Category: 2008 4pk News

Today it is Pauline’s birthday so we made a trip across to visit her and take a birthday card, birthday present and of course a nice big chocolate birthday cake!

When we arrived at Grandad and Pauline’s we found Auntie Alison in the lounge feeding Joseph, so that was a bit of a surprise. Uncle Michael was no where to be seen apparently he had just nipped out to the shop. He arrived back 10 minutes later and we mobbed him at the garden gate!

Soon we were joined in the house by Uncle Simon, Auntie Melissa and Hughie and then Auntie Sarah arrived so before we knew it there was a birthday party happening! Pauline, the birthday girl, drew the short straw at the party though as she had to make us all lunch – we had some lovely sandwiches and brioche and stollen and crisps and then followed this with nice big slices of chocolate birthday cake (we took a slice of cake home for Daddy (Tim) as he was busy working today)!

Obvioulsy the chocolate birthday cake was not cut until a candle had been placed on the top of it and we had all sung Happy Birthday to Pauline!

The impromptu birthday lunch was lovely, so Thank You Pauline, and we hope you enjoy the rest of your Birthday – we think you should make Grandad take you out for dinner as there is no chance he would ever cook dinner (we don’t think he knows how to turn the oven on!!)

As you will all know by now we never have a “normal” Christmas Day and we think if we did we wouldn’t enjoy it half as much as we enjoy our Special Christmas Days.

Daddy had been to pick up Josh on Christmas Day and then they had gone back to Auntie Jennifer’s where Mummy (Alli) and Daddy (Tim) had spent their Christmas Day. Before going to bed Josh left out a mince pie, glass of baileys, carrot and bowl of milk for Father Christmas and Rudolph and wrote a little note saying “For you Father Christmas from Josh, Dan & Em.” Daddy and Alli then tucked Josh into bed and said if when you wake up in the morning and Father Christmas has left some presents on the end of your bed then come and tell us.

So this morning at 6.30am Josh got up and Daddy and Alli were expecting him to come rushing into the bedroom with some presents but instead he went to the toilet and then went back to his bedroom, Daddy thought this was a little bit strange so he got up to go and see what Josh was doing and found him standing in his bedroom staring in awe at the presents that Father Christmas had left in his stocking and on the end of the bed! Daddy helped Josh to carry his presents through and then Josh set about opening his bed presents – by 7am the presents were open and by 7:05am Josh was trying to do a Ben10 jigsaw that Father Christmas had bought him. It was quite a hard jigsaw so Daddy got out of bed to help Josh and Alli lay on the edge of the bed, under the duvet, and helped as well.

By 7:30am the jigsaw was complete and we now had to pass an hour and a half until Daniel & Emilie arrived at 9am – so we decided that the best thing to do would be to go back to sleep for a bit, so we did, all cuddled up in the one bed!

At 9am the doorbell rang and then chaos ensued, Josh came flying down the stairs, Daniel and Emilie removed their coats and shoes in record time and then the three of them went into the kitchen to see if Father Christmas had eaten his mince pie – HE HAD!!!! We then had to wait a few minutes for Daddy (Tim) to come down stairs before Mummy (Alli) opened the lounge door and checked to see if the Christmas Tree lights were on (Father Christmas always turns on the tree lights if he has been) and sure enough they were on and underneath the Christmas Tree and all across the lounge floor was a huge pile of presents, the biggest pile yet!!!

We spent the next hour and a half opening all our presents – we got loads and loads of presents from lots and lots of people, our big presents this year from Father Christmas were:
Daniel – Flat screen tv (for his bedroom) and an X-box
Emilie – Dolls house and a turquoise Nintendo DS
Joshua – Coastguard lego and a red Nintendo DS (he had been wanting a red DS all year, so was very pleased!)
Mummy (Alli) – Ipod touch
Daddy (Tim) – Lego walking AT-AT

Once the unwrapping was done we spent the rest of the day playing with all our presents, only stopping to eat our Christmas Turkey at lunchtime and some nibbles in the evening.

We had a brilliant and exhausting day and we all fell into bed and fell fast asleep at 10pm.

Thank you to everyone that sent us presents – you helped make our Christmas Day on Boxing Day another perfect family day to remember!

…. to all our readers.

We hope you all have a lovely Christmas Day and that Father Christmas brings you lots and lots of presents.

On our return journey from Uncle Michael’s we decided that we would call in to see Auntie Nicola, Uncle Steve, Laurie and Julien (Laurie’s, little brother) who is just 2 weeks old.

When we arrived our friend Laurie was having an afternoon nap so to pass the time until he woke up we all played with his toys and took it in turns to have cuddles with Julien. Of course Mummy (Alli) was the first to have a cuddle, sometimes Daddy (Tim) gets a look in and gets the first cuddle but he has to be quick!!

Julien is a lovely little baby and he slept all the time that we were there even though we were making lots and lots of noise, which got a little bit louder when Laurie woke up!

After leaving Cheddleton we set of in the car for Uncle Michael’s and Auntie Alison’s as we were finally going to meet our new cousin Joseph, who was born 3 weeks ago. Mummy (Alli) is the only one from our family that has met Joseph and we were very jealous. Mummy (Alli) had shown us some photos of Joseph that she took when she visited him on the day that he was born and we knew he looked cute on them but we really really really wanted to meet him in person and give him lots of huggles.

We arrived at our destination at 5:30pm and couldn’t wait to get out of the car and into the house, Uncle Michael greeted us at the door and we rushed to take our shoes off and run up the stairs to see Joseph, who was apaprently sleeping in his moses basket in the lounge. Unsurprisingly Daddy (Tim) was straight in there for a cuddle of his new nephew, little Joseph looked so small when he was having his first cuddle with Uncle Tim.

Shortly after arriving at Uncle Michael’s and Auntie Alison’s we had to get ready to go out for dinner, but not before we had all had a cuddle with Joseph. We had to sit down on the sofa and Mummy (Alli) and Daddy (Tim) helped us hold Joseph properly and then we each had a photo taken of our first cuddle with Joseph. When the cuddles were over Mummy put Joseph into his very snuggly blue outdoor suit which had little ears on it that made him look like Daniel’s blue bear and then he was put into his pram, which Daniel insisted on pushing all the way to the pub and back. Daniel was surprisingly very good at pram pushing and didn’t bounce Joseph up and down too many kerbs, apparently he has been practicing recently helping Linda push the pram to school.

We were all very well behaved in the pub even Joseph who slept whilst we all ate our dinners. Emilie had a little incident before we started eating when she managed to knock a whole glass of coke over which spilt all over poor Auntie Alison. We had to do lots of mopping up with napkins and the floor had to be mopped as well, the only good thing was that Emilie hadn’t knocked it over Joseph who she was also sat next too! The food was delicious and anything we couldn’t finish Uncle Michael was only to happy to help us with including Emilie and Josh’s homemade chicken nuggets and Emilie’s chocolate brownie, but there was no way he was getting any of Josh’s valinna (this is how JOsh says vanilla) ice cream, which he ate so quickly he gave himself brain freeze on more than one occassion.
Just as we were eating our desserts Joseph woke up for his milk so we helped Auntie Alison give Joseph his bottle and then when he had finished we all walked home with Daniel pushing the pram again.

When we got back to the house we had to get changed into our pyjamas which proved to be quite entertaining as Charlie the cat insisted on chasing both Josh and Emilie around as they were trying to take their clothes off, it was a sight to behold watching Charlie jumping and chasing after a naked Josh and Emilie. Eventually we managed to get Charlie out of the room and pyjamas were put on and then after our cups of milk we went to be in our new ready beds – Star Wars Clone Wars for Daniel, High School Musical for Emilie and Spiderman for Joshua. Daniel volunteered to sleep in with Joseph and keep him company during the night – he really is the doting older cousin!

When Emilie & Josh woke up in the morning they discovered that Daniel hadn’t had much sleep, just like Uncle Michael and Mummy, Joseph had woke up once to be fed (by Uncle Michael) and once to have his nappy changed (By Mummy). Daniel didn’t mind at all though and even volunteered that when Joseph comes to stay at our house next week he can share his bedroom. When everyone was out of bed Uncle MIchael set about making the traditional Sunday morning sausage sandwiches, which we all demolished and then it was time for Uncle Michael & Auntie Alison to open the presents that we had chosen for Joseph.

The presents we had chosen were:
Daniel – Soft leather shoes with rockets on that Uncle Michael thought were individual finger gloves
Emilie – A cuddly bunny rabbit with a blue crocheted cardigan, which went straight into Joseph’s moses basket
Joshua – A bib with teddy bears on
Mummy (Allison) & Daddy (Tim) – A suit saying “My Daddy Rocks”, matching bibs and a blanket with different labels all around the edge, that they have said Auntie Alison and Uncle Michael are NOT to pinch from Joseph. Mummy (Alli) and Daddy (Tim) had already sent some other presents down in the post for Joseph.
When the present unwrapping was finished it was time for us to pack up or belongings to come home, before we left we all had one more huggle with Joseph and then it was time for us to leave and make our way back up north.

The 3pks verdict on Joseph their new cousin is that he is very cute and they love him very much and can’t wait for him to come and stay at our house, and neither can Mummy – she is counting the days until the 30th December when Joseph is coming to stay!

This morning we set off for the Boardman Christmas Family Get-Together at Churnet Valley Railway, it was time to meet Santa on a steam train. We had to be ready and waiting at the station for 1pm as that was the time of our train.

We arrived at the station just before 1pm and met up with the rest of the family which consisted of:
Grandad (Trains) & Pauline
Uncle Harry & Auntie Carol
Uncle Mike & Auntie Jennifer
Uncle Graham & Auntie Carrie
Uncle Simon & Auntie Melissa
Amy & Callum
Courtney, Jake & Luke
Hughie

So all together there were 21 of us, and that was without Uncle Michael, Auntie Alison and Joesph! We took up a whole train carriage. We found our seats and settled down for the journey, although settling down was quite hard and We were all very excited as we knew that at some point Father Christmas would come and see us and would give us a present. Daniel sat with Pauline, Uncle Simon, Auntie Melissa and Hughie, Hughie had bought a picnic on the train which he wanted to play with rather than eat and at one point Daniel had to tuck in to try and encourage Hughie to eat some of his lunch.

Emilie & Josh sat with Amy, Callum and Daddy (Tim), Mummy (Alli) started the journey with Auntie Jennifer but ended up sitting with Emilie, Josh, Amy, Callum and Daddy (Tim), it was a bit of a squash around the table but fun! We had lots of fun on the train and as we travelled down the track we became more and more excited, eventually we arrived at the next station and we saw Father Christmas get on the train which sent us into hysteria! We were watching him walking through the carriages handing out presents to all the other boys and girls on the train, and then he arrived in our carriage!!!! He gave us all presents, apart from the Mummys, Daddys, Grandads and Grandmas as he said that they hadn’t been good enough this year to get a present on the train, but if they behaved between now and Christmas Day they might still get some presents.

There was a bit of a mix up with Daniel’s present, the elves hadn’t put one in Father Christmas’ sack so Father Christmas sent one of his helpers to find a present for Daniel and to tell the Elf that he was sacked! Emilie & Amy received doggy handbags with some colouring pens in them, there was a pink bag for Emilie and a blue bag for Amy which shortly after receiving became a blue bag for Emilie and a pink bag for Amy as they decided to do a swap. Josh received a really cool Speed Racer car, which he couldn’t wait to get out of the box and start playing with, and eventually Daniel received a model car which was a Landrover, he actually thought this was quite cool!

It was then time for Father Christmas to get off the train and go and check that Rudolph and the rest of the reindeer gang were ok in the field next to the train track, he had to leave them in the field as they would have caused chaos in the train carriages. We then set off on the return leg of our journey and passed the time by playing with our new toys. When we arrived back at the station we said Goodbye to all the other family members before heading off to Uncle Michael’s for the next stage of our very busy but exciting weekend.

When Josh came home this evening Mummy (Alli) handed us all a silver envelope and told us that it was a special letter that she had been told needed to be opened in the back garden, we thought this was a little strange, but nevertheless we went outside and opened our letters.

When we opened the letters lots of sparkly fairy dust fell out of the envelopes and it glittered in the dark, then we retrieved the letters from the envelopes and discovered that they were from FATHER CHRISTMAS!!!! Mummy (Alli) then explained that the reason we had to open the letters outside was so that Father Christmas could see when we had opened them by looking for the sparkly fairy dust.

We took our letters inside where Mummy helped Emilie and Daddy helped Josh to read the letters, Daniel read his letter himself. The letters were brilliant, Father Christmas is amazing as he knew the names of our schools, teachers, best friends and even our animals, Emilie and Josh were so excited about the letters they couldn’t believe that Father Christmas had found out from their teachers that they have been very good at school. Daniel was a little more reserved, as he is older, and apparently it is “not cool” to get really excited!

Mummy and Tim had to go and watch Daniel in his Christmas show separately as Mummy had to go to work in London today, so she went last night and Tim went this morning. As Mummy saw the show first she was able to tell Tim the best seats to sit in to watch the performance as unfortunatley she had chosen the wrong side of the hall, but still managed to get some good photos.

Years 3, 4 and 5 (Dan’s year) were all taking part in the show which was a traditional carol concert, each year group took to the stage in turn and performed a few songs that told the nativity story. Daniel’s year group sang about the visit of the wise-men to see Baby Jesus, which explains why he has been singing “We Three Kings” around the house for the past month and a half! When all the year groups had performed individually they all reconvened on stage to perform a few songs together – the sound of 210 children singing Christmas songs was wonderful and really made us feel very Christmassy.

The concert was lovely and the children had worked very hard to remember all their lines.

Whilst Mummy was packing Emilie’s lunch bag this morning Emilie was telling her that there is a girl in her class that has a Ben10 lunch box, for those of you who are not familiar with Ben 10 he is animated character that is currently on television and predominantly favoured by boys. Emilie declared that it was strange for a little girl to have a Ben 10 lunch box as Ben 10 is for boys, which must means that the little girl in her class is a tom-boy.

When Mummy asked Emilie what a tom-boy was she declared “a tom-boy is a girl who is half boy!!!!”
Bless.

Yesterday afternoon Mummy and Tim went to school to watch Emilie in the year 1/2 Christmas production – Born in a Barn (which is a phrase often heard in our house following the words shut the door were you ….)

They settled into their 2nd row sheets 5 minutes before the perfomance started and looked through the programme which was when Tim realised that Emilie’s name wasn’t in it, Mummy paniced thinking she had the wrong day before she was told that the production in the infant hall was the Reception production and that the year 1/2 Christmas Production was in the junior hall, Mummy and Tim then made a dash across to the junior hall and settled into their 4th row seats to watch Emilie.

Soon after settling in the lights dimmed and the hall was filled with lots of year 1/2 children – it didn’t take us long for Mummy and Tim to spot Emilie The Angel as they just had to look for the smallest child! She made a beautiful angel with her flowing blond locks, it is true what they say about appearances being deceptive. The Born in the Barn production was lovely it was the nativity told from the perspective of the animals who were in the barn the night that Baby Jesus was born. Emilie and the other angels sang a beautiful song to Mary and did a lovely little dance, which Mummy & Tim enjoyed.

Emilie did really well in the show as did the rest of her school friends.

This morning Mummy & Tim were making the trip across to see Josh in his first school Christmas production, where they were expecting to find him dressed as a cheetah as all weekend he had been telling us all how he was going to be a cheetah in the play – we were unsure as to how cheetahs fitted into the nativity.

Mummy & Tim had a real battle on their hands though this morning to make it to the show as one of the roads they have to use was closed as there had been a big accident, unfotunatley they arrived at the show 15 minutes late but that didn’t seem to upset Josh as when he saw his Daddy & Alli standing by the door a huge smile spread across his face and he gave them a little wave. From then on in Josh was like a little meerkat, rather than a cheetah, as his little head kept bobbing up to check that Daddy & Alli were still there watching, which they were.

Josh wasn’t a cheetah, we think he might have been winding us all up, he was actually dressed in a nice white shirt and bow tie and he had the important role of singing, jingling bells and shaking maraccas all of which he did very well.

Daddy & Alli didn’t understand Josh’s Christmas show as all the songs were in Welsh but they enjoyed it all the same as it made them feel very proud and happy to see Josh playing his part so well. They were however slightly confused by the appearance of Thomas The Tank Engine in the Welsh nativity!

As they were leaving the hall Daddy & Alli managed to say “Hello” to Josh and he gave his Alli a big kiss and a cuddle.

Emilie & Josh’s shows were wonderful, just one show left now and that is Daniel’s next week which is a traditional Carol Concert and Dan has been practising “We Three Kings” for days!

On Monday Daniel was told by Mummy that on Wednesday evening he was going out for a surprise and that Emilie would be having a treat and staying at Grandma’s. Daniel was curious as to what the surprise was but Mummy & Tim wouldn’t tell him what was happening.

Mummy collected Daniel from Linda’s and took him home for his dinner and to get changed out of his school uniform, Daniel was very excited about the surprise and he still had no idea what was happening, once dinner was eaten Dan was asked to sort out the animals and that after he had done this they would be leaving for the surprise.

At 6:45pm we got in the car and set out for the surprise, unbeknowns to Daniel the car needed diesel so they had to stop at the garage first which is right next door to the cinema so after Tim had filled the car up he drove it to the cinema and parked up, everyone got out of the car and then Mummy said “this isn’t the right place get back in the car.”

Dan’s mind was then working overtime trying to work out where he was going, he wouldn’t guess but you could tell his mind was racing away with him. They drove down the motorway towards Manchester and about 20 minutes later they arrived within the vicinity of the surprise which was then given up by a car park attendent shouting “Stereophonics parking” at which Dan said “Are we going to watch the Stereophonics?!”

Dan has loved the Stereophonics for years, one of the first songs he ever sang along to was “Have a Nice Day”. We parked the car and made our way across to the MEN Arena, where the first stop was the shop so that everyone could get a t-shirt (Dan’s will need altering!), second stop was refreshments and third stop was our seats which were in a brilliant position – 2 rows from the front right next to the stage – we could actually see the band coming in from the dressing room before they got on stage.

The concert was brilliant and Dan sang and danced along to the songs, he was mezmorized by the guitar and drum playing and even said that one day he would play on the MEN Arena stage in his band! It was a very late night for Dan and he did wane a little bit until his energy was revitalised at the end of the show when the Stereophonics played Dakota, which is a song that is usually played and sung along to very loudly in the car. To make the evening complete as the band left the stage Dan went across to the edge of the seating area and shouted and waved at the band memebers and he was chuffed to bits when first Kelly, then Richard, then Javier and finally Adam all waved back to him and gave him thumbs up – he knows they were waving at him as no one else was
there apart from Mummy & Tim.

A very tired Dan then plodded back to the car and dozed on the way home, when he got into bed the last thing he said, before falling asleep, was “Thank you Mummy & Tim that was a brilliant surprise and thank you for my t-shirt!”

We think Daniel enjoyed his surprise and he even tried his luck at securing future concert visits stating that his three favourite bands are Stereophonics, The Killers and U2 and that he would like to see them all!!

We are pleased to announce that at lunchtime today Auntie Nicola gave birth to a little boy, this means that our friend Laurie is now a big brother!
Congratulations from us all to Auntie Nicola, Uncle Steve and Laurie.
At the moment Laurie’s little brother doesn’t have a name, so we are just having to call him “Baby”
xxx