Newcastle!

Yesterday I went to Newcastle! It was a 3 hour journey, but it was worth it! I went to see my granddad first. We watched the football match because it was Sunderland VS Newcastle. Me and dad are Sunderland, and granddad is Newcastle, so it was very important that we watched it! Sunderland won 1-0!


After seeing granddad, we went to a restaurant with Stephen and Ian. I had a lovely Meat Feast! For starters, I had some delicious Hoisin Duck, for mains I had a trio of meats (which wasn't that good) and for desert, I had a delicious chocolate pudding!

When we went back to Stephen's house, we had a chat with his mom while I opened my birthday presents from Stephen. I got a beautiful necklace with a little bear on, a couple of cool bracelets and final, the Sims 4! I got a £15 gift card for iTunes from Ian aswell, so I can buy some music to listen to while I play Sims 4! Thanks!!


Then we went back home. I didn't sleep at all on the 3 hour journey back, I just stayed awake listening to mom and dad talking. When we got home, I just flopped down on the sofa!


Yesterday, my tooth came out in my sleep. I think I swallowed it, so I can't put it under my pillow. Then today, I was eating a toffifee. I don't like the nuts, so I went to spit it out into the Toffifee pot. My mouth felt really weird, and when I put my tongue on my teeth to feel them, I realised I was missing one! I went back to check the nuts and I realised.. it wasn't a nut! It was a tooth!

A birthday and 2 christmas parties!

I had my birthday on Thursday, and it was awesome! I couldn't open my presents straight away because I had promised to wait for dad to get back from work. I was kept busy though because I went to a Christmas party in Gamlingay! Tilly and Lavinia were there as well.
We did cool things like Pin The Nose On The Reindeer and make reindeer food (which was actually a mixture of hamster food and glitter!) Me and Tilly organized some games like Musical Snowmen (musical statues) and Hospital. In Hospital, there are two people who try to tag everybody else. If you get tagged by one of the taggers, you have to lie down on the ground and wait for someone to drag you into the safety area where you can get up! It's a fun game but it's a bit painful when you get dragged away, though!

Hospital!!

I also got a Wreck This Journal and an awesome Loom Band kit from Tilly and Lavinia for my birthday! Thanks!


When I got home, I had to wait a little bit, until dad got home, to see my awesome Flake Birthday cake and open my presents! I got lots of stuff! I got a great book about the Warrior Cats!  I got How To Train Your Dragons 2 on DVD, a little talking bird that repeats everything you say, a little model lion family, some chocolates, bath bombs, perfume and a diary from Jaime and, most importantly, another hamster! That makes three now!

I have wanted this book for ages!

My new Hammie's name is Holly, and she's a beautiful, longhaired female Syrian hamster. She's cream-banded and she's got one red eye and one black eye! She's only a little baby, so she's really friendly and tame. Holly loves her wheel. She spends every minute of her day on her wheel, running around like mad! Even though she makes a lot of noise, I still love her.


The second Christmas Party:

My second Christmas party was the best party I've ever been to! They even had a snow storm at the entrance! They had a Bucking Reindeer, Anna and Elsa from Frozen, games, prizes, pottery, free sweets, music, EVERYTHING! I came home with quite a bit!

I painted a little ceramic bear, I filled up a giant jar with sweets and I won two prizes. Actually,I only won one of the prizes because Tilly gave me the other one, since she had two the same! She's an excellent friend! I also decorated 3 cupcakes. One was really pretty and the other two were just made for tasty-ness!

The bucking reindeer was awesome, but two tries made my legs kill!  First, the reindeer goes slow and it looks nice and calm... but it isn't! It's so slippery, and whenever it moves you slide about. Then on the next difficulty, you have to cling on for dear life! Hardly anyone makes it past that level, and I slipped off the reindeer and hit the ground with a thud! Tilly had quite a few goes, and I think she beat my high score.

We had a great time at the Party

 I even took a selfie of me and Santa but it was a bit blurry!


Anyway, those parties were AWESOME!

Tomorrow I've got a pretty tiring day too, we're going to Newcastle!

Christmas stuff

Me and Tilly making fairies

 

 

 

Decorating gingerbread cookies

 



Cute reindeer at the garden centre

Pottery!

Today I went to a Pottery-Painting place in Sleaford! You could choose from a wide range of models to paint. I chose a little penguin that looked quite easy to paint but so cute! I was wrong, well, atleast with the painting part! It was really difficult, and I had to do a few layers to  hide my mistakes. It's still in the shop to be glazed, so we'll pick it up next time we go to piano!


Loads of home-educaters were meant to be going, including Ruby, but only one of them showed up. They were all ill! I hope I don't get ill again.

Mom'll upload some more pictures when I get my little penguin back!

And here he is! 

Oasby Music Festival!

Today, I played two piano pieces in the Oasby Music Festival! I played Hornpipe and Xiong Mao (which means "The panda" in Chinese!). These are two very difficult pieces to play, but I did them both perfectly! The other kids weren't as good as me, especially not the violinists! Some of the kids were really young, but the younger the violinist, the better they were!

The whole concert was 2 hours long and I was in the second half. I was so nervous, my hands were shaking while I was pressing the piano keys! It didn't help it was absolutely freezing in the Church, and you weren't allowed to have a coat on!

Me and Mam in the interval

In the 20 minute interval between group 1 and 2, there was a few snacks and drinks. I was too nervous to eat anything, so I just had a small biscuit and a drink.

Mom took this picture of me and my eyes are so creepy! This is what happens when I step into a church!

Scary eyes!!

Gingerbread and Christmas!

We have a gingerbread house every year at Christmas.

Mom's tree

I've got all of my Christmas decorations up already, more than a week early! We still have to do the outside lights, but the tree is magnificent!
Mom  is spending all of her time sewing cute pink tree decorations like cute dogs with pink coats and a beautiful star with a button in the middle! These pink decorations go on mother's dining room tree, which looks really cool!
Mom's tree is still quite bare, so we're going to bake some gingerbread cookies! We definitely won't put them at the bottom of the tree, one year Maisie ate them! All that was left was the ribbons and a couple of crumbs! Dogs love gingerbread!

Incase you want to bake your own gingerbread cookies, here's the recipe!


Ingredients:
350g Plain Flour
1tsp of Bicarb of  Soda
2tsp of Ground Ginger
1tsp of Ground Cinnamon (if you don't want to use Cinnamon, you can use mixed spice instead)
1 Egg
4tbsp Golden Syrup (and another tablespoon for eating yourself!)


To decorate:
Writing Icing
Cake decorations/sweets.


Method:


1: Sift the Flour, Bicarb of Soda, Ginger and Cinnamon/Mixed Spice into a bowl. Chop the butter into small pieces and rub into the dry mixture until it looks like bread crumbs (This is my favourite bit!). Stir in the sugar.


2: Beat the Egg and Golden Syrup together. Mix it into the dry mixture to make a smooth dough.  Wrap the dough in clingfilm and leave in the fridge to chill for 15 minutes, or even longer! The colder it is the better it rolls out.


3: Preheat the oven to 180c/350f/Gas4. Line two baking trays with grease-proof paper.


4: Roll out the dough to a 0.5 cm thickness on a lightly floured surface. Using cutters, cut out Ginger bread man shapes, or stars, or anything you want and place on a baking tray. Don't let them touch each other.


5: Bake to 12-15 minutes until lightly golden-brown. Leave on the tray for 10 minutes to cool and then move to a wire rack to finish cooling. Now you can decorate them!

The cookies smelled delicious



Time to decorate

Shelter

I recently bought Shelter on Steam! Shelter is a game where you play as a mother badger escorting her 5 cubs from your small warren to a new home. Easier said than done! There are lots of different stages in the game, and in all of them it's a struggle to keep your cubs alive. You have to find vegetables and fruit to keep your cubs from starving, and if you're feeling extra hungry you can go hunt a fox or a vole. But you have to be careful, because your cubs will be prey to some birds! If a bird spots you, you have to hide in the tall grass and wait until the perfect time to run to the next bit of tall grass.




If you mange to survive the deadly white birds that are after your cubs, good job! I didn't do it the first time! I thought the struggles were over when I finally managed to get all of my cubs safe, but I was wrong. Way wrong! Next is the night level. It looks pretty simple, there's plenty of frogs and vegetables to eat, but your cubs don't see it that way. If there's a snapping twig in the distance, your cubs will run away. You have to sprint after them to catch them again, which can be difficult when you don't except them to run!




Once you get through the night maze, your cubs will still be in danger! There's a forest fire where you are, and you have to try to dodge the spreading flames in time! Not only are the flames trying to kill your cubs, but another gigantic bird is as well! You have to choose the patch of grass to run to carefully. If you choose the wrong patch, it'll catch fire and you'll be trapped! This level took me ages!




Once you escape the flames, there's a dangerous storm that makes the riverbank overflow. You have to cross the river by choosing the right time to lead your cubs to a rock in the middle of the river. This would be easy, if it wasn't for the waves that come after you! If you're not securely on the rock, your cubs will be washed away in an instant. (I lost 2 cubs to this).




If you've managed to protect your cubs up to this point, good job! Now, you'll  be in a peaceful forest in the Summertime. There's lost of food to get to keep your cubs healthy and it all looks good until you reach a large plain. Then, a giant bird spots you! It'd be like any other bird attack, but there's nowhere to hide! The bird swoops down to attack, and to keep your cubs safe, you have to run at it. Each time you run at it, you'll slowly get tired.  Once the bird has had a few tries at attacking your cubs, it'll change its mind and go for you!  You send your cubs to run away, and the bird carries you away.




Then there's a small cut scene of your cubs running away, fleeing to the mountains.




Once you've finished the game, you'll unlock another part of the game, Nurture. In Nurture, you have to find food in a small area near your den to feed your newborn badger babies. Every 12  hours, food replenishes in your land, and the more you feed your cubs, the bigger they'll grow. Once your babies are big enough, they'll start venturing outside with you. The longer you wait to feed your cubs, the hungrier they'll be.












To buy it on Steam, it's only £7. I loved this game! Even though it's quite sad, it really gets you excited!

Wildcats!

That's me far right with the hat on; I always have a hat on!!

Wildcats is very difficult at the minute (I still love going though). We are learning grade 4 LAMDA. I was only meant to be doing Grade 2 this year!
I am singing "I'm not that Girl" from Wicked and "Naughty" from Matilda. I really like the songs but "Naughty" is a hard one to sing...it has so many words and I keep mixing them up.
I have made some friends at Wildcats and I have gained the trust of the shyest girl ever! Her name is Zoe and she is the double of Ralfie. Ralfie, for those of you that don't know, is my internet friend. Ralfie is awesome; she makes me laugh at everything and she always helps me fight off mobs in Minecraft. There was a time I broke my sword and if it wasn't for Ralfie I would be a gonner!!

Anyway, back to Wildcats: My exam is February so there is still plenty time to practise.

The third Halloween Party!

 Sorry I haven't posted about this sooner but I had such a good time it's worth posting about now!

Tilly came for a sleepover and mom did our Halloween face-paint.

Day of the dead. This is what they celebrate in Mexico

Halloween disco at Marston Vale. It's my third year here! I danced the night away!

We cooled off outside because I was so HOT with dancing.

Fireworks at Tallington Lakes.

Me mam and dad went to Tallington Lakes which isn't very far from Bourne. There were loads of people there to see the fireworks but there wasn't a bonfire. Dad wasn't happy about that and neither was I; we usually go to Baston where there is a HUGE bonfire that keeps me warm in the cold November wind.
The fireworks were quite good but not as good as the one's in Baston plus there was no music playing. A bit disappointing really. Luckily, I was pleased that dad bought me a colour-changing light sabre! And it still works 2 weeks later. I take it to bed and use it as a night-light so I can read in secret!

 

I love my light sabre

Warrior Cats!

I'm obsessed with a new set of books! Warrior Cats! Warriors weren't written by one person, they were written by 6 people, who call themselves the Erin Hunters. The Erins also do 2 other series of books, Survivors Dogs and Seekers Bears, but I love Warriors most of all!


So far I've read 21 books in 3 months! I'm on a roll! There's 5 series in Warriors, and about 6 books in each of them. That isn't including all of the Super Editions and the Mangas (there's a lot of them as well!) The 5 series are (in order): Into The Wild which is 6 books long, The New Propechy which is 6 books long, Power Of Three that's 6 books long, Omen Of The Stars which is also six books long and Dawn Of The Clans (which is the newest series) which is, currently, only 4 books long.


I've read about 4 Mangas but mom says I can't buy anymore because I can finish 3 of them in about 20 minutes. Mangas are like comics, and I really like them!


Warriors has a Wiki page, so you can search all of the characters and learn stuff about them! Warriors Wiki. There's also a website. Warriors Website. And there's a Warriors App which you can download on almost anything!

STEM!

A little while ago, I went to my first STEM class! STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths! In this class, we learned about flying things and air resistance! We made a paper plane and flew it outside. Mine didn't go very far, though. Then the woman who ran it said to make the plane fly better by altering it. There were lots of things like Play dough, feathers, and felt to change your plane around. I'd smoothed out the edge of the wings with Play dough, then added feathers. Once we'd finished editing our planes, we went back outside and threw them again! Mine went the farthest and I won the competition of who could fly their planes farthest! My high score was 4 meters and 27 cm!


Then we watched a video of a guy in space dropping a feather and a rock, and both of them hit the ground at the same time! That was because there was no air resistance to keep the feather up.


I can't wait to go back to the next STEM class!

Duxford Air Museum!

A while ago, I went to visit the Duxford Imperial War Museum in Cambridgeshire! I went with Tilly and Lavinia. They had loads of really cool RAF Planes that were massive! There was also a little lesson on how things fly. Me, Tilly and Lavinia built some paper planes and flew them! Mine flew really far, almost the best!

Showing off our planes.

There were also recreations of the battle fields. You could see all of the tanks and the bunkers, they even had real sand bags filled with sand! It looked so scary, and I know I wouldn't want to be in the war! There was also a lot of display cabinets with lots of things like soldiers' hats and the outfits they wear.

Mom was scared of these!

In the actual plane museum bit, there were loads of planes that were in the war and you could even look inside the glass! It looked really complicated to fly one, there were buttons and wires everywhere! You could even go inside a few of the planes, but the only one that was open at the time was the Concorde. The Concorde had really big wings and a really pointy nose. It's the fastest plane ever, it can fly over 2 times the speed of sound! Thankfully the plane wasn't moving when I was in it!

The lesson of how things fly was really cool. We were asked questions like: if you blew between two balloons what would happen? Me and Tilly both got it right, the balloons went really close together!

I got to fly a plane!

We all held the plane up!

The New Prophecy! Books 1, 2, 3, 4, 5!

Sorry I haven't done a book review in awhile, I've been RACING through the second series of Warriors, The New Prophecy! Since I've read 5 out of 6 books in the series, I'm just going to do a quick overview of all of them.


Main Characters: Stormfur, Feathertail (up to book 3), Brambleclaw, Squirrelpaw (SquirrelFlight in book 5),  Crowpaw (Crowfeather in book 3+), Tawnypelt, Leafpaw (Leafpool in book 5)


Plot: When 6 cats set out on a heroic journey to speak to the mystical Midnight, they're faced with many more challenges than they expected. After hearing the devastating prophecy, the 6 cats head home, though not all of them make it back.


  Once they are home, the cats have even more trouble to face, as the deadly prophecy has already come true. The cats that embarked on the journey have to lead their clans into an unknown land to stay alive.


Review: Like always, I loved all of the books and I'd rate them all 10 stars out of 10! The books can be quite difficult to understand because the main cat keeps switching between Leafpaw and the cats that went on the journey.

2nd Wildcats Halloween Party and feeling Arty!

 

This time my face was purple but you can't see it in this picture!

 

 

Wildcats!

 

 

 

Long Tail from Warrior Cats

VERY bad news and VERY happy news.

I don't really want to talk about the bad news, so I'll make it quick. Miley passed away on the 24th. We don't know what made him die, but all we know is it's very sad. We buried him in the garden on the 25th.


Now time for the happy news! Also on the 25th, Me, mom and dad went to the pet shop. His siblings were sold, but I bet they died as well. At the pet shop, I bought Miley 2! He/she (we don't know!) is a husky coloured Roborvoski who's VERY fast and quite skittish! He's going to be a nightmare to tame! So far, he's doing alright and he looks healthy. In the night I hear him drink and eat and run about on his top shelf because he doesn't know how to use his wheel! I'll upload some pictures of the old and new Miley.

All About Dogs... again!

All About Dogs Show at Newark

A little while ago, we went to the All About Dogs show in Newark! There was an awesome dog trainer who had loads of dogs! He had a Schnauzer-cross called Teddy, a mutt called George (my favourite!), a pug-cross that was really funny looking, a wolfhound-cross and a Labrador! All of his dogs were rescued, and George was going to be put down because he was aggressive! When I saw him, I only saw a loyal, loving dog! They did all kinds of tricks, like jumping through the man's arms and getting themselves out of collars! The man even told me and mom how to train Maisie to do tricks like that! Right now, she's learning how to jump through Mom's arms!

The awesome trainer with George and Teddy

How cute is his face?

There was also a Robin Hood show, but we missed most of it.  From the bits we saw, it looked quite good! The people were doing really cool (but dangerous!) stunts while riding horses that were galloping really fast!

Robin Hood riding his horse

Diwali!

Today is the Hindu celebration Diwali! It is a very exciting and colourful holiday. Homes are cleaned to welcome the New Year and windows are opened so that the Hindu goddess of wealth, Lakshmi, can enter. It is believed that she cannot enter a house which is not lit up, so every household burns special Diwali clay lamps (diyas) to light the way for the goddess, which is why the holiday is also known as the Festival of Lights!


I did 3 crafts. A hammer-bead lantern, 3 play-dough tea-light holders and a 3-D collage of lanterns.


I'll ad some pictures once dad puts them on the laptop!
And here they are!

Diyas made from salt dough

Hamma bead Diya

Mendhi hand painting to celebrate Diwali

Piano!

I just did my Piano Grade 2 exam! It was my 3rd exam, but I was so nervous! I think I did great, and I might get a distinction! The examiner was a young woman, and she gave me quite an easy sight-reading peace.  I might have made one little glitch, but that was it! I hope I'll get my results soon!


I came into the exam 20 minutes late because the A15 was closed and there was no diversion signs! We found our way eventually though!


After the exam, me and mom went out for a celebratory  meal at The Sugar Mill! I had a 10oz Gammon Steak (as usual) and mother had Chicken and Ribs!

Me and Mom;s "Selfie" at the Sugar Mill