Letters and Tea

Trick or Treat Fun

2011-11-03T15:51:00.000-07:00

I have to say that this Halloween was great! The base had their trick or treating on Saturday night. We invited our old neighbors to come on the base and trick or treat. They had always just stayed home and dressed up and given out candy at the door. Our kids and their kids had the BEST time! We covered the whole base and beside the school they were doing a trunk or treat. They had never heard of that before but thought it was pretty cool when the saw it. People were dressed up givingout candy fromthe bask of their cars and playing monster mash on their cd players.

Also before trick or treating Aurora and Gwyneth had a party with their playgroup. It was so cute to see all the kids dressed up. There was a baby R2D2. So cute! This year Corina and Aurora were witches and they would have been something else but I found the costumes at our wonderful base thrift store for only $3. Gwyn was a fairy and Wesley was a cute little dragon.

After we went trick or treating we brought came home to check out the candy of course. Our neighbors kids were excited about the different candy.

So on to the pictures.

Here is Corina and Wesley dressed up.

Gwyn and Aurora were so excited they couldn't stay still.

Here is Wesley in his cute little dragon outfit.

Check out the tail!

Here is Aurora at the party playing pin the nose on the pumpkin.

One tired dragon.

Here is everyone dressed up.

I hope everyone has a great week.

A Full Fall Week.

2011-10-25T15:56:00.000-07:00

We have had a pretty full week this week. This week we are taking off of school like the English schools do and having some down time (sort of). :) This weekend started off with Corina going with her girl scout troop pumpkin picking. It was a place called Hill Farm and it was by where we used to live in Peterborough. It was beautiful there. We drove down this long road to get to the farm and parked and went out to where the pumpkin patch was and there was a beautiful view there.

Sunday Corina got invited to go swimming with some friends so it we had to little kids. I told Aurora she got to be the big sister that day. She thought that was pretty cool. Mark decided to rake some leaves and of course the girls wanted to help. They jumped in the leaves and raked and ran and threw leaves in the air. They had a good time. The first picture is Mark and Aurora doing a leaf transfer from rake to rake. Later on Mark said that he could have done his job quicker with out the kids but then realized that they helped him till the very end and thought that was a pretty good quality.

I realized that I hadn't taken any pictures of Wesley recently so I got out the camera and took some candid shots of him with the girls.

The other day Aurora asked if she could get out the umbrellas. She and Gwyneth have these really cute umbrellas with a see through part so you can se through the umbrella while you are walking in the rain. They thought it was really cool to sit on the couch and watch tv through the viewing part. After a while I covered the with a blanket with the umbrellas and it was like a tent. They played like that for about 2 hours.

Here is Gwyneth's and Aurora's turn to go pumpkin picking. They went with their playground. Here is Gwyneth in a cool swing they had in the park area there.

Aurora with one of the may pumpkins she picked out.

The girls with some pumpkins

Here is a picture of Corina with her pumpkin. The view there was so great. On the other side of the pumpkin patch they had a strawberry patch.

This weekend is trick or treat weekend for us. The girls are super excited.

Hope everyone has a great week.

Three Months Ago

2011-10-18T10:12:00.000-07:00

Finally after three months I am doing a blog post.

A ridiculous amount of things have happened since I last wrote.

3 weeks before I gave birth we found out we were moving on the post
We had Wesley July 19th
A few weeks after the movers came and moved half our stuff out of the house and it's in storage.
August 16th, Gwyneth's birthday and moving day.
Signed the lease to the house on the post and said good bye to out nice big house.
Start homeschooling
Corina's birthday.
Lot's of soccer games.
Aurora's birthday
Wesley is 3 months on the 19th!

That's not even all of it!

I thought I was going to be able to update the blog a lot sooner but as soon as we came home from the hospital after a very eventful birth our internet was shut off because we were moving. We moved and had to wait a month and a half before we could get internet and phone because that's the way it works over here..... So below is Wesley then and now. How time flies!

A week old

Almost 3 months old.

What a cute little guy! His sisters love him and are always trying to make him smile.

Aurora enjoying a chocolate cupcake on her 4th birthday.

Yes Aurora is 4. My goodness. She is great with Wesley and she is a little smarty pants too. I've been doing some school stuff with her and she is really surprising me. (Don't you love it when your kids surprise you?)

Well that's all for now. Partly because I'm typing this one handed because i'm holing Wesley. ;)

Have a great week!

4th of July and more stay at home fun.

2011-07-05T01:38:00.001-07:00

I hope everyone had a great July 4th weekend. Ours really was pretty low key. They did have a carnival on the base with rides and face painting and bouncy castles and all of that stuff and of course fireworks. We had to go there of course. Here is the smilebox scrapbook that I put together of the festival on base.

Digital scrapbooking design made with Smilebox

So we have been staying at home a lot since I am 37 weeks pregnant and really don't feel like doing much at all. The first picture is of the girls with these elephant masks on. They belong to the elefun game and you are supposed to pick up a doughnut with the trunk but they like to just wear the masks around.

Here is little Gwyn in her highchair eating black olives. We love black olives at our house. All the girls love to put them on their fingers and then eat them off.

If you watched the smilebox scrapbook then you saw this picture already but if you didn't this is Mark and the girls at the 4th of July festival on the base. Mark won this huge turtle and the girls won princess costume jewelry. Just a small side note about the fireworks. . . Corina and Aurora were SO excited about the fireworks. When they finally started everyone was yelling and cheering. Not Gwyneth though, she was crying. It was so funny. I was holding her and from there on out until the end it was like she was watching a horror show that she could't take her eyes off of. Then FINALLY at the end she started saying yeah because she figures out that everyone was cheering and clapping and they weren't scared.

That next day Mark had a baseball game and God bless Mark he brought home Krispy Kreme doughnuts. He brought hats home too and so here is Gwyneth wearing her hat with her doughnut.

Gwyneth is starting to get a little mischievous so I caught her in the act of climbing on the register.

Here she is sitting on the register with a smile on her face of course.

Corina was giving horse rides.

This picture was taken at about 9 at night but here it is still light out.

Here is Gwyneth watercoloring. Good thing they are the washable kind. :) She really likes to paint. Especially if the other girls are painting too.

This is recycling at one of it's best. Corina wanted to save this oatmeal box and so here she is painting it. Kids love to paint things that you don't usually paint.

Here is Aurora painting her Juicy Juice bottle. She had the best time! They both thought it was so cool to paint their things.

Here is a pic of Gwyneth and me. We took about 15 pics because she was having a good time getting her picture taken.

I hope everyone had a good week.

Exciting stuff at home.

2011-06-26T03:36:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the things we have been doing. Not really to much but the kids were excited to do all these things and we didn't even really leave the house. (The best kind right?!)

Here is Corina and Aurora in the rain. They were dying to go outside with their umbrellas.

I think Corina looks like she is going to take off like Mary Poppins.

This is Gwyneth at Mark's baseball practice. They practice at a sports complex in Cambridge. There is a huge field that has a baseball field and soccer and American football. Gwyneth was trying to pick up all the baseballs.

There was an army picnic on the base. Here are Corina and Aurora watching some kids doing a king of the hill event. You had to knock each other off the domes with a puffy stick.

Here is Gwyneth at the picnic playing soccer with some soldiers.

Corina got her face painted.

One day I was upstairs cleaning and throwing down the dirty clothes to go to the laundry room. I didn't know Aurora was making a huge bed in the middle of the living room with all the blankets. ha ha. They had the best time with that. Here they are in the bed.

I told them to pretend like they were sleeping. Gwyneth couldn't stop smiling at the camera though.

One day there was a butterfly in the yard and it was very friendly. They caught it in this bottle (that had a bigger hole in the side) and stuck flowers in there. Aurora thought she was so cool to get to carry the bottle with the butterfly in it. They were really excited about that.

Here is the fathers day pic I took of Mark and the girls. Everyone looked so cute on their way to church.

And last but not least.... We have two cats and they are very tolerant. They let Corina and Aurora put little crowns on them and all of that. The other day Aurora came running down the stairs and said Lily looks so pretty mom. They had dressed her up in a bride build a bear outfit. She didn't seem to mind at all. I had to take a picture.

As for me this week I have my first Dr. appointment on the big base here where I will deliver. I will be 37 weeks this week. It's not going to be long now.

Have a great week.

Super Secret Fairy Princess Spies

2011-06-05T11:22:00.000-07:00

It was a pretty creative week for us this week. I don't know how many times the girls played with playdough this week and made sculptures. On Thursday the girls decided to play dress up. They wanted masks and we even made big wings out of posterboard. I didn't get a picture of the wings but here are the girls with their masks. Aurora did a really good job coloring her mask. If you want to make one here is the website. There are lots of other cool things on the site too. Little fairies and dolls you can make and color. The butterfly masks are at the bottom though. http://www.pheemcfaddell.com/ After they were done they pretended for a long time that they were super secret fairy princess spies. So cute!

Corina had been asking to go to the beach for a while but it was to cold everytime Mark was off. So she asked and we finally went. I got online and looked up the best beaches in the UK and found one that about an hour and 30 min away. It was called Holkham beach and it was right on the North Sea. (It seems like we should have seen a Viking ship or a sea serpent there or something but we didn't) I also read that it was the place they filmed the last scene in Shakespeare in Love where Gwyneth Paltrow is on the beach after the ship wreck.

The beach was beautiful. It even had sand dunes that you could climb and there were people riding their horses on the beach. It was super windy that day though. I posted a few pictures from the trip. Down below is a smilebox I made will more picture if you want to watch that.

Here are the girls on the beach.

Gwyneth got cold.

We took our stroller on the beach it was a little rough but I'm glad that we did. Anway there are 2 konked out girls in the stroller.

Here is the Inn that is right by the beach. It was beautiful

Personalize a digital scrapbook

Today Mark had a game in Essex. His team won. The girls and I stayed home and recooped from our day at the beach. Everyone woke up late today.

I hope everyone has a great week.

Bubbles Rediscovered!

2011-05-30T12:33:00.000-07:00

Well the last few weeks were ok here and then it has been back down in the 50's here and windy. Sometimes it gets back up in the 60's. Hopefully we will get some summer feeling weather outside soon.

For Easter in their Easter baskets the kids got the no spill bubble containers. It's almost like they have rediscovered bubbles. They blow bubbles for each other everyday. I even had a bubble maker stashed away for sometime special and we went ahead and got it out. They love it! I don't know how long it will last though because they play with it until the batteries motor runs down. I did have a video of the girls playing with the bubble machine but it wouldn't download so you will have to check out the picture below instead.

Here is Gwyneth playing with the bubble machine.

We went shopping this week at the big shopping center that is right by us. We were going to go out and go to a site but it was too cold and windy. Anyway here are some pictures I took at the Mothercare (Like Babies R Us) store. Here are the girls riding on the Thomas the Train ride that was there.

One day Corina came down the stairs and she had used her makeup and made herself look like a cat. Then Aurora wanted to be a cat too of course. After that they put on scarves for tails and pretended to be cats. Meow.

Tonight the girls wanted to make dessert. They made fruit salad. Here is Aurora cutting us a banana.

Corina snuck a piece of fruit.

Here is the finished result. Yum! Good job girls!

As for me I feel like it's crunch time. I'm 32 weeks so I have 8 weeks or less before the baby is born. (Yes I'm counting I don't go over 40 weeks!) My due date is the 25th of July. Not long after that is will be time to start school again and Gwyneth's birthday is on the 16th of August. So I better plan as much as I can now before the ball starts rolling.

I hope everyone has a great week.

2011-05-18T08:23:00.000-07:00

This week was a very long week. Mark had to work 12 days straight so we were home a lot this week. I did have the van a few times this week and got some really good practice driving in England though. One day we went to the park on the base and I took this video.

I thought it was so funny. Corina is whipping her hair, Aurora is doing the same thing Corina is doing and Gwyneth is wishing she had long hair to do the same. ha ha.

We also finished up our first week of out Dave Ramsey thing with Corina. She did her work and realized that she is going to get paid real money to do her work.

One big thing that happened this week was I realized how fast Aurora is learning. She was jumping on the trampoline the other day and just started counting and she counted all the way to 30. We found a little dry erase board with letters and numbers on it and you can practice writing on it and then erase it. Aurora was pointing to most of the letters and saying the letter sounds. I have to say that I really have to that Leap Frogs Letter Factory for that. She loves those movies. Plus she has been wanting to do school when I do it with Corina. As for Corina we are finishing up school. We will be doing it for a few more weeks after the kids in the US get out. I told her this year we could start after her birthday. I don't feel to bad though because the kids in England don't get out until about the middle of July.

Anyway enjoy our silly park video and have a good week.

Our Big Trip

2011-05-08T08:17:00.000-07:00

We had a pretty good week this week. Mark was off for most of the week so we were able to hang out a lot which was nice. One night he let me go to the movies while he watched the kids. He took them to the McDonald's play place while I was at the theater. Here are some pics of them there that he took.

This is a random picture. Me and my girls love black olives. We eat them all the time. They are also good for putting on your fingers.

These are pictures from our trip to London this week. I had a student that came over to London and we met up with her. It's so nice when someone is here that you know from back home. We drove to Greenwich and picked her up and then found our parking spot. Then we walked out to where the river cruise docks. We rode the boat down to the Tower of London and then we walked the (very long) path that runs up and down the Thames River. It's a really nice walk.

This is Gwyneth on the boat.

Aurora on the boat in her cute little hat.

Corina on the boat. Tower bridge is in the background.

Corina on the boat with the Tower of London in the background.

Corina is walking around outside the Tower of London.

Aurora

Gwyneth.

Mark and I outside the Tower of London.

Corina with the Tower of London to the left and Tower Bridge to the right.

This is a picture of what London Bridge looks like today. (It's a little disappointing.) They said on the cruise that the one before this one is in a museum in AZ.

Approaching Tower Bridge on the boat.

Our family pic on the boat. Someone said that this looked like John Lennon behind us. What do you think.

Hope everyone had a great week.

Just a regular week.

2011-05-01T07:48:00.000-07:00

It's been a pretty regular week for us here. The kids in England had the first part of the week off and then were off for the Royal Wedding. I looked out the window that morning and not a sole was out. Maybe one lone walker but other than that I'm pretty sure everyone was glued to their TVs here. It was sort of an accident but we had heart pancakes that morning. (we didn't have enough batter to make 4 big waffles but enough for 4 little pancakes so I told Corina it was in celebration of the wedding. ha ha.)

A few months ago we started paying Corina for little jobs she's been doing around the house. I have never seen a girl so eager to empty the dish washer. I say, "Corina do you want to empty the dishwasher or do you want me to?" She says, " I will mom! You better not empty the dishwasher! I'm going to!" It's so funny. Actually we got the Dave Ramsey kit for kids. It's pretty cute and I know that Corina is going to learn a ton from it. Me too. She is really excited about doing it.

Mark is off this week so I know we are going to be doing some stuff. Plus we are focusing on the end of school for us. Then we just wait for the baby and try to have as much fun as possible.

Well that is all for this week.

Have a great week everyone.

Easter

2011-04-24T07:06:00.000-07:00

We had a great Easter. It was beautiful outside. Yeah! Usually it seems like it is always freezing on Easter and rainy. On Good Friday we dyed eggs. We have dyed eggs on Good Friday ever since I was a kid so I carried on the tradition with my kids. Aurora and Corina had a good time dyeing eggs. I had some boxes of dye and so Corina got her own box and Aurora had her own. It worked out wonderfully.

Easter morning the girls were so excited. Especially Aurora. Her voice was almost a squeal every time she found and egg. She is 3 this year so she is really able to enjoy it. Gwyneth was really just excited about the toys she got in her Easter basket and she just wanted to check them out. Mark tried to get her to look for eggs but she kept going back to her toys in her Easter basket.

On a bitter sweet note Corina asked this morning if the Easter Bunny was real and if I got the gifts and eggs. I asked her what she thought. She said that she thought that I had gotten them and then she asked me if I did. I had to say yes. She had asked me the night before and I told her I would tell her later. At least she didn't ask about Santa. I'm sure she will figure it out soon enough. Anyway then she was asking why they had the Easter Bunny so I told her we would look up the history of the Easter Bunny. Also that she had better not tell Aurora that the Easter Bunny isn't real.

So I'm posting one picture this week and then I made a slide show of the rest with smile box. This week it was so nice outside. It was almost 80. The girls wanted to have a water fight outside and wanted to know if they could put on their bathing suits. I thought might as well. Actually we all got a little tan from being outside this week.

The girls getting a tan in the hot English weather.

Here are all of our Easter Pics. I put them in a super cute slide show by smilebox.

Another free digital slideshow by Smilebox

I hope everyone else has a great Easter too and has a great rest of the week.

A Good Week.

2011-04-18T17:06:00.000-07:00

This week was a pretty good week. It seems like we did a ton of stuff.

Sunday was my birthday. I told Mark that I really didn't want much for my birthday and I really didn't want to do much. He couldn't believe that I didn't really want to do anything. The day of my birthday he secretly invited the neighbors over for cake and then he had a baby sitter lined up and we went to the movies. I was surprised. It was a really good day.

We are having a little spring break this week from our homeschooling. I got all of our 3rd grade homeschool stuff the other day. Corina is already excited about 3rd grade and me too. She is going to be learning a lot of cool stuff next year. Plus Aurora is going to be starting some things and she is excited about having her own school books.

Tonight we went for a walk. It was super nice outside and all the flowers are out. It was so pretty. We walked around the pond in the back of our house and fed the ducks and swans. The girls and Mark and I had a good time.

So now to start the picture lineup.

Here is Gwyneth at the beginning of the week. Corina left her watercolors out and Gwyneth took advantage. She had a good time watercoloring.

Here is Mark and Aurora coming off the slide at the park. The parks on the bases are great.

Gwyneth getting a shoulder ride. The cherry trees are all in bloom here. It makes me think of the Cherry Blossom Festival in DC.

So it seems inevitable that every time we have spaghetti that there will not be a spaghetti explosion. Every time we have it Gwyneth eats it like it's the best thing ever. I guess it must be to her.

Here are a picture of the swans (and the little duck) that we fed.

Here is Gwyneth feeding the swans.

She was pretty excited about it.

Here are Mark and the girls by the lake. It was such a nice night.

So hopefully next week I will have some awesome pictures. Not only is it Easter but here is St. George's Day. They have things going on all weekend at different places all over England. Festivals and jousting events so that should be really interesting.

Have a great week.

Finally Spring!!!

2011-04-10T12:42:00.000-07:00

It had been so nice here lately. It really had been such a treat. The kids have been able to play outside and we have finally been able to get out and got to some more sites. Over the winter we had tried to go to a castle called Bolsover. We almost couldn't get out of the parking lot because it was so snowy up there. So we decided to go yesterday. They had a special day where period actors were there riding horses and acting. Also the weekend before we went to a birthday party. They had hired a face painter. She did a really good job. But first of all in the picture line up is some of Mark's promotion pictures. He worked so hard on getting promoted. I'm so proud of him. They let the wives take off the old rank and put on the new rank.

Me putting on Mark's new rank.

Corina and Aurora with their faces painted at the birthday party.

Here is our trip to Bolsover Castle.

This was part of the play that we saw there. Corina got to pet this horse. It even had it's hair braided. The girls thought that was cool.

Head kiss.

Corina and Aurora in one of the exhibits. This is a portrait of the king and queen at Bolsover.

Family pic. If you look through the doors you can see the valley behind.

View from the castle.

Little Gwyneth in front of a big castle.

You could get on a wooden horse and try on riding clothes.

Gwyneth at the end of the day. I'm pretty sure we were just in the car for about 5 minutes and then she was asleep.

That's all for this week. I hope everyone had a great week.

And the verdict is.....

2011-03-14T13:56:00.000-07:00

It's a boy!!! We finally had our sonogram today and found out. I don't think we could have waited anymore. The suspense was about to kill us. Now it's time to get some boy stuff. I almost won't know what to do with a boy after having 3 girls. I'm sure we will figure it out though. ha ha. We have our name picked out since we thought Corina was a boy. ha! Wesley Carter. That is our grandma's maiden names put together.

Here is a smilebox creation I made. It's just of our weekend. Smilebox is so wonderful I think. They have such cute layout. It's really just digital scrapbooking. Just download your pictures drag them over to the smilebox and then drag them into the layout you picked. So EASY!

Digital scrapbooking design created with Smilebox

So a few weeks ago I posted on facebook that I had just read The Magicians Nephew by C.S. Lewis. (the same guy who wrote Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.) When I was in Jr. High I read A Wrinkle in Time and I couldn't put it down. I was SO into that book. I felt the same way when I was reading this. It's the very first book in the Narnia series. I really love that series and this made everything come together. Anyway I thought that after I was done that I should read it to Corina. She really likes the movies. So everynight we have been reading a chapter in The Magicians Nephew. She can not miss a night of it. I remember then I was younger my mom read to me Fried Green Tomatoes. (If you haven't read that book you should. It's so much better than the movie.) It was a special time and now Corina and I are doing it. She loves it. We only have 2 more chapters to read so we'd better find another story to read soon.

Tea Party is the Theme

2011-03-09T00:30:00.000-08:00

Last week I'm pretty sure that the girls had a tea party everyday. We have had our little tea party set for a while. It's just a little plastic Cinderella tea set that Corina got for Christmas one year. Well Aurora has rediscovered it. The first day Aurora and Corina played with the tea set and got it all set up and played with Aurora's fake food. By the end of the week they were using water in the pitcher for tea and real food. They had a really good time. One time Mark went upstairs and found Aurora having a tea party in our room on the floor at the foot of the bed. I guess she thought a smaller sister would not bother her there. he he. Finally at the end of the week I decided to take some pictures. I think this was the last tea party. You can really only have so many tea parties I guess.

Here is the tea party group.

Corina and Auror enjoying their tea (water) Pinkies out!

Corina daintily drinking her tea.

Here is Gwyneth. She thinks she a big girl having a tea party too and sitting in the big chair at the counter.

Other than tea parties I have been preparing for homeschool next year and trying to figure out what to buy. Also, next week we go for out sonogram appointment to see what we are having. My neighbor says she thinks it a boy. Everyone she knows is having boys so maybe it will spread to me. My friend said she thinks it a girl. She said we have 3 girls might as well have one more. We will see.

Have a great week.

Might be Spring

2011-02-27T16:14:00.000-08:00

Our daffodils finally bloomed. Here is a picture of them. The girls were so excited. I was too. It feels like Spring is finally here. All the flowers are starting to bloom, the days are getting warmer, and the sun is starting to come up earlier and go down later.

We had a really nice warm day last week with out rain. I love this picture. It's the girls examining an earthworm. They were finding them and then transplanting them to the flower garden.

Here is Aurora on the trampoline. Gotta love static electricity.

Gwyneth was excited about the balls. This was a lucky find in the garage. The person that lived here before left them here.

Last but not least Gwyneth turned 18 months on Valentines Day. I did a little scrapbook page of her. Here it is.

Also if you didn't notice I changed my background and header. Let me know what you think.

Have a great week.

The Dentist and some other stuff.

2011-02-20T15:44:00.000-08:00

This week we went on a homeschool field trip to the dentist's office that see's the people on the bases nearest us. It was really nice. They had a powerpoint for the kids and a goody bag. They took them on a tour of the clinic and even checked their teeth really quick.

This is Corina in the lab where they make dentures and crowns and things like that. See all the teeth molds behind her? We even got to see how they make gold teeth.

Here is Corina getting her teeth checked. No Cavities!

They even checked Aurora's teeth. She didn't want to get in the chair so this was the next best thing. No Cavities for Aurora either. Yeah!

On a different note my daffodils are about to bloom. If we had one warm day here I'm pretty sure they would. We already saw some in bloom when we were driving the other day. It's still pretty rainy and cloudy here but it's starting to be nice. Spring is on it's way here. Last year when we came there was a festival in York called the Jorvik Viking Festival. We missed it though and we missed it again this year. It's going on all this week though. maybe next year we will be able to go. Recently Mark had been working super hard at work. The vikings ruled England until 1066 when when William the Conqueror took the throne at the Battle of Hastings. In Corina's homeschool curriculum she has to learn about the beginning history of England and why the English language is the way it is. That was part of our lesson the other day. How lucky is it that we have actually been to the spot where that took place and I could actually show her pictures of us there. That is so amazing!!!!

Last but not least Gwyneth thought she would be a little mischievous and draw on the wall with a pencil the other day. I have to say that under the circumstances she did and interesting job. It kind of looks like she made a creepy face. that must have been the mischief coming out. Click on the picture to make it bigger if you can't see it.

Well, that's all for this week. I hope everyone has a great week.

Painting fun

2011-02-14T11:04:00.000-08:00

We are always doing something crafty or artsy at our house. We are always glueing or cutting or coloring or drawing. I realized the other day I hadn't gotten out the paints in a while when Corina asked if she could paint. Sure why not, let's get out the paints. Gwyneth loved painting. It was one of the few times she had painted. I knew she would eventually end up painting some part of her body so I took her shirt off. I think that made the experience even more fun. Here are some pics.

Gwyneth painted about 5 pictures. She was having a really good time as you can tell. She looks pretty proud of herself too.

Well,no cooking adventures this week. I have been watching Barefoot Contessa when I can. The good thing about watching and living in England and watching that show is that she tells what the measurements are that I'm used to in stead of saying so many ml of this or that. Although it wouldn't be that hard to figure out but it is convenient.

Also I love checking my stats on blogger. You can check and see how many people have read your blog and from where and what country. I'm coming upon 1000 views for this blog. I just think it's a really cool feature. Well that's all for now.

Have a great week.

One year Anniversary

2011-02-09T08:50:00.000-08:00

First of all let me say that we have been in England for one year as of February 9th! I can't believe it. It seems like a year has passed and then it doesn't. So happy one year anniversary to us.

Last week we went to the library on base and I saw the movie Julie & Julia. I hadn't found a good time to watch it and I didn't think that Mark really wanted to watch it. The girls and I have been watching the cooking channel too. Corina and Aurora think the show Unwrapped is really cool. Corina and I like watching Cupcake Wars and the cake shows that are on. I like watching almost any cooking show really. So, Corina wanted to have a night where we just stay up together and do girly things. I told her that I had to watch that movie before it was time for it to be returned to the library. We stayed up late and watched Julie & Julia together. I liked it and Corina did too. We both decided (and I'm pretty sure I knew this one already) that we are never going to be cooking a live lobster and that we are never going to crowd our mushrooms again so they can brown properly, but especially the lobster. Here is the lobster scene from that movie. So funny! ( as I post this Corina is still laughing about this scene. )

The day after watching this movie Corina was in a cooking mood and she made this huge fruit salad for everyone. She even cut up the grapes.

To change the subject it was SO windy here. Corina and I saw a woman flying a kite that looked like a ship. It was really cool. We have a little kite so we decided that it would be a good family thing if we went and flew it. We have a huge hill right outside our house at the park across the way. We went up the hill and it was so ridiculously windy! It was almost to windy for the kite! In the end Aurora was flying the kite and the wind whipped it out of her hands and the kite flew down the hill and landed in the park so we took that as a hint. We hadn't been to the park in a while because it has been yucky out. The kids had a good time. Here are some pics. Also one random pic of Gwyneth.

The hill.

Flying the kite.

It really was windy.

Corina on the zip line at the park.

Aurora on the slide.

Other than all of that I have FINALLY been able to do one of my hobbies. I was able to make some Valentines cards and 2 scrapbook pages. I love it. It's like therapy. I usually upload my work on my scrapbook/card blog and enter it in the CPS and Pencil Lines blog challenge websites. If you want to check out my work here is the link. http://3-graces.blogspot.com/ or click here.

Well that is all for this week. I hope everyone has a great week.

Good Weekend

2011-01-31T05:41:00.000-08:00

Here is another post for this week. I usually don't make posts so close together but we had a good weekend this weekend so I thought I would post some pics. I was thinking just the other day that we hadn't really taken any pictures in a while. So below is a digital scrapbook I posted. Check it out.

Make your own free digital scrapbook

Have a great week.

2011-01-29T13:15:00.000-08:00

Well we have been laying low for a while I guess. No English country side or city adventures for a while. It's been pretty yucky and damp outside though. We had one fluke week of weather that felt like the beginning of spring and now it is gone. However we have had pansies in our backyard blooming and growing all winter long. Also, we have some bulbs coming up.

Today Gwyneth said her first little sentence. She said, "Moma look." She has really been saying look just for a little while. She has also been saying, "this". She also knows when she has went to the bathroom in her diaper so I guess potty training isn't that far off. Aurora is getting a pretty big vocabulary. She says fragile, mystery (I'm pretty sure that's from watching Scooby Doo). She says Holy Mole Guacamole. It cracks me up every time she says it.

Last night Mark worked late so the girls and I watched a pretty cool movie on the Disney Channel. It was called Avalon High. It was about King Arthur but in todays time with a Disney twist of course. Mark and I have always loved the King Arthur story. In England about 5 hours away from us there is a place called Tintagel. It's a place that looks like it is right out of a story book. A castle right by the sea. They think that is the place where the King Arthur story originated and they believe that he actually lived there. Hopefully when the weather gets warmer we will be able to go there.

Have a great week.

The Big Announcement

2011-01-23T07:20:00.000-08:00

Well Mark and I made our big announcement this week. We are expecting baby Gilley number 4. I went a few days ago and had my first sonogram. (Below is a profile pic.) No they couldn't tell what the sex of the baby will be yet but we will find out in about 6 weeks. I hope we can hold out until then. Most of you know that we have 3 girls already. It would be pretty convenient to have another girl because we have all the girls stuff already but I know that Mark would really like to have a boy; plus, he won't be alone in a house full of girls. ha ha. My due date is July 25th so we will see.

So other than that things have be pretty normal around here. Today Aurora helped me make lentil soup. She loves to help in the kitchen. Poor little Gwyneth was trying her best to help too but Mark was nice and held her and carried her around while Aurora and I had our mommy daughter time. Aurora is getting so big too. Im pretty sure that by the end of the summer she might be wearing some size 6 stuff. She can't wear her 4t pants anymore.

This week I tried to go through everyone's clothes and get out all the stuff that was too little or that no one was wearing. If we do have a boy someone will be inheriting a lot of girl clothes!

Gwyneth is growing fast too. She is starting to talk a lot and she looks at me like I know you know what I'm saying mom. I just talk to her like normal and pretend that I do. She is still pinching Aurora and smiles almost every time she does it. She has also realized as have we that she is a pretty good climber.

Corina is doing well at her homeschool. I love it. I do have to say I do miss her having the little parties at school and doing all the seasonal things but we can do those at home. Actually the other day she made a mini heart pillow. She did a pretty good job. She is wanting to make some more so maybe next week I will post some pics of some of those.

Have a good week everyone.

Holidays and Beyond

2011-01-12T12:36:00.000-08:00

I am finally posting something after the holidays. We had a great Christmas. However, these first two pictures were taken before Christmas. Mark really likes to make pizza and the girls love to help. Aurora is getting to the stage where she really

wants to help in the kitchen. Every time I'm in there cooking she is in there wanting to help. So here is a picture of her making her pizza. I think that the pizza originally got a tear in it but it was all good because it turned out looking like a heart. the girls LOVED it. So here is Aurora putting the sauce on the heart pizza. She looks so proud of herself. The next picture is the finished pizza with all the toppings.

Here is a picture of our tree on Christmas day. It looks way better than the previous picture of our tree. It looks better with presents around it. These are also presents from grandma and grandpa. Not just us. However the more kids you have the more presents you have I guess. We had a really good Christmas. Corina said about 7 times that it was the best Christmas ever. She even said it again yesterday.
The day after Christmas we went to a really nice Christmas party. We could even bring the kids so that was a bonus for us. Everyone had a great time.

Next is just some pics of the kids. This is Aurora blowing bubbles. My girls love doing this at the sink. I did it with my mom when I was a kid and then did it at grandma's too. The neighbor girl even came over one time and blew bubbles. It's fun to see how many bubbles you can blow until you have a bubble mountain.
The last picture is of Corina taking a quick break to pose for the camera. She was working on her school. Homeschool is going really good. We both really like it.
As for Gwyneth she is learning so much. I know she understands a ton of what everyone is saying. It'f pretty funny. When Aurora was little she was a pincher and a biter. Now Gwyneth is starting to pinch. (Mainly Aurora) I was telling Aurora how she used to me a pincher and biter just the other day and she could hardly believe it. I guess she is just getting her payback.

Well that is all for now.

Have a great week.

The Girls

2010-12-19T23:42:00.000-08:00

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.

2010-12-11T19:48:00.000-08:00

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.

2010-12-05T01:06:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-15T00:21:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-11T08:56:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-11-01T01:22:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-28T12:38:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-23T04:31:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-11T05:38:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-10-06T15:21:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-23T14:57:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-15T07:51:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-09-06T15:08:00.001-07:00

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.

2010-08-30T15:17:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-09T03:45:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-02T04:37:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-24T01:58:00.000-07:00

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. :)

2010-07-19T04:48:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-11T15:35:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-07-04T16:27:00.000-07:00

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.