Aidan's Harvest Festival

By popular demand, here are two clips of Aidan's Fall Festival. The British accents are hysterical! Aidan is in the 2nd row about a third of the way from the right side - I zoom in later and you can see him better. Enjoy!

It's Autumn!

Although you wouldn't know it by the weather here, it is becoming more and more like Fall. The leaves are starting to change color on the chestnut trees and every bush seems to have some bright orange or red berries! It's still warm during the day but getting colder at night. Aidan has his school play tomorrow - I am so excited! It's going to be absolutely adorable! Nothing better than little kids on stage!! Here are a couple of pictures from a hike we took yesterday in an attempt to find ducks to feed. The ducks were on the other side of the barbed wire fence - we have to find another way to get there!!

5 months

Aoife is 5 months old! She is 16 pounds and in the 75th percentile for weight. They don't measure length here so I'm not sure how long she is! She is sleeping well - 12 - 13 hours at night. Amazing really! She takes two short naps. 1 hour in the morning and 2 hours after lunch. She is trying very hard to sit on her own although she slowly leans forward and ends up face down on the floor. She enjoys playing on her tummy and trying to reach for things. She babbles a lot and makes faces at you. She will also reach for your face when you pick her up and try to touch your eyes and mouth. She is enjoying Aidan and Emmy's attention and they like having her around as well. She has been a trooper on all of our outings so far!

House Pictures

Here are some pictures of the house. I think that I will never have the entire house clean at once because of the two tornados that seem to follow me around the house. I took a few pictures when a few rooms were at least tidy if not all the way put together!

We are on the right, obviously. 15 Ironside Drive, Watchfield
Living room from the dining room:
Dining room from the kitchen
Dining room from the living roomAidan's room

Aidan's room from the hall
Emmy's room - it's tiny!

Bath

We went to Bath today and saw the Roman Baths. It was gorgeous and made even better by a beautiful day. They have done a great job with the museum associated with the actual baths and it is very interesting to walk through and see all the excavation. Even the kids thought it was fun! The kids' favorite part was exploring the bath area and touching the water - even though you are not supposed to because it is so dirty. We made sure to wash their hands right away! The water was HOT - uncomfortably so - it was very surprising! Hopefully we will get to go back. There is so much to see in the city and we only did a tiny part!
Aidan, Emmy and Juliana touching the dirty water:
Emmy and Juliana watching the fire jugglers - Emmy loves Juliana and will now wear hair bows because Juliana wears them - too cute!

Just another Tuesday

I woke up this morning and it was cloudy and cool - not the sun that was predicted. Crazy morning getting the kids ready for school. It's worse when we have too much time! Both of then start at 9 am - which is a little difficult since I have yet to master the art of being in two places at once. We pack up Aoife and Emmy in the stroller and follow Aidan on his bike to Watchfield Primary School. It's not far - 300 yards or so. We are the closest house to the school! At 9:00 the bell rings and the kids line up for school. After they go in and Emmy, Aoife and I start the walk to Emmy's school. It only takes 5 minutes or so to get there but we don't end up there until 9:10 or so. Emmy had been fine all morning talking about going back to school and seeing Miss Kimberly, her teacher. She was absent all last week with whatever bug she had. Once we start walking to her school Emmy decided that it would be a much better idea to go back home and started crying a little. We talked about all the fun things that she was going to do at school today - playing outside, building with blocks, coloring etc. She stopped crying and said that she thought it would be fun. We got to school and the other kids were all settled in and already playing. Emmy started getting upset but was very brave. Even through the tears she said goodbye, gave me a hug and a kiss, took Miss Kimberly's hand and walked over to the story rug. When I came back to pick her up they said she had a lot of fun - she actually told them she was having fun! She didn't cry or seem overly happy to see me - which is good! During the walk home she told me details of her day: they had grapes and water for snack, read a book about teddy bears, played outside (and she played in the big car), painted on paper, and played in the play kitchen. That is WAY more detail than I get from Aidan who is at school for 6 hours and can only remember one thing, maybe, from his day. Hysterical! So it turned out to be a good Tuesday - and even better - Brendan came home at 6:30 instead of 9:30 like he was supposed to!

I've been published!

Before we left for England I was contacted by the magazine for my sorority, Chi Omega. A friend, Kate Wolin, had recommended me to them since the next issue was going to be about food. They asked me to write an article on the importance of food in relationships. The issue has been published and here is a link - click here - to the article. If you are having trouble seeing it, let me know. I'm not sure if you have to log in to the site.