December 2010-2nd Half with Video

We actually got a Christmas tree this year! It was only 10 pounds (so 15ish bucks) at Tesco (the grocery store/Wal-Mart) and it was already pre-lit. We didn't realize it was prelit with BLUE lights (lame) so we took them off and went and bought white ones. Of course, we bought a nice red and gold ornament set and matching wrapping paper to go with it. Justin even unwrapped the presents from his mother for the girls and wrapped it back up in the matching paper, so that it would all look good under the tree!

Poor Solia was super sick there for a while. Justin took her to some walk in clinic who tried to get us to collect her urine (they gave us a plastic bag and a little tube....ya didn't work out so well). When we took her back they decided she had something (which they never told us) but they prescribed her some pill form of the swine flu vaccine! I guess it was going around here and sinc she was already sick and so young they wanted to make sure. It was awful though-I had just started giving her baby food and I was supposed to mash this powder into her food. It was so gross though she never ate it all. I ended up mixing the flu pill powder with the strawberry flavored prescription fever reducer and stuck it all in a syringe. As long as she was sucking her two fingers, I could just squirt it in there and she would swallow it.

Two days before Christmas we got our stuff! Our sea shipment had arrived a week or so before, but was randomly selected for x-ray, so it didn't get to us until the 23rd. We spent the next couple days doing nothing but unpacking so that our house was nice and clean and organized for Christmas. It never made it completely done, but definately all done by the end of the year.

We also got a little bit of snow! It started coming down like crazy, and by the time I got the girls all bundled up and took them out, it was completely done. lame. but it snowed later so we got to go out and make little snow angels and stuff (for like 5 minutes) :)

Oh ya, did I mention that our house rocks? We have a river in our backyard? And we get all sorts of birds? Ducks, Geese, Swans, Seagulls, Pigeons, and some black duck thing that's not a duck but looks just like one. Oh. And one big egret looking like thing. But it's awesome. I'm hoping to get the home video tour finished for the next post, and with that I'll include some video footage of our little menagerie!

Our Christmas photos-Amaia put all of the ornaments in one huge clump there on the bottom. Are we bad parents if we took them all off after she went to bed and made it look nice?

Some random pics of the girls-poor naked Solia with a rag on her head-she was like 103. That was while we were trying to collect a urine sample before we got the meds. The Tylenol I gave her did nothing at all. You'll also notice Solia is not a huge fan of sitting in that bouncer-every time she goes in, she immediately rolls over.

Amaia

*DVDs are called DVDVs

*When Solia spits or poos, it's "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeew dat's nasgy So-wee-uh"

*Red buses are now "Yundon Bus"

*If she needs something she'll say "stuffin" instead of 'something'

*Every night I tell her my homemade version of Cinderella, along with reciting from memory the "Hand Hand Fingers Thumb" book

*She's started pretend cooking. She'll try to get us to taste it and will tell us to "just uh-tend a eat it"

*When she wakes up she'll say "I had a good nap, Em!"

*If she's going to tell you a secret, she'll put her ear on your ear, or even on your mouth :)

*She'll say "it's reedy easy a my talk" and then she'll just start babbling nonsense

*She's stopped calling me "Mommy". She either calls me "Em" like Justin does, or "Momma" like the little kitties say in the movie Aristocats.

*She had a really rough patch where she was very abusive to poor Solia :( hope it doesn't last

*As soon as we got our furniture we put Solia's crib into the bedroom with Amaia, so they now share a room.

365 Pics #1

365 Pics # 2

Here's the video-it's a long one but a good one. And I'll have you know, I did not teach her that at the end. She did that all on her own.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gtKwg-Cy14

Bedtime Stories

I'd thought I'd share (mostly for record keeping purposes) the versions of the stories I tell Amaia. Keep in mind these are my versions of the story, told as to the point as possible, and lots of details missing so that it's easy to explain to a two year old.

Cinderella (or as Amaia likes to call it-Cinder Bella):

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Cinderella. Her mommy and daddy loved her so much, but one day her mommy got sick and died. Her dad got married again, and then her daddy died. Cinderella was left with her step mother and her two daughters, and they were SO mean to Cinderella. They always said "Cinderella, come clean my room." "Cinderella, go make me breakfast." Or "Cinderella, come do my laundry" (These three chores were different every night). Cinderella was so sad, and she didn't like living with them, but she didn't have anywhere else to go, so she just stayed there.

Then, one day, the Prince decided to have a dance, and he invited ALL the ladies to come dance with him. Cinderella was SO excited! She even had a pretty dress. But when it got to be time to go to the dance, the step mother said "No way, Cinderella. You can't go to the dance. You have to stay here and do the dishes." And there were a LOT of dishes. The step mother closed the door and locked it behind her, and took the key. Cinderella was so sad, she went and cried on her bed.

Then, POOF! like the Genie, the Fairy Godmother came. She said, "Don't worry, Cinderella. I've got the things you need to go to the dance. Here's a pretty dress, and some pretty shoes, and a car. Just make sure you are home by midnight, or all this stuff with go away." Cinderella was so happy. She said, "Thank you so much Fairy Godmother! And don't worry, I'll be home by midnight" So she got in her car and drove to the dance.

When she got there, there were SO many ladies! They were all taking turns dancing with the prince. Cinderella got a turn, too! The Prince liked Cinderella so much that they danced for a long time, when all of a sudden: DING, DING, DING! It was midnight!!! Cinderella said, "Oh Crap! I gotta go!" and she started running. The Prince said "Wait, I don't even know your name, you can't leave!" but Cinderella kept running. And while she was running, she lost her shoe in the middle of the street! But she couldn't stop to pick it up, so she just left it there.

The Prince found her shoe in the street, and he picked it up and took it home with him. Then, the next morning, he took it to every single house and tried that shoe on every single foot, but it didn't fit anyone. Then, he got to the last house, and tried it on Cinderella, and it FIT! The Prince and Cinderella were so happy. They kissed each other (this is where I'd give her a big kiss) and hugged each other (and she'd get a big hug too) and they went to the Prince's castle and got married, and they all lived happily ever after. The End.



The Princess and the Frog:

Once upon a time, there was a princess named Amaia. She was taking a walk in the forest, while playing with her little red ball. She accidentally dropped her ball, and it rolled and rolled until it went PLOP in a pond. When she bent over to get the ball, there was a frog. The frog said, "Hey princess! Pick me up!" So Princess Amaia picked up the frog. "I'm not really a frog," said the frog. "I'm really a handsome prince, and if you just kiss me, I'll turn back into a Prince." Princess Amaia wasn't sure what to do. She really wanted a handsome prince, but the frogs lips were so slimy and yucky and green. She decided to do it. As soon as she kissed him, he went POOF and turned into a handsome prince, just like he said! He was so happy to not be a frog anymore, and Princess Amaia was so happy to find a handsome prince. And they all lived happily ever after.

Spot the Difference- UK v USA {1}

As soon as we moved here we immediately noticed that things were different here! Duh. As if they would all be the same. BUT I decided to keep a list, and share them with you a little at a time. It's really interesting all of the things that are different-things that you would never have even thought about.

*One of the biggest things you will notice right off the bat about the food is how bland it is compared to the States. Everything is less salty and less sugary.

*To go along with that-even if it's the same brand, that doesn't mean it tastes the same. For example, they have Cinnamon Toast Crunch (by General Mills/Nestle-it's actually called Curiously Cinnamon here). It' tastes more like cinnamon candy flavor than actual cinnamon, and it's NOT cinnamon/sugar like the cereal is in the States. Nesquick Choclate milk powder they have, except it's like halfway between Nesquick in the States and regular plain old coco powder. We mix granulated sugar in it to make it palatable :)

*Every shower here has one dial for temperature, and one dial that controls the pressure. Which is awesome.

*They use a universal health care system here-although you obviously have the choice to use it or to use private doctors. We still have insurance so we can use whoever we want thank goodness.

Last but definately not least....

SALES TAX IS 20% HERE!!!!!

You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. That's why everything here is that much more expensive than buying the same thing in the states. Since the sales tax is so insane, it is included in the price of the item in the store. So if you go grab a box of cereal for 3.75, you'll pay exactly 3.75 since the tax is already included. That way you don't get to the check out and realize that you are X amount short because you didn't account for the 20% sales tax.

More to come!
*

i heart faces-sun flare

This week's photo challenge at I Heart Faces is sun flare! What do you think?

Kids Say the Darndest Thing {Part 2}

Justin (singing): "If you're happy and you know it..."
Amaia: "Stop singing at me! Amaia's mad right now."

(To the tune of the Primary song We Are a Happy Family)
"I love Daddy, I love Psych... "

(Amaia set a piece of tortilla on the laptop that we were using to watch Psych, and I went to eat it)
"Don't eat dat por-tee-uh. dat's a por-tee-uh for psych!

(in a singsong voice) "Shawn, Shawn, Shawn..."
(can you tell we really like that show? maybe a little too much? granted all those three happened all in the same night.)

"NEVER touch me 'gin!"

December 2010-1st Half

SO...on Tuesday the 7th we got our air shipment. We weren't really sure what we would want to pack in that when we were packing, and we weren't sure how much stuff we could pack that way until the day of the pack out, so instead of 4 huge full boxes, we only used like 2 and a half. Most of it was clothes that didn't fit in our suitcases, coats, the bumbo chair and bouncer, all of our shoes, and a whole bunch of random crap. I tell you what, both times we've had people come pack our house for us they have been COMPLETE IDIOTS. Sorry, that's rude of me. BUT TRUE.

Let me explain. So moving from CA to TX, we were packing up our entire house. Like the whole thing. Completely empty. Except after the first day of moving, I went around the house and opened up all the cupboards and drawers and stuff, and found a huge pile of stuff (including every cookie sheet I owned, and our brooms and stuff). We put them in a huge very inconspicuous pile on the kitchen counter, yet we had to actually ask them at the end of the second day (at the end of everything) to pack it all into a box for us. REALLY THOUGH? Like, did you think I just wanted to leave that stuff for the next owners? Ugh. Anyways.

Sorry for the rant. Same story though, except slightly more complicated as some things were going into storage and something being shipped. But that's why our air shipment boxes were full of random crap-they loaded up the truck the first day of our sea shipment, so everything the second day HAD to go either into storage or the air shipment boxes, which meant that if we wanted in in London it had to go in the air shipment box.

OK, I guess I was still going. Now I'm really done. So along with all that (random) stuff, we got all of our puzzles. And that's all Amaia had to play with until we got all of our stuff. She would just dump all the puzzles in a huge piece pile and then put the boards in a cirlce around her and put them together. Needless to say, we still watched a lot of movies and played kinect games. We were pretty bored out of our minds. We also ended up taking a lot of video this month since we didn't really have tons of other entertainment.

Here are the pictures of Solia.

Here are some of Amaia. See her enjoying the great view from her bedroom window. (Hopefully I will have my home video tour for the next post and I can show you the view!); Her plastic grocery sack handle 'princess Jasmine' headband; doing puzzles; and bottom right is her watching Aladdin on her iPod (yes she actually watched it like that!)

Amaia this month:

*We've been trying to get her to stop throwing tantrums by refusing to help her when she screams. We just tell her say it with a "nice voice and a happy face"-it's like flipping a switch as she swallows her screams and says it nicely.

*She's starting to recognize her letter shapes (can't blame her-two of the puzzles are alphabet)-know what they are for (S for Solia, etc) even if she doens't know what the letter is called.

*If she's playing with something she's not supposed to, like Mom's iPod or something, if you take it away from her and put it up out of reach, she'll throw a tantrum until you 'put it back' where she got it from, in reach. She doesn't want it back, and she'll leave it, she just wants it where it was

*She likes to watch the ducks out the windows. They dive bomb for bugs or whatever it is they are looking for down there. When a duck goes under, Amaia will say "Where'd he go?" all excited, then sit there and wait. If the duck takes too long to come up, she'll say "Him no make it"

*If Solia starts screaming, for any reason, Amaia will run over and hug her while saying "I sowee So-wee-uh"

365 Photos: Dec 1-7 (Not in any order): Amaia helping Solia with her first solids; the girls in Solia's crib in the kitchen of our temporary living apartment...

365 Photos-Dec 8-15: Our (fake) Christmas tree-if you know Justin, you know that's a huge conesssion. Even if you account for the fact that the ornaments and wrapping paper all coordinate perfectly; and on the bottom you see the girls in front of our new house! The white part on the right and the brown part is our house (the white is the stair wells), then white on the left is the neighbors house.

Here is Justin and Amaia freezing thier butts off as they enjoy their first dinner of toast and ice cream in our new flat; the front of our flat; the view out the back door; my first batch of laundry hanging on drying racks (how every one else here does laundry-we got a tumble dryer in the garage-wahoo!)

Come back for the second half and the awesome (if some what long, (compared to the others)) video for December. Coming soon to a blog near you (hopefully).

I Heart Faces: People's Choice Week

So this is the first week that I've entered into I Heart Faces photo contests. This week it's a People's Choice Week. Usually they have judges to pick a winner but this week, people get to vote. At least I'm pretty sure that's how it all works. The rules say you have to enter a favorite face photo taken in February....this is it! I took a lot of pictures, but this is by far the best one I took last month. Be sure to check back at I Heart Faces to see the rest of the entries!

Moving to London

Small Disclaimer: No Pics! Sorry. We had a small misfortune with our nice camera, and so we were uber unmotivated to take pictures outside our 365 project. This is also the reason the whole month of December, the 365 pictures look markedly poorer quality than usual.



ANYways...



We left Tuesday night around 5:45-in a car that came and picked us up. We flew business/first class so we got to hang out in the lounge where we watched a movie on Justin's laptop and got the girls in their pjs. On the airplane, we got two of the middle seats (see my terrible 'paint' rendering below):



Solia and I took one, and Justin and I took the one in front of us (which was actually closer to the back of the plane, since the middle seats faced backwards).

We took off around 7:30 and by 9 Amaia was still awake-even though I'd drugged her with antihistamine. She watched some movie with Jusitn while we ate dinner on the plane and I worked on getting Solia to sleep. I pretty much fell asleep as soon as I was able, and slept. When I woke up we still had a few hours (and the girls were out) so I finally got to watch Eclipse via the in flight movie thing (you each get your own personal screen).

We got picked up at the airport (after getting our 8 items from the luggage belt!) and driven to our first temporary living apartment. This place had two floors and 3 bedrooms. We just hung out for the weekend, spending time playing our Xbox (that we of course put in the suitcase) and walking around some stores nearby (including a gelateria that had a-maz-ing ice cream). For Thanksgiving we....did nothing. Didn't even go out-we ate frozen dinners. Which doesn't sound as bad as it was. Let me elaborate: Nothing here tastes as salty as in the states, and something that you'd think would taste one way, tastes completely different. Add that on top of the fact that we were still having a hard time figuring out the ovens, we had cold not very good tasting frozen dinners. No fun.

On Sunday we went to church. Our ward is super small but there are a handful of expat families, and quite a few from other countries.

Sunday afternoon we had to move all of our stuff from one apartment, downstairs to another. This one was only one floor and 2 bedrooms, and it was awful. I tell you what. Before we had each girl in their own room. Now, Amaia had a room, and we had a room, and since neither room had enough space for the pack and play, Solia slept in the kitchen (whcih was only like a foot wider than the pack and play). We left it up the whole time because there was no way I was going to pack and un pack that thing every day.

Solia got pretty sick at one point-mostly with just a cold. But she was miserable. We spent a lot of time bumming around doing nothing. We went out to the grocery store a couple times to get stuff-mostly frozen dinners and cereal since we didn't have much by the way of cooking supplies. All Amaia had to play with were the toys I packed for her in the suitcase (flash cards, crayons and paper, foam beads and string, and a manga doodle) and her ipod. She pretty much watched movies all day (we brought some), and when she wasn't in front of the tv, she was watching aladdin on her ipod. It was awful.

On the 7th of December we finally got into our new house to find: NO HEAT! yikes. They were supposed to come fix it over the weekend, but they didn't. That night we had toast and ice cream for dinner (you think I"m kidding, but no). We went to Tesco (the closest thing to a super walmart) and bought 3 space heaters and some other things we needed. We had all 3 space heaters and the fireplace on in the living room, then at night we put on heater in each of our rooms. It took them A WEEK to get the heat fixed-luckily they reimbursed us the cost of the heaters, plus our electricity bill for the whole month of December for having to run the heaters 24/7.

Come back for more in the December 1st Half post...coming soon....hopefully....since all the pictures are all ready....