lego with Owen:

And then we headed out for a bit of trip.  We went to the Mumbles in Swansea to visit an ice cream parlour for a bit of a birthday treat (and to get some shelter from the rain which was still coming down quite heavily:

We left the camera behind, so I came to the rescue with my Ipod.  Speaking of the Ipod, I was glad we had a trip out in the car as it gave me a chance to top up it's charge.  I love camping, don't get me wrong, but I do enjoy a little break from the great outdoors with my Ipod.

Anyway, it doesn't seem to like rotating pictures very much, so you'll have to tip your head on one side for this one:

And this one, but to make it interesting it's the other way around this time:

When we got back to the tent we had a brilliant cap gun fight.

Cap guns...how brilliant are they exactly?  How have I got to 8 years old without ever having a cap gun?

They were rather good it has to be said.  Once all the caps had run out (as had the supplies of the campsite shop too) it was back to the tent for my birthday cake:

I was every bit as excited and thrilled as I look on the pictures.  A lovely day was topped off perfectly when the weather finally lifted and we got to go for a lovely long walk along the beach and dunes in the evening:

My favourite way to round off a day!

The next day was a much better prospect weather wise, it was even sunny.  Back to the beach then?

Skim board and boules for me.

Splashing about for me:

And a good old session on the Hello Kitty bodyboard.  Lovely.

Not as lovely as the cafe up the hill in the sunshine though:

And that was pretty much that, we packed up and came home.  It had been a great weekend away, even with the wind and rain!

So we were back home for the rest of half term.  The first day we used wisely playing with some of my new birthday toys in the morning with Mum:

And then we had a trip to Donnington castle in the afternoon with Dad:

We had a couple of days at holiday club at our school as well.

We did, it was brilliant.  We got to play Just Dance 3 on the Wii!

There was other cool stuff as well though Ned, we really enjoyed ourselves. So much so that when Dad came to pick us up after lunch we sent him away until later in the afternoon.

We also got to spend a little time with Auntie Christine, Laura and Darcey on and off for a few days as Mum and Dad were visiting Grandad in hospital a bit more often. 

Yeah, we'd been to see him the other week in hospital too.....

In other news, we went back to school for our last term of the year.  How time flies eh? 

My new bed arrived, finally.  It's been a long time coming but as you can see it was well worth the wait:

It really is lovely, especially with all the other trimmings that mum and Dad got me, I can't wait to show it off to any visitors!

It's proper nice in there now actually.  I decided I wanted a bed like that, but decide that i'd actually rather have the bigger bedroom really.  Mine's up for decoration next, don't hold your breath, you know how slowly things get done round here.

It was all go on friday, what with me at the school disco (complete with my new glow in the dark belt's to choose from).

And the rest of us going to Finlays place for a barbecue and to watch a football match.  Didn't pay much attention to the football really, but us kids had a great time in the garden playing.

I got there after the disco (which was great as always) just in time for the puddings to come out and the end of the match.

Just before I decided to have a very tearful and angry meltdown, which gave everyone something to watch as I was carted off home, well, it was getting pretty late!

Saturday was the day of my birthday party, only two weeks after my actual birthday so not too bad I suppose.  We had it at Eddie Katz and were shown to my party room, which just so happened to be the disco room, cool or what!  All my friends soon showed up, oh and Ned, and it was party time:

We had a great time running about, climbing, sliding, jumping and what have you.

Yeah, I even quite enjoyed myself actually!

After the food had been eaten, Eddie Kat himself bought in my cake (a chocolate hedgehog this time, remember, no jam cake for me!).

Sunday was off course fathers day, so we gave Dad his cards and presents early and then decided what he'd really like to do for a treat was take us to Legoland.

We are good to him aren't we.

In amongst all the usual goings on there were a few points of interest.

Firstly, I went on the big kids cars for the first time.  Dad told the man I was six (after we'd been practicing me saying how old I was).  It was brilliant, so much better than the little kids ones next door.

Yeah, she did really well too, especially the massive head on crash she had with me!

And I managed to finally remove a wobbly tooth i'd been trying to keep in my mouth for months!  It caused quite a stir in the Atlantis ride!

So that rounds up what we've been up to b ut we have to end on a sad note for this installment.
Yes, we mentioned earlier that Grandad was in hospital, sadly they couldn't make him better and he's no longer with us.
As Mum has said, at least he wasn't ill for long and he isn't poorly anymore.
Yeah, it all seems so quick from when we were last playing football down the park over at his house to this.
We'll certainly miss him thats for sure!
Yeah, especially the funny stuff, who else would hang teddies on the light fittings?

So it looks like summer is finally here, well for now anyway.

It's been lovely, dinner outside every night.  I'm sure it helps to increase my appetite as well?

Having said that, it was pretty hot in the hall for Mr Gilhams sports club on Tuesday after school.  I still enjoyed it though.

And while Ellis was cooped up indoors, Dad and I went out on our bikes.  We didn't have anywhere in particular to go so we headed accross the fields until we ended up at a bridge over the A34.  I love standing on bridges, watching the traffic zooming underneath.  Waving at them down below makes it even more fun, especially when lorry drivers honk or people in convertibles wave both hands above their car!

We had a lovely barbecue for tea with loads of veggies for me...

....and chorizo for me!

Which i've decided I like as well now.

Dancing, another indoor hot activity on Wednesday.

While Dad and I found a shady bench to do my reading.  A bit like eating, reading outside seems to be a much more pleasant experience.  I did loads.

We had a visit from a real life farmer at school on Thursday, the most exciting bit was making our own sausages!

Then finally I had a much more cool and refreshing after school activity on Friday, swimming!

And seeing as I don't have to have lessons anymore, I got half an hour pf playing on the Ipod, brilliant!

I got on really well at swimming, I have a new coloured hat (yellow for level 3) and i'm proper keen on improving as much as I can.

It was also Alans birthday, so we had a trip to Pizza Hut in Reading.

Okay so that was pretty cool in itself, add to that we were giving Andy, Alan and Hayley a lift as well, meaning we had to sit in the very back seats!

Yanna and Fen came along too, we had a lovely time.

And we ate like you wouldn't believe.  I had a bit of a result with my order being mixed up and ended up with two pizzas that I finished (after a garlic bread with cheese) and followed by two bowls of ice cream factory!

Happy birthday Alan!

We loaded up the car and waited for Owen, Laura and Andy to arrive on saturday mornng.

Yeah, after we'd popped into town to get the days free lego from the newspaper!

Anyway, we were off to Birmingham to watch the World BMX championships.

Dad was super excited, and i was pretty keen too!

I wasn't quite so enthralled with the whole thing but it was going to be a night away.

We got to Brum in time for lunch, and once Laura had found a car park that she could get her monster truck we met up at the pub for eats.

Lovely start to proceedings.

Shame the same couldn't be said for our hotel for the night.  Mum really wasn't that pleased with it...we thought it was great though, even if we didn't have enough beds or bedding for us.

Just minor details Mum!

There were groups of riders on their race bikes, wearing their national jerseys just cruising the streets, it was pretty cool to see.

After a bit of wait outside the NIA we headed in, I think we were all pretty shocked at just how cool it looked when we got our first glimpse of the track and the all round set up:

We got good seats where we could see the whole track from.  Practice was already underway and it looked brilliant.

The bikes and the helmets were so shiny under the lights.

They were doing massive jumps and going really fast and it was only practice!

The real racing soon started and the atmosphere was brilliant, especially if someone was racing in a GB jersey.

Although there were so many nationalities watching, it didn't matter who was winning, it was loud all night.

It was a bit of a disappointing start for the home riders with our top Male rider (Liam Phillips) crashing out right in front of us and breaking his collar bone on the first corner of his first race.  Add to this Shanze Reade falling off while leading her quarter final and things definatley took a bit of a slump.  Fortunately though Quillan Isodore restored the noise levels with a win in the 16 year old boys category.

There were some lovely stands selling stuff around the arena too, I had my eye on some rather lovely looking gold wheels and the Troy Lee helmet I tried on fitted a treat.

Add in inflatable banging things, sweets and doughnuts we had a good night.

Even though I was a bit tired by the end of it all.

We headed back to our luxury accommodation and hit the hay.

I decided to wake up at 5 am and have a good old spew as well, nice!

Breakfast was equally hilarious as getting in our room.  Mum again thought it was pretty shocking but we quite liked drinking our juice of of great big tea mugs and the boiling hot bowls fresh from the dishwasher for our cereals.

We headed for home, via a quick photostop at the top of the car park to take in the Birmingham skyline:

Seeing as it was still scorchio and we'd spent most of the weekend inside, we had a family water pistol fight in the garden in the afternoon.

Yeah, I love a water pistol fight, it was brilliant.

Poppy didn't go much on it though.

And then Mum and I had a trip to the park...

While Dad and I slumped on the sofa instead



While Ellis was at after school sports on Tuesday Dad and I did some planting.  We'd already dried out some chili seeds and I was itching to get them planted.  We did those and some wafty salad leaves or another which I wasn't nearly so interested in.  Not that i'll eat the chili's either I suppose, but they just seem a lot more exciting.
I had a cool time with Mr Gilham of course, I also made Dad carry me home on his shoulders, well it's hard work all that running around after school you know.
I decided I wanted a school dinner on Wednesday.  It was lovely as well, roast beef and loads of veggies....perfect.  It was nice, but i made sure I didn't tell Dad it was too nice.
I wasn't nearly so keen on dancing after school on Wednesday.  I just didn't feel like it, but once Dad had pointed out i could have a power nap on the way I gave in and decided to give it a go.  It was okay as well.  I'm still not sure I want to carry on going though.  Mum reckons it's only because i'm tired after school.
I joined in with the school dinner idea on Thursday, well, it was pizza day after all!
I didn't have school dinners, I had a packed lunch as it was school trip day!  We went to a farm park place to see the animals and all that.  Obviously there was also the major excitement of the coach trip as well!  We had a great day, we fed the sheep, saw loads of piggies and had a tractor and trailer ride through some really ooey-gooey mud!
Friday was soon upon us, Dad finally had a good idea for once and suggested that seeing as we'd finished tea early we have a trip to the shop to pick some sweets for pudding.
Yeah, most unlike him that one was!
It was a good trip as well, even if it did take us about three hours to pick what we wanted and I fell off my bike on the way home (no doubt because I was too interested in keeping hold of my chocolate).
We were up and about relatively early on Saturday...it was haircut day!
Yes it was, Even though I wasn't sure I actually wanted a haircut at all, the lure of a lolly isn't as strong as a nice mop of hair to flick for the girls benefit anymore!  Having said that, I couldn't see very well when we went swimming th other week and it gets in the way when i'm running too so it was probably for the best.
I was also indecisive, I decided I was going to have it really short at the back but by the time i'd got to the chair I was growing it out again.  Anyway, I loved it as usual and even managed to get two lollies!!!!
In the afternoon we went to the races, we hadn't been for ages.
I was pretty excited it has to be said, horses, gambling and maths....whats not to like?

I decided to accessorise my hair with some flowers I picked on the way, Dad reckoned they were weeds:

We got right up to the fence even though it was really busy. 

I started the day off really well with a winner in the first race......£38!!!!

Sadly that was the only one we had between us, although I did go really close in almost every race.  I wasn't too bothered though, we had flags to wave!
Yeah, they were giving out flags in the colours of a horse called Frankel that was running, we hadn't heard of him but I think he's a pretty big deal!
We headed home and I helped Dad light the barbecue for tea, even though it was grey and a bit cold.
Well, when I say helped him light the barbecue, I rapidly threw some lit matches at it.
We were a right pair of grumpy little devils on Sunday morning.
Yeah, we were actually.
Peace was restored by a little bit of film watching therapy.
And then Auntie Trish coming for lunch.
I conveniently missed another Gosport BMX club race as well, I think it's safe to say that i've hung up my racing kit after one glorious season.
I couldn't wait to show her my new bedroom, so if you want to know what it looks like you'll have to ask her!
I had my last Quad Kids training session on Monday night after school.
Yeah, we saw you as well Ned, while we were on the way to the park.  You were WALKING round the field yapping to Ali....not much training that is it?
Well, I got picked for the team so I must have been doing something right mustn't I?  Shame I can't go to the competition this Saturday though as we have already made other arrangements......



We've had another lay off, but not because we've been on holiday or anything.

No, not this time, we've just been a bit busy with stuff really.

Anyway, we're back now to catch up on the last couple of weeks.

First news item from me is that i've had to have a new pair of ballet slippers for dancing as my other ones have got a little bit small and the soles a little bit worn.  My new ones are really nice and have fancy velcro straps and everything.  I'll look forward to dancing in them thats for sure.

I had a big assembly two fridays ago.  It was our class' turn to do a bit for the rest of the school.  We put together a varied programme of singing, dancing and powerpoint presentations about our topic for the term, growing (plants).  I had a few lines to say that I delivered very nicely and then had to dance about as the sun to help a plant grow.  Mum came to watch so I was really pleased about that.  Especially as afterwards the parents came up to ou class room for a mooch about and I had to take a plate of biscuits around for the grown ups under strict instructions not to eat them.  Mum managed to negotiate a biscuit for all the kids though, i'm so glad she came along.

Saturday was Darcey's first birthday party.  It was pretty cool as Jack from my class came along too!

I got to impress the kids with my Ipod:

 I gave Uncle Slim his birthday cuddle as his birthday is on the same day as Darceys:

But I think he might have had to have a few more candles than Darcey did:

It was a lovely afternoon and the catering was top notch as you'd expect.

Happy Birthday Darcey!

Sunday was a bit of a full day.

We had Grandad and Anne over for lunch, we fed Grandad until he very nearly popped.

Then we went going along with our singing Aunties to 'Sing Along Sound of Music' at the Corn Exchange in the afternoon.

I had taken a while to be convinced about this one but thought i'd give it a go in the end.

I thought it was really good, if a bit long.

I on the other hand loved it, it was like a panto, we had to cheer, and boo and hold up silly signs...what fun!

And then in the evening Auntie Trish came to babysit for us.

She did, we watched the film Men In Black....

.....we LOVED it.

Then we watched some other stuff, and resisted going to bed.

Well, you did Ellis, I knew when it was time to turn in.

We had a bank holiday on the monday so no school!

We were both very pleased about that.

Especially as it was chucking it down with rain outside meaning we weren't dragged off the sofa, away from the telly to go out anywhere.

That was okay for a while but in the end we cracked and decided that Swimming at teh Oasis was a good idea.

It wasn't, the queue was a mile long accross the road outside.  We decided to give it a miss.

Which was a shock for me when I woke up after my in car snooze to find ourselves at Coate Water country park instead.

Well, the weather had cheered up a bit so it made sense really.  What made it even better was that the miniature steam railway was running.

It was brilliant, you could sit on top of the small coaches and ride around on a proper, albeit very small steam engine.

Sadly we didn't take a camera as we thought we were going swimming so there's no photographic evidence of our trip.

The poor little train struggled a little bit getting us to the top of the small incline on the track, but it came down at a heck of a rate!

Mum was quite worried we'd derail we were going so fast!

We had a bit of a walk, a play on the playground and then headed back to the car.

Not before we saw a mother duck and her babies though, they were seriously cute and we spent ages watching them going about their ducky business.

I did a great brotherly duty on Tuesday when I let Ellis come to stay in bedroom for a while.

Yes Ned, I am very grateful for that, i've moved out so Mum and Dad can decorate my room at long last.  Out go my baby room cast offs from when Ned was born to be replaced by cool stuff for a girl of very nearly five.  All my stuff got moved out and dad painted the ceiling white...not a very exciting colour to b egetting on with but he tells me it'll be smart in the end....

Anyway, with Ellis in my room staory time has been a double header every night.  I 've loved that.

Especially as i'm midway through the BFG.

I love the BFG so i'm happy to hear that again!

Despite Dad especially thinking we'd be up all night messing about we've been really good too!

Wednesday I got to go to a science outing at the Nature Discovery Centre.  There was only a few of us that were picked to go and we went in Mrs Douglas' car!  Super excitement or what?  We had a great afternoon of wildlife and animal based science stuff and even indulged in a spot of fishing.  The trip home was pretty eventful as well, a water main had burst and Hambridge road was flooded.  The water was really deep and we had to drive on the other side of the road to get around it.

All this flooding made them pretty late back and too busy to get past to take me dancing, I wasn't too bothered though and caught up on some rest instead.

It also meant I escaped half an hour of reading in the car with Dad, what a result!

I had a letter on friday....i'd won £25 on my premium bonds, a good start to the weekend!

We tried the Oasis agaion on saturday morning.  This time there was hardly anyone there though so it was brilliant.

I was named king of the slides as I was the only one to go on all of them!

I did well though and once again rode the fastest, scariest one Storm again (Well, they didn't stop me going on this time).

We did some proper swimming as well, in my case to prove I can still do it....I don't want to start lessons again.

Mum taught me some good stuff too, culminating in me swimming miles and miles of backstroke.

There was a lot of jumping in too.

Yeah, loads.

Best of all were our synchronised spinning jumps.

It was well past lunchtime when we got out so we were getting pretty hungry, the decision was made that we'd wait until we got home before we ate...

I was not at all happy with this arrangement and decided crying with hunger was the best course of action.  It didn't really change anything but we did bust out the mint crumbles I suppose.

We had a bounce on the trampoline in the afternoon at home as the rain finallly stopped and the sun came out for a bit!

And then we went to Abi and Faye's for the evening.  We played in the garden.

And we played in the house.  We played hide and seek as well, even though we weren't very good at finding Abi...oops, sorry Abi.

There was a trip to Max and Leo's new house on Sunday morning, we made ourselves at home and played with another kid from up the street.

I'm sure they'll love it there and so will we on future visits.

Then it was on to Alan and Hayley's for lunch, I loved ringing his doorbell for half an hour or so before he finally answered it.

We had a lovely time watching their digital photo frame, there were even some pictures of Alan and Hayley having a kiss!!!!!

Aside from that, and a lovely lunch there was a lot of I-geekery, I-pod, I-tunes, I-pad.  I-loved it!

Back to school today then, quad kids training for me after school, even though I can't go to the actual competition as it's on the same day as the BMX world championships that we've got tickets for.

While Ned was doing that I was overseeing Dad add the finishing touches to my bedroom.  The walls are now a beautiful pink!  He was right, the boring pink ceiling was okay in the grand scheme of things.  We hung my new curtains and got my furniture back in the room..  Apparently a new bed has been ordered for me so i'll not be showing you any pictures of it until thats here I think. You'll just have to take my word for it when I say it's lovely!

I even went as far as to say it was stunning.  I'm a bit sad that Ellis has moved out I think, I had story time in her room with her again tonight to make up for it.....