So then, I rounded out half term week in the company of the Halfords, I reckon I gave Ellis a run for her money in the muddy, wet trousers stakes for once with our extensive program of outdoor activities! We went for a walk at the Chase on Wednesday, the Discovery Centre on Thursday and back to the castle on Friday (complete with beautifully decorated paper aeroplanes). I had a lovely week, even if Max and I were a bit of a handfull on Thursday (sorry Emma, and Dean for that matter, hope you get over your injury soon).
I was packed off to nursery, Mum had to drag me away from the boys in tears a couple of mornings. Still, the trikes at nursery have been getting a good going over by myself.
So then, the weekend. At long last it was haircut time! We went off to the barber shop and because Mum was with us, the barber lady got a full run down of what was required. This differs somewhat from Dad's approach which usually consists of as few words as possible and the thought that the more hair is removed the better value for money the haircut. I rode home on my scooter and tried to knock a house down by crashing in to it, HARD! The house won.....
Then it was off down the park, it was sunny and warm and we loved it! I went up the climbing frame and down the slide about 347 times and still hadn't had enough when we got dragged off home for lunch.
I was pretty reluctant to leave as well......it was nice to be out and about without a load of layers on!
We raided the dressing up stuff Saturday afternoon, Officer Ned:

Ellis the builder:

Dad makes a massive error of judgement and teaches me how to blow a whistle:

Then I helped Ned do his Roary jigsaw, well, more like undo it really:

Sunday, swimming at the pool I have my lessons at. I amazed Mum with my new aquatic skills.

And I actually got to get in the water rather than watching Ned have all the fun!

Back home, get the dinner on. I decided I fancied a go at peeling spuds!

It wasn't quite as exciting as i'd hoped to be honest. Going to see Yanna and Fen was though, yay!

We dropped mum off at the hospital to see Grandma and carried on over to the Law household. It was lovely and we were all playing so nicely that when it was time to go and get Mum we didn't want to leave. So I didn't, and sent Dad and Ellis off to the hospital to bring Mum back to stay for a little bit.

We couldn't stay long though as it was....

...back to school on Monday, Shimon and I greeted each other like 'long lost lovers' according to Mum.

I was back to watching Ned swim during his lesson, boo!

It was pancake day as well, i'd already had one at school so that was more than enough for me, I don't like them.

Neither do I......

So then, sponsored bounce at school last Friday, I managed 76! I forgot to bring the paperwork home so you'll have to take my word for it and pay up!
It's school holiday time already! We broke up on Friday afternoon, Shimon came round for tea and play.
Yes, Leo had already been round for a while by the time we had to come and get you two from school, we'd been playing with all your Lightning McQueen cars and giving Dad a nice quiet time of it.
Yeah well Shimon and I soon put a halt to all that! Oh, and thanks very much to Laura for her super prompt sponsor money delivery.
Saturday and we actually had a proper day out, it's been a while! We went to the railway:

Yep, we got our tickets and even though the train wasn't going to leave for another 20 minutes, Ned thought it would be best for us to get on and get sat down straight away:

We waited......

...and waited......

Until we finally moved off, I could barely contain my joy to be moving at last:


You wouldn't have said that if we'd missed it would you? I like to be sure.
We rode along the track and it was all very good, if a bit light on tunnels.
We did see plenty of sheep and the like though...baaaaa!
There was even a playground at one stop half way along:

There was a special guest on board the train, a dragon called Idris. Apparently this particular dragon lives in Ivor the engines firebox. He must like the warm! I'd we'd never heard of Ivor or this Idris, but apparently it was popular back when mum and dad were young.....anyway, we really liked Idris and his frequent visits up and down the carriage.

We even sat and ate our picnic on the move, how cool was that? Watching the countryside roll by, eating sarnies and sausage rolls!

When we got back the station, Ivor himself was doing short rides up and down the track in his brake van. I asked the man if I could wave the green flag to get him moving and he said yes:

I loved all that responsibility!

I didn't, I though you and mum were off forever, never to return, I was glad to see you come back again:

I loved standing on the bridge with all the other spotters:

Especially when Ivor went underneath, covering us up with a cloud of steam and smoke:

Mum and I stayed put and kept our distance from the anoraks:

But we relented in the end, even I loved noisy, steamy Ivor puffing away!

Once we got home, dad got youtube going and we watched a good few episodes of Ivor the Engine, I loved it!

On sunday we had a flying visit from uncle Slim, he thought out chocolate cake making looked really good...but was glad to get out clean I think! We had Grandad and Anne and Alan and Hayley round for lunch and to enjoy my chocolate cake. I was glad to get lunch out of the way so I could get Hayley up into my bedroom to play, sadly Alan came too......

Monday then, first day of the holidays, and I was off to spend the morning with the Halfords. Great! I took some convincing that we should go out up the woods but once I was knee deep in mud, well over the top of my wellies I knew it was the way forward!

I'm still going to nursery so i'm missing out on all the fun.

Today with the Halfords it was a trip to Donnington castle, on the trail of a wicked witch, we found a bit of her broom! In the afternoon it was Alastairs party, hooray!

It was at the school hall and they had an entertainer. My old friend Ted was there who I haven't seen since leaving nursery:

We played parachute games:

Dad had to pretend to be a jellyfish (very good he was too), but he got away lightly compared to Alastair's dad, who wee'd himself in front of everyone:

I went along too, had a great time, but please excuse my fashion nightmare of clashing colours:

There were party games, food, dancing and magic tricks too. The complete afternoon I reckon?

So, snow then? Plenty of it! School was closed because the heating had broken down!
Nursery was still open though, fortunatley my new favourite Gary (the Cook) managed to battle his way in through the blizzards to keep me fed and I had a re-union with Jess who came to look after the kids in our room duting an impromptu staffing re-shuffle. Lovely.
Luckily for me, Emma said she'd keep me company for the morning while school was shut, poor old Max still had to go though........I pretty much chewed her ears off all morning, oh, and she had to rescue me from the top of the big climbing frame in Wash Common, so a double big thanks is in order I think. It wasn't all fun fun fun being off school though, as I was about in the afternoon I had to go to Tesco's with dad and Ellis, Boooooooo!
As you all probably know by now, I wasn't that fussed about the snow on the whole, but I did enjoy a running snowball fight on the way home from school on Thursday enough to give in to dad's suggestion we try a little sledgeing, the trouble was that by the time we had got round to it everyone else had pretty much dragged all the snow off the hills. Still, we got Dad to give us a ride round on the sledge:

I love the snow, we went out in it pretty much everyday at nursery!
I went to Shimon's for tea again on friday night so that was great fun, I was tired out by the time I got home.
We had a pretty laid back weekend:

Although it was Hugo's birthday party on Saturday afternoon. As usual, I make sure I gatecrash all Ned's invites:

Here's me and the birthday boy:

And here we are again, lurking in the top of the goal:

I enjoyed the little ones area:

I didn't enjoy mum smashing my face in on the big slide very much though!
It was a great party, albeit a slightly soggy one when I covered myself in squash...oops! A few of our old mates from nursery also happened to be in Krazy Klub too, so that was extra fun!

Sunday was another leisureley affair, mum and I made a chocolate cake for our pudding, Abi, Nick and Carol came round for a visit in the morning.

Yeah, I loved having Abi round, I repeated her name for the rest of the day actually.

Swimming again Monday, this week I managed a forward roll under water!

I posed for a few pictures for dad:

And did a lot of bouncing:

Ah yes bouncing. Which brings me on to this fridays school activity, a sponsored bounce on a bouncy castle. I'm so excited about this one I can hardly wait! If anyone wants to sponsor me (per bounce, for a minute) then let my agents (Dad or Mum know).

Nathan is my friend at school, because i'm really fast on the bikes at playtime. These sorts of things are really important when you're nearly five. Shimon though, he's just my friend, fast or not. He came to our house on Friday after school, it took us ages to settle on what toys to play with:

He stayed for tea and then we took him home, I went straight in and made myself at home and we had a quick game of hide and seek with his dad and little brother before I was convinced to get in the car and come home!
Yeah, he was good fun Ned, you can have him round again!
Saturday then, shall we go to the beach?

It was freeeeezing!
Yep, it was, but at least we weren't as silly as the windsurfers.
We collected some shells:

Had a wander about:

Threw some stones:

Sat in the sand and pretended it was August:

Did some digging to generate some heat:

And of course, I had an ice cream (waking up the man in the ice cream kiosk in the process).
On the way home we even went to the chippy...perfect!
Sunday Mum went to work, boo! But it was Ben's party....hooray!
First of all though we had a lazy mortning with Dad, he's getting quite good at that. We also had a visit from laura, Aunti Christiner and Laura's doggy. The cat wasn't too keen but we loved her!
So then, party time. It was the first one i'd been to since I started school so I was pretty excited. There was a bouncy castle in a hall and it all had a pirate theme:

So that was good for a bundle or two.
Yeah, I joined in much to the apparent surprise of some of the mum's who were watching. I'm not scared of a bunch of five year old boys on the rampage though.
We had food, including a home made treasure chest cake (are you taking note Mum?)

Mum turned up half way through so dad could help drink Bens dad's beer and she also got to meet some of the mums and dads she misses only doing the morning drop off at school.
Then the main event, auntie Christimes for sunday dinner. I had a meat mountain and managed to consume beef, chicken, lamb and pork in a single sitting, fantastic or what!!

We even had left over Christmas crackers:

With big hats:

Yeah, big hats indeed:

Auntie Trish and uncle Al even bought us a present over, well it was for Dad really.....a sledge!

And then of course it snowed....quite a lot.

I went to school......

....and I went to nursery as usual.

Once dad picked me up, he gave me the choice of swimming lessons as normal, or playing in the snow.....I chose swimming. I pointed out that the snow was 'ruddy cold' It was great with a reduced class and I was brilliant as usual. We even had to jump in the deep end of the big pool and swim all the way down using a float. I won (not that it was supposed to be a race, but I won anyway).

You big wuss, we went out playing in it at nursery! It was great. We did fruit tasting too, I loved the grapes and the strawberries amongst other things. I didn't go much on the lemons mind you.....

I went home with Shimon's (my friend from school) after school on friday, no dad, no Ellis. We went back to his house, we played with his toys and we had tea together, it was brilliant. Shimons Mum said that we were both really good and she hardly even knew we were there at all! He's coming to our house this week.......
Yep, I got Dad all to myself all afternoon, but i'd rather have had Ned to be truthfull.
Saturday we had to go into town, as usual mum had to put up with all three of us whingieng and crying (yes, that includes Dad).
To make it even worse we went to see Auntie Christine and she didn't even have any sweets in her shop!
In the afternoon we hung about the house for a bit, I did the old muzzy hiding trick in the Nemo truck, just like Ned used to:

Muzzy? What muzzy?

Mum and I played Mario Kart a bit, and Ellis showed us her bum:

Until I fell off:

Then I stole Dad's new bike magazine and had a good old look at it:

In the evening we went to Max and Leo's, we had some pretty engrossing telly to watch before we fell asleep and hogged most of the sofa:

Sunday and it was swimming time again, I was on a charge! Down the slides on my own, marching around poolside and even jumping in, I was well up for it!

Yep, and I dazzled Mum with some of my new found skills that i've honed in my swimming lessons!

After that it was off to McDonalds for some lunch and then on to Toys R Us to get some presents for my upcoming friends birthdays. As if that wasn't enough for one day it was off to see Grandad and Anne! The teddies scaled the lofty heights of the lights again.....

.....and Grandad got the train set going too.

Back to swimming lessons on Monday, this week we had to swim through a hula-hoop held under water...I was first though and made it look easy!

I made quite a splash myself at nursery when I decided to duck my head into a big dirty puddle......it wasn't quite as good an idea as i'd hoped it would be. The water was pretty mucky and rather cold. They took me in pretty quick and I got a shampoo and blow dry though!

My list of words is growing by the day, I think this is most of the commonly used ones so far (in addition to the animal noises and what have you):

Wart (water)

Sheet (paper/magazine)

Book

Pakka (as in Makka Pakka from night garden)

Daisy (as in Upsy Daisy from night garden)

Eat (when I want some food)

Ellis

Nose

Eyes

Ears

Mouth

Foot

Sock

Shoe

Boots

Cake

Nana (as in Banana)

Cuggle (as in cuddle, Mums current favourite)

I've been colouring lately, almost all my free time is taken up with unhurried colouring, I love it.
Yes, he really does. What he doesn't love anymore is CBeebies though (unless he's feeling a bit delicate or something). It's a shame, i'm just starting to really get into the night garden but ned won't have any of it!
Well, it's rubbish isn't it? I'm more of a CBBC kind of chap these days, especially Basil Brush!
I don't mind, while he's watching I just chatter away to Dad. He doesn't have a clue what i'm on about most of the time but I do throw in the odd real word here and there.
Max came round after school last friday, we put our orders in and settled down on the re-arranged sofa to watch Spider Man 2, with a mug of hot chocolate for me and a nice cup of tea for Max. Apparently we're like a couple of old men!
Weekend catch up then, after last weeks puke fest. Saturday morning, up and out early and off to the zoo (Cotswold Wildlife Park).
First stop was the gift shop, I spent my long overdue pocket money on a giraffe head on a stick, it turned out to be a genius purchase, it seemed to charm all the animals out of their warm shelters. The normally elusive rhino couldn't resist a good old look:

I only got it around my nose a few times from the relative saftey (and warmth) of the buggy. I was desperate to escape however and run around under my own steam.

I soon managed to get out of my wheeled contraption, and marched straight over to the lions:

They couldn't put it off for ever and we soon succumbed to the lure of the park (and the picnic):

It was great fun:

...most of the time!

I made friends with this lovely litle goat:

And this pig frightened me half to death with a loud, well timed grunt while I was at close quarters:

The meerkats also loved my Giraffe:

And I deperatley tried to snag a Lemur to take home with us:

Did I mention I have a nice new pair of trainers.....with laces! Expect to see a lot of this for the foreseeable future!

Penguins! Even they looked cold!

Day two of the weekend was a trip to JJ's. Finally.

I made friends with some older lads and pretty much disappeared. Dad only found me when he spotted me in one of the new observation pods above the big slide.

I ran Mum ragged for a good while, but even I was pretty happy to play on my own or with the other kids.

We stayed for lunch as well, what a treat! We were there ages, mum and dad's easr must have been ringing!

After that we went to see Trish and Al......

We played Mario Kart on the Wii, we ate biscuits and sweets, and we tried out Trish's new car for size:

I closed my eyes and wished really hard that we could get a cool car too:

Swimming again Monday, it was a bit better this week though. We got to do some jumping in and had to pick up stuff from the bottom of the pool! Still no match for the Oasis though....