Wrapping Up 2019

What did we get up to this year?

Santa's gone back to the North Pole to rest, my room is full of new presents and we're going to beaches for swims in the sea. That means it's summer time, and almost the end of the year. Way back 12 months ago, I had just finished my first six months of school and was looking forward to the year ahead. But now that it's nearly over, what were some of the cool things I've done this year?

In March we had our big Australia holiday (or as I like to think of it, Ollie-day) with Grandma and Grandad. We visited an old gold mining town, a wildlife sanctuary and other cool places around Melbourne.

I also completed my first full year of primary school. By the end of year two I could read all by myself - whole books, only needing help with a few of the longer words. Now I sit in bed with William in the mornings reading his books to him.

During year two I even went to my first school disco and a school movie night, both with my friend Talia. When the last day of school came I was very sad to not see her for a couple of months.

I'm also an arm circles expert now! After a couple of years taking swimming lessons, I'm now able to swim really well. I can do the forward arm circles easily, and am getting pretty good at backstroke too - except when I try to move my arms the wrong way and end up sort of swimming backwards!

For a while through the year it seemed like we'd have somewhere new to live. First we were buying a bach up in Wapiu, then we weren't. Then we were buying a bach up in Mangawhai Heads, then we weren't. Then we were buying a new house with more space for everyone... might still happen, but not this year.

As you can see, I've achieved a lot this year. Certainly more than Dad, whose main achievement was spending far too much money on a pile of comics which have been annoying Mum by being piled up in their bedroom all year. What's next? We'll just have to turn the page to 2020 to find out...

My Christmas List

What I'm asking Santa for this year

It's about time! Every week for a couple of months I've been asking how many days it is until Christmas. Then I'd groan when I heard the answer, because the number was so big.

But now it's nearly here. We've put up the tree, hung decorations around the house, and the little magic Christmas elf is moving about night by night, reporting back to Santa on how good we've been (and how naughty William has been, probably).

Since making a Christmas list and having Dad video it worked so well last year, I thought it was worth doing it again. No point having Santa unsure of what to make me - he needs a comprehensive, itemised list. And here's my one for this year. There's a bit of a transformer theme, because they're my favourite toy at the moment. Hope Santa has plenty in his toy cupboard!

We also asked William what he wanted, but all he said was "a digger". I could just give him one of mine that I don't play with anymore. That might even be some good behavior for Santa to hear about. I must tell the Christmas elf so he can pass that information on...

Jobs For The Boys

What will William do for work?

Every day Mum and Dad go off to do this thing called "work". They spend so much time doing it, but I don't really understand what it is. All I know is that they do it to get more money to buy things for me. Which is just fine; they can spend as long doing that as they want!

But one day William and me are going to be big enough to work too. What will we do for a job? Dad says he writes things every day, and Mum works in an office she's been at for over 20 years! I've already decided I'm going to be a paleontologist, but what about William?

He could definitely be a garden care person; someone who keeps gardens nice and tidy with his wheelbarrow and tools. He sure loves his lawnmower. Every time Dad goes out to cut the grass, or pull out weeds or rake up leaves, William is right there behind him with his little gloves and earmuffs on. He doesn’t miss many bits when he’s mowing the lawns either.

William might be a builder too. He keeps taking the toy tools from my room and using them around the house. Especially the hammer, which he’ll use walking down the hall hammering on walls until Dad tells him to stop. He says he’s fixing things, but I think it’s more likely he’s going to make a hole than fix one.

Or he might be a caretaker. This is the strangest one. William’s always loved mops and brooms. Even when he was a baby, whenever we went out anywhere he’d spot someone using a broom and be all excited about it. Now that he’s big enough to walk around and hold things, he’s always doing some sort of cleaning or tidying. When he’s not using his little vacuum cleaner inside, he’s sweeping up the ground outside.

So those are some jobs that I think William might do when he's bigger. A couple of years ago I made my own job predictions. Will they happen, or will any of these ones for William happen? We'll have to wait quite a few years to find out...

Singing For Our Supper

William's going for a song

If there's one thing William and I love to do, it's to fill our house with noise. Whether it's the sound of us playing noisely with our toys, yelling at each other for stealing the other's toys, or running around screaming while waving our toys, our house is never silent. I'm pretty sure that's how Mum and Dad like it too.

The other way we keep our house nice and noisy is with singing. My little brother William just loves to sing. It's probably because he watches The Wiggles so much, and they're always singing songs, that he loves to sing along. And it's not only at home. Even when we're out in the car he just loves to start a singalong. One of his favourites is "Fruit Salad"...

All that singing about fruit salad is making me hungry. Actually, everything makes me hungry - from waking up to bedtime, there's hardly any time I'm not hungry. Luckily another of William's favourite songs is one he learned at daycare - the song you sing before eating to say thanks for the food. Boy, if I had to sing that every time I had something to eat, I'd be singing all day!

That William sure loves to sing. And we both sure love to eat. That probably explains why all our favourite songs are about food. It's partly about enjoying a good singalong, and partly an announcement  to Mum that it's feeding time again!

Remembering Robbie

Robbie Somers 2001 - 2019

Yesterday was a sad day. Our favourite cat Robbie died. He was 18 and a half years old.

I don't know what it will be like without him. He's been here at our house longer than I've been alive. Mummy got him when he was just a one year-old kitten. After that he grew into a big ginger cat, and when I came along we spent lots of time together.

Most of the time it was me wanting to spend time with him - gripping him in tight cuddles, patting him while he was trying to sleep in the sun or just chatting to him while he was eating his dinner.

His name was Robbie but I called him "Puss Puss". I'm not sure why - it was just a cute name for a cute cat. Unlike Bayley, he was always friendly. He never scratched me or tried to bite me or hissed at me - even when I was being pretty annoying. I loved to pick him up and really stretch him out - he had such long legs. Dad sometimes said he was part-kangaroo.

The bad side for Robbie was that he was so nice and friendly he made a very easy target for me (and later William too). Sometimes he got squirted with the water pistol, sometimes he got chased across the garden, but he was always my friend.

When Mummy told me that Robbie had died, the first thing I did was ask if that meant we could get a rabbit. But even though I said that (and having a rabbit would be fun), every time I go outside it feels just a little bit emptier now. I'll miss you Puss Puss.

Let's Meet: William

5 questions about William

We've met some of the other people in the family - what about the newest member, my little brother William? He's 3 years old now, can talk pretty well and has started preschool at daycare. He can also go from best friend to bad guy in just seconds, depending on how rascally he is.

I'm probably the person who knows him best, partly because he's always in my room playing with my toys. Even when I'm trying to play quietly on my own. Even if I'm trying to play a game on my iPad. And even though he has toys of his own in his room. Guess he just wants to be around his cool big brother.

So when it comes to answering questions about him, I'm the expert. Like I can tell you what his favourite food is (banana, or as he calls it, "lala"), and what his favourite TV programme is (The Wiggles - he still has a Happy Birthday banner of them hanging on his wall, even though his birthday was months ago!). Watch my video to learn some more about William.

Now, who else is there left to do a video about? Maybe the cats. Except they like eating and sleeping, and that's about it. It would be a very short video!

Birthday Boys

Two celebrations

The middle of the year is a big time for balloons and birthdays in our house. It’s handy that it’s gone all cold and rainy outside, because that just means more time indoors to play with the mountain of presents that are coming!

First up was William’s birthday, who turned three. The little fella’s already starting preschool at his daycare, so it feels a bit like he’s catching me up with age.

The big thing he’s crazy about are The Wiggles. Every day when we get home he asks about watching them, lying down on the couch, wrapped up in a blanket and cuddling the Wiggles car soft toy. Actually my Wiggles car soft toy, but I’m being a good big brother by letting him borrow it.

So it was no surprise that his birthday party had a Wiggles theme. Balloons hanging up everywhere in the Wiggles colours, and a huge multi-coloured cake complete with Wiggles car on top!

Now that he’s getting bigger he’s starting to get some pretty cool presents, like the dinosaur Lego set. Mum and Dad are definitely encouraging him helping out doing jobs around the house, since they got him a little broom and some earmuffs for mowing the lawns. I’m too smart for that – I ask for presents that involve no work around the house!

After that I had to wait four whole weeks for my birthday to arrive. Boy that time sure goes slow when you’re thinking of all the presents you’re going to get!

Luckily it was worth it when I unwrapped a great space shuttle Lego set, a book about space, a Hot Wheels activity book and some clothes with pictures of dinosaurs on them. And not a broom, vacuum cleaner, duster or any other housework thing in sight!

I had a hard time choosing what cake I wanted this year. Maybe Transformers, but that might be hard to make (even if I’d like to transform a whole cake into an Ollie-eaten cake!). Or super heroes, but I had that last year when I turned five. So it was an Angry Birds cake instead, because I’ve played the game so much over the last year and completed so many levels.

To help celebrate, we took my old daycare friend Damiyn and new school friend Michael to a cool indoor play place called Magic Loft. It was huge and filled with cars to drive, ball pits to dive into, trampolines to bounce around on, and cupcakes to eat when we took a break from all the driving, diving and bouncing. Even William joined in the fun – you can see him climbing up the steps in the picture.

Best of all, the birthday fun keeps on going. Because I’ve been so busy, I haven’t seen Grandma, Grandad or Aunt Val yet, which means I don’t have any presents from them. So even though I’m two weeks past my sixth birthday now, I can still look forward to greeting them at the front door with my usual question of “Have you brought me any presents?”

And this time, they will have!

An Australia Ollie-day

Golden views and kangaroos

Well, g'day mate! We're going on an overseas holiday with Grandma and Grandad. This time it's an Australia holiday to Melbourne, which will also be William's first time on a plane! Uh oh, hope he's more relaxed about the flight than Daddy.

I'd been counting down the days on the calendar in my room for weeks, and at last the holiday day arrived. We went out to the airport super early, and I spent most of the flight playing Angry Birds on the little TV screens.

When we were coming in to land in Australia, one of the flight attendants asked me to be the official lolly helper, handing out lollies to everyone on the flight. Even better, I got to keep all the lollies left over at the end! Looks like I won't be needing dinner tonight then...

As soon as we got to Melbourne, we left it behind and drove off to a place called Ballarat. We went all the way there just to visit this old gold-mining town called Sovereign Hill. It was pretty cool - the whole town looked really old, with wooden buildings and people wearing funny old clothes. Luckily there was also a pretty new-looking playground as well.

We went underground to see two gold mines. One of them needed a train ride to get far enough underground, and in another of them I saw a huge piece of gold locked in an underground safe. Later on, I also went on a horse and carriage ride with Grandad, which was a wobbly ride around the streets of Sovereign Hill.

The next day we headed back to Melbourne. We were staying in a place called St Kilda, which was great because not only did it have a pool, but Grandma and Grandad were only a couple of rooms away from us, so we could race down the hallway to their room and knock on their door continually until they woke up, got up and opened the door to let us in.

Another of my favourite things about staying there was starting every day watching a morning kids cartoon show called Giggle and Hoot. Something about owls I think, but it gave me something fun to watch while the adults planned where they were going to take me and William that day.

One thing Melbourne city has that Auckland doesn't is trams, so one day we took a tram ride into and around the city centre. It was pretty fun being on a tram in between the cars on the road. In fact, it was tram-endous!

That picture isn't a tram though. It's actually the Puffing Billy Railway - a steam train we went for a ride on one day. It made a loud "toot-toot" whenever the driver blew the whistle, and everyone outside was waving at us from the roadside as we passed. On the ride we passed through some forest and a couple of small towns. It was super cold though; Dad was joking that the driver was going to announce "Next stop: Hypothermia".

We couldn't go all the way to Australia without seeing some proper Aussie animals, so on another day we went to a place called Moonlit Sanctuary. It was a bit like an open zoo without all the cages, and we were able to walk around the paths feeding and patting all the kangaroos and wallabies. I even stroked a snake and saw a koala pooing. Oops, hope William doesn't step in that one!

It was Grandma's birthday while we were away, so for a nice birthday lunch we drove way way out into the countryside to a vineyard in the Yarra Valley. It was a beautiful sunny day but quite a lot of driving just so the adults could drink wine and get pestered by wasps. Those buzzy things might explain the face Mummy's pulling in the photo.

Nearby there was a chocolate and ice cream factory, and I filled my hands with free chocolate samples. Not as many times as that greedy Daddy though. If the factory had toys as well, I could have spent the whole holiday there!

After ten days on our Melbourne holiday it was time to go back to the airport, and back to New Zealand. I did get quite sad at the airport when we got home, but Dad promised we'll start planning another holiday very soon. I wonder where it'll be next time...?

Let's Meet: Grandad

5 questions about Grandad

If there was a gold medal being given out to the naughtiest member of the family, it would be a close race between William and Grandad. That William does some pretty naughty things - I told you about some of them in one of my earlier blogs. But Grandad, well, he's a different sort of naughty.

So since I answered some questions about Grandma last time, it's only fair that I do the same for Grandad. But what tales of terrible tickling should I tell? Maybe I won't tell all of those - don't want to get him in trouble with Grandma.

I'll just tell you about some other things, like what job should Grandad do? I think a policeman, because he could then tickle the bad guys into giving up! Watch my video to see what answers I have to Daddy's other questions about Grandad.

There you have it - the answers to some tricky questions about Grandad. But who should we do next? Maybe it should be the turn of that naughty little brother William next..?

Let's Meet: Grandma

5 questions about Grandma

There's one thing I can always be sure about when visiting Grandma's house: both my piggy bank and my tummy will get fuller. Every time we see her she gives me some money to put in my piggy bank, and if we're seeing her at her house then she's always been baking something yummy. Sometimes she's even let us help.

But even when the baking has all gone, there's always a stash of white chocolate drops and round mints in her pantry - and I know just where to fine them!

But what else about Grandma? Daddy wanted to test me on a few questions about Grandma, like what sort of job would be best for her? I think growing vegetables and fruit would be the perfect job for her. You can watch me answering more questions about Grandma here.

If I had to describe Grandma (and Daddy asked me to), I'd say she's "very nice". But what about that Grandad? What will I have to say about him? That'll be in the next video...