4th of July and more stay at home fun.

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.

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

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!

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.  

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

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.