Category: 2009 4pk News

After the last few years of having wild parties with friends and family around this year we decided we’d have a quiet one. This turned out to be a good idea with Emilie still recovering from an Ear infection, Josh being full of cold as well as us parents having the joys of said cold as well. It didn’t put a dampener on things though as we decided we’d have a bit of an extended film night and watched Coraline and G Force whilst eating New Years Eve treats from Tesco’s yummy but over-priced pick and choose what you want range!

After the films we sat down and played Pop Up Pirate and Buckaroo before the colouring books came out for the younger two and Dan played with Josh’s Indiana Jones Lego to while away the last hour or so of 2009.

Just before Midnight Dad went outside and setup the Fireworks, which this year consisted of 10 Rockets (one for each of the last ten years) and a monster rocket to celebrate the New Year with. We counted the New Year in and then started launching them all into the nights sky. They were actually really impressive; nice and loud and pretty too so a good choice there.

Everyone really enjoyed themselves but once they were done it was definately time for bed with the three very tired children as well as two very tired adults in need of some sleep.

It’s been a good 2009, 2010 will no doubt be even better still.

The house was strangely quiet this morning after the last couple of days of the kids being here and the quietness was broken with the sound of my phone ringing.
Strangely it was Josh (who never calls me, he is only 5 after all) who was ringing me to let me know how his Boxing Day party had been and to tell me what he was doing now which was playing with his Hot Wheels cars and playing on the Wii. It appears he found his Nana’s phone and decided he was going to ring me because “He wanted to talk to me as you’d said (me) that you can ring me whenever you want to”. Quiet a touching moment as he isn’t the most conversational on the phone at the best of times, was nice to hear his voice, shame it would be a few days till I saw him again!

Later in the day he rang me again to see what I was doing; which as it happened wasn’t a lot. I think he’d sneaked off with his mum’s phone this time as I heard her shouting for him in the background and got a hurried “Love you, Bye” before he went!

As you will know Christmas in our house is always a little different and this year was no exception. Dan & Em would be waking up on Christmas Day in Warrington and as usual Josh would, sadly, be in Wrexham.

Before going to bed on Christmas Eve Emilie did the honours and left Father Christmas a mince pie and a bottle of bulmers and put a bowl of milk and some carrots at the front door for Rudolph, she also wrote Father Christmas 2 letters one that she left by the mince pie and one that she left in her bedroom for him to find when he left her stocking presents at the end of her bed!

Dan & Em didnt wake up too early on Christmas Day infact it was 8am before they came into our room and declared that “Father Christmas has been and left us presents on our beds – can we open them?” A bleary eyed Mum & Dad sat up in bed and watched the 2 of them open their stocking presents. This was done in the usual record time.

Emilie then declared she was going downstairs to see if there were any presents in the lounge, by the noise that could be heard upstairs we guessed that there were, this was to be confimed a few minutes later by Emilie as she ran back intot he bedroom shouting “Father Christmas has been and left a massive pile of presents on the floor!”

We all got up then and made our way downstairs to see the massive pile of presents and true enough it was massive – and now for the unusual part instead of Dan & Em diving in and opening presents they simply said “we can’t wait until 5 when Josh gets here so that we can open our presents together.” Yes you did read that right, Dan & Em had decided that they didn’t want to open their Christmas presents without Josh and so they were going to wait until he arrived at 5pm – they can be nice sometimes!!

So we now had a few hours to kill before Dad, Dan & Em could leave to go and collect Josh from Wrexham, so we filled the time by doing some painting (Father Christmas had bought us some giraffes and mugs to paint, playing Lips on the x-box with Mum & Dad and eating a delicious Christmas lunch complete with sprouts!

Just after 3pm Dad, Dan & Em left to make the trip to Wrexham to collect Josh and Mum settled down on the sofa for a rest. Just before 5pm Dad, Dan, Em & Josh arrived home and then the madness began!

All 5 of us rushed into the lounge and the great resent opening began – as usual we were all spoilt and we all got lots of presents, so it took us quite a while to open them all.

Some of the more memorable looks of delight were generated on the opening of the following:

Daniel – iPod Touch
Joshua – Indiana Jones Temple of Doom Lego
Emilie – the discovery of a new desk in her bedroom
Mum – a platinum U2 disc signed by all the members of U2
Dad – all the A-team shows on DVD

The rest of the evening was spent playing with our new toys, including Dad who had a go on his new x-box game – Ride.

At about 11pm we decided we were all tired and so we retired to bed, happy but exhausted.

Today we only woke up at 9am and after quickly eating our breakfast we carried on from where we left off last night – playing!

Sadly Dan & Em had to leave at 12noon to go and see their Dad and see what Father Christmas had left for them at his house (we later discovered this was a phone & a new bike), this left Josh, Mum & Dad to build Josh’s new Indiana Jones lego sets. Dad built the Temple of Doom set and Josh & Mum built the other set – it didn’t take long so before Josh had to go back to Wrexham at 4pm he was able to spend a couple of hours playing with his new lego.

At 4pm Josh had to go and then it was just Mum, Dad & Holly left in a very quiet house!

We had a brilliant family Christmas even if it only lasted a few hours.

Thanks to all our family & friends who sent lots of presents for us with Father Christmas!!

Today as a big day for Daniel & Emilie as it was the day of their Christmas shows, but this year there was a big difference, instead of performing in the school hall they were performing on the bigger stage at The Parr Hall in Warrington!

Emilie’s show was the first show – Mum & Dad knew she was a shepherd in the show as Mum had had to source a shepherd costume at short notice. They didn’t realise that out of all the year 1, year 2 and year 3 pupils only about 20 of them had specific parts and the rest were in the choir – as usual Emilie had kept that quiet.

Emilie was a very good shepherd, and she performed her songs and shepher dances very well, she looked tiny on the big stage though!

After a short interval it was time for years 4, 5 and 6 to take to the stage – Daniel was in the choir for this show. The children all sang really well and it was a magical show. Grandad would have been proud of Dan’s performance of The Twelve Days of Christmas – perhaps one year they can do a duet!

Both the shows were magical – Well Done Daniel & Emilie.

This evening Mum & Dad have been to Wrexham to watch Josh take part in his in Christmas show. They were lucky enough to get front row seats but unfortunately they were sat on the right hand side of the stage and Josh was on the left – but he knew they were there as he saw them as he walked in!

Josh was in the choir so he sang lots of songs – the show was all in Welsh so Mum & Dad didn’t understand the words but becasue the show was the nativity they were able to follow what was going on. Mum came home singing “Blae mae babi” because it was a catchy tune, not becasue she knew what it meant!

Mum & Dad said Josh did really well in his show and they could see him singing all the songs with the rest of his class.

After the show they saw Josh and told him he was a star!

Emilie has been for her Saturday afternoon swimming lesson and because her swimming was so good she has now been moved up into the Orange Hats!

This means that future lessons will be split half and half between the little pool & the big pool. Emilie isn’t very keen about going into the big pool as she cant touch the bottom in the shallow end!

Well Done Emilie for moving up a group.

This morning Mum & Dad went to watch Emilie in her year 2 assembly. The assembly was all about The Hungry Caterpillar and Autumn.

Emilie had a line to deliver which was “We learnt that caterpillars turn into beautiful butterfiles” and she also had to read a few lines from a poem she had written about Autumn. Following in her elder brothers footsteps she delivered her lines beautifully and very loud. She had in recent days been practicing her lines by standing at the top of stairs and them reciting them so that Mum could hear them in the kitchen!!

The assembly was very informative and also very entertaining Dad loved the Conkers song that Emilie & her classmates sang, so much so that he is still humming it this evening!

Well Done Emilie your were a star performer!

On a drizzly Rememberance Sunday after observing a 2 minute silence Warrington kicked off against Stoke.

Dan took up his position on the left wing and was soon in posession of the ball and make a break for the try line, unfortunately there was a rather large player from the opposition who was adamant that Dan wasn’t going to get through and so Dan was on the receiving end of a crunching tackle, it wasn’t the only one of the match but Dan didn’t let it bother him.

The team started slowly but as each minute passed they seemed to find their form and it wasn’t long before they were playing like a team with plenty of rucking, line outs and scrums.

As half time was approaching Dan found himself in possession of the ball and so with his head down and his legs pumping he ran toward the try line and this time there was no one in the way and he scored! He jumped up and punched the air in delight before rushing back into position.

Stoke found their form in the second half and quickly scored a try to level the match. Warrington battled on but unfortunately they didn’t make it over the try line again but then again neither did Stoke so the match finished in a draw.

After some perseverance Dan is finally seeing the ball during matches as his team mates realise that he might be small but he can run and if needs be he will tackle, and usually bring down, someone twice his size!

Dan is currently top try scorer in the family for the 2009/10 season.

Dan had a “fantastic” day at school today – his words!!

The reason? In assembly he was awarded a Star Pupil certificate for trying hard in everything he does.

Dan has been working very hard recently and he is doing really well with his spellings and reading. We are very pleased that school have also recognised his efforts.

Well Done Dan – we are very pleased & proud. Keep up the hard work.

Sadly we have discovered that our first pet Huggles the Hamster has died.

Tim has put her into a cardboard box so that we can give her a nice burial on Saturday when Josh is here.

We will miss her trying to stuff a whole weetabix into her mouth & swinging from the bars of her cage!

RIP Huggles x

We love school holidays and this one is no exception. We have had a few days off with Mum and she has kept us entertained.

On Tuesday we had a stay at home day as we had just returned from a weekend away at Auntie Alex’s. We had a nice lazy morning watching tv, playing on our DS and doing some drawing. After lunch we decided that we would like to go to the park so that is where Mum took us. We rode up there on our bikes whilst Mum walked with Holly. When we arrived Dan decided that he didnt really want to play in the park and so he rode round on his bike whilst Emilie & Josh slid down the slide, dangled from the monkey bars, climbed the climbing frame and swung on the swings. Eventually Dan decided that he wanted a go on the swings and so he got off his bike and had a swing! We played at the park for over an hour and then we convinced Mum that we needed to walk home past the shop so that she could buy us all some drinks and sweets!

On Wednesday we met up with Auntie Nicola, Laurie and Jules at Antz in your Pantz which is an indoor play area. We left Mummy & Auntie Nicola having a cup of coffee & a chat and went to play on the play equipment with Laurie. This was the first time we had been to Antz so it was lots of fun as we needed to explore to find out what there was to play on. We had great fun playing on the slides and climbing up the towers. After an hour we decided that we should play with Jules as well so we all went into the baby play area including Mum & Auntie Nicola and played in there for a while. Before we knew it it was lunch time and time for us to leave Auntie Nicola, Laurie & Jules.

As we were near to Grandad Trains & Pauline’s house Mum decided that we would get some lunch from the bakers that she used to go to with her Grandma when she was a little girl and eat it at their house. On the way Mum showed us her primary school and the house she lived in with Nana & Grandad Trains. We hadnt told Pauline we were calling in so she was surprised to see us and she was pleased when Mum said she had bought her a cake from the bakers to have with a cup of tea. We ate our lunch and talked to Pauline about our recent trip to Dover and our morning at Antz. Then it was time for us to go back home where we spent the rest of the afternoon doing some making and doing. Daniel painted Josh’s Spiderman model (Josh asked him to), Emilie painted a picture of a teddy bear playing football for Dad (who was at work) and Josh painted his roaring dinosaur money box.

Thursday was our surprise day, Mum had told us she was going to take us out for a treat but she wouldnt tell us where we were going. Before we could go out on our treat we had to tidy our bedrooms as we had visitors coming in the evening and we also had to go and have our haircut! When the haircuts were done we set off on our surprise. We drove for a while and then we realised where we were going when we saw a huge sign that said “Spooky World this way”. We were now very excited!! Spooky World is on a farm in Appleton and there was lots for us to do – we jumped on the giant bouncy pillow, went on a spooky walk, went on a very spooky tractor ride and went in the very very spooky haunted house.

The tractor ride was lots of fun, as we were driven around in a tractor trailer we were scared by werewolves, skeletons and men with chainsaws who jumped onto the trailer as we went past. The haunted house was quiet scary and at times it was so dark that Mum had to turn on her mobile so that we could see where we were going, nevertheless it was still fun and we did jump a couple of times when people jumped out on us. We really enjoyed our outing to Spooky World, sadly after 4 hours of being spooked it was time to go home as we had vistors coming!

Not long after we arrived home there was a knock at the door and in walked Auntie Jennifer, Auntie Carol, Amy & Callum. Amy & Callum were here for their holiday sleepover! Auntie Jennifer & Auntie Carol had a drink and then they left to go on a late night shopping trip, leaving Amy & Callum with us to have lots of fun. We all played nicely together until dinner time, then we ate our dinner which was Mum’s homemade chicken & mushroom pie and then we got ready for film night. All 5 of us sat and watched The Fox & The Child whilst eating sweets and then at 9pm it was bedtime.

This morning Josh & Dad had to get up early as Josh was going back to Wrexham before Dad went to work. The rest of us stayed in bed until 9am including Callum (much to the annoyance of Auntie Jennifer), then we got up, ate breakfast, played with our toys, decorated some halloween ginger biscuits, played some more and then ate our lunch. After a waring lunch of beans on toast it was time for us to take Amy & Callum back to their house. We drove them home and played at their house for a little bit whilst Mum had a cup of tea, then we came back to our house and that was the end of our holiday!

We have just returned from an action packed weekend in Dover, where we stayed with Auntie Alex, Uncle Jerry & Finley.

We arrived at their house very late on Friday evening and we were disappointed to learn that our cousin Finley was in bed and so we wouldnt be able to see him until the morning. We had a quick drink and then it was time for us to settle down for the night in our ready beds, we were all sleeping together in Finley’s room (he was with Auntie Alex & Uncle Jerry) and so we were warned to be quiet when we woke up on Saturday morning.

Saturday morning arrived, too quickly for Mum & Dad’s liking, and despite being told to be quiet when we woke up we managed to make enough noise to wake everyone up in the house – even Mum & Dad who were sleeping 2 floors below us!!!

We all got out of bed and then we got to see Finley, we hadn’t seen him since he was at our house in March so he had grown lots!! He made us laugh as he toddled round the kitchen with his cup of tea and jumped on and off his trampoline.

It was then breakfast time so we all sat down and ate some breakfast that Auntie Alex made for us, once this was finished it was time to start the mammoth task of dressing 4 adults and 4 children. Uncle Jerry was the first adult dressed and he even found the time to shave his head and then whilst Auntie Alex went to get ready he decided to shave off all of Finley’s hair too!! Finley was very good and he just sat very still and let his Dad shave his hair off, Auntie Alex was shocked when she came downstairs!!

Once we were all dressed we decided to go to the swimming pool in Ashford as Auntie Alex said it had a wave machine AND slides and the weather was appalling (very foggy & cold). The swimming pool was fantastic we had a great time there, it was nice to see our little cousin playing in the pool and with the water sprays. We had lots of goes on the slides and we loved going round the lazy river – sadly only Daniel could go in the lazy river when the wave machine was on but he said it was brilliant! There were even jacuzzis there to sit in so we all had a go of those as well. Soon it was time to get out not because we were cold but because we were hungry and needed lunch.

We all got ready and then we headed to the pub for a nice pub lunch, we ate lots of food in the pub including starters and desserts so we were stuffed by the time we had finished!

We went back to the house then and played with Finley and his toys for the rest of the afternoon – it was great fun and Finley was very entertaining on his little wooden bike that we had bought him for his 1st Birthday.

Sadly it was soon time for bed again and once again we were told NOT to make a noise in the morning! This was going to be made harder for us as the clocks moved backwards overnight which meant we would have to stay quiet for an extra hour.

Sunday morning arrived and we were NOT quiet, Mum had to come upstairrs twice to tell us to keep the noise down and on her third visit she found us messing around with our ready beds on top of us! Josh was removed from the room and taken downstairs and Dan & Em were told to be quiet unless they wanted to spend all day Sunday in the bedroom.

When the rest of the house woke up we had our breakfast and then it was time for operation get dressed to start again! Today we were going to meet our new cousin Kimberly for the first time – she was born at the end of September but none of us had seen her yet.

When we were all ready we made our way across to Folkestone to Uncle Chris’ flat. When we arrived Kimberly was asleep but she soon woke up for some milk so then we were able to see her properly – she was very small and cute! We had a drink at the flat and then because it was a nice sunny day (a huge difference to Saturday) we decided we would go down to the sea front and play at the big adventure playground that is there.

We were joined by Kimberly’s half brother and sister and so we had great fun playing on the playground, as to be expected Dad and Uncle Chris also played on the playground under the guise of supervising us. We had a picnic lunch and then after a bit more playing we decided to go down to the sea but as soon as we got there we decided it was far to windy and that we preferred playing on the playground – so back to the playground it was. We all enjoyed the zip wire the most especially when Dad gave us a helping hand and made us go really really fast!

After a couple of hours it was time for us to go back to the house so we said our goodbyes to Uncle Chris and Kimberly. Just as we arrived back at the house our car decided it was going to start making the worst screeching noise we have ever heard, it was so loud Uncle Jerry came out of the house to see what was making the noise! It was so bad it was going to mean a trip to the garage on Monday morning before we headed back home.

We spent Sunday afternoon all cuddled up on the sofa watching a film before sitting down to a fantastic roast pork dinner with ALL the trimmings – we couldnt get enough of Auntie Alex & Uncle Jerry’s delicious roast potatoes and Mum enjoyed the roasted parsnips. When we were all sufficiently stuffed we made our way back to the sofas and we played with Finley & his toys again.

Sadly it was soon time for us to go to bed again and so off we trotted and because of all the fresh air we had had in the day we were all fast asleep within minutes!

Monday morning arrived and Dad went to the garage whilst we stayed at the house with Mum, Auntie Alex and Finley, poor Unlce Jerry was at work. Mum packed the bags and we played with Finley for the last time. Dad was soon back from the garage and fortunately the awful screeching had been caused by a few stones that had got trapped so it was easily rectified. This sadly meant that it was time for us to leave and come back home.

We said our goodbyes and made our way back north to our house. We had a brilliant weekend and can’t wait to see our cousins Finley and Kimberly again.

A BIG thank you to Auntie Alex, Uncle Jerry & Finley for letting us stay at your house.