Daisy Suzanne Allen

Born Sunday 6th March 2011

4¾ to 5 years old

Her life:  4 to 4¼ years ♥ 4¼ to 4½ years ♥ 4½ to 4¾ years ♥ 4¾ to 5 years ♥ 5th birthday ♥ 5 to 5½ years ♥ 5½ to 6 years ♥ 6th birthday ♥ 6 to 6½ years ♥ 6½ to 7 years ♥ 7th birthday ♥ 7 to 7½ years ♥ 7½ to 8 years ♥ 8th birthday ♥ 8 to 8½ years ♥ 8½ to 9 years ♥ 9th birthday

In summary:  Index ♥ From birth to four years old ♥ Four years old to nine years old ♥ Nine years old onwards

Special features:  Golden Bear (reprise) ♥ More cookery

No sooner than she has turned the magical four and three quarters and we are putting up the Christmas tree, for it is veritably around about the start of December.  Growing in stature, Daisy was trusted with hanging up any of the non-breakable objects.  Indeed that worked quite well since I would have to put the more fragile items out of Gregory's reach in any case, and that naturally fell largely in the zone that Daisy could not reach.

Of course, Daisy soon got distracted by the multi-coloured baubels.

A few days later and the little 'uns posed in front of the fully decorated tree.  Daisy is happily wearing the golden sweatshirt, earned by being good that week.

A week or so later and I took the afternoon off work to see Daisy starring as Mary in her school nativity play.  We had practised her lines quite a lot in the preceding couple of weeks and it was exciting when we saw her take centre stage.  She looked the part, as you can see, although she delivered her lines in a slightly detached style, like she was thinking about other things.  But she spoke loudly and clearly.  We were very proud.

We now skip to after Christmas (which I may or may not cover with its own page).  Daisy donned her Rapunzel dress (a present off her Aunty Katie) to watch Frozen at the cinema with Lynne (Rapunzel features in Frozen, Disney princess fact fans).  Here she is posing beforehand.

That evening, Daisy embarked on her second Waterdale sleepover, this time without keeping her Aunty and Nana up all night.

Having spent the night at Eddie's in Didsbury, I drove over to pick Daisy up, and it was clear she had been in her element with Kate's plethora of mini Polly Pockets.

We then had a game of Charades - perfect for 11 o'clock in the morning.

A trip to the park and the sad tale of the one-sided see-saw, although Daisy seems to be enjoying herself.

Ah that's better, Gregory has joined the fray.  I am off camera to the left checking that the G-man doesn't lurch backwards.

This is our New Year's Eve: curry and champagne with the family (although obviously the kids didn't have any champagne).

We're into 2016 now with a typical bath scene, featuring Gregory playing with his cars and Daisy, er, wearing a shower cap.

Nothing enchants young grandchildren like the love of a grandparent... and their smartphone.

Here is Daisy enjoying a present from Uncle Matt and Aunty Nic, a Frozen sticky picture (ok, that's not the official name for these things, but who knows what is).

And here it is completed and ably shown off by Daisy.

One of Gregory's presents, meanwhile, was a bath kit of roads and cars, which Daisy imaginatively crafted into a very vertical road, one of Britain's most treacherous.

This is a typical breakfast scene in early 2016.  Well, certainly on my watch if I am feeling lazy.  Lynne prefers it if they consume crumb-producing snackage in the kitchen.  Gregory, or Superboy, tucks into his mile whilst Daisy's favourite breakfast food of choice is lightly-toasted egg waffles (replacing the previous favourite of mini sweet pancakes).  Her milk is on the side to wash it down.

In the middle of January, we finally got a decent amount of snow.  This was Gregory's first foray into the snow and Daisy had not had all that many thus far in her lifetime (our most heavy snowfalls in our time at Denby Lane came either before Daisy was born or early enough that she was too young to be outside in the snow).

Daisy certainly seemed to be enjoying herself.  At this point anyway.

We were all out in the back garden, as were some of the neighbours, with whom we (well, I) engaged in long-range snowball fights (I tried to "shell" Shereen over the intervening trees and was almost successful).  You may also have noted that we were all in our pyjamas, which Lynne may or may not have found hilarious.  This all happened before 9am as, given we did not expect the settled snow to stay for much longer, we decided to rush out by just putting on boots and overcoats.

I managed to spell Daisy's name, which impressed her somewhat (the simple things, eh).  After a bit of fun in the snow, Daisy slipped a couple of times on the bumpy vegetable patch, and it was game over, so we all came inside.  Ah well, it was fun while it lasted.

Later that day we went to Run Of The Mill for some soft play action in order to give them a further chance to run around.  Here they are in the mini trampoline section.

And to round off a fun-filled day, Daisy and I made pizzas from scratch.  Here she is rolling out the dough, with all the toppings to the left ready for, er, topping.

And here they are in the oven.  I maybe overdid the size of the greaseproof paper for that top one.

Here we have the finished product, ably presented by my young assistant, who manages a steely smile.

After eating the pizza, it was time for afters of course, which seems to be a white chocolate mini Magnum whilst wearing a cycling helmet (you can never be too careful).

It's midway through January and therefore (obviously) time for a height and weight update, albeit one from two months before (not sure how it took them so long to tell us, but there you go).  Our (not so) little girl is now nearly 1.1 metres (or over 3 and a half feet) tall and nearly 20 kilograms in weight, which I guess is about 3 stones in old money.  The main thing, as it notes below, is that it is a healthy weight.

Daisy is very keen on writing now and here is penning the latest in Oscar's diary, opening with the gripping "We came home".  It's all about setting the scene with the first line.

Some mornings, Daisy requests a plait, so here is one of those fancy hairdos for you.  They normally stay this tidy for about 10 minutes.

I can't imagine it's as warm as Daisy's outfit suggests, but if you are running (rings) around (Gregory) in the back garden playing football perhaps

Some more football action.  Gregory would start football lessons not long after this, and generally shows more willingness to be active, so maybe the gap will be bridged soon.

A trip to Glossop for Lucas Giles' 1st birthday party saw Daisy and Gregory dancing the afternoon away, although that was a far cry from their initial mood, which was one of shyness, particularly for Gregory (I think he slept on the way and was always going to be a bit grumpy and reticent heading into a crowded house).

As always, if Daisy finishes her main course, she gets to eat some dessert.  She is tucking into this mini roll with gusto.

We normally read the kids stories in their respective rooms but on this particular evening I gave them a two for the price of one offer.  Gregory certainly seemed chuffed to be in the big bed.

A couple of days later, as we reach the end of January, and we found ourselves at young Ava's birthday at the Busy Kids' Café in Stockport (where, incidentally, Daisy's 5th birthday party is booked in, as we shall see later).  There was an array of food, featuring classic crisp snacks (including Wotsits and Frazzles), a cocktail sausage hedgehog, sandwiches and healthy dipping sticks (carrots, cucumber, etc) with hummus.  Gregory even had a place at the table in a big boy's chair.

The next day saw a new cooking experience - the making of pasta from scratch.  Avis and Graham had bought me the pasta-making machine some considerable time before (not the Christmas just gone, so maybe my last birthday or the previous Christmas).  Daisy has the job of mixing the flour and egg together, firstly with a spoon...

...and latterly with her hands.  You've got to get stuck in after all.

Having run it through the pasta-making machine to thin it out a bit (although not quite enough for some of it, it turned out), Daisy set about spelling the names of all immediate family members with her stencils.

And here are the fruits of our labours, most of which was edible.  (Next time I'll put it through the machine a few more times at thinner levels, but it was all new.)

Later that evening, I had a bit of fun with Daisy's hair when washing it.  I'm just crazy, aren't I?

The next weekend, with Lynne out in town getting her haircut, I set up a picnic for the little 'uns, making packed lunches for them both.  It went down pretty well.

Daisy likes to write sweet thank you notes, even, as in this one, thanking us for "lu[n]ch" whilst discussing the relative merits of hotdogs (or hotdots as they are once referred to here).  It feels rather formal to have a note from your daughter starting "To Lynne and Paul".

Rolling on to the following weekend for an escape to Boothstown (aka give Lynne a break the day before she drives up to Haddington with the two whippersnappers), we see that there is competition for the tablet.  Gregory is keen to have a look what's going on.

Katie's Polly Pockets also generate some interest.

After Aunty Katie vomited mini Connect 4 pieces everywhere, Daisy tries an ancient recovery technique of crawling on her back and posing for the camera.

This is from the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, where Daisy must have had the opportunity to construct some Lego.

We're speeding through February now, but here is another sneaky lunch in the lounge, which Gregory looks very happy with, whilst Daisy is of course distracted by the TV.

This is taken from Erin's birthday party towards the end of February.  There seemed to be a Disney princess theme.  It's all the rage.

And we finish, although I may go back and add in photos taken by other people, with a stroll around the Heatons, as ever requested by Gregory but this time joined by Daisy, who has decided to bring two Kitty toys (thus prompting Gregory to bring Elmo too - he doesn't normally).

Painting mayhem in the kitchen!  (Actually it looks reasonably ordered right now.)  They are both overalled up and there's no carpet - so what could go wrong?

And that's your lot for Daisy being four years old.

Now you can go back to the Secret Portal, or you could visit Daisy's index page, but you probably want to carry on to her 5th birthday.  (5th!)