Last Day of School

Thursday was a crazy day.  I swapped my Friday for Thursday because we had so much going on.  It was both kids' last day of school.  Lizzie "performed" in a program at her school (it was Olympic-themed and she was a goddess of dance); both kids were supposed to be at picnics starting at 12:30 (we skipped both); we had a teacher conference with Miss Jo AND I cleverly booked a pedicure and a haircut for myself.

And Wednesday at four a client suggested we meet late Thursday afternoon, so I had Mandy come at three and headed into work.

Now I sound whiney -- but here are some photos of Lulu's show.

Tonight we had a pizza party and watched a movie to celebrate the end of school and as a reward for working really hard in school this year.  The kids had a really good time but I ate too much pizza.

And one more, that really ought to go in 'glamping' but I'm a bit lazy tonight and it's cute:

Potty Trained!

Okay, I have warned all of you with the title of the post.

But, I'll be brief anyway.

Eli and I are proud to announce that our daughter Elizabeth (aka Lizzie aka Lulu aka Lulabella) has successfully potty-trained herself.  She decided she wanted to stop wearing diapers and start wearing "uh-were-wear" and then proceeded to fight us with all her strength whenever we tried to force her to wear diapers (I know, we sound like awesome parents) and now she even naps without diapers.

I suppose the lesson is that it's key to listen to your kids as they take on these developmental challenges.

Edited:  I have now posted a photo of her adorable bum in her underwear, which are the smallest size possible but which are quite baggy.

Obviously, she is awesome.  (And loves dum-dums lollipops, which she gets each time she uses the potty.)

Glamping

We went to the Manor Farm this weekend.  Eli took lots of nice pictures and I have posted some of them below, so that all of you can get a sense of what 'glamping' is.  However, these photos fail to truly represent the weather.

Friends, it rained.  Hard, and often.  In some ways, glamping was miserable even if the cabin/tent things were "more watertight than our house" as the other dad we went with said.  But, it was very very fun to see Tommy and Lizzie hanging out with their friends, Harry and Amelia, and to get to know Harry and Amelia's parents better.  

The activity that is not represented in these photos was my favorite.  We walked through the farm's sheep pastures and wheat fields to get to the nearest village pub, and there we removed our wellies and ate lunch.

So to sum up for those of you considering a similar experience:  it was muddy, it was lots of work (not much less than camping, honestly), it was pricey, but the kids absolutely loved:

1.  The wheelbarrows to transport your luggage, firewood, etc (this is
mostly Tommy)
2.  The llama (Alfie -- he protects the chickens from foxes, who knew)
3.  The chickens (they are very friendly and cheeky as Tommy said)
4.  The piglets (four of them)
5.  The sheep (decidedly the least favorite animal)
6.  The mud
7.  Playing with their friends
8.  Digging
9.  The cupboard bed (see below)

 Alfie the llama:

 Cheeky chickens (chasing Tommy):

 Our candle chandelier:

 Our hot tub:

Happy Fourth of July (yesterday)

So in honor of the Fourth yesterday, I hosted a national anthem sing-off in my office.  It happened throughout the day and commenced when my co-worker Peter came in and said,

"Is it the land of the free and the home of the brave, or the land of the brave and the home of the free?"

I just rolled my eyes.  So he said, "Can you sing 'God Save the Queen'?" 

So I did, you know I did.  By the end he was uncomfortable, that's how well I sang it. (Ha.)

Anyway, so then I fired off an email to Rebecca, the Kiwi who sits next door (I know, but I love email) and asked her for her afternoon availability so that she could perform "God Defend New Zealand" for me.  Her performance was remarkable because she did it like she was singing at a sporting event.  She said that makes sense because really that's all people do in New Zealand:  participate in and attend sporting events.  They are a tall people, which I think has something to do with this.  (An aside is that she was really confused when I said I feel that I am the same height as she is -- she's 5'9", but, I explained about how I've had a tall best friend for more than 20 years (!!!) and then she seemed, well, still confused.)

So then, the sweet French trainee with whom I work came into my office with a legitimate work question and was cajoled into performing the French National Anthem for me.  She did a nice job but when she got back to her office she sent me a link to her favorite version on youtube.

Finally, I sang "The Star Spangled Banner" for Peter and Rebecca who were amazed at its length.

Then we all attended the Firm "JULY 4th INDEPENDENCE DAY BBQ" which featured grilled food and American beer and wine.  It was not authentic in any way, but I appreciated the gesture.

Lizzie wore a red shirt with white bows on the shoulders (that is either from Molly or Maddy, thank you!) and navy leggings; Tommy wore his normal uniform with RED socks and as he shook his head teacher's hand in the morning, said, "Happy Fourth of July!"  I wore red, white and blue as well, but Eli refused.

I hope you all enjoyed fireworks for us!

Fish

Tommy loves fish.  When asked what he wants for dinner -- if he's in the mood to think about it and come up with an idea which is not all the time, not even close -- he will suggest fish.  And Sunday night, when he smelled it cooking, he said, "oh, great!  We're having fish!  I love fish!"  And then during dinner, he raved about it.

I was a child who refused fish, always.  Even when my dad went out and caught salmon, I wouldn't eat it.  I can't remember when I realized that grilled salmon with pesto on it was one of my favorite foods rather than one I detested.  Optimistically, I want to pinpoint that time as being in high school but it was more likely college.

Now, I have a five-year-old who gobbles up fish.  It's all I can do not to stare at him while he eats.  It's all I can do not to say to him, "whose kid are you, anyway?"   

(Lulu only eats fish in exchange for a cupcake.)

The fish:

 Salad for Eli and me:

 My ragamuffin daughter (and in the bowl are the kids' sweet potatoes -- if your kids eat salad please could you email me? I need tips):

Please god make it stop raining

It is the first day of July and the weather has been positively nutty today.  In equal parts it has been sunny, windy, and pouring rain.  As Eli said to me, "I don't care what you say; I won't miss this weather."  This was after we'd stopped underneath an awning to put the kids' coats on them because Tommy was f-r-e-e-z-i-n-g.  (Yes, still constantly spelling.)

Now that it's July, it starts to feel like a legitimate grievance, you know.  It's summer.  But, it's summer in London.  Sigh.

We went to St. James's Park today to look at the birds (impressive to see huge pelicans, but less impressive to see that many pigeons in one place) and to walk around and just sort of appreciate London.  We went into the National Gallery to look at Claude Monet's waterlilies (if I knew how to link to my old posts, I would direct you to the one about how Tommy learned about Monet in school) and on the way we went through the Van Gogh room and really, he's just amazing.  Anyway, it was empty for some strange reason so felt like a 15 minutes well spent even though Lulu kept calling to 'get down, get down!' from the buggy.  Then she figured out that the space had nice acoustics and we had to get out of there as not everybody thinks her happy birthday loop is as cute as we do.

If you happen to see her, make her say umbrella.  It's really cute:  'umbralala.'

The Birthday Party

Tommy's birthday party was at an indoor play area called Gambado.  It's the kind of place that kids love and that gives adults headaches.  Bad ones.  But, it's really really easy to have a birthday party there.  Gambado even does the goodie bags ('party bags').  So when Tommy's classmate's Mom and I talked about where to have the party, Gambado was an obvious choice due to the fact that we could do minimal planning.

It was a huge success.  The only glitch is that I forgot a tray for Tommy's cupcakes and ended up using the tray that our coffees were served on, which sort of grossed me out.  (But, I used a new recipe that was really very awesome.  I guess another glitch is that the frosting didn't turn out that well because we can't get semi-sweet chocolate here and I can't figure out how to approximate it.)

Here are a few photos (they weren't very good mostly due to the lighting in Gambado):

Eli is such a good sport:

 Standing on a chair, cramming a cupcake into her mouth: