Right, better get this up to date I reckon, thats the trouble with Christmas, it gets in the way of everything and causes a whole load of disruption!

It is does indeed, in that respect it's just like us and we love it!!!!

So, going waaaaaaaay back to Tuesday the18th of December, we had our Christmas dinner at school, always great fun.  Following that it was the fiirst night of our school play.  Preparations had gone well up until the day of the show itself.  Sickness had taken it's toll on most of the classes and most were around 8 kids down.  Thats a lot of gaps to fill accross 4 classes.  Anyway, as they say the show must go on and all that and the rest of us gave it our all.  My role as a narrator is well publicised of course, here I am about to take to the stage before my segment:

And here I am, in the spotlight with Louise:

I delivered my lines really well, my endless rehearsals at home with Mum and Dad (and Auntie Christine) really paid off.  I had a couple of the best funny lines in the whole show and had the whole room laughing, I loved it!

And while all this was going on, Estelle came round to look after me in while Mum and Dad went to watch.  We had a lovely time, it must have made a nice change for her to make flowers with me rather than whatever it is she does at home with Hugo, Matice and Luca.

I came home on a real high and couldn't wait to do it all over again on Wednesday night.

Wednesday we made chocolate brownie to take on for the school christmas parties.

No great shakes on my account.

But we'd been told that we could only take healthy stuff in.  After a lot of discussion we decided to go for the brownies anyway.....rebels or what!

Thursday was party day, mine was brilliant even though I wasn't feeling too well.  In fact under normal circumstances I would probably have stayed at home.

I felt pretty bad too, what if I got told off for bringing in illegal non-healthy foods?  It was too late now, I was committed.  Good job I was too, the party was shocking, a whole load of rabbit food was on offer!  What a shocker, thank goodness I took the brownies and some other like mined individual took a packet of those chocolate fingers.  It wasn't all bad though, we had a bit of a talent show as well, Ali and I composed a bit of a rap as our entry.  It was awesome of course, I rhymed Ned with Garlic Bread.  How's that for quality?  We did pretty well to come second I reckon, the girls that won had all their friends voting for them, what a fix.

After school we divided our time between making Christmas decorations and cards....

....and shopping for fancy dress items for Team Kennet on friday.

We loved the fancy dress shop by the station, there were so many silly things to try on!

So Friday was last day of term, which of course meant an early finish.

We watched the Muppets Christmas Carol, and for once we actually saw it right to the end.  I wasn't fussed on it though to be honest.  What I was more impressed with though was the smart present we got from Miss Walsh, all wrapped up like a cracker.  The pencil with the ruler markings along it was a work of genius, not to mention the sweets and what have you.

We had a very laid back day as well, in face as I told Dad, I loved it because we didn't do any learning.

As we were finishing early and it was finally a dry day, I don't think there's any prizes on offer for guesses of what we did with Dad in the afternoon....

That's right, we went out on the bikes.  We went to Snelsmore, and it was by the far wettest any of us had ever seen it.

There were puddles everywhere, and seeing we had our wellies on it would have been rude not to ride through them....ALL!

We went all over the common, stopped and had a chat with an old lady walking her dogs.

They were lovely dogs, I even got to feed them a few little treats the lady had bought with her.

We loved seeing the horses in their shaggy, wintry coats too.

What we didn't love quite so much was Ned's spectacular over the handlebars crash.

No, although it was rather spectacular.  I'm sure the video will find it's way on to here soon enough.

We went home and had a mega hot chocolate to get over it.

I needed all my powers of recovery, we had Team Kennet that night as well.  It was the last one of the year with the fancy dress theme of Snow White and the seven Dwarves.  I got together a partial dwarves outfit which didn't impede my athletic endeavours too much:

Here I am post Javelin release (not doing my talent show rap I hasten to add)

A bit of beard assisted standing triple jump:

And the highlight of the evening, the sweetie race:

We decided to make Mum and Dad breakfast in bed on Saturday morning.

Yep, thought we'd give them a treat.  I think we managed it (even if there was a fair amount of spilled orange juice that had to be cleared up from the stair carpet).

We followed this with a good old session of Christmas dominoes.

Before we were taken around to Auntie Christine's for a sleepover.

Yeah, Mum and Dad were going to her cousins wedding in Cheltenham, we were devastated we couldn't go, but glad to be going to Auntie Christine's all the same.

As soon as we arrived there though we were out again, being dropped off at the cinema to watch Nativity 2.

We loved it, it was really funny then it was a quick trip around town for some last minute Christmas business.

Before heading for home in a Taxi.

And just like last time the Taxi shot off before we'd even had a chance to sit ourselves down properly, inducing a lot of pinging about and near hysterical laughter.

We got home and did some icing art and made some amazing chocolate thin, brittle things, flavourd with mint or vanilla with crunchy sugar.

They were lovely.

We went to bed very nicely of course.

Eventually.

I hope Mum and Dad were having a nice time dancing to Gangnam style or whatever.

They were back to pick us up pretty early on the Sunday morning, before lunchtime in fact.

We went home and slouched about watching 'It's a wonderful life' on DVD.

Weird, all the pictures were in black and white, no colours?

We went for a drive round in the evening looking for over the top outside Christmas decorations.

There were a few but nothing too outlandish this year.

So, where are we now?  Ah, yes, the 24th of December.

Christmas Eve no less!

The last few doors of the advent calendars were opened, with no Baby Jesus in the manger to be seen.  Mum was rather unimpressed.

We logged into the Santa tracker on Google earth and found he had yet to commence deliveries and was still loading up at his depot.

We then set about baking.

We had a chocolate log to make for Christmas day.  Dad provided utensils and bowls and ingredients.

Leaving us two and Mum in charge of the real business.

And you could certainly tell, aside from the mountains of mess we managed to generate at an alarming rate, there were enough broken attempts at separating eggs that Dad had to go down to the shop to get some more.

We also then realised that we had rather over egged the pudding, oops, I think our chocolate mousse filling would have been more like scrambled egg with a hint of chocolate.  

Hence Dad's second trip to the shop, this time for more chocolate.  Ha ha!

It all came together in the end though, thanks in no small part to my excellent mixing, or should I say folding skills.  I'm a demon with the wooden spoon.

We went out with the Halfords for lunch, it was really cool, we hadn't seen them for ages.

All us kids sat down one end of the table and had a great time, Max had a cool new game they play at big school that he showed us after lunch:

It involves flicking a coin at the knuckles of your opponent.  Sounds pretty daft in principle doesn't it?  Dad didn't seem to think so though, so we made sure we gave him a good going over. His knuckles were quite red by the end of it, the mug!

We finished off lunch, and wishing them all a happy Christmas we made our way to the pub to meet up with a load of the others.

Owen and Andy were there of course, as were Alan and Hayley, Hayley's sisters and Chris, Kate and Finlay.

It was actually sort of a bit dry so we could go out in the garden a bit:

We had a great time, there were lots of people to talk to, paper aeroplanes to make and throw and even a bag of complimentary Maltesers for the the kids to help soak up our fizzy pop.

It was also really nice to see Finlay wandering about and getting involved with it all.

We stayed for quite a while before heading for home and making final preparations for the big day.

We checked in on Santa's progress on Google Earth and found he was out in the Middle East, so he was underway and getting closer!

We had a visit from Slim and Trace which was lovely, we hadn't seen them for a while and had plenty to chat about.

I can't believe they have two kittens!  I'm so jealous.

We went outside and sprinkled the reindeer food on the drive and planted the 'Santa please stop here' sign in the front lawn.

The ground was much softer this year, so Mum didn't have to whack it with a brick much to everyone's relief.

Then it was back inside to leave out the usual spread for Santa and Rudolph (this year his drinks choice was orange juice or Ribena):

Then it was off to bed for the longest, most difficult sleep of the year...

Well, you say that Ned, but I was well and truly away with the fairies within about 10 minutes I reckon.

I was pretty quick too, although I didn't sleep quite as heavily as usual. In fact, I think I woke up and maybe saw someone leaving me a full stocking.............

It was business as usual on Christmas day, with me waking up earliest, lying in bed for ages and then going in to find Dad wide awake anyway. And again, we had to wait for Ellis to stir from her slumber and grace us with her presence, I made a start on my stocking:

I was there soon afterwards, all dozy and half asleep, being cajoled into action by a altogether more awake and excited big brother:

The stockings were packed full of top notch stuff as always.

Yeah, they were indeed:

But it was nothing compared to what was waiting downstairs....

Under the massive tree, were a massive amount of presents:

We were quite orderly this year on the whole, not the usual whirlwind of wrapping paper and hysterical shrieking anyway.

Yeah, it actually lasted quite a while.  There were some mega things wrapped up under there for sure...

Yeah, like my Ipod!  I couldn't believe I actually got one, I was so pleased.

And the Skylanders Giants computer game for me as well as a lovely stunt scooter.

And that was just the tip of a very big iceberg, so please forgive us for not issuing a full catalogue of gifts recieved.

Suffice it to say we consider ourselves very fortunate indeed and also extremely grateful.

As it was Christmas day, the kitchen was taking breakfast orders.

I wanted a bacon sandwich.

So did I, but I also wanted some black pudding and a pancake.

Mum just wanted pancakes and syrup:

It was lovely as well!

Once that was done and dusted we got our stuff together and headed for Auntie Christine's.

We did indeed, already there were Owen, Laura, Darcey and Auntie Trish.

It was all so exciting.

Guess what....more presents!

Yeah, I wasn't that pleased to get a hoover it has to be said:

Imagine my relief when it turned out the Hoover box didn't actually contain a Hoover, but this instead:

We also had to put the finishing touches to our chocolate log we'd somehow managed to actually make:

It looked awesome when we stuck our distress flare/firework/sparkler in it!

After lunch we also had 'table presents'

A real Christmas miracle occured as well, I managed to keep the photograph we had done back in November a secret!!!!  How amazing is that:

 

We had to have a little quiet time of course:

Some colouring, and watching the Snowman and the Snow dog.And then, re-charged it was games time. 

Auntie Trish had come up trumps with this one, called Pucket:

Alan and Hayley popped round in the evening too, it really was a brilliant day.

Yeah, thanks everyone!

We didn't have anything planned for Boxing Day, so it was a lazy time to go through our presents, eat some chocolate...

.....and speculate about what Skylanders figures I should buy next.  Mum was invaluable help with this:

We had another Christmas dinner for some unknown reason, as if one roast a week isn't more than enough?

Apart from that we took it very easy indeed and just got over yesterdays events.

Although we did play all our new board games too!

The next day, Thursday I suppose it was Mum had to go back to work.

This was pretty rubbish really, but we made the best of it.  We went to meet her for lunch.

Yeah, Costa's as well, bacon muffin and the biggest bourbon biggest we'd ever seen.

All washed down with a Hot Chocolate (which we are obliged to say wasn't as good as Dad's or he'll get humpy).

We also spent an absoloute eternity trawling round shops trying to decide what Skylanders to buy with my Christmas money.  I struggled to commit to any of them and decided i'd order them online at home with Mum's help instead.

I also decided that I was going to spend mine on a speaker dock for my Ipod so I could have a disco bedroom.  Cool or what?

Thursday, Mum at work, Dad still off.  Time for our annual winter sports trip I think?

Ice skating was ruled out due to Andy's dodgy knees so instead we went to Ringwood Ski slope for a bit of snow-bike-tobogganing instead.

This will become quite clear once the vide gets posted up.

But all you need to know for now is we loved it, we went really fast down the hill and that holding on to the sled all the way to the top and hitting the automatic cut off barrier brings the lift system to a complete stop.

TWICE!

Ooops.

Once Mum was home from work it was board game o'clock.

Cluedo and Labyrinth.  I love Cluedo so much, it's a shame Dad is so rubbish at it really, his stupidity wrecked one game completely!

So then it was Saturday again, the weekend!

We had a trip to London on the train to the Peacock theatre to see the Snowman show.

But first of course there was the London Pizza Hut visit.

At last, some decent food over Christmas time!

The show itself caused a bit of a divide within the family.  It was like a ballet really, I loved it, I was on the edge of my seat all the way through.

And Mum and I thought it wasn't as good as a panto, there was no talking!!!!

Dad sided with me, he doesn't like Panto's, but I don't think he's probably much of a ballet fan either really.

The walk back through London was brilliant in the dark though, all the decorations looked really lovely, twinkling away.

Sunday, and what I really wanted to do was slouch about some more.

What I really wanted to do was go swimming!

I secretey quite liked this idea, so went along with it without too much fuss.

The Coral Reef is closed for it's annual refit so it made it an easy choice to go to the Oasis in Swindon.

It was great fun, we did all the usual stuff, wave machines, slides and all that.

We stayed in for ages as, it wasn't very busy at all.  I even had a go on the big slide over the back in the strong swimmers only area!

And then it was Monday again, the last day of 2012, New Years Eve!

Mum was back to work again.  This time we took her to the Pasty Shop and collected our Skylanders...

...and speaker docks that we'd picked up from the post office.

We picked up a few bits from town and then had a lazy afternoon waiting to go and pick Mum up.

No big parties for us this year, but Andy came round for a a few board games and a bite to eat with us which was really nice.

We didn't get to stay up until 12 though which I was a bit disappointed about.

I wasn't bothered, I just danced around a lot in one of my new dresses and then went to bed:

Tuesday the 1st of January 2013 then!

Wow, cool or what?

It seemed to have finally stopped raining so we hatched a plan to go for a walk on the Standlake Mosaic trail.

Great idea in principle, sadly the trail would have been more at home in Venice I think:

We tried, but had to admit defeat, it was just too wet.

We headed into Oxford to pick up a new fridge (finally, thank goodness for that) and also treated ourselves to a load of new bedding and what have you.

The buying new stuff thing sadly didn't last until we were in 'Pets at home' though which was a real shame....

We got home and I helped unpack the new fridge.

And then Auntie Christine came round to see our Christmas tree before it was taken down.

I think it's afe to say she was impressed with it!

We had a day with Auntie Christine and Darcey on Wednesday.

We did, it was great fun too, we were even allowed to got to Darceys nursery group with her too!

When we got home though we were pretty naughty, especially when Mum got home from work.

Yeah, we ended up with a bit of an early night....not by choice.

We had another day with her onThursday too, we made lovely cookies witha special secret ingredient...

...POPPING CANDY!!!!!!

And we also loved Darcey's play dough breakfast set.

Thanks for sharing it with is Darcey!

Mum was off on Friday, we had a busy morning, the Wash Common librbary for some new books.

And then onto the park.

Which turned out to be a bot of an ordeal when I jumped on the sunken trampoline, only to find the pit itself was full of water....splash!  One rather soggy Ellis was the result.

We were all home, dry, fed and watered by the time Dad got home and we all sat and watched the latest Diary of a Wimnpy kid film on DVD.  It was brilliant.

Saturday again, another weekend.  After much discussion we decided to go horse racing.

But there wasn't any at Newbury so we went to Sandown Park instead:

 

It was well cool, we had to park in the middle of the track and then walk back accross the race course to get to the grandstand!

It was all very new and exciting, I was charging about all over the place, I still really love horses.  If we win the lottery, thats what i'm going to buy for sure!

We didn't have much luck woth our bets to begin with, but as the afternoon went on we got better and better.

And picked up a coupe of nice wins!

Anne, Alan and Hayley came round for dinner on Sunday.

We had a few stray presents to deal with which was obviously brilliant.

And then it was an early night in preparation for school on Monday...

I think we were both fairly happy to be be going back in a way.

Yeah, but that didn't make us want to get out of bed this morning thats for sure.

It was a good first day back  I think.

Yeah, it was for me, I got to sit on the special chair!

I reckon thats about it for now then, video to follow, I hope everyone had a merry christmas!

And we'd like to wich you all a happy new year!

I had my first day of our school play proper on Tuesday.  It went pretty well, except Mum and Dad didn't come.  They had explained that they were coming on Wednesday to see the more polished and refined version. 

I'm not alltogether sure it was that polished really, seeing as I spent a large proportion of the show wiggling my brand new, super exciting wobbly tooth!  It was lovely to see them in the audience though, in great seats as usual, I gave thgem plenty of waves to make them feel welcome.  Asterwards we had our school christmas dinner which was brilliant fun, and a lovely dinner.
Speaking of wobbly teeth, my front ones is finally out, after what must be months of wobblyness.  It was helped out by Mum, well, when I say helped out, what I actually mean is wrenched out of my head by Mum.  I think we were all pretty relieved, if a bit shocked!
I had my trip to the panto on Thursday, unlike Ned we got to go to Basingstoke on the coach...cool!  It was great fun and really funny, especially thge silly Dwarves (it was Snow White and the seven dwarves).
We had our schools carol concert in the afternoon at the church in town. It was pretty rubbish really, we had to sit on the floor as so many old people had turned up to watch.  The musical element was probably even worse that last years guitars as well, recorders anyone?
We walked back to school and arrive just in time for our street dance lesson.  Christmas themed this weeks to the soothing Christmas tones of Justin Bieber of all people.  Still, we made the best of it and it was good fun.
Friday saw my last swimming lesson of the term, fun week!  It didn't start off as all that fun though, especially for the poor girl having to fish a poo out of the baby pool with a net.  Small pool shut then.  As level 3's, we were allowed ot have our fun week in the big pool instead, what a result.  I took Eva in and made sure she was okay (she's a bit shorter than me).  We had a great time, swimming about, jumping in and floating around on the big floating platforms.  I didn't want to get out!
I finally made my return to Team Kennet this week.  Was good to go back and get amongst it again.
Then, Mum and Dad went out and we got Aunti Trish to look after us.  We were so excited, especially as we got to show her our super mega awesome christmas tree.
This of course meant a brilliant late night and loads of in depth conversations about the world....love it!
Bit of a lay in on Saturday, didn't do much at all.
And then we headed off to the coast for a bit, to East Wittering.  Well, it has been a while.
The sea was pretty rough and we watched a few brave surfers paddle out.
I don't know where Dad's stuff was?  What a wuss.
We had a great time throwing stones into the water:

And chasing (or was it in fact being chased) by the waves up and down the beach as they came rolling in:

It was great fun, until I got a little bit caught out and ended up with a bit of a wet leg. My word, it wasn't half cold!
We bought a sprig of misltetoe which Mum and Dad terrorised us around the house with before setting down to watch Take Me Out.
Another lay in on sunday, Dad popped out to Tesco to get a few mor elights for the tree after Auntie Trish sabotaged them on friday night (well, thats what Dad reckons anyway).
Then we headed over to Anne's for lunch.
She gave us a brilliant job as soon as we arrived, decorate her christmas tree.
Not just any old tree though, one from her garden that Grandad had planted. How cool is that?
Monday was my school disco after school.  It was brilliant of course.  Mr Jones was DJ (is there no end to his talents?)  He was so cool, he even played Gangnam style when I asked him to!

Andy came to babysit for us on Tuesday night.  I think I heard it right when they said Mum was going to the Camp Hopson quiz, and Dad was going with her? 

Weird or what?Anyway, we had a cool time and a little bit of a later bedtime than we would usually have had on a tuesday, cheers Andy.

Wednesday we had our school trip to the Panto.  We didn't go to Basingstoke this year (I think mainly because many people didn't stump up the 'voluntary' contribution towards the coach and what have you last year).  Anyway, Newbury Corn Exhange it was, which meant a walk too.  I was quite happy with that though.

This meant I got to go to Ballet on my own, I got to sit on the front of the car and everything.  I loved it.  I also got the results back from my exam the other week, 87% no less and some very encouraginbg comments.  I was really pleased about that.

We were a bit later back than planned, Miss Walsh told Dad that a sing song had erupted at the railway bridge that lasted all the way back to school.

The show was a very worthy diversion from the main business of the afternoon, eating sweets.

I'm still getting loads of stick for my wobbly tooth collection, Mum's really on my case t get them wobbled out....but it hurts!

I had my re-scheduled and rather late parents evening on Thursday. I wasn't too worried about it even after my shaky start to the new school year. 

Cool thing was that as Mum had to leave work earlier than usual she got to see me at dance class, we did this cool spy themed one.

Turns out I was right not to be worried, well almost.  Apart from being a massive chatterbox i'm doing really well and Mrs. Khosla reckons i'm very bright.  I'll take that.

Then it was friday already, the weeks are flying by in the run up to Christmas.  It was Mr Gilhams last day at our school.

This is a real shame and i'm, sure that one day when i'm an Olympic champion or something i'll giove him a name check for setting me on my way.

We did more rehearsals for the school christmas play, I got commeneded on my super loud delivery of my lines.

I had swimming after school of course, and yet more good news for me this week, i've passed level 3 with flying colours!

And I decided to give Team Kennet a miss again this week so I could go to film club at school. I'm certainly going next week though, thats for sure.  The film was okay, messing about with Alastair and Ben was much better though.

While Ned was at film club we took Mum out for her work christmas do, on the way home we drove through town to get a good look at the christmas lights which I loved. 

Saturday didn't start all that well, there was a fair amount of squabbling and a few raised voices.

This set back plans to go and get the christmas tree somewhat.

But after a bout of prolonged better behaviour we were soon on our way to Yattendon.

We'd already decided we were going to get a monster tree that touched the roof!

It was busier than when we usually go (a wet, dark evening) but there were plenty of trees to choose from.

As usual we settled on one of the first ones we found.

Even if we were rather surprised we were actually allowed it.

We were soon home with the massive beast and we all had a turn at cutting a little bit from the bottom of the trunk before we wedged it into the busket and stod it in the front room:

Our mission statement was definatley realised, we had to chop the top off a bit too to stop it bending over!

Decorating was great fun.

Unless you happened to fall into the tree like I did.  I think I got away with it though.

Unlike most other years we could pretty much empty the entire decorations box onto it without it becoming overcrowded.

We srtood back and enjoyed our handiwork:

Even if the poor old cherub might well get altitude sickness:

Andy and Owen came round in the evening, we treated them to a very impressive dancing display before we went to bed.

Yeah, Gangnam style all the way!

Sunday we went to Auntie Christines for the day while Mum and Dad went shopping.

It was every bit as brilliant as we'd have expected of course, what with Auntie Trish, Darcey, Laura and Owen all playig their parts too.

There was of course baking, craft activities and other Christmas related goings on.

Including a top secret mission into town.

Which I walked into, and indeed back out of without a hint of going on anyones shoulders.

Thanks for a lovely day everyone.

Back to school today then, I made a lovely hat for my School Christmas lunch tomorow.  Well, I say a hat but due to some of my design features it has proved rather difficult to actually make into a hat.  I'm sure we'll come up with some modifications.

We also did a dress rehearsal for our nativity play, the lighting failed, I hope that's been sorted out before the real thing!

I got my silver times tables award at school last week, i've only got a few more to do.  Mum reckons I know them all well enough now, but we can only do one test a week.

He's practicing all the time thats for sure.  I like to chime in with an answer here and there, sometimes I try and get it right, sometimes i'm helpfully silly...ha ha.

I couldn't be doing with ballet this week, i'm putting it down to post

 exam burnout and my usual, trusty excuse of an achey leg.

So no sitting in the car reading for me, cheers Ellis!

In other news, I finally finished my chocolate factory chocolate from Spain this week, amid the intense glare of the rest of the family who have long since gobbled there's up!

Friday was swimming day again, the walk down to the pool was made a lot more interesting after we found some sticks to drag down the metal fence railings. 

They made a great noise!

Back on the subject of swiming, we must be getting near the end of term now?  Anyway, we were being marked again and I put in a very strong performance this week.

Edward and I spent our time wisely comparing progress on our Ipod games, i'll miss these sessions when swimming breaks up.

It was all change this week afterwards though, I decided to miss out on team Kennet to go into town to see the Christmas lights being switched on.  I worked on the basis that Team Kennet is every week, the lights are only once a year and I do love Christmas and everything to do with it!

So we found Auntie Christine in town and waited by the road for Santa.

First up was the ladies on stilts with lit up dresses though, I was so excited:

Once Santa had gone through we followed him into the market place.

Where the snow machine was working overtime.

There was 'snow' everywhere.

And there were loads and loads of people, it all felt really exciting.

There was a bit of a countdown and the lights were switched on, the market place looked really lovely!

But the real glamour was in park way, I don't think this photo does it justice really:

We spent a bit of tim ein the Entertainer toy shop as well, getting a few ideas of what we might put on our christmas lists.

It was the first day of advent on Saturday....I made sure we were up nice and early to get the calendars opened!

I wasn't quite so keen as Ned it has to be said and enjoyed a bit more of a lie in.

Dad threw us a real curve ball by cooking a Saturday roast....I struggled with that concept.

I wasn't bothered what day it was, I polished it off with gusto as usual.

It was the school christmas fete in the afternoon.

We were seriously excited about this one.

Add Auntie Christine, Auntie Trish and Darcey to the mix and we were seriously enjoying ourselves.

As usual we won shedloads of sweets.

Yep, even me as well this time.

We took Darcey to see Santa and everything, what a great afternoon.

Then we all went home for drink and to start on the sweet mountain.

Dad went off out for the night, he was going to see a band, apparently called Ned's Atomic Dustbin? 

Sounds like a great name for a band to me.  I put in a request for a t-shirt and hoped he'd remember.

We settled down with Mum for some serious saturday night tv action before heading off to bed.

Dad was still away on Sunday morning, after seeing to our advent duties we did a mosaic christmas picture each that we'd got from the school fete yesterday.

Yeah, they look really nice if I say so myself.

He got home just after lunch, and he managed to deliver on the t-shirt front, even if it was a little bit big:

I was well pleased with it, well done Dad.

I had Neave's party in the afternoon at Eddie Katz....NOISY TIME!  AFter a bit of a wobble before we went about being left on my own I had a great time and barely even noticed Mum, Dad and Ned leave.

We tended to a few odd jobs until it was time to pick Ellis up.  We turned up a bit early so I could have a bit of a play.  Hugo, Matice and Luca were there which was cool.  We had a rather rough game of rugby on the football court but we were all up for it and there were no tears.

Bit thin on centent this week i'm afraid.
Yeah well we can't sneak off for weekends away all the time I suppose.
Anyway, we've been doing a bit here and there, I helped Dad make the curry on tuesday night.  I made him write down what he was putting in and we took pictures to go with it.  I'm going to get him to write the recipe up so we can make it when he's dead and gone...ha ha!
I was at Mr Gilhams after school club again, I seemed to be well and truly over my weekend illness and back on it.
I had my last dancing lesson ahead of our exams on Wednesday, things went well enough.  I'm not at all phase about doing my exams, infact i'm really rather looking forward to it. 
We danced to Gangnam Style at street dance club on Thursday, how cool.  I've been throwing the moves down ever since.
Friday was our usual rush around session, school, then swimming for me, we were being marked too.
With Edward and myself comparing progress on our Ipod games, particulalry Wonder Zoo.
Then it was a quick stop off at the Pasty shop when we picked Mum up and then quickly home.
And get changed for Team Kennet.  The relay running was really good this week as it included a tunel to crawl through and a hurdle to jump at each end.  It was another quick change after that for the school disco.  I missed the first ten minutes or so but I didn't mind at all.
I did my homework project with Mum while Ned was out.  It was on nocturnal animals, I reeled off loads of them and then did a fantstic picture of a fox, complete with fluffy cotton wool feet.
I came home pretty tired it has to be said and after a minor tussle over bedtime arrangements ended up falling asleep fully clothed on top of my covers.
We went to the cinema on Saturday morning, to see The Lorax.
It was pretty blooming good too, we all loved it.
Unlike Nando's afterwards, which got the big thumbs down from us kids.
Even though most of John Rankin school seemed to be in there!
We went home and I retired to my room and decided to put some make up on.  I came downstairs and Dad said it looked like i'd been punched in the eye!  This made me cry, as truth be told I didn't like it either but had struggled to wash it off.  He apologised as he fuilt guilty, ha!
I had my dance exam on Sunday morning:

Here I am in my outfit, but without my hair done.  The whole hair do thing was pretty emotional it has to be said.  I had to have it in a bun, with no flappy bits hanging out.  Trouble is my hair is just a little bit too short so Mum did her best and put about 300 hair grips and half a can of hairspray on.  It didn't look to bad.  When we arrived at the hall though Mrs Groves obviously thought otherwise and recommended we borrowed one of her headbands......ahem.
I had a great time doing warm ups for my athletics outside and quite a lot of warm ups with Ellis inside, dancing about.  I think I sort of fancy having a crack at ballet on the sly if truth be told.
It's all a bit secret squirrel this dancing exam lark, so no one got to watch.  They had to take my word for it that things had gone okay.  I really wasn't phased by it at all.
We went home and gort dinner ready for Alan, Hayley and Anne to come round.
Well, when we say helped, we meant sat and played on the Ipad/Ipod.
Lunch was lovely if you asked me.
And disgusting if you asked me.
We both agreed pudding was pretty good though, especially the Baileys chocolate sauce!
Back to school on Monday, but after school dance club was......GANGNAM STYLE!  Brilliant, we loved it.

A quick catch up post with a video from Bonfire night.
We've also just sneaked one in at the bottom of last weeks update in case you missed it!