Going for a Ride

The weather started to warm up enough that the snow was finally melting. Since we'd all been cooped up in the house for several days, Dad got the kids out to go for a ride.

Addison got to try out her new wheels and she did great!!! She looks so grown up now as she was just mastering that little tricycle and now she's two wheeling it (well with stablizers) but look at her go!

A Miracle of a Christmas Day

Christmas morning!!!! What a wonderful day, yet I was still feeling quite poorly and Kevin started picking up some of my symptoms, so we could have been a little better off. But all was good because Santa came bearing lovely gifts for two lovely little children who for the most part were very good little boys and girls.

Addison's big gift this year was a brand new bicycle with stablizers. Now she had asked Santa for a pink pony and as soon as she walked in the living room she about broke out in tears to see that it wasn't there. We explained to her that we visited with Santa and asked him to bring her a new bicycle since that would have been a lot easier for us to bring back to American than a pony. She still didn't like that but after awhile I think she started to like it.

Addie also got 4 pairs of Disney princess shoes which she proudly modeled for us.

Safety first when it comes to opening gifts...gotta love the new helmet!

Santa brought a video of our favorite book - The Gruffalo by Juila Donaldson.

Harrison's big gifts were a Buzz Lightyear action figure (who talks and moves his head and everything) along with a Duplo Lego Rock Quarry site.

To make this yet a very English Christmas morning, I mustered up enough energy to make my very first batch of scones. I had gotten a recipe from a friend and knew we had to have something special for breakfast. They are wonderfully dense biscuits and true to tradition we topped them with Cornish Clotted Cream (will give you an instant heart attack it's so rich) and then topped with strawberry jam!!! Ohhhhh soooo good!

Mommy and Daddy got to open some gifts after awhile. The kids got me a new digital thermometer since my other manual one failed me twice horribly. I also got a new dress from Monsoon, a Scottish slate cheese board with fancy little cutting knives and most special to me was a framed set of pictures of scenes around Stamford in the winter time. It instantly brought me to tears as in a few short months, this wonderful place that I am living in will all become just memories and pictures on the wall to remind of them.

Trying to be very thoughtful, I found some very special whiskey drinking glasses for Kevin as sharing a his Glenlivet Scottish bottle with friends has been fun. Unfortunately I didn't realize that they were really meant for more connoisseur in whiskey tastings...I thought they looked cute and ordered the all the way from Scotland and they just barely made it for Christmas with the weather. Other than that I got him "The Hangover" and "Just Dance 2" for the Wii (more for me but I thought I could get him to do it with me.)

Finally the kids dug into their stockings filled with little pressies and sweet treats. We so love these special stockings that Grandma Sally homemade for the kids.

Last year we forgot to break open our Christmas crackers so I wanted to make sure we used them this year. Christmas crackers are totally British. They are like little tubes filled with trinkets and a paper crown that you usually wear all during Christmas dinner. I would have brought home loads to the US but they are considered explosives so they aren't allowed on planes.

The kids enjoy their hats for about 2 minutes and want to go back to playing. But we needed to get dressed and moving around as we were graciously invited over to the Beales' for a few Christmas nibbles. With the weather being so bad, Debbie's parents weren't able to make it up for their planned Christmas celebration and us not feeling well with my flu bug, we all so appreciated having the other to bring up their holiday spirits. It wasn't the Christmas we planned but it was lovely and better than we could have ever hoped.

This lovely family has made us feel at home and taken us in as part of their family and them all into our family. Not only are we neighbors but the best of friends through out all the ages.

We had quite a spread of goodies to nibble on and enjoy together. I felt so bad that we didn't bring anything over to contribute as I just couldn't prepare much, but they were so wonderful to us.

We shared some gifts with each other. We got them the Apples to Apples game that we all have enjoyed playing together so much over the past year.

Addison got the "Tummy Ache" game which her and Gems got right into playing.

And of course, Harrison got a little "Bobby's" outfit - British policeman!!!

We did have such a wonderful time with them, but we had to make our way home to call family back in the States and get dinner started. It took every last ounce of energy for us to visit with both sides of the family but it was nice to see them all. The kids got to open their gifts in front of Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Ryan and Aunt Lindsay via Skype so that was a treat. I felt awful that I wasn't able to get all our Christmas gifts lined up for everyone back home with the "sickness" sucking up that week and everything else that kept me busy before that.

Well, we attempted to prepare a nice Christmas dinner but then Kevin fell ill and had to lay down and I worked on finishing dinner for a very hungry family since we didn't eat a proper lunch while not feeling well. We did have a lovely Christmas as we made to best of it as we could but by the end of the day we were all tired and sick and just ready to dream of little sugar plums dancing in our heads.

A Christmas Eve at Home

It's always been a tradition in my family to enjoy a nice big bowl of chili on Christmas Eve along with other snacky goodies. This usually takes place at my Grandma's house, but this year it was just the four of us. With me not feeling too well yet, Kevin thought he would make the chili this year and instead of a plain old recipe, he whipped out the ol' Jamie Oliver America book and decided to make Chili Con Carne.

Now while it was good, we ended up with a lot left over. I still had no appetite for anything and I think I ate too many shrimp cocktail ahead of time so I didn't eat much and the kids were having no part of it. They liked the snacky foods too much as well.

Instead of getting to go to Christmas Eve service and then the pub, we enjoyed a quiet evening at home. One big tradition at Christmas time in England is the presenting of various pantomimes, which are outrageous plays put on where the audience participates and the characters are all mixed up. Most of the time you go to a live show during the holidays, but all night they showed some on TV and we watched one about Aladdin. We and the children were all quite entertained.

We admired our Christmas tree which had quite a few gifts actually since Grandma and Grandpa Dea brought over pressies in October along with ones from Uncle Ryan and Aunt Lindsay that were brought back in October after Casey's wedding...plus there seemed to be quite a few for mommy and daddy for some reason or another under there.

The kids were getting quite anxious for Santa to come so they got their cookies out on our special Santa plate along with some milk and a big ol' carrot for Rudolph. Time for bed as Santa only comes when children are sleeping!!!

A De-abilitating Flu Bug

I guess I knew this was bound to happen to me as it has all happened before. I get pretty revved up for the holiday season and get myself all busy, but having a great time. But then I get too busy and don't take care of myself and the littlest of bugs takes me down. And this was no exception...I picked up the most de-abilitating flu bug! Now I don't know if it was swine flu or some other horrible version of it but I was literally secluded in my bed for 38 hours sleeping and downing codine laced cough syrup.

Addison had picked up bronchitus and needless to say when I went to the GP, he thought I did too. I got some antibiotics, but I couldn't breath without having to cough and my body ached and I just couldn't move.

Wednesday morning, Kevin knew I wasn't feeling well and asked if I wanted him to stay home. I never ask him to do that but I wasn't doing well. He told me he had to run in a start a couple of tests and then he would come home early, well I heard what he said but I wasn't moving out of my bed. Later he told me that he thought in saying that to me that I would at least make my way down the stairs to lay on the couch and be by the kids, but after I didn't come down he knew I was pretty bad and called into work. I did literally stay in bed for the next 38 hours and begged for NyQuil to just knock me out as sleeping was the only time it didn't hurt, except when I would wake up in a pool of sweat then be freezing.

I had so many plans to do before Christmas - make up cookie plates, write up my Christmas cards and more! This year was our last Christmas in England and we were actually going to be all on our own for the first time and doing it with just the four of us. We were going to the neighbors for a Christmas Eve party, go to the village church for the service, then the pub afterwards, but we didn't get to do any of it. It is probably a very good thing that we didn't plan on going back to the States for Christmas because #1 the snow shut everything down and we wouldn't have been able to fly out and #2 I was so horribly sick that travel wouldn't have been advisable.

This is the second time that I have gotten the de-abilitating flu just before Christmas...next year I'm getting the flu shot!!!!!!

And Down Came the Snow

Today it SNOWED!!!! It snowed a lot! This year in England it has been so crazy with our snow fall that it feels more like we are in the States. Even the neighbors are blaming us for all of it as it never snowed this much before we moved into town. Again it's madness here when it snows as there is NO means of removing the snow except for a couple plows in London, but there they have no where to put it. Essentially everything shuts down and unfortunately all the airports in England did end up shutting down or canceling loads of flights. Again this year the Eurostar canceling trains due to bad weather here and in France. Flash backs of last year kept running through my mind as it was exactly a year ago today that we attempted to get back from Paris after the Eurostar shut down. Crazy thing now is that in one week we are supposed to be going to Disneyland in Paris and I don't have a good feeling about things.

Now I wouldn't have gone out at all in this weather as it's just a death trap because people don't know how to drive when it snows 1" let alone several inches, but Addison had picked up a bug and I brought her to the GP.

The village was beautiful with all the snow.

Crazy enough I did take a picture of the roads while driving on them. I know I was silly but this is just amazing to see.

Frosty Morning

Most of our early snow has gone away but this morning we woke up to a beautiful site. A really heavy frost covered everything and everything looked so beautiful. Even the spider webs on my wheelie-bin.

The super nice thing about it being so cold this winter so far is that I can utilize the extra "freezer space" out my back door for all my Christmas cookies! My mom used to keep her cookies out in front porch of our old farm house which did the same thing, so I felt like I was at home!

Christmas Ornaments

Last weekend while Kevin and I were in London, Emily helped the kids make salt dough ornaments. Today they worked on decorating them.

Both of them worked very intently on them and surprised both Kevin and I on how well they both actually did on painting...we didn't know we had such talented little painters!

What a fine job they did...with a little help in the end from mom and dad!

Christmas Cookies and So Much more....

My Christmas Cookie Exchange was bigger and better than ever this year and I wanted to get so many people involved that I actually hosted one on Tuesday morning and one Thursday night. Everyone made such beautiful and wonderfully tasting goodies and I also got so wrapped up in visiting with everyone that I didn't get any pictures of everyone who came!!! I did happen to get a few pictures of my platters filled up with all the goodies that were made. This year not only did I get some new English traditions but learned so much from my friend Joanna who is originally from Poland. Joanna brought 3 different types of traditional Polish cakes which she usually doesn't follow or even have a recipe for so it was a stretch for her to get copies of them for us to recreate her goodies. Kelly Epley brought raspberry and white chocolate cookies which was one of the top of her 15 cookie recipes she tried when she was pregnant with one of her boys around Christmas time. My friend Nicki Billage brought Viennese fingers which is something her mum would traditionally make every year. Alison brought Nigella's original Rocky Road recipe as it is tradition for her to make every year for Grace's birthday which is just a couple weeks before Christmas. And Cheryl Scott was classic as she brought a delightful package of Maryland chocolate chip cookies since her kitchen is under construction (but she admitted that she doesn't bake anyways so she probably would have brought the same thing if her kitchen was functioning.)

These were platters of goodies for everyone to try filled with puppy chow, Chex mix, spritz cookies, peanut butter blossoms, peanut butter cookies, almond bark pretzels, holiday sandies and sugar cookies!!!!

At my evening do we had some lovely treats as well!

Mexican Night at Susie's

Tonight the girl's got together for a special "Mexican" night at Susie's house, since we had recently gotten together for our American Thanksgiving. Everyone brought a dish to share and we had sooo much food.

Susie's house was all decorated up so nicely.

Poor Vanessa...trying to sort out all the scoops and cutlery we needed.

We had soooo much food, it was crazy. But after dinner we tried burning off some of those calories by playing Just Dance 2 on the Wii. It was soooo much fun...I so have to get this game for us. We must have all been having a great time because before we knew it, it was after midnight and we still had a 1/2 hour drive home.

We also thought we would be good Samaritans well because it appeared that someone left there headlights on their car in their drive. Holli and Kelly felt bad that they might have a dead battery in the morning but neither would knock on the door, so I jumped up and we knocked on this person's door at 12:30 AM....we waited a bit and then finally someone came to the door. They told us that they knew the lights were broken....go figure. At least we felt better about ourselves even though we woke these people up.

Holiday Baking with the Kiddos

It's that time of year again to start our holiday baking again and of course the kiddos are in full swing to help me out - cracking eggs, measuring out ingredients, mixing, licking bowls and spoons and of course taste testing the final products. We made loads of different goodies this year - some of the old traditions like peanut butter blossoms, sugar cookies and even Chex Mix and Puppy Chow as I imported several boxes of Chex and Crispix cereal in my suitcase in October. I also brought back some almond bark so I could make covered pretzels.

Some new things we made were chocolate chip cookie dough truffles that Addison is helping me drizzle chocolate over above.

I think making sugar cookies are the kids most favorite cookies to help with as they have lots of little steps and they are definitely their most favorite to eat!!!

Oh The Fun we Have....

Harrison and Addison quite enjoy dressing up....poor Harrison doesn't have much for "boyish" dress up clothes, but he has loads of fun dressing up in Addie's tutu's along with her.

They also like making funny faces....

And they also enjoy loving each other!!!!

Christmas Traditions at Preschool

Addison's preschool class mates

(L-R: Taylor, Max, Ethan, Jessica, Addison, Luke, Joseph, Grace, Stash, Betsy)

The kid's have been having so much fun getting ready for Christmas at school. They decorated the display behind them and had a great concert at the Christmas bazaar. Today they have their little Christmas party before their break. So we brought in loads of little goodies for them to enjoy and picked them up all loaded up with sugar.

We made sugar cookie Christmas trees for the teachers - Ms. Jane, Ms. Nicki, Ms. Julie, and Ms. Sarah.

A cute little tradition that all the kids and teachers do for each other is to write up these tiny little Christmas cards for each other. They bring them into school and put them in the little post box and then the teachers put them in the kid's school bags. Funny enough I just thought it was something sweet everyone was doing but then I found out that it was kind of expected as this is a big tradition. Well, it was the day before our last day of school and didn't have time to run out and buy cards so Addison and I worked together to make these gingerbread man ornaments that we made as cards for all her class mates. We had a lot of fun making them and hope the kids like them and will put them on their tree.