The Birthday Fun Continues....

Today Addison's birthday packages arrived from Grandma and Grandpa, along with Uncle Ryan and Aunt Lindsay's. Grandma and Grandpa sent money earlier but today Addie got a fun stamp and sticker set along with some Valentine's treats that we immediately hid until Sunday.

Grandma also sent this super cool heart scarf and Addison was so excited to have her own scarf like what Mommy wears. Kevin tried helping her put it on and Addison quickly corrected him in saying that "You only wear scarves outside, Daddy" She got a cute tutu skirt and a heartshaped necklace from Uncle Ryan, Aunt Lindsay and Cousin Emma. They also sent some great V-Day gifts that we have stashed away.

Harry wasn't left out...Grandma Sally found a really cool book on Trucks for Harry.

Today was a really busy baking day for mommy and the kids helped out a lot (whether mommy needed it or not). They were my royal taste testers...Addie had to make sure that the chocolate coated wands tasted okay. She ate one and said, "Mommy, I don't want my friends to have these." I asked her why, did they not taste good. She said, "No, they taste really good, I just want them for me."

Harry helped me clean up the beaters from the three different batches of chocolate cake I made for Addison's princess cake.

The kids helped me make mini heart pizzas for the party.

We made sugar cookie wands...

And late at night after they were dreaming away I started working on constructing her princess cake and decorating the "royal ballroom." I was up pretty late but had some help from Emily and Kevin with the decorations.

Happy 3rd Birthday Addison Marie!!!!

Today is Addison's 3rd Birthday!!!!! We've all been pretty psyched up for this day ever since Christmas was over. It is actually really nice to have something in the middle of the lull of winter to look forward too. We had lots of things planned for today so we started things out in full swing with her getting to open some presents. Auntie Min and Uncle Danny had ordered an Aqua Pad from Tesco to be delivered the day before her birthday. She absolutely loved it and it was also a great toy for Harry to play along with her.

Ironically, Addison has been going on for weeks about how excited she is for her princess party, but for her birthday present she wanted a choo-choo train!!! A Thomas the Tank Engine one of all things. Well, I figured it would be a good way to start a nice collection of train tracks for both of the kids so we got Addie the Figure 8 Stop and Go set.

Before he headed off to school, Sammy stopped over with a gift for Addison. Simon and Sarah and family had gotten Addie a super cute apron that said Mummy's Little Helper and also a Dora light that changes colors. She as so excited!!!

We had to get our breakfast done and all of us had to get ready for toddler playgroup where we got to bring brownie cupcakes for all the kids to share and Addison got to ride on the parachute as we sang Happy Birthday to her and her friend Ella who's birthday was last week.

After playgroup we had a surprise for Addison. We went to go pick up Daddy from work and got to have lunch at McDonald's. This was a special treat for all of us since Kevin and I hadn't eatten French Fries in over a month while being on our diets so I savored every single one of them!!!! The kids enjoyed their fish finger happy meals and balloons and then we had to head home to get Addie's birthday cake made.

We got out the train set so we could play with it and between that and the Aquapad the two kids were pretty busy all afternoon.

Well they really got entertained when I decided that I was sick of how messy the closet was and started sorting out some winter items that we didn't need downstairs anymore. The kids dug through the basket of hats, scarves, and mittens and got themselves dressed up. They completely refused to take any of it off for almost an hour, but they had fun and I got my closet cleaned out.

That night we had a nice "healthy" supper after splurging at McDonald's and I made a "healthy" chocolate cake for us to share as a family. Yes, I used Splenda and whole wheat flour to make this tiny chocolate cake so it fit with our diet. (Sorry Addie but you get the full fat, full sugar one on Saturday!!!)

Addie didn't seem to mind the healthy cake...chocolate is chocolate!!! I did manage to dress it up with some pretty sprinkles, candles and one of her little princess dolls. She really enjoyed blowing out her candles and asked for more presents after dinner. We told her that we got to all wrestle in the living room and that was better than opening any presents for her.

Bubbles, Bubbles, Bubbles

Today was the first time the sun had been out in ages and even though it was a bit chilly I bundled up the kids and we headed outside to blow bubbles. They had a lot of fun, but got into quite a soapy mess. I had to work pretty hard to keep Harrison from eating the bubbles but he had to hold his own bottle like his big sister Addie.

Scottish Burns' Night at Loch Fyne

Tonight we celebrated the life of one of Scotland's most well known poets...yes, I have found that this country celebrates some pretty interesting things. I really don't know much at all about Mr. Burns' but other than his is one of only 3 poets ever to have a national holiday named after him.

In honor, of Mr. Burns' our friends, Simon and Sarah invited us to a traditional Scottish meal at Loch Fyne (a Scottish based seafood restaurant). Kevin and Simon started their meals with some haggis served with nippers and taties (which are potatoes and swede). This obviously wasn't traditional haggis as that is cooked in a sheep's stomach, no a days they cook it in a synthetic material. But we didn't look at what it was made up of until after they ate it...sheep heart, liver, sheep lungs, and more... The boys also had a glass of some Scottish whiskey which I ended up taking the smallest sip and thought I inhaled gasoline.

In spite of being a week into our diet, I did splurge and get a onion and goat cheese tart, a sirloin steak and this yummy cream dessert with biscuits plus 1/4 of Kevin's sticky toffee pudding!!!! It was definitely a wonderful evening with friends and that was most important!

Princess Emily's Birthday Party

Today Addison got to go to her friend Emily's Princess Party. It was an amazing party and so much fun for all the little princesses that attended. Addison has only two princess dresses so she had a tough decision on whether to be Cinderella or Snow White. Today of course she felt like Cinderella and so did her little friend Madeline. I carted her over to Princess Emily's castle in our wagon so she wouldn't get her dress all dirty so she arrived in her own private little coach.

It was truly a princess day! The girls all got a little bag with a make up brush and lip gloss and got to paint their nails, put on eye shadow and blush and little stick on jewel earrings. There was also a little station to make their own bracelets and crowns.

The girls then got to play some games and I think their favorite was searching through Lana's house for Snow White's apples. It is amazing how impressionable they are at this age because none of them wanted to eat the red apples because they were the "poisonous" ones.

Lana made some amazing food like little jello cups with sea creature gummies on top for Ariel's Under the Sea cups, Snow White's caramel apples, Cinerella's pumpkin veggie dip, a Princess and the Frog punch and more. She also made this absolutely amazing castle cake!!!

Addison had so much fun and this was the first of three princess parties for us over the next three weekends!!!!

Surprise from Uncle Casey

My brother Casey was a little late in sending his Christmas gifts to us, but it was actually wonderful to receive a package a couple weeks after Christmas. The big gifts inside were for the kids and he had found this Caterpillar tractor tent. It pops up to be about 3 foot tall and five feet long and they absolutely loved it. He also sent along a couple Veggie Tales DVDs and also a book for Kevin and I along with a lovely Family plaque.

Thanks Uncle Casey and Stephanie!!!!

Pool of Toys

Today we had over a few friends for lunch and a little play date. Well as the mommies visited away in the kitchen we heard the kids playing away in the conservatory. Then along came little Lauren and she told her mommy that there was a really big mess in the other room. I walked in to see every single tub from our toy unit emptied out in the middle of the floor and Addison proclaiming it was her "pool of toys" and she was going swimming. I was "gobsmacked" that I didn't know what to do. Later on everyone helped me out to try putting everything back in a spot, then I spent an hour or so after everyone left to re-sort since I'm so picky about organization.

Playing with the Last of the Snow

This has definitely been an unusual year for winter weather in England....loads and loads of snow. While the rest of the country gets dumped on, the Peterborough area typically doesn't get much snow, but today we had just enough on the ground to make ourselves a snowman. In the past two years we've been able to make two quite large ones, but wanted to take this opportunity to make our 2010 one.

I pretty much used up ALL the snow in the front yard in order to make this little who was no bigger than Addison. We did get the carrot nose and I had the kids find some stones for the eyes and mouth. Even got a red scarf, a bowl for hat and Addie wanted the snow man to have a shopping trolley for a few hours that afternoon. We got quite a few smiles from passers by which is usually our intention, but the kids had a great time eventhough it was just the three of us.

Yes, we are the three amigos!!!!

Full of Smiles

Just a typical day at home but the kiddos had some great smiles today and I wanted capture them. Addison was using markers properly for the first time so we had to make sure that Harrison was taking a nap before we broke them out so he didn't get a hold of them.

Also Emily popped over after school to visit and let Harrison try on her scarf. I swear my son is going to be in fashion or something because he loves his shoes, he loves letting Addison dress him up and he looks quite GQ with this scarf on.

Snowy Day for Back to School

This morning we woke up to snow!!! Also it was Addison's first day back to preschool. We had been psyching her up for the past couple of weeks about going back. She had started back in September but wasn't quite ready so we pulled her out at October break. I was a nervous wreck to see how she would take to it, but hopefully the snow would get her excited.

She actually was excited about wearing her school jumper (sweatshirt) so that was a good sign.

The kids both were pretty excited for the snow, especially for a Tuesday morning!!! Things went pretty well with dropping Addie off this time around. She was a little hesitant but one of the teachers took her over and started reading her a story. I stayed home the whole morning just in case I would get another call to say I needed to pick her up...but no call came.

As Harrison and I headed back to pick her up I took some pictures of the church and around the village because it was so beautiful.

A cottage with a beautifully cut thatch roof covered in snow....

The pub "The Blue Bell" looks pretty nice with the snow coming down.

Addison had a great day at school we'll continue to pray that she continues to like it there. I'm going to visit with the teachers to see if I can switch her days to line up with days that some of her friends from toddler group and then we can all go to toddler group together plus two days of school each week. On a side note...I'm so excited to finally get to interact with some of the other moms in the village more with bringing Addie back and forth to school, plus the exercise of walking back and forth won't do me any harm either.

Girls' Day at Eden Day Spa

About a year ago I signed up to do a spa day with some girlfriends, but was unable to make it since I couldn't leave my baby Harrison (mommy reasons). Well, I was able to get a voucher instead of a refund that was good for a year. With two weeks to go before my day of relaxation expired, I was able to organize a little day away with my two good friends, Sarah and Debbie. The three of us managed to get away from husbands/partners and children and reality for a whole day at the Eden Day Spa in Notthinghamshire.

We started out our day with a pom-pom dance/exercise class. It was a total blast and we learned a fun little routine to Rockin' Robin. After our class we showered and popped on our fluffy robes and headed up to lunch.

It was really quite funny walking up to a beautiful dining area and being seated at these nice glass tables and tableware while in our swimsuits with bath robes on. For a starter I had this cheese and onion tart with a tomato chutney and it was the greatest thing ever. Then we loaded up on some excellent salads and goodies on the salad bar. For mains we had the fish and lamb, but the desserts were to die for as well.

We all got the creme brulee cheesecake.

After lunch we chilled out in the conservatory for about an hour or so to let our food digest before heading to the pool and water therapy rooms. I think Debbie actually caught a little cat nap.

The water therapy rooms were pretty interesting. We went from various water jets shooting out at all parts of your body to light mist rain falling on you to aromatheraputic saunas to a cold water foot bath. I do think our favorite part was sitting outside in the hot tub. The funny part about it all is that it was about -1 C for an outside temperature. I have always wanted to do that and it was amazing.

This was our view from the hot tub out onto the beautiful English sunset with snow and frost all over. After our soak in the tub we showered up and got ready for our treatments. I got a back and leg massage and a facial. Afterwards I waited for the girls out in the conservatory where they had opened a few windows so I cozied up in a bean bag chair with a blanket and enjoyed breathing in the cold air and just relaxing. It was a great day and we truly made the most of it and I had some wonderful friends to enjoy this special day with.

Addie's Robot

While I was gone at that spa today, Kevin helped Addison build this super cool robot out of Harry's Duplo blocks. Seems like he has as much fun creating things as the kids do. Way to go Addie, sweetie!!!!

A Visit from the Police

Our good friend and neighbor, Michael, is part of the Peterborough police force and pretty high up in the chain, but on New Year's Eve he got to "walk the beat" for the first time in about 10 years. Emily told me that he had to get all dressed up in his patrolling uniform and I expressed how cool I thought it would be to have my picture taken with a real live British police officer. So Mike came over and put on his gear and posed for some pictures for us.

Harrison was such a cutie. I just love those British police hats!!!

Mike's daughter, Gemma, had a go at trying on the vest, night stick and hat.

Mike even let Kevin try everything on, so we posed with him as well. Harrison got to play with his hand cuffs. Mike told us that while on his beat last night he had a guy who was a little unruly and they had to get a little tough with them. The guy said to Mike, "You don't like me much do you?", Mike replied, "How can that be, we've only just met?" How funny...sounds like he had a good time and it was so much fun having him stop by.

Happy New Years!!!

For New Year's we wanted to stay pretty low key so we invited over Simon and Sarah and found out that other American friend's of ours, Kent and Becki, didn't have any plans either so we asked them to turn up as well. We made up a bunch of snacky foods and sweets to munch on for the evening. We also searched out 6 different grocery stores in Peterborough to find fresh mint so that I could have mojitos for New Year's...I could have settled for something else but I was so craving them. My husband is the best because he did most of the running around for me. I called all over and Waitrose had one bag left and held it aside for me!!!

We had a great time eating and playing cards for most of night and into the early morning hours. At midnight though we took a few minutes to enjoy the fireworks in London as we rung in the New Year.

It looks like we could have been there ourselves...look at all the people along the Thames across from the Eye.

It would have been so cool to actually be there, but I'm sure it is just a super crazy place. I very much enjoyed ringing in the year at home though.

Honestly the coolest thing was to celebrate 2010 while in England - a whole 6 hours sooner than we normally would back home. So many years I've watched Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve (and now with Ryan Seacrest) and at 11PM we would watch the ball would fall in New York, but now I was getting to witness London's celebration live on the tellie...how cool is that?!!!

Happy 2010 Everyone!!!!