Well last week eh, what beautiful weather! 

We certainly loved it and certainly got used to it very quickly.

It was certainly a lovely day for the Schools Cross country championships, here's the John Rankin Team:

It was quite a big event, we had a lovely team picnic area out on the grass and team spirit was high.  Year 3 & 4 girls were off first.  We gave them loads of support, Dad reckons we were the loudest school by miles.  We secured a great vantage point right on the finish line and made sure we cheered every team mymber home as loud as we could.

It was year 3 & 4 boys next, being year 3, that included me!  We had a quick team huddle before the off for our 1.2 mile race (which included a section up the actual horse racing track, how cool?):

I ran  a good race according to Dad (yeah, because he's an expert), I kept the same good pace going throughout and had a little sprint finish as well.  I finished 104th, which I wasn't very pleased with.  That was until I found out that there were somewhere in the region of 260 people competing.  I was also the second of the John Rankin team home:

Once the race was done, we could get on with enjoying ourselves watching the year 5 & 6's race, safe in the knowledge that we were having an afternoon off from lessons:

Did I mention that there were a lot of people there:

We kept our support levels up for the remaining two races:

And I got to hang out with the girls:

We hung around for the presentation which paid off as we won an award for most improved team.  We all had to go up and collect our trophy, how exciting!

After the easter holidays we're stopping doing cross country and starting Quadkids practice...a four event competition....sounds exciting!

Due to the boys spending the afternoon sunning themselves Mum left work early to pick me up from after school sports club which made a nice change.  When they finally got home we'd already decided to go down the park for a bit.

And after all that activity, a McDonalds was called for!

It was my last dancing class of the term on Wednesday, Ned managed to push me just a little too far while I was getting my tap shoes on and I burst into tears.  The upside was that Mrs Groves got the easter eggs out a bit earlier than she would have done!

I managed to still not quite finish my Antartic book.....much to everyones displeasure.

I didn't have multi sports on Thursday so it was down the park instead!

Everyone was there, enjoying the sunshine.  I make sure Dad pushes me as hard as he can in the basket swing so I can show off in front of my wussy friends!

We had to have a ruddy walk after tea, I whinged before we went.

And I whinged during the event, even though it was my idea...oh dear.

Then it was friday...last day of term and an early finish!

We bought home various easter goodies, some 'nest' cakes and card from me!

And a little bag of eggs from our teacher and a card from me.

Once they were eaten (except one nest cake saved for Mum) it was back off down the park again!

The whole school seemed to be there.  I spent the afternoon with Alastair and a load of others from my year.  We mostly played Army and did a lot of climbing and bike riding.

I spent most of the afternoon with Evelyn and her little doggie.

We stayed until about half past four, making about three hours worth I reckon?  No bad at all.

So after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing on saturday morning we finally settled on Bucklebury pump track.

And I made my first full lap unaided.  Dad reckoned he'd never seen anyone so smiley on a bike track before:

I worked on my cornering:

And a bit of jump squashing:

And a bit more cornering....pretty low eh?

We went home via Waitrose for posh bread and then settled in for the afternoon to watch an old war film.

Yeah, Battle of Britain, I loved it.

Auntie Christine came round to babysit in the evening, we got to hear all about Darceys holiday in the shed.

It sounded cool to us!

We were both pretty tired, Ned moreso than me, falling asleep in his clothes and failing to wake up to get into his pj's!

Sunday afternoon and the sun was still shining, time for a trip to Lepe!

We had a little play on the park and then it was time for Ice cream:

Before we headed on down to the sea, I almost got over to the Isle of Wight:

I stayed in slightly shallower water as my wellies aren't as high as Ned's:

We had a sneaky cuddle:

We sat up on the sea wall, it was so warm and lovely we really didn't want to get up again:

But we did and had a walk further along to the sandy beach bit.

Which turned out to be a bad idea.  With my shoes and socks off I got Mum to come and pick me up to get me back over the stoney bit. As she bent down, I jumped up and BANG!  I smacked my head into her mouth.  One smack in the tooth for Mum, one cut head for me.  Nobody realised it was cut though, until there was blood running down my back.  Dad put me on his shoulders and marched us all back to the car.  Mum dabbed at my wound with a wipe and I commented that it was a good job we'd had our ice creams already!

Monday then, and mum was off with us.  That of course means one thing....lazy snuggle time!

Yay, we loved it, board games, computer games and the blokes fitting our new windows.

Yeah, they got a right grilling from me!

Of course once Dad was home we had to go out.

To the Discovery Centre in Thatcham, turns out it wasn't a bad idea.  We fed the ducks and did loads of playing.

The icing on the cake being bumping into Tegan and Lola in the playground...brilliant!  I was starting to miss her already!

I had a great time at Mr Gilhams after school sports club again in Tuesday.  We played a game where you had to sit on a mat and throw bean nags at the other teams to get them out.

I went out for a bike ride with Dad, we went to the little jumps and then out accross the fields, up to Wash Common park and then back down through the fields.  I loved it.  When we got back to school to pick Ellis up, Jess' brother and I had our very own bean-bag throwing competition, it was great fun...even Mr Gilham thought so.

We had our Easter Assembly on Wednesday morning, Mum came along which was lovely:

She said that I sang and did my actions really well during the songs but she could have done without all the nose picking and eating it.

I decided I could manage dancing this week, so it was my first week in our new time slot, and it was just us littler ones.  I loved the new arrangements as now we get to pick Mum up from work rather than making her walk.

I had my parents evening on Wednesday, while Mum and Dad went in to see my teacher Ellis and I played computer games in the ICT room.  It went very well by the sounds of it too, i'm doing well with my reading and writing and very well with my maths.  I'm doing a bit of extra spelling at home at he moment and that seems to be working out well too.  On top of that Mrs Douglas said that I was lovely and she'd gladly take me home for the weekend to do her gardening.  I hope this hasn't given Dad any ideas.

We've been getting a bit tardy again in the mornings.

Yeah, we like to take our time having breakfast and getting dressed.  Mum usually issues a warning that she's coming downstairs and expects us to be ready by the time she comes down. 

Invariably we're not of course.

So the other day when she came downstairs to find us still slumped in our pj's watching some telly I suggested that our house didn't really have enough stairs.....

Thursday then, another trip to the park after school while Ned was at multi skills.  I've really had the bit between my teeth with regards to my bike since I rode Ned's BMX on the track the other week.  I've just about learnt (micro) wheelies.  I'm very pleased with myself about it too.

We did rugby at multisports.  I really enjoyed it actually, although I would have preferred it if it was like on the telly, when you get to knock each other over properly.

We went out with the Halford boys on Friday night after school for a walk around the woods.

It wasn't as super muddy as last time went but I decided to wear my cool new wellies anyway.

There was however this really yucky muddy puddle:

It looked like the runniest poo ever and was most satisfying to throw stones into!

We were properly exhaisted by friday night so we missed out on an evening trip to Auntie Christines for a family gathering.

All Ellis' fault, falling asleep on the sofa and refusing to wake up.  I was not a happy boy.  Not even watching my new favourite programme 'Man vs Food' could really cheer me up.

So we were up early doors on a lovely sunny saturday morning, ready for a day of excitement.

What was on offer?  A shopping trip?  Are you pulling my leg?

Having said that, the day started well enough when Dad drove right to the very top of the (largely empty) multi storey carpark.

It was really very high indeed, great views!

We took the stairs down (Ned's idea), until we had to walk across a glass bridge over the busy road below.

This too was very cool indeed, I was starting to quite like this shopping lark to be honest.

Then it was straight into a department store toy section...brilliant!

We had a good old browse round before deciding it must be lunch time and finally I got a trip to the Pasty Shop.  I'd been asking for this for ages.

But seeing as we were in Kingston we took the baked goods and headed for the banks of the river Thames:

We had to explore the lower pontoon of course, got a bit close to knocking each other in at one point:

Then it was time for a new pair of trainers for me (with a cool pair of sunglasses thrown in free for Ned and I, Dad was most out out he didn't get any).

And finally, after much negotiation and deliberation....A baseball cap for me.  I'd wanted one for ages and haven't taken it off since i've got it.

We rounded things off witha lovely ice cream to cool ourselves down.

So on this one occasion, shopping was actually okay, as long as it doesn't happen regularly.

Sunday was another lovely sunny day, so we headed into the garden ans stayed there all day pretty much.

We planted some seeds in their trays to grow for a charity plant sale

I wanted them for our garden.

And the trampoline was opened for the summer season.

I bounced pretty much all morning on my own before Ned joined me.

Oh it was good to be back on it, we do love the trampoline and played really nicely on it together:

Even if it did do strange things to my hair:

We even had a barbecue for lunch.

We paid Auntie Cristine a special birthday visit.  She also had Darcey with her wchich made it even more brilliant.

We also arrived just in time to help her decorate her lovely strawberry cake..it looked amazing when we'd finished it.Then it was off to Lakeside to book my birthday party (Quasar and bowling no less, i'm seriously excited about it already).

Then it was home, bath and bed!

Cross country club was actually rounders club for this week as we've pretty much done all the running we need to prior to tomorrows big race!  I think i'm looking forward to it.....



Okay, due to one thing or another we don't actually have any photo's this week.
So you'll have to bear with us this week and just plough through it all i'm afraid.
We'll have some rather shocking news to start off with...I didn't go to dancing on Wednesday as 'my legs hurt'  Well, I said they did anyway.  It had nothing to do with me wanting to hang around in the playground after school with Jess or anything.  Dad explained that if we didn't go straight away we'd miss it for the week and I was quite happy with that.  Well, until about ten minutes after the time it would have finished when i'd decided i'd actually like to go after all.
I had hoped that we wouldn't have to do reading as Dad and I wouldn't have to sit in the car waiting for twinkle toes.  Sadly I had to read at home instead, for a while anyway.
Yeah, Dad decided it would be a good idea to make use of our now free afternoon and get the mothers day cards made!
We were a model of self-restraint and resisted the temptation to smear everything with massive dollops of never-drying PVA and glitter.
We even both did the writing inside all on our own, with no prompting at all from Dad.
I got a red card at school on Thursday, for scrapping with Alastair.  I think it made it worse that we were trying to hit and kick each other in the willy.  But you know how Alastair and I are, this is what we do.  Anyway, Mrs Douglas had to ring Dad and tell him, which I think was rather uncomfortable for both of them.  Oh dear.  Mum wasn't too pleased either, but we all got over it failry quickly and it has been forgotten about now I hope.
We had another trip to the park while Ned was at multi sports.  These are getting rather regular these days, I love it now the weathers getting better.  My classmates Liam and Aidan were there again but they weren't having such a good time as me.  They were crying, about everything, almost all the time.  I don't think it helped that their Mums seemd to find this hilarious.  In addition to this they gave them the advice to be a bit more like Ellis and get on with climbing/playing/swinging or whatever it was we were doing and their misery was pretty well compounded.
Mr Jones has been busy at school crafting a new putting green tucked away in a corner of the playing field.  Myself and Hugo got to be the first ones to test it out on Friday and it was really cool.  I'll hopefully be able to put some practice in before the crazy golf season kicks in for real in the summer.
Saturday was a momentous day of the year, Legoland was open again!
Despite concerns we had over the weather and the potential amount of people being there (due to it being the first weekend and their new hotel opening) we made the pilgrimage.
An emergency toilet stop helped keep both me and Mum dry.
While Dad and I rode the water boat slide ride thing, both of us getting totally soaked through (Dad whineing about it much more than me of course).
But after that it was ride after ride after ride.
And with no sign of the wet weather or massive crowds we pretty much went on whatever we wanted without any queueing up.
One highlight was certainly the underwater Atlantis ride, the sharks and massive rays were really good.
And after the ride the walkthrough aquarium was brilliant as well, we got to stroke a real live Sea Cucumber (For the record it was very slimy, rather unsurprisingly).
As usual we stayed until it closed, but instead of finishing our visit in the company of Larry on Rocket Racers we visited the new Star Wars miniland walkthorough (a load of Lego models of star wars scenes).  I loved it, but sensed the rest of the family were not quite so keen.  I had to agree that I preferred Larry though.
Mothers day on Sunday, and what do mums really want?  A nice early wake up visit from their excited son?  Of course they do....well it was just past 7am wasn't it?
Well you won't catch me up that early on a Sunday morning thats for sure, especially after me little legs have walked me all around Legoland the previous day (with no whingeing I hasten to add).
Ellis eventually got up and we showered Mum with gifts and cards!
We didn't do much in the morning, Mum read to us and we had a cuddle up, watched a bit of telly and what have you.
We had our usual weekend trip to Waitrose for bread rolls for lunch.
Then we put our tent out in the garden and kitted it out inside for maximum slouching comfort.
We had a little trip out on the bikes in the afternoon. 
We got as far as the park off Enbourne road when I got smacked full in the lip while dismounting the spring loaded motorbike.  It made a lot of blood....I was reluctant to use my blankie (which was tucked safely into my bike basket).  A quick think Mum used one of her socks instead to stem the flow.  Thanks Mum.
Oh it really wasn't very nice, poor Ellis, even I was sympathetic this time.
I rode back sat on Dads shoulders while Mum carried my bike.  By the time we'd got to Fifth Road park i'd made a remarkable recovery so we stopped off there for a play.  My friend Matilda from school was there.  We had a great time winding Ned up and calling him silly names.
God they were annoying.
We got home and watched Take Me Out from saturday night on the computer before having tea and heading for bed.
I've got two achievements to brag about this week.  First of all i've learned handstands.  I was sick of ALlastair lookign cool doing them at school so i've been practicing on and off for ages (Dads been grabbing my legs on occasion too).  But now i've got it down unaided.
Secondly i've been picked for the school cross country team (even if I had a hurty foot today and didn't perform quite as well as usual).  We've got a the schools cross country championships next week, I think i'm looking forward to it....

I had a great start to my after school sports club last Tuesday, I was made team captain and got a certificate for player of the week for my efforts at dodgeball! I really enjoyed and can't wait for
next week, especially as Jess will be going now that I am.
So while Ellis was doing her bit, I decided it was time for pre season BMX training. I haven't ridden it since my last race, last season, which is was about six monmths ago.  I made the best of the path outside with my jump and some cones:

I had a lovely time dancing on Wednesday.

I had a great big book all about penguins to read, as recommended by one my class mates Melissa who's Penguin mad. I probably wasn't so keen on the book as she was truth be told, but i'm still doing okay with my reading on the whole.

We had a right grumpy morning on Thursday, don't know why, we just did.

Poor old Mum having to deal with us when we're like that.

Things picked up at school though, we did music outside in the afternoon.  I wouldn't have mentioned it but Dad could hear me drumming from right up the street when he got home from work.  His eyesight isn't what it was but he must have been able to see me too as he did give a rather accurate description of my rather elaborate playing style!

My day didn't fare quite so well, I managed to lose a chunk of goldentime for reasons that still remain a secret known only to me.

Our multi sports session was blindfold football, with the ball having a bell in it.  It was great fun and quite a challenge.

I took Dad down the park again while Ned was chasing a dingling ball round the field.  A load of my friends were there again which was really good.

Friday was our class trip to the Pitt Rivers museum in Oxford again.  This time we went to see the Egyptian exhibition which featured a real life (well, dead I suppose) Mummy!  It was cool, the toes were sticking out a bit as well.  Apparently it had been x-rayed and they knew it was a lady Mummy as well.  We loved it, learned loads and all got super excited about little model Scarab beetles in the gift shop.  I got a lovely blue one that almost said Ellis on the bottom.  In Egyptian times Scarab Beetles were a sign of new life apparently, so there you go, a nice fact for you.

He was a little bit late getting back so we very nearly missed our last swimming lesson of the term.

Or in fact the last one ever for me, Mum and Dad have finally seen sense (as well as noticed what a massive effort i've put in over the last god knows how many weeks) and decided that thats enough for me.  I can't tell you just how pleased I am about that.  The lesson itslef was great fun, after s hort warm up swim we had the mats out, the balls and lots of fun.

We had races and games of traffic lights as well as the mats and balls and what have.

Saturday mornining was time for haircuts.  I decided a change was on the cards and decided that although i'd previously said I wanted the longest hair I could possibly grow I decided I wanted a load of it cut off.

I didn't want any cut off, I wouldn't admit that it got in the way of my eyes during running, swimming or bike riding.

So anyway, here it is, as modelled at the park over at Grandads where we went for lunch:

And another one, just to give you a another look:

We had a lovely time, even if we didn't quite manage to get a cuddle from Whiskey, their new cat.

Maybe next time Ned.

Sunday was race day, I was very calm about it all.

I wasn't,I was well excited, I wanted to go and play in the park down at the track with all the boys!

We stopped off at Marks and Spencer to buy our picnic (I know, get us!) and headed south.

It was a lovely sunny day and there were loads of people there.

Practice went well:

The tuck shops sweets went down even better, here I am with Charlie, shortly before he tried to remove one of my teeth with the aforementioned sweets:

In the end the racing was something of an inconvenience to be honest. I wasn't on sparkling form, but two 4ths and a 2nd wasn't too bad in my heats.  The 5th in the final was nothing to write home about though.  Still, onwards and upwards, I didn't get wound up about it and had a great time with Charlie.

I wanted a go, I saw other little ones riding and I wanted a piece of the action.  I borrowed Neds gloves and helmet:

And then Dad and Ned took me on the track:

I was away!  And I loved it, although I wanted to make sure I didn't topple over so shouted at Dad to catch me a few times (i'm not good with the brakes really):

Pretty soon I was racing Charlie as well, I stuffed him:

I had a word with him first of course and told him to let my sister win.

Then I managed to get the kit back of Ellis for a few laps with Charlie myself:

I rode better than I had all day, just mucking about on the track in the late afternoon sunshine.

There was just time for me to steal another quick go before we got thrown out as they wanted to lock the car park gate up:
















And then it was Monday again, but we got up in a great mood and had a lovely jolly walk to school with Mum.
Which was more than Hugo could say, he was giving his mum a right hard time on the way to school and was in trouble by the looks of it...ha ha!
I had cross country club after school again, 6 laps round the field this week and a second place finish.  Maxim's Mum told Dad i'd done really well again.....although I did have a curously muddy bum and back for a runner?
Andy came round for tea.....we all know what that means...parents evening!  Mine this time.  It all sounds like it went well though, it sounds like i'm getting on really quite well and making loads of new friends.

There was a book signing session after school on Wednesday night, with the Icky Doo Dah chap.
We got a book each, signed by the author and then had a mad scramble to get Dad to read them to us before we went to dancing.
It was all very exciting, the whole school seemed to be really into it.
To go with all this book related business, we had a dressing up day at school on Thursday.
Yeah, to go in dressed as our favourite book character.
I went for Harry Potter, which didn't prove to be the most original idea of the day but was certainly a lot better than those who turned up dressed as Wayne Rooney.
And in another feat of not very impressive originality I dressed up as a Princess, take your pick what story I was from, there's plenty of famous book princess:

It was great fun though, even the teachers joined in, all dressing up as Wally from the Where's Wally books.  They even did some hiding later on as well!

While Ned stayed on at school doing multi sports (Hockey this week, brilliant) Dad collected me and we went down the park in the sunshine.  I took my bike, with my fluffy, cuddly sheep in the basket.  There were loads of kids from school there, including Liam, Sacha and Zachary from my class.  Wer had a great time and so did my cuddly sheep, he went down the slide, up the climbing frame and round and round on the roundabout.

We picked Mum up from work and nipped into Sainsbury's.  I took the oppurtunity to select myself a nice new t-shirt and shorts combo for the summer.

And I picked myself a nice new dress and some shorts.  A very productive trip all round.

The weekend was soon upon us, in view of the weather forecast we decided on some indoor based activities.

First up on saturday was the Intech Centre in Winchester.

We loved it, we really loved it.  There were loads of things to push, shove, twist, turn, lift and prod.

Here I am making a whirlpool:

Yeah, there was loads to get involved in:

What was probably even better though was the Planetarium, wow!

Yeah, it was amazing.  It was like a cinema except there wasn't really a screen and the seats were really laid back.

But when the lights went off and the starry night sky appeared in the dome over or heads it pretty much took our breath away.

After picking up a few well known star configurations we heaed off around the solar system to get a closer look at the all the other plantes.

They were beautiful!

The lady doing the commentary gave us some great little facts and figures as we zoomed around thousands of miles of space.  We really loved it.

Yeah, really!

We had a cosy evening in, watching telly.  Lovely.

We had to get up early-ish on Sunday as we had cinema tickets booked for the 10 am showing of Puss In Boots.

I LOVED IT!  Of course I did, there were loads of cats in it!

And fighting and adventure.  So pretty much the perfect film for all of us.

The weather was pretty horrible so when we got home we got our homework finished and out of the way.

The weather did seem to cheer up a bit so we got wrapped up and headed off out for a bike ride.

It was brilliant, so many puddles to zoom through!

Hmmm, I did get a bit wet and in turn cold so wanted to go home.  Hence another rather lengthy bike carry home for Mum and Dad while I whinged along on foot.

We went out for a walk after tea on Tuesday, I love going out for a wander after tea.
I don't, I hate it, I whinged all the way round....thank goodness we didn't go far.
I've got a proper chapter book as my reading book from school now, my first one.  It's about monsters.  I read three chapters in the car with Dad while Ellis was dancing but got distracted by a load of year five girls who were also at the school for a netball match.  They kept on waving at me through the window of the car.
We've got a few new girls in dance class now, so i'm kind of one of the old ones now.
I had a rubbish day at school on Thursday. I got told off by everyone for everything, I actually ended up in tears at one point as it got to me in the end. 
Friday was a bit better though, Mum helped me take out my wobbly tooth at long last, so that was the tooth fairy visit pencilled in for that evening.
After swimming lessons of course.  We're getting near the end of the course now so our teacher had her clipboard out to do marking.
Yeah, so did ours.  I made sure I tried my hardest all the way through as I really want to put an end to swimming lessons once and for all.
We took Ned and dropped him off at his school disco on Friday night, it was supposed to be a nice oppurtunity for the rest of us to go out on a lovely whinge free walk.  Trouble was that when we got to the hall the hall the thumping music and flashing lights were such a temptation I suddenly didn't want to go for a walk anymore, I wanted to go dancing.
Sadly Ellis, it was juniors only so tough luck.  We had a great time of course and I even bought Ellis a packet of sweets with my own money to try and soften the blow for her.
We had a day out on Saturday, it's been a while hasn't it?
Monkey World as well. 
Brilliant, far enough away to have a bit of a kip in the car on the way too!
Aside from the monkeys, there are of course loads of playgrounds:

Sadly I wasn't walways quite as good as the monkeys at climbing: 

The Orang's were really lovely, especially this one at the bottom who loved his blankie just like me:

He walked round like a ghost, he was rally funny and seemed to be really enjoying making everyone laugh.

After a massive amount of petitioning we were finally allowed our picnic.

We had to wait until almost twelve o'clock....disgraceful!

After lunch it was off to see the Lemur's.

We love the Lemur's in their free range enclosure:

We were very quiet and gentle and managed to get quite close to them.

Not as close as my little friend here would have liked to have got to me though:

He followed me up and down the window seat, all the while clutching his little bit of salad that he was nibbling on.

Parks, did we mention that there were plenty of parks to play on?

Here I am on the 'Children over 8 years old' section of the playground:

There were some really good swings too, we could both go on this one together:

Blimey it went high though:

That was down to good pushing and a lot of screamed encouragement on our part though!
We headed back through the park, taking in the last few enclosures we'd not seen already.
The highlight being one of the chimps who decided that clapping his hands, waggling his lips and then banging on the glass to frighten unsuspecting passers by was a worthy form of entertainment.
I asked if we could just stay in this saturday night and have an early night.  Well it would make a change for once.  I got my wish after we'd watched some saturday night tv.
I dragged all my bedclothes downstairs on Sunday morning for a lengthy cuddle up session with Poppy and the TV.
I joined in when I got up.
Then I helped Mum and Dad with some gardening out the front.
While I played Cool Math Games on the computer.
We rode our bikes up to the Wash Common park in the afternoon.
We had a lovely climb/play/swing before heading home.
Where I decdied to have a proper good good bike crash riding back down the farmers field.
And I really let Dad down when I spent the whole descent talking to mum about Roundheads and Cavaliers instead of charging down the hill on my bike.
Back to school on Monday, the week has started well for me as i earned and extra two golden time minutes.
We had a visit from a real and proper author, Simon Murray who wrote the Icky Doo Dah books.  It was really good and i've been drawing some rather brilliant Icky Doo Dahs myself.  After school cross country club went well.  I came second (to a year six) at this weeks non-race-race.  Maxim's Mum who teaches us told Dad how well i'd run when he got there to pick me up.