Sir Timothy's Birthday Party

Yesterday was Timothy's 7th birthday. Yes, 7th. I still can't comprehend how I am the mother of a 7 year-old, but it's true.

This year, Timothy requested a knight party. I thought that would be a terrific idea because we could easily incorporate princess activities for the girls we invited. We invited his whole class at school, all 9 of them, along with the 4 students who were in his class last year and moved up. That brought it to a grand total of 13 children, not including Collin.
A few weeks ago, we sent out really cute invitations that we made. The front of the invite had a picture of Tim in a knight costume, and a large print, "Here Ye! Here Ye!" The inside included directions to our castle, and how to RSVP to Queen Rebecca. They were cute.

I found a great deal on ebay from a woman who was trying to sell the leftovers from her own son's knight party. We got tunics, foam swords, poster-board shields, necklaces, gold coins, etc. It ended up being a great bargain. Then, for not such a great bargain, I bought some items through Oriental Trading for the fair maidens, including princess wands and caps.

When the children arrived on Saturday, they were all dressed up sooo cute in their knight and princess costumes. Even Ethan and I got into the spirit by wearing crowns (I got some free crowns from Burger King and labled them with "Queen Rebecca" and "King Ethan").

We started off the party with a craft time. The boys decorated their shields, and the girls decorated their princess caps. We fed them a lunch of pizza, cucumbers, dragon scales (Doritos), and dragon juice (green Hawaiian Punch), and of course, had some birthday cake. I cut out a 13x9 sheet cake into the shape of a shield and decorated it with a dragon crest.We had a few games for the kids to play, and gave out loads of gold coins as prizes. We decided that we would save the foam swords to give out for the last 15 minutes of the party. Well, that was actually 15 minutes too soon!! A sword fight emerged, of course, and all chaos broke loose. So, we stopped the sword fight, and did a quick game of "The Queen Says" (Simon Says) to finish up our time. Thankfully, it worked.Ethan and I both agreed that Tim's party was the slowest 2 hours of our life! But, it was worth it. The kids all had a lot of fun!
Tim got some great gifts, too. He got a lot of board games, including "Snakes & Ladders" which is exactly like "Chutes & Ladders," except with pictures of snakes instead of chutes, of course. He also got a lot of birthday cards with button pins attached for him to wear. Maybe that's more common in England.

On his actual birthday, we went bowling as a family, and went to a pub for dinner. All in all, Timothy had a very special birthday!

Collin at 2 Months

Collin went for his 2 month appointment the other day. This time, he was just short of 2 feet long, and he weighed a whopping 13 lbs. 13 oz.!! I couldn't believe it! That put him just above the 75 percentile for height, and into the 90 percentile for weight. Yikes! Why do I have a feeling that this boy will be eating me out of house and home when he's a teenager!!

Anyway, he also got his first round of shots (we get all of the kids' immunizations done on base, so that they are compatible with US standards). He screamed like heck when he got the shots, but seemed to be fine a few minutes later. What a trooper! Even Mommy was brave and got my flu-shot when I was there.

Collin has really been doing well. He is generally a very happy, smiley baby, which is just so nice.

Today though, he's a little off schedule. Yesterday, I decided to let him extend his cycle times (I had been waking him from his naps if he was sleeping more than 1 1/2 hours), and we decided to have him start sleeping in his crib at night time. I have to admit, I was a little sad looking at the empty bassinet in my room last night. Just one of the many last baby milestones....

Christmas Fayre

On Saturday, the kids and I, along with my friend Kelly, went to a Christmas Fayre (we spell it "Fair") at Ripon Cathedral. Ripon is a larger town, about 10-15 minutes north of my village, and it houses an incredible Cathedral. I'm not sure how old it is, but it is just stunning.
Anyway, during the fayre, there were about 60 different vendors selling their wares. We bought some wooden toys for the kids, a pork pie for Ethan, and some Wensleydale Cheese (with Wallace & Grommit's picture on it!)

Father Christmas was there as well. Tim was very excited to go see him, and Maddie was completely terrified. So Tim went by himself (which was fine, because it cost me 2pounds, 50p to see Santa!). Father Christmas gave him an early present -- a small tray of Cadbury chocolate bars-- which Tim kindly shared with his sister. What a good boy!

The children also got their faces painted while we were there. Maddie was a butterfly, and Tim got his face painted as a Christmas Eve night scene. Can you see Santa and his sleigh flying over the city?? Isn't that so cool??!!

I Think I'm in Love...

...with an 8 week-old baby boy.

I know I may be a little biased about this, but I really do think that Collin may just be the most adorable baby in the whole world.

It sounds funny, but my favorite times of the day are when I go to change his diaper. I don't know what it is about that changing table, but just about every time I plop him down, he looks up at me and smiles this big, gummy, toothless, tounge-y smile. It completely melts my heart. Then we proceed to chat for a few minutes... yes, I can tell he's talking to me. And yesterday, he made a new squeeky/gurgle-ly sound that was just for me. So precious....

Oh, and he is sooo good. He has fallen into a great 3 hour routine of feeding, playing, sleeping. He gets very excited playing under his gym. His face gets all serious, and he swings and kicks with great intensity. It's so fun to watch. And his nap times have become so predictable. When he starts getting fussy, I swaddle him up in his crib, give him his binky, and he usually falls asleep all on his own within a few minutes.

He's doing pretty good at night. He's usually fussy during the evening hours, but once he falls asleep, he sleeps for 4-5 hours. Last night, he slept until 4:30am!! What a guy!

Oh, I just love him.
P.S. The top 2 pictures were actually taken when Collin was 3 1/2 weeks old by a friend of mine who is starting up a photography business. The last photo is when he was 6 1/2 weeks old.

Guy Fawkes Day

Last Wednesday was a British holiday called Guy Fawkes Day/Bonfire Night. I had never heard of it before, but now I will never forget it!

First, let me give you the background story to the holiday.

Guy Fawkes was a politician who lived during the early 1600s. During that time, King James I came into power. English Catholics of that time were hoping that this King would be more tolerant of their religion. When it became clear that he wasn't going to be, a small group of men came up with a plot to overthrow the government and assassinate the king. They got a hold of 36 barrels of gunpowder and stored it in the cellar of the Houses of Parliament.

But as the group worked on the plot, it became clear that innocent people would be hurt or killed in the attack. Some of the plotters started having second thoughts. One of the group members even sent an anonymous letter warning a friend, Lord Monteagle, to stay away from the Parliament on November 5th. The warning letter reached the King, and the King's forces made plans to stop the conspirators.

Guy Fawkes was in the cellar of the Parliament with the 36 barrels of gunpowder when the authorities stormed it in the early hours of November 5th. He was caught, tortured and executed.

So now, every November 5th, England celebrates the foiling of this plot by having Bonfire Night. People celebrate by burning effigies of Guy Fawkes on huge bonfires, and by setting off fireworks.

We had hoped to take part in Guy Fawkes day, but with Collin being so small, and it already being so cold here, we didn't think it was a good idea. I was pretty bummed about that, so Ethan came up with the idea of having our own Guy Fawkes celebration in our living room. Here is a picture of the Guy Fawkes that Ethan made to burn in our wood stove. It turned out that Guy was too big to fit in our stove, so in the spirit of true English tourture, we quartered him first!!

12 pounds!!!

Collin had his 6 week appointment today. The doctor checked him over from head to toe, and said that he looked very healthy.

The big shocker came when they weighed him. He was 12 pounds! 12 POUNDS!! I was stunned! We've been supplementing his feedings with a few ounces of pumped breast milk & formula. I guess it's been working!

I'm just so grateful. A good bill of health for my little man is nothing to take for granted.

Happy Halloween!

Well, it turns out that the Brits do celebrate Halloween! In fact, in recent years, the British have come to celebrate it more like we do in America.

The kids and I had a great time the past few days making Halloween sugar cookies and carving our pumpkins. (We actually learned from a British friend that they used to carve out turnips, but it was much more difficult. I think I read somewhere that the pumpkins are an American influence.)

Here are the kids pumpkins. Tim and Maddie drew the faces on and I carved them out.For Halloween, Maddie dressed up as Madeline (from the book series). My mom had gotten this costume back when she was a baby, and we have waited this long for it to fit. But, oh it was so cute!Tim decided to go as Batman. Actually, I kind of decided it for him when I found a Batman costume at the thrift shop for $3.50. I was so psyched that it fit him. And of course, I couldn't resist but dress Collin up as Robin. I had to buy his costume on Amazon (and yes, it was a little more expensive than $3.50, but so worth it!!!)My caped crusaders!

The kids and I headed to base yesterday afternoon, as the base was sponsoring a Halloween party for the kids. They had games, face painting, etc. You could even go trick-or-treating around the housing area of base. However, we decided to go trick-or-treating around our own village. A family that we know from the kids' school invited us to go with them, as they knew the right houses to go to.

We all had a great time.