The Girls

We haven't done much this week as far as getting out. It's been really cold here. It seems like everywhere around us is getting snow but us. Maybe that is a blessing in disguise! However there does seem to be a lot going on with the girls.

The other day Corina and Aurora decided that they were going to have a slumber party that night. They worked on making a bed in Corina's bedroom floor and made a tent to go over and got all the animal set up that they were going to sleep with. They even decided what snacks they were going to have. That whole time I didn't hear any gripping or anything out of them. They were playing as sisters and friends. It was so nice to see. Yesterday the same thing happened too. Mark had bought some grapefruit and lemons. Corina decided she wanted to make some juice. So she and Aurora made their little juice concoction and tried it out and then added some more things. They were probably doing that for at least an hour and a half. They had the best time.

Gwyneth has been trying so hard to talk. Her latest thing is counting to 3. She say Eh, two, and then looks at me and smiles because she wants me to say, "three GO!" and then she jumps or runs somewhere. She thinks it's the funniest thing. Plus she knows that her sisters can count to three so she thinks she is doing something really big. (And it is).

That's what's going on this week.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas.

A week of sickness with one adventure.

This week Mark has been off.  I have to say that I feel pretty horrible because the whole family (except for him of course) has been sick.  It's the yearly cold that we always get with runny noses and coughing that you just pray will go away soon.  I knew the whole week that Mark wanted to go somewhere.  He hadn't really picked a spot but he's always up for an adventure.  So finally Thursday we decide that today is the say we are going out.  Everyone was feeling pretty good.  Armed with tissues and snacks we set out for the castle of Mark's choice, Bolsover Castle.

The castle was only and hour and a half away.  Earlier in the week it had snowed here but the snow was pretty well melting or had melted.  As we were driving North we could tell that the snow had not melted yet and there was more of it.  We reached the town of Bolsover and had to find the castle parking.  We ended up going down in a valley.  When we turned around the castle was on a hill over looking the valley that we were in.  The picture I took absolutely does not do it any justice!

We went back up the hill to go to the parking lot for the castle and we didn't want to turn into the parking lot because it had not been cleared off and was full of snow but certain driving circumstances made us have to pull in.  So we got stuck in the parking lot.  Our van was not going anywhere.  I was looking around thinking if Mark can't get us out who are we going to ask for help.  I looked out the window and Mark and could tell he was looking at something.  I turned around and another car had gotten stuck in the parking lot too.  Mark went over there to them to help them get out and guess what, they were Americans too.  So two Americans stuck in the parking lot.  I hope no one is looking.  ha ha.  We helped each other get unstuck and parked and walked up to the castle and it was closed.  AH!  The shop was open though so we looked around in there for a while and came back out and got in the van.  (I know Mark and I were about to die.  We had finally gotten everyone out and went somewhere, gotten stuck, and the place was closed.  *sigh*)  Here is my picture of the valley from above.  It was so beautiful.  We plan on going back soon so hopefully there will be better pictures.

On the way to the castle we saw a sign for the Sherwood Forest visitors center so on the way back we stopped there.  It was starting to get dark but there were some little shops there.  It was still cool being there.  In the middle of the shops they had a Robin Hood statue that they had put a Santa hat on.  We all thought that was comical.

So that was our big adventure for the week.  On a side note... When we we driving we passed a boarding school for girls aging from 3-13.  3!  Isn't that a little young to be sending you kid away to school.  I can't imagine sending Aurora away to a school with out me.  My goodness!

So the goal this week is to get better before Christmas and New Years.  I hope we can do it.

Have a great week.

Just life.

Earlier this week I posted a comment on my facebook page about our tree.  Here is what my post said...

 "Just looked at our Christmas tree and realized that there are no ornaments on the bottom half of the tree. Gwyneth keeps getting the ornaments and Corina and Aurora get them from her and move then up as high as they can so all the ornaments are packed at the top. " I just thought I would post a picture of our tree.  As you can see the bottom is totally bare with all the ornaments at the top.  There is even a yanked down string of light on the left side of the tree.  Poor tree!  It will be a good memory to put in the scrapbook.  

Thanksgiving was good this year.  We just stayed at home.  We had everything.  Turkey, corn, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce.  We also had pumpkin pie.  I had made it the night before and we ended up eating it for breakfast.  It was so yummy.  My grandma sent us a package with all the fixings to make her pumpkin pie.  I have been waiting to make it till Mark is off.  He is off this week.  I hope it turns out just like hers.  


This last Saturday it snowed.  The girls were so excited.  I'm pretty sure they were awake for just about 10 minutes and then they were already throwing on warm clothes to go outside and play in the snow.  It snowed almost everyday last week.  When we went to church last Sunday the guy that helps guide people where to park asked if we were used to the snow.  Mark and I were like, "Oh yeah it snows where we come from.  We are used to it."  The snow here is nothing compared to the us though.  It looks like it's snowing a ton but you can still see the grass though the snow.  Here are some pictures of the girls in the snow.  The first is Gwyneth and the cats really wishing they were outside with Corina and Aurora, second is Corina catching snowflakes, third is the girls playing in the back yard.  

I hope everyone has a great week this week.  I can't believe it's December already. 

Swimming Day

Today we went swimming. Corina has been dying to go swimming for a long time.  She got spoiled when we lived in TX.  You could swim till October and everyday was perfect.  We did swim everyday when we were there.  Here you can only swim outside a few days of the year because of the weather.  All over the place here they have fitness clubs and the one near us has an indoor pool. Yesterday was family day so we went.  We had a great time.  Even I had a great time and I say that because I had to stay out of the pool because I forgot the top part of my swimsuit.  DUH!  I had a good time watching the kids and Mark play together.  It was Aurora's second time to swim ever.  We had a little floaty vest for her and she swam all over the pool.  She did awesome! Gwyneth had a good time too, and of course Corina was swimming like a fish.  Afterward when we were on our way out to the car the girls found these HUGE leaves.  I think they were from a gumball tree.  Everyone had a great time.  I can't believe next week will be Thanksgiving.  This will be only our second Thanksgiving away from home.  This week we will probably make some Thanksgiving crafts like Turkey hands and things like that.  

Mark swimming with the girls.

                                        

Mark and Gwyneth

Having a great time swimming.

Corina in the pool.

Gwyneth on a floaty and below Aurora with the big leaf.  

Have a great week.

                                                

Guy Fawkes

The week after Halloween was a good week. We were still excited about all the kids that came to the door for trick or treating.

Friday night the school behind us had a carnival for Guy Fawkes Day. Click here to find out more about him. I knew they were going to have a fireworks display that night at 6pm. Just for the record it has been getting dark here at 4pm and dark all the way here by 5:30 at least! We saw a few fireworks set off from the school and from other in the community. Around 7 was when the fireworks really started. Aurora heard them and she a Corina were so excited. We went out in the backyard and the girls jumped onthe trampoline while the fireworks went off. It was like the 4th of July. I took Gwyneth outside to watch them. She didn't know what to do. It was so cute. She had this look of shock because of the sound, then she would look in awe at the firework, then the boom at the end she had a look of fear. Then she would look at Corina and Aurora jumping and laughing and not know what to think poor kid. We had fireworks for 3 nights in a row and we could see them all around our house from all the different towns around.

Today Mark has had off for Veteran's Day. It's been a good day.  Tomorrow night is parent's night out on the base.  I don't know what we will do yet.

As for the girls Gwyneth is really developing her personality.  She always examining everything and trying her best to communicate.  Aurora is seems like since her third birthday has really grown up a lot.  She loves to learn and read.  Corina is becoming a young lady.  She is so compasionate and always thinking of projects to do and ways to help. They are great kids.

Until next week.

Halloween Fun!

We had a great Halloween. Tuesday Corina had a birthday party to go to and then she had a Halloween party to go to. She had a great time. They bobbed for apples and watched Monsters Inc. Earlier that morning we had went to the base and found out that trunk or treating was going on so that night after the Halloween party we went trick or treating on the base. There was a long row of cars lined up to trunk or treat and on of the main houses on the base had a Willy Wonka theme and there was woman dressed as Willy Wonka handing out candy. They even had a grandpa in a bed handing out candy and you could win a golden ticket and get a prize. It was pretty cool.

Around our neighborhood you could barely tell it was Halloween. People kept saying that Halloween is an American thing. We did hear that we would get lots of trick or treaters though. So we didn't know what to expect. That day we set our pumpkins out and put our spider webs out on the front door. That was way more than anyone else did in the neighborhood. That night we had about 300 trick or treaters. Mark handed out the candy. He had a great time. Actually we ran out of candy and he started giving the kid candy corn out of the bag. Even after we had turned our light off people we still knocking and ringing our doorbell and asking for candy.

Some of the people that came to the door asked if we were Americans. The teenagers we really interested about that. Also some people were excited to see the candy corn because they had heard about it but never seen it because they don't have candy corn in the UK.

So next year we will be getting more candy! Check out my slide show of our Halloween Fun.

Slideshow personalized with Smilebox

Pumpkin Carving Fun

Tonight we decided to carve Aurora's pumpkin.  She loves  Mickey Mouse so we decided to do a Mickey Mouse one. We found our template off the internet. She loved it. By the way. The Applications that I used is called Smile Box. It is awesome for making cute slide shows and sending cute e-cards for free.

Create your own free greeting card

The Weekend

Mark and I decided this weekend we would have to do something because next weekend Corina has 2 parties to go to.  One birthday party and one Halloween party. Next weekend it is Halloween and it will be the first time we will really have had trick or treaters.  When I was growing up no one came to our house to trick or treat because we were out in the country.  When we lived in DC area there were a few trick or treaters but that was it. So this year we are going to be ready.

Anyway, I'm about to start up my Etsy store.  When I have my items up I will let everyone one know. For now here is my card making/scrapbook blog.  http://3-graces.blogspot.com/ Let me know what you think!

Have a great week.

Another Adventure

This week we went to Castle Acre Priory to an event called The Big Draw.  I thought that is was going to be a big art festival with kids.  The description was a little vague on the website.  Anyway we went to the priory and the woman working said the big draw was an event set up for people to go and draw the site and just get them to look at the site in a new way.  I thought it was a good idea.  They did have crafts too though.  You could write with quill pens, design your own cote of arms, stamping.  We had a good time. It was a great day and so beautiful outside.  Also, there was a huge buckeye tree there.  It was the biggest one I have ever seen.  This is the last day of the four day weekend.  We had a good one.  Tomorrow back to school.  However on Thursday we are going to celebrate Aurora's 3rd birthday.  I can't believe she is going to be 3.  This time last year we had just moved to TX and we went to Chucky Cheese's for her birthday.  There's not one of those here.  We might go to the little play place at McDonald's.  We will see. One more thing.  We finally got rid of Aurora's bubby.  (pacifier)  Hooray!  Have a great week.

Here are some picture of Castle Priory.  The first is Aurora with the priory in the background.  The second is the girls drawing.  The third is of the main wall of the site.  Pretty amazing!

When I wasn't looking.

First of all I sold my first set of cards.  They were Halloween party invitations for my neighbor.  I'm really excited about it.

So on to the title of this post:

Gwyneth is all of a sudden becoming more vocal.  She's starting to point to what she wants.  She's been doing it for a little while but now she know she really will get it if she points.  She always tries to do what Aurora is doing.  It's so funny.  Sometimes Aurora likes it and sometimes she doesn't. The hazards of being a big sister I guess.  The other morning Gwyneth was playing on a little toy phone and I swear she said hello but I haven't really heard her say it since then but she knows what it means.  That same day I said thank you do her and she said da doo but in the same sound as thank you.  So now should I put one of these as her first word?  I don't know.

Now for Aurora.  I'm still shocked about this one.  The other day we were getting ready to go to the park across the road and I grabbed some pants out of her drawer. They were 3T pants.  They were like high waters on her.  I swear they fit her like 2 weeks ago.  So I grabbed another pair of pants out of the drawer and they were 5T.  They fit perfectly!!!  I was thinking, "What the heck!"  The pants I put on her though was the kind that you would wear in the summer and are a little short anyway and looked like regular length pants on her.  We went to the BX the other day and I thought I would her some new pants.  (For some reason I guess not very many 4T or 5T pants got saved from Corina.) They didn't have any 4T so I got 5T and they fit great. So my child who is about to turn 3 is in a 5T!  How in the world did we skip a whole size?  I don't know.

This weekend Mark has a 4 day weekend.  There is a big children's art festival called the big draw we are going to try to go to.  I hope it's a nice day.  We need to go toy shopping too for Aurora's birthday.  

Have a great week.

Steampunk

Last week we started our home schooling again.  I told Corina that we could wait till after her birthday.  So the first 2 weeks have been going really great.  I even found a free preschool curriculum online for Aurora that is really awesome.  (Gwyneth is listening in as well.)

This weekend hopefully we will be planning to go somewhere so I will have some more England pictures to share.  As of late I have been checking out www.etsy.com  I'm just dumbfounded by some of the things that are on there.  I just think I could have made that, or they're selling that on there, or why didn't I think of  that.  An Etsy site may be in the near future for me.  Who knows.

Oh yeah, I also found out about a new genre I had never heard about until the the other day, steampunk.  Type it in Etsy and some really cool jewelry comes up.  I had to type in steampunk in wikipedia to see what the meaning was.  Anyway check it out if you want.

Until next week.

Corina's 8th Birthday

We had Corina's birthday party Sunday.  It was great.  We rented a bouncy castle for the weekend.  It was a great idea.  There were about 9 kids that came.  Both of our neighbors came and so they got to mingle with the Americans from the base.  Even the adults had a good time talking to each other.

We just decorated our dining room and had the bouncy castle.  I made the cake too.  We were so busy paying attention to everyone and doing stuff that we forgot to take pictures of Corina blowing out her candle.  We got her opening some presents though.  It was a perfect day too.  It only sprinkled once for maybe 5 minutes and then it was over.

Here are some birthday pics.

Until next week.

Just a little something.

Not much to say about this week really.  Aurora got her first bee sting and the day before that she got her fingers smashed really good in the door.  Other than that we got Corina's homeschooling stuff in and I will be starting on that next week.  I thought we could start after her birthday.  Her birthday is this Sunday.  Hopefully I will have better luck with downloading pictures this time than I did with Gwyneth's birthday!

Until next week.

Our Month of August.

Well it's time to get back to blogging.  This month has been full of things it seems.  First Mark and I had our anniversary on the 12th.  It was our tenth anniversary.  I can't believe we have been married for 10 years.  The next was Gwyneth's 1st birthday.  That day was quite a day.  She was cranky all day!  Corina said if she knew it was her birthday she wouldn't be so cranky.  When she took a nap we decorated the dinning room with streamers and out happy birthday sign, we made the pink cake with rainbow sprinkles.  I made spaghetti because that seems to be her favorite meal for right now. It was all ready and Mark wasn't home from work yet so we had to wait.  So he finally got home and we ate and opened presents and ate the cake and sang happy birthday.  Then when I went to down load the pictures later on that night I somehow deleted all the pictures I had taken so we have none of Gwyneth's first birthday.  That was really just the icing on the cake for that day.  (If I was a child I'm pretty sureI would have thrown myself in the floor and threw a big fit but I kept it together.)

So on to the next subject....

My neighbor informed us that the summer is done and from here on out it will be getting colder.  Actually both neighbors asked how we enjoyed the 3-4 weeks of summer we had.  Ha.  Spring here did have some really nice days and summer did too.  This week though we have been waking up and it feels like one of those mornings where you want to stay under the covers because you know once you get out from under them you are going to regret it.
Another thing is that it has been raining and the grass is green again.  When it was summer it didn't rain and the grass was brown and now it's the end and everything is getting green again it seems.  In America everything get's brown at the end of summer and then it just stays that way till spring.

During one of the rainy days Corina and Aurora decided to build a pile of fluffy things at the bottom of the stairs.  It was a pretty big pile.  Corina even got her boogie board and was zinging down the stairs into the pile.  I took a video of it.  (Maybe I will post it on the next blog.)  Here are some pictures though.

Last weekend we went to a place called Wimpole Farm. It was just 30 minutes away from the house right by Cambridge. We had a good time there. It was a huge farm and they also had a Hall there with gardens.  We went to the farm part first.  You could pretend you were milking a cow and see all different kids of animals.  There was also a hay maze and a zip line and things like that.  

Here is Corina milking the pretend cow.         Check out the thatched roof.

Aurora thought this was a big pig.  And it was!                  I put this one in because it makes me smile.

Corina on top of the hay maze.                       Gwyneth in the hay maze.

Until next week!

They call it lemonade

So this week I have been thinking of some more differences.  Differences in England and the US.

When Mark and I first got here we went out to eat with our sponsor.  The waitress went through the drinks the restaurant had and one of the choices we lemonade.  Our sponsor told us that lemonade over here was Sprite.  So we got Sprite.  The Sprite over here has more lemon flavor than the Sprite at home.  It makes me think of when Mark and I went on our mission trip to Mexico and we bought some Nacho Cheese Doritos.  They were super cheesy!  Way more then the ones in the US.  So you might be wondering if they call Sprite lemonade then what do they call lemonade. Well, they call it lemonade too.

So other than all of this wondering other things that have been going on.........  Mainly just a lot of playing, scrapbooking, more playing, watching movies.  I did find the best site for home schooling I think I've ever come across so far.  It had a lot of GREAT tips.  Here is the URL if you want to check it out.  http://www.homeschooling-ideas.com/

I got a nice compliment from one of the pro scrapbookers on one of the challenge sites that I do so I'm patting myself on the back for that one.

Also two very important events coming up for us.  Mark and I will have been married 10 years this Thursday!  I can't believe it!  And next Monday Gwyneth will be 1!  I can't believe that one either.  This year went by so quick!

Have a great week!

The Tough Guy

Some of you might know that last week Mark went to The Tough Guy Competition.  He was gone all day Sunday and when he came back he looked beat.  It was a crazy obstacle course filled with mud pits and rope walls and more mud pits and tunnels.  The next day we were all very nice and let him sleep in.  When he woke up he was so sore he was walking up and down the stairs like an old man.  He said that there were at least 2,000 people there participating. Here are some of the pics.

I had to post the first picture.  Mark isn't in it but he said there were people there dressed up.  I just thought the blue man group with the sock hats were hilarious.  The second is Mark running.  Mark looks pretty muddy but check out the guy behind him.  The third is Mark at the end of the race.  If you want to know more about the race you can look up the url.  It's www.toughguy.co.uk/  

Other than the tough guy competition we have just been relaxing.  I've just been working on scrapbooking and card making.  Gwyneth has been perfecting her walking.  Aurora and Corina have been playing lots of dress up and doing lots of crafts.  

One more thing I must say is that this has been one of the weirdest summers.  the hottest is has gotten here is 80 degress.  Today it is 70 degrees. We have hardly went swimming this year. (Mark and Corina just went swimming once at the health club that is pretty close.)  They are saying though that this is one of the best summers they have had in a while.  Hmmm.  

Until next week.  

Just a Little Something

I just thought I would post this little movie I made. This week Gwyneth had mastered walking.  Last week she was almost walking well but this week she has got the hang of it.  Go Gwyneth!

I hope you all enjoy this little family video of one of our families firsts.  I will be posting more later because we have some more things coming up soon.  I was just proud of my little girl.  :)

Well not much happened this week with me and the girls. Mark was in DC so we hung around the house.  We did explore our neighborhood a little bit and went to some parks.  Our little neighborhood has a lot of parks because it's geared toward families.  We even walked to the store one day and bought a little swimming pool.  It was hot here for a couple of days.  (When I say hot I mean in the high 80's.) After we got our pool it turned off cool for the rest of the time.  In the 60's. So much for swimming then.  We were all glad when Mark came home.

On another note, Gwyneth is learning to walk a lot better and she can crawl up the stairs.  She tries to be sneaky and looks to see if we are coming and if we are she gets a big grin on her face.

Here is a picture of the girls in their little bitty pool.

Here is Gwyneth caught red handed. I really think Aurora was coaxing her up the stairs though.

















Well that's all for now.  I hope everyone has a great week!

Differences

This week I have been thinking of some of the differences in England compared to the US.  So here they are.

Here the kids go to school year round.  Everyone wears uniforms here.  The uniforms are super cheap.  In the summer all the girls wear these cute little dresses and they are just 4 pounds.  How nice would that be to pay that much for your kids clothes to wear to school.  Every Friday school gets out at 1pm.

You can park anywhere here just about.  Cars are parked all on the sides of the roads here.

The food packaging is different here.  Some of them say exactly why you should eat the food and why it's healthy.  I like that.  The grocery stores are kind of set up like a whole foods store.  Milk is in litters here.  Not gallons.

There isn't any air conditioning here because it hardly ever get hot enough to use it.

Outlets aren't allowed in the bathrooms.  The light switched to the bathroom are either on the other side of the wall before you go into the bath room or there is a cord hanging from the ceiling that you pull to turn the light on.

I haven't seen very many fences here.  Instead they have bushes they have planted.  I guess it really is called a hedge.  How economical is that.  Instead of paying for a fence you plant a hedge fence and it's good for the environment.

Speaking of the environment all of England has gone green.  We have to recycle everything.  We have 3 huge bins we have to put our stuff in.  One if for recyclables, one for garden waste, and the last is for the rest of the trash.  If you don't recycle properly you get fined.

There's lots of windmill here creating electricity.  It's pretty cool to see them all over the country side when you are driving.

And last but not least....  It seems like they are stuck in the 80's here.  There's lots of spandex and black tights, lots of 80's music.  No 80's hair though.  Whew!

Have a great week.

The first one.

I had been thinking about starting a blog since we have moved here about all the new adn exciting things we are experiencing in England and I've just now finally started it.  

Yesterday was the 4th of July.  There was a carnival on the base and fireworks.  So we celebrated our independence from England in England.  Kind of weird to think about.  England doesn't have an independence day.  Anyway so last night when we were driving home from the base, right by our neighborhood, we saw Captain America and Wonder Woman Walk down the road.  Then as we got closer to our house we saw a man dressed in a hula skirt and a straw hat.  Someone had thrown a party!

I have to admit I was missing home yesterday.  I was thinking about all those 4th of Julys spent in my back yard watching fireworks with the youth group.  Those were such good times.  Then watching them with Corina when she was a little baby in the back yard.  Time has passed so quick it seems.