We chose not to buy side steps for Bruce when we bought him a month or two ago as the cost just felt too prohibitive – £800 PLUS fitting. Typically though, as we have seen many Sports as we have been plodding around, we see that the steps really set the car off well, and actually Elliot would benefit from them as he really struggles to get in easily 🙁

A quick trip around google helped us locate some steps online for £300 delivered to the door and self fitting would be the order of the day. well yesterday was fitting day, and Uncle Tim kindly offered to help as his bike ride fell through due to a tanker load of Marmite being deposited on the M1 motorway, closing it for several hours. Thinking it would be a two hour job we set off at 11am, having already been down to halfords to buy a tool to help remove the Tim from underneath the doors etc. It ended up taking nearer to four hours and as a result we ended up finishing the job in the dark AND in the rain 🙁

The steps do look stunning however,can’t we’re more than worth the cost differential. What do you think?

Vicky is in school today baking with Elliot’s class – funny though as the school have had to do all sorts of police checks on her to make sure that she is suitable to work with the children 🙂

Tomorrow is the big day for Elliot – Ralph the Reindeer 🙂 10am

This Thursday we are going to St Hilda’s to watch Elliot’s school concert – Ralph the Reindeer.  Elliot has been singing the songs and practicing his lines over the last few weeks, and seem genuinely excited about it.  When we collect him tonight from school he will have had his face painted as part of a dry run today 🙂 We’ll see how well he has taken to the face painting aspects…

This last weekend Simon and Tim went out for a meal and drinks with the Gleddings crew in Halifax – was very nice to catchup again (for Simon) and meet for the first time for Tim.  We went to the Design House which is in the Dean Clough area of the town near the North Bridge Leisure Centre – there would certainly not be any passing traffic, so the patrons need to know that it exists.  It was a good meal at the right price, and we had a lot of fun chatting with old friends.  Guess we’ll see if Tim goes next year – will tell whether he really enjoyed it 🙂

Olly woke up this morning feeling rather ill following waking in the night with a fever 🙁  So we watched the Polar Express in 3D – the best 3D movie we have seen yet – will have to watch it with Elliot this weekend 🙂

A fun day yesterday with Rich, Clare, Ben and Alex – we finished up by heading out to the Hollywood Bowl on Kirkstall Road in Leeds 🙂 The boys sort of had fun  both V tired – big sleeps required this week 🙂

We (Simon, Vicky and Tim) managed to get out on the bikes this weekend – we head down to Sherwood Pines (South of Sheffeild and North of Nottingham) on Saturday – it was a nice day and we started out on the blue run – a nice leisurely 6 mile trail.  While it was not for Tim, it was a good starter trail for Vicky and Simon, with a little whinging from the pair of them ref sore behinds etc.  The bike carrier proved to be spot on and now that we are used to popping the bikes on the trailer, we will be able to attach the bikes back on in a much shorter time from now on.

We have decided that while Sherwood Pines was a really nice trail center, it took over an hour to get there and then the same again to get home – it is just too far away sadly.  We therefore need to find something much closer to home 🙂

On Sunday, we ventured into the 3D televisual land and have bought a moderately priced 47″ LED TV that has 3D and a 3D Blu-Ray player.  It has been installed in the Lounge along with a pseudo surround sound bar that we managed to get in the deal at around 50% off 🙂 The sound is tremendous and it is great to have a large screen for the room again (we have been using Tim’s 32inch screen, which in itself is a big screen, but just seems dwarfed in the room – plus our aging eyes were struggling with any text on the screen 🙁

Today, Elliot has had a day off school (foundation day – whatever that means :-s) so we all went to Meadowhall to see Father Christmas.  The boys were pleased to see him and both had reasonably lengthy lists of items that they would very much like for him to bring for them in 34 days….

Daddy collected Elliot from school this afternoon as mummy was having her hair cut etc.  Mrs Forge (Elliot’s teacher) needed to speak to him about signing a consent form for some speech, language and group work that Elliot is going to being to receive as part of his education.  However, Mrs Forge also told daddy about how Elliot had received an award this morning in the assembly from Mrs Grunwell (headmistress).  It was for settling in at school so quickly and so well.  Mrs Forge was concerned that Elliot would not want to go and receive the award but NO, Elliot jumped up and pretty much RAN to receive his accolade 🙂 WOW – just wait a minute and let that one sink in !!!! WOW

Not to be the end of the story for today, the reception class AND class 1 AND class2 all got together for an hour or so this afternoon it seems and the teachers asked if any of the pupils wanted to sing to the rest of the classes….. wait for it…….Elliot jumped at the chance to sing one of the songs from their upcoming Christmas Concert… !!!!!! Again, WOW !!!!!

He is genuinely like a different child – it is really difficult to not get over excited about the really impressive changes that we are witnessing.

Even Oliver was OK with going to nursery yesterday – his nominated person, Lauren was there for a change to greet him so she did a great job of easing him in and ridding his tears – so we just slipped off and took Elliot to his classroom.

We are almost there with the bathrooms and kitchen with decision having now been made about the carcases and doors for both kitchen and main bathroom.  We have also chosen the cabinet tops and to be fair, there is lots of sparkle in all the tops and potentially the floors… 🙂  There is just a small spoke in the wheel in that the tiles we chose for the walls in the bathroom are apparently discontinued so we need to start again on that one 🙁

We have finally bled the brakes on Barbara and Julie and are going to head out with Timmy tomorrow morning to Sheffield to get started with the rides.  Elly and Olly are going with Grandma and Tyler to the Playstation in Ossett for a coupe of hours and lunch etc.

Please welcome our new family members – what a cracking line up…. 🙂