It's winter, we've been trying to hibernate as best we can:

We have been out and about a bit though. It was Max's birthday last week, we went round, we gave him a cool present I wanted to keep for myself, we ate cake. Excellent.
Friday then, Mum finished work early, we met up with her in town and waited with much excitement:

For Santa to ride through the town and switch on the Christmas lights. We happened to stumble upon Andy and Auntie Christine who had both cobbled together some pretty weak excuses as to why there were in town (not too see Santa? Yeah right!):

Here's Dad and I giving him a bit of wave, Ned had already taken off and joined the procession by this point.
Yeah, I made sure I tracked him all the way this year after last years disappearing act. I met up with my friend Ben from school in the market place while we waited so that was good!
The lights went on, and I really quite liked them!
After all the excitement of the big countdown and the lights going on there was yet more excitement in the shape of fireworks in the park. They were really good as well.
Yep, even I liked them.
We happened to stumble accross the Halfords, which was nice, before Auntie Christine called and persuaded us to go to McDonalds with her for tea. Brilliant. While we were there I was telling her all about Mariusz Pudzianowski (Worlds Stongest Man) who was on telly that night. Next thing I know, we're all sat on the sofa, with a mug of hot chocolate watching them lift cars and other stupidly heavy things. He's pretty much my hero at the moment.
The weekend, no being beaten out of bed at silly o'clock and icy trip to nursery in the buggy...hooray!
Nope, we went to town instead....urghh! Still, we did manage a trip to the pasty shop for Ellis' and I's lunch. I made a protest by not wearing my coat while we were out, I even took off my jumper and spent a little while in just a t-shirt. On reflection this was a bit daft, it was really rather cold. In the afternoon we got all creative making sweetie bags for the school christmas bazaar:

Dad and watched the horse racing!
Owen, Hannah and Andy came round in the evening, so I got another sofa session watching you've been framed and tv burp, with a mug of hot chocolate. Winter isn't all bad I suppose.
So sunday then, a rather ill advised trip to Milletts farm, it was ridiculously cold and wet and horrible. Still, at least we gave the animals some company, there was no one else about!




They did have a number of christmas inspired attractions indoors though, I still decided to keep my coat done up nice and snug nevertheless:

And once we got home, a nice warm bath and a chance to try out my brand new super snuggly dressign gown (thanks Grandad and Anne, it's lovely):

We watched the Star Wars film that was on, I think Dad said it was Return Of The Jedi? I don't know, but I do know I loved it, the speeder bikes, the Ewoks, the spaceships and everything. I must admit to getting a little choked up when Darth Vader died! I think I managed to cover it up okay though.....

Monday afternoon we soaked up some of Borders (the shop) heat and light by sitting on their sofas reading books for the afternoon. It was pretty tiring so we persuaded Dad to take us home. He was under the impression we'd nod off and give him a quiet hour or so....ha, what a fool!

The minute we got in the house we turned into a destruction tag team, causing mayhem and chaos anyway we could! I think Dad was very relieved when it was time to get mum, but even she'd had enough after being home ten minutes!

It wasn't all bad though, of course it was the first day of advent! Which means two calendars to open and a new penguin themed advent drawer thingy to go alongside Ned's truck!

Yep, the chocolate and sweety wielding fairy is back in business, yesss!!!!!

Today we had to get new tyres on the car, things have been so bleak lately that it passed as a great afternoon out! We watched the man lift the car up and take off the wheels (not like Mariusz Pudzianowski though, he had to use a jack). They put nice new tyres on and then put the wheels back on using what looked like a drill! I wanted to have a go, but everyone decided it wasn't the best idea.....

Then they drove the car onto a ramp and lifted it high up in the air, i'd never seen a car in the air before, it was weirdly inruiging!

Okay then we'll kick off with a few status updates.
I've said my first proper word in context, I pointed at the pile of bikes in the garage and squealed 'BIKE' at them. I repeated it a good few times so that I made sure Mum got my drift. I've also started riding Neds old three wheel scooter a little bit, only in the garage under Dads supervision, but it's a start towards my 'rainbow stripes jersey' as Dad keeps saying. I seem to have sorted out my outfits for nursery so i'm not having to put in quite so many dirty clothes protests as well so thats a weight off my mind.
Hmmm, and me? I'm eating for Britain now, One sandwich has proved to be insufficient in my lunch box at school and i'm even tucking away a bit of the old veg with our evening meals with minimal fuss. My fruit intake is a bit hit and miss, a hit if it's strawberries (which Dad keeps claiming are becoming hard to get at this time of year) and miss if it's pretty much anything else (apart from the occasional apple). I've been chosen to be one of the narrators for the school christmas play, can't think why, I don't usually have much to say? Anyway, we've also got to sing a few songs for the oldies as well so i've been practicing on occasion with Dad in the afternoons. Trouble is we keep on making up silly words for all the carols and finding it really funny and now I think he's a bit worried that I won't sing the right words at school.
So, back to out and about then. We went to the discovery centre with Leo last week, as Max had a better offer:

We had a lovely time, I even went down the massive tube slide all on my own!
Yeah, that was pretty impressive actually, not as impressive as the dead rat Emma had found though, cool!
We had an outing to the park Thursday afternoon on the bikes.
Yep, I got to ride in the seat again, it was lovely although I don't like being mauled about to have my crash helmet put on.
I did some timed laps around the track and fell of a few times when my pedals hit the floor during extreme cornering.....need to work on my technique a bit I think.
So then, onto the weekend, we did something really weird Saturday morning.....we went to the retail park!!! We got me my first ever wellies and checked out the toys in Mothercare. Good start.
We went to Next and got me a Mario Kart top that I can wear to my upcoming non uniform day at school....
...and then it all went wrong when we went to Homebase for paint. How dull. But things soon looked up in their christmas decoration grotto.
It was brilliant, they had loads of lights and sparkly things but best of all they had singing cuddly toys, that danced and sang christmas carols. We could have watched them for hours.....
But we had to go to the bookshop instead! We read nearly every book in the childrens department.
We had to head home for some rest after all that excitement:

Mum and I made a little something for Grandad after his little operation, I hope you get it in the post soon Grandad!
So Sunday we were under pressure to do something a little more normal.
We went to the Intech science museum in Winchester. There were all sorts of machines to work and experiements to do.
This was my favourite, processinn small beads. I spent literall hours glued to this, twirling the handles and watching the beads move around:


Even Tigger and I got involved:

I loved walking over this bridge:

Even with me attempting to sabotage it:

They had things you could build to have a quiet five minutes, I got all christmassy with mine:

I just sprinkled the bits all over the floor and tried to hide:

There were more knobs to turn and levers to pull:

Back to school and nursery and work on Monday....

Yeah, I didn't really want to go, I wanted Mum. Dad did his best in the sfternoon with me but the only thing that made me laugh was a picture of her on his phone!

I did drawing, lots of drawing. We did scary alien monsters and cars mostly. Although I did also manage a horse and cart as well (well, it was supposed to be a car but it went a bit wrong, don't tell anyone though I think I got away with it).

So today I had my forst ever packet of Rolo's, they were lovely! I can't believe I hadn't had them before. Dad said that if I loved Mum i'd save her the last one....I saved her the last TWO!

So the winter indoor sports season has kicked off with 'Skittles on the landing'

I thought I was doing okay at this, until Mum and Dad showed me how it was really done, I only got the hump a little bit.....
At least you were allowed a go!
We escaped from the sofa for a bit on Friday afternoon for a trip to the park, it was great fun:

Yeah, and then when we were finished at this park we made our way back to our 'local' park in time for school chucking out time. I met up with Joe and Fin from school and we had a great game of chase, they were robots and I was Spiderman!
I waded about in the leaves and tried as hard as I could to get in the muddy puddles....
Saturday morning we went to JJ's, I think all four of us loved it! Here I am having my first ever go on the drop slide:

I must have made it look such fun that even Mum decided to have a go (after a little goading from Dad).

I stuck to the more sedate version, but still really enjoyed it:

The little houses were great too:

As were all the soft things:

We had a quiet afternoon, I watched my favourite programs on telly, Hole in the Wall and You've Been Framed and then Andy came round to look after us as Mum and Dad were going out! I couldn't wait for them to leave. Owen and Hannah came round too and I got to stay up really late (9:45 to be precise, don't tell Mum) and we watched X Factor and some comedy program that I loved.

So sunday morning was a rather laid back affair, Dad made me go out on my bike with him but I really wasn't into it and wanted to go home as quick as I could manage without upsetting him.

Then we were off to Grandads for lunch! It was brilliant, we had new books to read and magnetic animals to stick on metal things.

We also had a lovely dinner and plenty of puddings followed by animal programs on the telly and a spot of birdwatching with Grandad and his binoculars in the garden.

By the afternoon, I was starting to feel quite poorly and just wanted cuddles....

....by evening time I was so hot I couldn't be cuddled anymore without the aid of a heatproof suit! Oh dear.

I wasn't any better monday morning so Mum took me to the doctors just to be on the safe side. I don't like the doctor one little bit, he's far too nosy! If any of you want to really hear me cry then take me to the doctors, he got it from both barells! Anyway, turns out i'm okay really but need to be dosed up with plenty of drugs!

So back to nursery on Tuesday, to a room full of sickly toddlers...nice! We made rice crispy cakes though:

Ned loved his!

I didn't finish mine though.....still a bit poorly (and I saw what went in them!).

So any other business? It's getting near christmas you know!!! The decorations are up in the shops and everything. I've also let slip on a couple of occasions at home that we are starting to practice our christmas play at school and burst into involuntary song. I'm giving nothing away about my role yet though......

Hello everyone, we're pretty light on pictures this week and there's no video either, oh dear...
Hmm, mealtimes have been taking an age lately, in the most part due to Ned, talking to much and not eating enough, especially when it's something he doesn't like (which is most things these days).
Yeah, allright greedy guts, just because you'll eat anything thats put in front of you. Well anyway, they've started using a kitchen timer on the table now and if i'm not all done by the time the buzzer goes off I don't get any pudding! Harsh or what? I bet all these good parenting books and television programmes don't condone this sort of thing. Anyway, the first timer myseriously stopped working afte a little while, don't know how that happened.....there's another one now though and it does seem to have sped me up a little bit. I also do a good line in motivational speeches (to myself) encouraging me that I can do it!!!
I'm getting through several outfits in the course of my morning at nursery. They're hell bent on getting us out in the garden, even though it's muddy as anything out there. I don't mind at all, if I don't like what Mum dressed me in i'll make sure I get myself filthy enough to require a change of clothes into something from my spares bag. If I don't like my second ensemble, i'll go for it again until I get something i'm happy with.
We went to the Oasis swimming pool on Saturday, apparently it was the in place back in the 80's or something, it's still brilliant today! There was the most slides I have ever seen, a wave machine, water cannons and best of all it wasn't anywhere near as busy as the Coral Reef!!! I hope we get to again, it's my favourite pool of all.
I loved it too, especially the slides, even if I did keep bumping my head!
We hung about for a bit in the afternoon, before the big firework party!
I'd been looking forward to this all week, the Halfords were coming to stay for the night and everything. Here's a small selection of the rockets we had:

And here's a selection of the amassed hordes waiting to be entertained:

Even with three of them on the case it took over an hour to let all the fireworks off, to be fair the kids got bored and drifted off indoors to sit with the ever entertaining Auntie Christine.
While Owen had obviously gone and put in a shift in a local coal mine or something?

Here's my mean and moody pose:

The Halfords even stayed for breakfast and Max and I played on the computer, what a great morning!
On Monday I had to reprimand Mum for talking with her mouthfull during breakfast! Very poor example to set if you ask me.
We've had some very lazy afternoons this week, well the weather has been horrible hasn't it? We've been cuddling up, snoozing and watching telly. When we need a bit of excitement Ned builds my stacking cups up for me and then I knock them over:

Bit of a break in normal service last week! There was a surprise holiday but more of that later.....
Way back to two wednesdays ago, there was a card through the door from a courier, Dads birthday present had arrived early. Mum decided there was no way she was going to be able to smuggle it into the house and wrap it up so Dad and I were sent into the collection depot to pick it up. There were loads of van drivers sat around drinking coffee and looking at the internet in their office. When they saw the writing on the box they all asked me if it was mine, it wasn't. The silly old fool had a new BMX. At his age???
Thursday, not my finest hour. Max dropped in on the way home from school as he was desperate for the toilet, while Dad stood outside talking to Emma and Leo Max came back out and then I managed to lock them all out of the house and lock myself and Ellis in. Oh dear. Dad shouted at me to get the stool do I could stand on it to open the door which I managed to do quite nicely. Phew. But then I managed to do it again, even though Dad had put the latch on the door. This time though we were all outside! Oh no. Ellis had to borrow Max's school jumper,
Which I was not pleased about, it was too big and not my colour!
And then we had to walk to Emma's, carrying Ellis as we had no buggy, so that Emma could drive to town to get the spare key from Mum, for us to then walk back home again to let ourselves in. What a palaver. As if that wan't enough excitement for one day it was my first parents evening at school, it wasn't a proper one, just an informal version or something. Anyway, we fed Andy sausage and mash for tea (it's his favourite by all accounts?) and he looked after us while Mum and Dad went out.
They went to see my teacher, in not so many words she said that I was very loud, a real do-er and loved to get creative with whatever was to hand. She also said I was making lots of new friends!
Mum volunteered Dad as a helper in the afternoons and told the lady trying to drum up conscripts that he liked cooking too! Good luck with that one....

Friday afternoon we took a trip to the park, school had finished for the day and a load of my friends were there, eating the remains of their packed lunches and playing in the park. I got to show off my new bike to them too.
But I love it more than they do, I really like bikes and it's not just because Dad makes me or anything:

Here I am trying Ned's old one out for size. Sadly i'm still a little bit on the small side but it won't be long:

The next day however, I was a giant! We went to the model village in Bekonskot:

It was brilliant, I got to walk free range all over the place and managed to eat plenty of paint I found flaking from the railings...yuk!
Here I am waiting for the train:

And in the background i'm off to investigate the burning cottage. It was my idea to come to the model village, and as usual for one of my ideas it was a top day out, there was so much to investigate:

Here's Ellis and I playing on the slide, I am under there somewhere honest!

Saturday night we went to see the Halfords, Max and I had an earl night and watched Star Wars in bed, awesome!

Sunday we had all of Mum's family round for lunch. Poor old Hayley got wrapped up in a game of hide and seek even though she felt poorly. We ate lots, Dad had his birthday cake early and then we collapsed, tired out:

It's hard work, entertaining!

Monday, and no school because it was half term. We had a super exciting morning giving Dad his birthday cards and some more presents, the best of which by a considerable margin was Mario Kart for the Wii, I love it!!!! We went to call for Alastair.....he was out. I was pretty upset about it, I soon cheered up when we went to Pizza Hut for lunch though, Ice cream factory!

We got hoodwinked into a ridiculously early night.....

.....and then got woken up at 4am to go to Disneyland of all places!!!!

How exciting, here we are on the plane for my first ever flight:

We got off the plane, collected our things in record time form the baggage carousel and then headed off to find the coach to take us to Mickey's place. Two coaches and about an hour later and we were in our Hotel. I'd never stayed in a hotel before so that was all new.

Mum did some important looking things at the desk, Dad and Ned got rid of the bags and then we were on our way in to Disneyland!

We didn't hang about either, we were soon on the rides. Mum's favourite was these cars:

They were noisy and fast, so I wasn't allowed a go. Booo!

Nope, but I got two goes so never mind!

I did really enjoy the rockets though:

We stumbled upon the parade, in my signature move I managed to slip through to the front without any problems. I was befriended by an older lady at the front and she kept an eye on me while Mum and Dad had to crane their necks on tip toes to see what was going on.

Here's my view of the whole thing, well, it was a very early start that day!

I did catch the end mind you:

Here's one of Dad's arty shots:

But probably even better than the rides was the characters roaming around. We saw Winnie the Pooh and all his mates, The Chipmunks, Donald Duck and loads more, we'd only been here a few hours too!

So onto the evening, and my favourite bit of the holiday....Dinner time! We ate in the hotel and they had a self service thing going on where basically you dispense Mum or Dad (or even on occasion Ned if I was really desperate) to go and bring plate after plate of lovely meaty grub to my high chair...brilliant! I ate all sorts, all on one plate, lasagne, ham, chips, sausage, chicken, cucumber, beans and that was before pudding!

Yeah, it was pretty good, I got to have chicken nuggets, sausages and chips every night without getting told off by Mum or Dad. I also got to have three puddings in one bowl!

Then it was off to our room, I got a mssive great bed all to myself:

The advantage of us all being in the same room was that once one of us was up, we were all up!

Before we'd even had breakfast we were out in the park and going to see Buzz Lightyear, to help him overcome Zurg:

Some of us were more help than others, Mum got such a high score there was barely enough digits on the readout!

It was pretty misty, but we'd wrapped up nice and warm:

We had breakfast, even my high chair had mickey ears!

I think I like France, where else in the world is it okay to have a couple of ham sandwiches and a mug of hot chocolate for breakfast?
We went on the small world boat ride, I think we all liked that:

Before Dad and I went on the teacups. They were rubbish, complete rubbish, especially after our mega spin at Legoland the other week. These just didn't compare and Dad had the right hump about it:

The carousel was much better:

Yes it was, I had my own up and down horse and everything:

We bumped into ee-aw. After stroking his bum I thought i'd better introduce myself properly:

We went on Peter Pan's flight, billed as gentle fun for little ones......it was truly terrifying. It was pitch black on the whole, with horrible scary lit up pirate skulls and what have you, all the time suspended in some ghastly flying chariot affair. We both cried to get off!

Here we are eating our 'extended breakfast'

What he means is that Dad was such a squeaker him and mum made sandwiches at tbreakfast and the smuggled them out in the rucksack!!!

We went on a lovely old fashioned sream train all the way around the park:

We went on some fairytale boat ride or another. But what I really liked was my first ever roller coaster which was right next door. I laughed and giggled all the way round.

Halloween was just starting and the park was covered in all these strange pumpkin thingys:

We went on Big Thunder Mountain, the runaway mine train. It was the most exciting ride i've ever been on. I went on with Mum and then took Dad on it, even though I wasn't sure I liked it that much first time round. Both Mum and Dad thought it was brilliant though....

We made our way back to the hotel, got ourselves some cosy chairs and some nice drinks and just sat for a while doing some colouring, it was nice to have a little rest.

Another early start and we were back on it. After a little bit of too-ing and fro-ing we were on Crush's coaster (one of Nemo's friends). Now this I really wasn't sure about, at all. Dad seemed to love it though but there was no way I was going on again and mum had to go on her own!
This was more like it:

I got to have my photo taken with the main man:

We hung out with Guido and Luigi:

We went to see a stunt show too, we sat high up in the stand and I loved the man on the motorbike doing wheelies!

There were cars zooming everywhere, doing jumps and turns, explosions, motorbike jumps, men falling from high roofs and goodness knows what else. I was absolutley captivated by the whole thing and barely said a word for a whole hour. A record for me I think?
We treated ourselves to lunch, a hot dog in fact (last of the big spenders eh?).

We went to see Stitch live. None of us had ever really heard of Stitch before.....I don't now why, he's a brilliant blue Alien! He had his own cinema, all the kids got to sit at the front on the carpet and once Stitch was on screen, he talked to us! We talked back, he even took picture of us on his camera and then turned it round to show us.....it was fantastic. Even the grown ups agreed!

I made my own entertainment by managing to get around the elaborate nappy sealing system to make Mum's lap wet...ha ha!

We even managed to spend a few quid in the gift shop, I took rather a shine to this cuddly Tigger:

And I desperatley wanted a Buzz Lightyear Laser gun.
We headed back to the Hotel once again and then headed out to the swimming pool, I didn't even know they had one!!!!! There was a slide and everything, very agreeable!

So one last binge on the buffet and then off to bed.

We had to get up early the next morning to catch a rather fantastic train to the airport, sadly it wasn't a double decker one like the one on the next platform though.

Then it was back on the plane for another good solid hour or so cuddling session. That was once i'd decided to fill my nappy while we were boarding the plane. Oops. As soon as the seat belt light had gone off Dad decided to make a name for himself by changing my bum at 30,000 feet. He only wants the glamour jobs! The reality was far from glamorous mind you, being changed on a fold down table over an aeroplane toilet by that great lummox was quite a trial....

...as was our mission to get home in time for Shimon's (my friend from school) Halloween party!

We made it...just! Mum stayed with me to join in the fun. We followed a witch who left a trail of jellybean sweets until we found her hide out, where there were loads more sweets to be found! On reflection I was mildly traumatised by the whole thing, as was to be expected.

It didn't stop there either, trick or treat night!

We went out with John and Sarah, Andy, the Halfords and even Owen and Hannah tagged along and we had a great time calling on our frineds and family. Our sweet buckets overflowed (well mine didn't as I only took what I really wanted and didn't want to be greedy).

So saturday was back to normal, we all had a lie in, had a little walk to the shop and kept it very low key......nice!

By sunday we were fully recharged and driving Mum and Dad mad as usual, we had to get out!

We went to Windsor and had a ride on their big wheel in the park:

You could see for miles, and could probably seen even further if it hadn't been so grey and bleak.....never mind!
I decided to make really nervous by trying to burrow out of the pod we were in:

Then we hit the shops, most importantly the toy shop. Great idea, I need a few ideas to give Santa.....

And I got a lovely lovely pair of new shoes, i'm really pleased with them!

Monday then, still no school!

I went to nursery though?

Yes, because Dad and I went to the BMX track in the morning....I had to take him eventually I suppose. We rode well, but I soon called time so we could go home and get a few laps in on Mario Kart. Have I said how much I love Mario Kart before?

I love Mario Kart.

A lot.

My new trick is to say a very giggly 'tickle tickle' and then attack your midriff! Watch out!

Mum was off with us today so there was no BMX track nonsense, just a lovely trip to the park. I met an another Max there, he was older than me but we had a lovely game of football (shhhh, don't tell Dad).

And I got to march about in all the leaves and mud in my brand new shoes without dad having a fit!