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!
