Merry Christmas!

So this Christmas was a first for us. It was the first time ever that we have spent Christmas just as our little family. No parents, grandparents, or siblings. Just our little family of five. While we missed our families, we also really enjoyed the (not-so)quiet time. It felt very cozy... although, Christmas Eve dinner just wasn't the same...

I tried to make as many of the family favorites as I could handle with a two week old! The boys helped me make Grandma rolls, there was oyster stew, faux potato bologna, Maurine's jello salad, Savage corn, and dairy free Christmas cookies for little e. Good enough!

After the family service in the Ely Cathedral (complete with a donkey in church, and lots of snow outside church) we got ready for bed. First we had to lay out cookies and milk for Santa. Hope he likes dairy-free cookies!

Then E read the Night Before Christmas to the boys.

(Notice the new Christmas pjs thanks to Grandma L!) In the morning the boys couldn't wait to run down stairs and check out their stockings... to see if Santa really did arrive! Since we didn't have a fireplace in England, we left the stockings hanging on the hall tree right inside the front door. Santa figured it out! (The boys were a little worried about this...)

N's big present from Santa was this HUGE lego set. He couldn't wait to put it together!

e's present was this really cool bike / scooter thing. You sit on it like a bike, but it has no pedals like a scooter, so it forces you to balance. Mom and Dad thought it was really cool and that e would love it... not so much. Well, even Santa strikes out on gifts some times!

After breakfast it was lego building time. All the boys at the table... building legos! Just check out that concentration!

This was our first (probably of many) really lego Christmas. N got his big truck / trailer set, and we each got a little car... and N got another car and an airplane. Lots of legos!

e's favorite gift of the day was "Hullabaloo," a super fun follow the leader type game. He played it all day long... often just by himself! Crazy kid!

And finally, the lego truck / trailer set. It took him all day long, but N did it almost entirely by himself. Yup, he's our kid! Merry Christmas!

Snow Day!

So, on the first day E was supposed to go back to work for his paternity leave (which was also the boys' last day of school before Christmas break) we woke up to this! An English winter wonderland!

No work for E and no school for the boys! Extra day of paternity leave and Christmas break. Snow like this is so unusual in England, that they don't even have snow plows. Seriously, they can't plow the roads. You just have to wait for it to melt. This creates an interesting driving situation, so they just cancel everything. Work, cancelled. School, cancelled. Never mind that it was just 3 inches of snow... Bring on the fun!

It took us a quite a while to locate all our snow gear to actually get the boys out the door. (I decided to stay inside the nice warm house with the 11 day old...) Notice that he is not wearing snow boots (not enough snow in England to warrant buying them) but Wellies with two pairs of socks on instead!

Our boys have never really spent much time playing in the snow, so we had to start with the basics... like how to make a good snow angel...

and how to have a proper snowball fight...

and how to make the "perfect" snowman! (Complete with hat and carrot nose!)

Brrrrrr... it's getting cold out there. Time to come inside for some hot cocoa and marshmallows. What a great way to start Christmas break!

It's time...

So yeah. I haven't been blogging. Or uploading any photos. It's been a busy 8 months with having a baby and moving and all. I sort of decided to give up blogging. I mean, do I really need anything more to suck up my time? But then I started looking at some of my pictures from Europe, and realized I need to get the trips and photos recorded before I forget all about them. So this is now officially my travel journal. I'm assuming none of you are still reading this, but just in case you are... sorry!

Tea with Santa

One of the things I really like about N's school, is all the community activities they have. One we joined in on before Christmas was "Tea with Santa," where families get to come and have tea (early dinner) with Santa (or Father Christmas as he's often referred to here.)

It was fun to get to spend some quality time talking to Santa (we had him all to ourselves for quite a while!) without having to stand in any long mall lines. Thank you N's school!

However, not all of us were excited about meeting Santa. Here the elf is showing us into Santa's room... Notice e's excitement!

But, surely once we get up to Santa, my extremely outgoing middle child will get excited, right?

Yep, look at that excitement on his face! What, you can't see little e? Oh yeah, that would be because he refused to go anywhere near Santa at this point! (Although, to be fair, he was sort of a creepy looking Santa... what's with the fur over the eyes dude?)

Finally, at the very end of our conversation we got e to go stand next to daddy for a picture. Now, there's a happy child! I think C even looks happier and he's not even two weeks old!

For the record, when Santa asked what they would like for Christmas this year, N replied "a train." Shocking. And e replied, well nothing. He also refused to talk. Santa also wanted to make sure he had the boys on his list, so he asked them their house number... N recited our phone number, which is really much more impressive because it's like 20 numbers long!

Anyway, we got the picture, even with a scowling e!

And Baby C makes five!

Welcome to the family C! Let the chaos begin...

I went into labor with C at 2 am two days before his due date (the other boys were each only one day before... guess C just had to be different!) Around 5 I woke E and we headed to the hospital... where C didn't feel like making his appearance until 10:22. Yes, an eight hour labor, which seemed excruciatingly long, especially since e only took four! Part of the problem was that I was battling a head cold, and so couldn't breath... sort of an important part of delivering a baby. I actually walked into L & D with my own box of kleenex. Never a good sign!

He weighed just under eight pounds... but lost almost a pound in his first two weeks. He did finally gain all that back, but never has looked quite as chubby as he did in these first pictures!

I think that is the ugliest hospital hat ever, by the way.

That afternoon the boys got to come in and visit their new little brother, however a package from Grandma had arrived the same day, and they were much more interested in finding out what was in the package than meeting C. We eventually got them to sit down for a photo. e's expression says it all! I'm still not sure he knows what to make of being a big brother, he keeps telling us Baby Cow is his baby brother, not C!

After only one night in the hospital (thank goodness...) we were headed home. Um, yeah, we sort of forgot to bring that newborn insert thing for the car seat, so we just rolled up a blanket instead. Ooops, it's been a while since we've had a newborn!

Daddy bringing him into the house for the first time, and after school we let N hold him. He is very gentle with him, and a very concerned (probably soon turning to controlling) big brother!

Just a couple of days after bringing C home, we decided to get a Christmas card photo of all three boys... not an easy task. These are what we ended up with. We have #1, also known as "strangle your baby brother"

And photo #2, "squish your baby brother."

We decided to go with squishing!

And here is C with his blanket and bear at one week. We will take this picture every month until he turns one. We did the same with N and e with an Alaskan moose and black bear, so we thought the Union Jack bear was appropriate!

One Thankful Turkey

I'm cruising through these posts, and am all the way to Thanksgiving now! (Good thing November was a bit of a slow month...) Anyway, we had a little project going throughout the month at our house.

Right at the end of October we had our first parent / teacher conference with N's teacher. She told us one of the things he needed to work on was his scissor skills... how will he ever get into collage! They're also doing lots of handwriting at school, so I stole this idea from a friend of mine to help with both.

We wrote the things we were thankful for on feathers (that N cut out) throughout the month. N kept coming up with pretty creative things to write, like "Fun 2 Play", an indoor playground near by, and airplanes. One day he asked me what I was thankful for, and I said, "my friends." He took the liberty of putting that on a feather for me, and he wrote, "N, e, Daddy." Apparently I don't have any friends outside this house! All month long we kept asking e what he was thankful for, and all he would say is, "Baby Cow." Baby Cow is a little plastic cow that he is completely attached to. Apparently e loves him more than us!

Anyway, it turned out really well, despite my horrible artistic skills. We sort of missed the turkey in the window when we took it down!

Conversations with N and e

Earlier this week, little e and I were having lunch. It was just the two of us, and e wanted to know where N and Daddy were. We talked about that N eats lunch at school now (he just started full days this term... it's still a little rocky!) And then I said daddy was at work... here's the rest of the conversation.

e: Is he flying?

me: No, daddy is in the tower today.

e: Oh

me: We've been to the tower, haven't we?

e: Yeah, I like the tower.

me: What's your favorite thing about going to the tower?

e: Eating. It's my favorite thing to do.

Just so you know, while in the tower we get to see jets land and take off. We have seen cargo planes fly by, seen a helicopter land, and hear the air traffic controllers talk on the radio. But e just cares about the food we take up for dinner... yup, he's got my genes!

As a comparison, N came home from school the same day super excited because they were building an airport in their classroom (complete with a walk-through security check!) He told me he had made an airplane for it in school that day. But he said it still needed, "a runway, taxiway, parking spots, and a control tower!" I said maybe he could help make those the next day. His eyes got really big and he said, "I won't have enough time in free learning time to do all that!" Yup, one kid loves airports as much as the other loves his dinner.

On another note, yesterday morning N said to me, "Mommy, I have a project for you!" He then preceded to pull the overflowing laundry basket out of his room. "Laundry!" Oh, lucky me. N, I don't think laundry can be a project, because a project is something you start, work on for a time, and actually finish. The laundry is never finished... never!