January 2011 2nd Half w Video

This month we went to Stonehenge for the first time. It was cool and all, but you can only get so close, and it was FREEZING. Like, probably literally, except our stupid car had the thermometer in C and I'm useless with Celsius. Anyways, we went in, paid, pretty much walked around it as fast as we could manage, and left. We didn't even bother pulling the girls out of the stroller for a picture-it was that cold.

Amaia took a nice fall. She decided to wear her plastic princess shoes down the stairs-not a good idea. I went and picked her up and she cried for like 2 seconds before calming down. I was resting my face on her head while hugging her (in front of a mirror we had in the hall) and when I lifted my face off, it was covered in blood! Amaia had a huge gash on her head and she didn't even notice. I was going to go clean it off and I almost got sick when I moved her hair and saw how deep it was-you could see all the fat under her skin and it was all bubbly and gross. Anyways, Amaia acted like nothing had even happened. I called Justin and made him come home and take her to the ER. They just superglued it all up. And the surrounding hair-like it looked like they just took the bottle and squeezed it on her head-it ran all the way down to her ear almost. Ugh. According to Justin, she just sat there completely still and calm and quiet the whole time. She cried right at the end, though, becuase she wanted the doctor to not stop and keep fixing her up.

The scary part about all of that, though, is Justin had his first visit to the ER when he was 2, and he also apparently just took it all in stride like a tough macho man. And then he was in and out of the ER like a motorcycle dare devil the rest of his life (up until he got back from the mission-hasn't had any accidents since then). I'm hoping this isn't some sort of sick omen.


Happening with the girls this time around:

*Every time I am holding or hugging Amaia and Solia at the same time, Amaia will say "Two cute little girls!"

*When Solia spits up or poos, Amaia tells her "Dat's just nasgy, Solia"

*Amaia will always say "It's a good idea (fill in the blank)": to go to the store; go eat dinner; get her teddy; etc.

*She also says "I'm pretty sure (fill in the blank)": I hungry; Solia has a poopy diaper; etc.

*I'm pretty sure that Amaia has finally made the connection that Solia is the 'baby sister' that was in my tummy for so long

*Amaia's learned how to answer "why". She can actually give me reasons for things now.

*Solia is super terrified of strangers and freaks out when I leave her line of sight.

*Solia started scooting! or the army crawl, whatever you want to call it. But either way it means she's mobile.

*If you tell Amaia a secret, she'll want to tell you one, too, so she'll put her ear on your ear and whisper something that you can't hear because she's talking to your hair :)

*If you call Amaia a name, she'll respond with "I'm a big giirl!". IE-Amaia, you're such a fruit: My not a frooot, I a big giirl!

*We try and teach her new words all the time, we always says "Amaia can you say (applesauce, ie); she'll say "No, I can't say applesauce!" It's really funny.

*Amaia calls Solia a 'little goobie goobies'

*When she says 'color' it sounds like 'clud or'; when she says 'yellow' sounds like 'led-o'; silly sounds like 'sliddy'

*When she wants to suck on her thumb while cuddling with her blankey, she calls it 'sucking my blankey'

*Amaia has started singing (mostly nonsense) all the time

*And to end on a not so awesome note, Amaia is officially back in pull ups full time. Ugh. At least it means less trips to the bathroom, and less laundry. For now.

Top: Picture of the harbor on our little island; and a picture of the lights switching from red to green Bottom: how much we paid (in pounds) for our first tank of gas; the speed lines on the road; and a manor/house thing that was converted into an awesome looking McDonald's


Solia




365

365

Amaia, including a nice shot of her head wound.

Small disclaimer: In the video, Amaia demonstrates her anatomical knowledge of the human body parts (in the nether regions), so if you are easily offended you might want to plug your ears, or just not watch, or get over it and watch it anyways. :)

*UPDATE*

There is no longer a video in this post-follow the link to my video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDPdRZkJm9w

This is so you can actually watch the full HD version of the film, instead of a 4in square box with super terrible resolution so I could upload it to the post...

Spot the Difference {3}

See those lines in the road? They are for that little yellow box up in the top right corner-a speed camera. They record how long it takes you to cross all the lines, and they can tell how fast you are going-it also, of course, catches your license plate on the backside in case they need to give you a ticket. These things are serious-people will slam on their brakes and go under the speed limit just to be safe.


Yield sign-except it's called Give Way instead of yield




The lights here go from green to yellow to red, then they do red and yellow at the same time (above), then back to green. That way you know it's getting ready to turn green. Technically you can drive through them but most people just let off the brake and drift until it turns green before stepping on the gas.






This was the price of gas at a station in January. It's in pence (so 129 pence is 1 pound 29 pence) and it's per litre, not gallon. So....that's 2 ish bucks per litre, but there are about 3 3/4 litres to a gallon, so that comes out to over $7 per gallon. Ya. You thought gas prices were bad where you were. Oh, and that was the regular gas I just did-most cars run on diesel which you can see is more expensive.

This sign says "wait here until green light shows". There was construction, and there was only one lane open. Instead of having some poor guy with a flag stand there all day deciding when to let people go, they set up these traffic lights. It's actually pretty cool.

Kids Say the Darndest Things {4}

*Stop crying Solia. I'm trying tuh eat dinner, and it reedy hard when you crying like that.*

*I'm trying to clean our new house before Daddy comes home-Daddy can't see this big mess*

*I'm stuck-you gunna pick me up or what?*

*(after I got on her case about something) "My six-two years old-I not a child, Em!" (bonus points if you can tell me what disney movie she is trying to quote)*

*One day she was playing with my elbow (arm straight) and thought the wrinkles were goosebumps. I told her that my elbow was just wrinkly and she says "It just wrinkly cuz it just had a shower"*

January 2011-1st Half

*Amaia is working hard to pronounce 'L' correctly-for now all the 'L' words start with a 'Y': yion; yizard; yundon, etc

*She is officially un potty trained! Yay-NOT. Even before Solia was born, she would start "leaking"-just a little bit would end up in her underwear but she would still put most of it in the toilet. Then it just kept getting worse and worse until one day this month she full on peed her pants (on Justin's lap, no less). She's officially in pull ups but still poops in the toilet

*Instead of calling me 'mommy' it's 'honey Em'

*When you pick up Solia, she puts her arms around your neck and squeezes in the cutest little hug.

*Justin got a promotion this month! Just up to the next level of awesomeness (I don't really understand it all) but it's still good!

*Bedtime routine consists of yogurt and milk, scriptures, telling Cinderella plus one other story. It makes for a long routine.

*Amaia always says "I need to make my tummy full" when she's eating.

Solia Only

Girls Together

365 Photo-Set 1

365 Photo-Set 2

Amaia Only

Trip to see Big Ben/Buckingham Palace. It was really

cold on the bridge where we took pics in front of Big Ben so we didn't

get the girls out of the carriers to do a picture.

Spot the Difference {2}

All of the bathrooms in the homes have these heated towel racks for you to hang your towel on. White-Out is called Tippex. It's the brand, just like White Out brand, but no one will have any idea what you're talking about if you ask for White Out. Also, a vacuum is called a Hoover, and you don't vacuum the floors, you hoover them. Every one knows they spell things funny here: realize vs realise; color vs colour; fiber vs fibre; favorite vs favourite, etc Gasoline is called petrol here-but in reality most cars here run on diesel. Petrol is sold by the litre-not the gallon. Last I checked, it was 130pence (so 1pound 30 pence) per litre, which of course is ridiculous. It cost us over 80 pounds to fill our car, and the tank wasn't even empty.

Kids Say the Darndest Things-{3}

"Daddy, don't throw me in the yucky water (the river out back)-that no make any sense". The funny part is-Justin never said anything about throwing her in the water-not even as a joke like he normally would. It was so out of the blue.

"Dat's just yucky Solia-don't eat my pants you silly little goobies"

"Oh my gosh frickin A!" I know it's in the December video, but I had to write it down. I most certainly have never said that all in a row like that, but I do get carried away sometimes....

Me: Amaia stop freaking out and calm down! Amaia: I just NEED to freak out.

One day I was nursing Solia, and when she was done I didn't immediately cover myself up again. Amaia comes over and starts messing with my shirt, telling me to "put you boob away"

"Stop crying Solia and show me a happy face right now!"

I told Amaia to come inside b/c it was a little chilly (nothing to terrible I just didn't want to be outside anymore) and she says "It's NOT cold outside it's freezing!"

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