Will and Hope

A couple of weeks ago, Will and Hope arrived for their first visit to London! This was also their first time to meet Evie!

Evie was thrilled and immediately started showing off and sharing her stuff (and theirs) with them.

Their first tube ride:

And a visit to Borough Market:

Evie is, it turns out, a fan of stuffed grape leaves and refused to eat anything else for lunch:

Bunny ears: a family favorite. Har har.

It was a cold day, but the sky was clear (which was not the case for most of Will and Hope's visit, unfortunately):

Will's birthday was the day after they arrived, so as part of his birthday extravaganza, we went ice skating at the Tower of London.

We rocked the blue, plastic rental skates.

And posed for the paparazzi:


Jim was obviously the most talented skater of us all:

Hope and I were thoroughly enjoying ourselves, but the men got sore feet and were hungry so we cut our ice-capade short and went out to China Town for dinner and then to Camden, where we all got tattoos of Will's name and birth date. We also made a toast to Kate, who was celebrating her birthday with some football and Thanksgiving leftovers.



Because Will and Hope were in town, we had no excuse for not celebrating Thanksgiving. It's the first time we've been lucky enough to have family around for our American holiday! Despite the extra people to help with Evie, it was still a challenge to keep her out of the kitchen and away from the hot oven. I prepared accordingly:


Jim was ready with the knife:


Jim was the turkey man again this year and was pretty intrigued by the things he pulled out of the turkey's butt (like it's neck).


Evie was keeping everyone happy in the living room..except for maybe Finchley, who she was using as the base for her block towers:



Dinner was an international success, with not only Americans, but also English and Polish people in attendance! And, best of all, Will and Hope did the dishes.


After Thanksgiving, Will and Hope had a day out in the rain on their own and then headed off to Amsterdam, en route to which Hope came down with some flu-like illness. Despite feeling under the weather still when they got back to London, She gamely allowed me to drag them around London some more. Evie was dreaming of Aunt Kate and Uncle Andy:


In Regent's Park, watching the ducks:


And, later, at The Washington, a pub near our house where we met our friends Julie and Simon for dinner:


Not sure what Jim was doing in this picture, but I'm sure it was something very significant.

Will tried black pudding...which is basically gelatinous blood.

I am racing through the rest of the visit because Will and Hope were out on their own a lot and I can hear the sounds of Evie waking up, which means that if I go into too much detail, I will have to continue to not post this blog! Blogging happens during nap time these days, if I'm lucky!

First bus ride:

A stroll in Hyde Park:

Very crowded Portabello Market.

And then the rest of us came down with the flu-like illness, so we didn't really do much more than lie around the house using incredible amounts of kleenex. It was so great to have Will and Hope here, though, and I still am waking up in the morning and expecting them to be in the living room. I feel lucky to have such a great family!

New Shoes

Evie celebrated with a babyccino (sp?) at Starbucks (starting early) after the purchase of her first real shoes. Whohoo!

Homebodies

This weekend we opted to stay local instead of venturing out onto public transportation. Despite questionable looking weather, we went off on a walk towards Golders Green Park via some Hampstead neighborhoods. On the way, much to our delight, we stumbled upon a deserted playground--an unheard of phenomenon around here! Since there were no other people around, we could break all kind of playground rules (such as riding on the zip line when you are at least 100 pounds overweight).






It was beautiful and fall-like at Golders Green Park. Evie was finally awake to see the deer!




One of our favorite games is to play 'Who's hat is that?' The hat is always Evie and Jim and I discuss who's hat she is while Evie giggles on top of our heads. She is getting to be a pretty big hat.


During lunch, we realized that we didn't have Evie's binky. She sought solace in a couple of pieces of bread, one of which was still in her mouth when she fell asleep.



Today (Sunday) Hampstead had its Christmas Festival. Let me remind you that there is no such thing as Thanksgiving in England, so we launch right into Christmas as soon as it is appropriate (early November). We started the day with a chance encounter with Santa Claus! As you can see, it didn't go well.


Then we went as a family to see the free movie at the local movie theater: A Muppets' Christmas Carol. I'm sure you all know exactly who REALLY wanted to see this movie (hint: it wasn't Evie). Although Evie was entertained during times, mostly she played on the floor and slept. Jim and I, though, thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.



Out on the street there were birds of prey on display. The Owls were magnificent, but I also felt a little sad seeing them confined and in an urban setting. There were also some reindeer (clearly not enjoying the up close encounters with small children...poor reindeer!) and a horse pulling a sleigh around the block.


Evie enjoyed the children's choir which was performing.

And we all got a kick out of the Punch and Judy show happening in front of the local deli (overpriced and with an American section in the back for all us yanks).

It was a good weekend to stay in the neighborhood and next weekend we'll have Will and Hope and birthdays and Thanksgiving, so lots to do and celebrate!

A little bit of Evie during the week

Bath time used to be the most dreaded time of the day, but now it is highly anticipated. From the moment I turn on the tap, Evie waits excitedly until she can clamber in.


The sponge is a slight bath time obsession. If she can get her hands on it, she sucks all of the water out of it. If not (which is the usual situation), she is happy just to watch the soapy water get squeezed out of it.


But the best part is when Daddy is home because that makes bath time fun AND animated.


Celebrating her Louisiana heritage (shirt courtesy of Meg and Dan)!


Snack time with Finchley. I didn't get a picture of this, but when Finchley was having his dinner and Evie was having her snack, she crawled up to his eating area and put her snack in his spare food bowl. So now, when Finchley eats, I put Evie's bowl down next to him so that they can have a snack together. And, for the record, I threw away the snack that was placed in the cat bowl.


Beautiful and tired bathing beauty...

Being silly!


Evie has also learned to 'help' do the laundry. After she unfolded a whole basket of clothes yesterday, I gave her the basket so that she could practice. She will be a great help some day!


And making her Daddy proud! Evie celebrates London 2012!

OK

I'm officially re-inspired to blog and I won't let the blog die a slow death after all.

Consumerism as entertainment

Today we went to...Harrods! We didn't buy anything, but we figured that since it's all decked out for Christmas, it would be a fun place to visit on a rainy day.

The theme of this year's Christmas at Harrods is "The Emerald City." I'm not sure if this is the theme every year, but they had their Christmas parade on November 7th, so they're pretty gung ho about it. I think that in the absence of Thanksgiving, there is nothing else to celebrate after Guy Fawkes Day but Christmas (really early)! And it's all about bringing in the big bucks!

It IS a pretty awesome department store, and so big that I can't imagine actually seeing the whole thing at once. We focused on the areas that had lots of decorations, impressive looking foods and, of course, the toy section. We also accidentally stumbled through menswear, which wasn't too exciting. Evie was thrilled, craning out of her stroller for maximum viewing, squealing in delight, making everyone around her smile as she hugged the 2009 Christmas bear (no, we did not get it for her). She was also VERY impressed with the cupcakes.


I am drastically cutting back on my coffee consumption and haven't had any since last weekend, so I was thrilled to succomb to some really good coffee at Krispy Kreme in Harrods. Jim also got a doughnut.


Evie was the cutest unknowing Krispy Kreme's spokesbaby. Although I have let her taste a cupcake and various other treats, doughnuts are something that I connect with a childhood stomach virus and not something that we ever have around here. I'm sure that someone, somewhere (probably Jim) will give her a doughnut in due time!


Harrods has an AWESOME toy department. It was fun playing with the giant puppet heads.

Jim and I were wondering what kind of people actually SHOP at Harrods and decided that if we were filthy rich, we would definitely buy a 1000 Pound (GBP not weight) gorilla for Evie. Instead she had to settle for us taking her picture on some giant bears and the excitement of riding on a giant dog.



But her favorites by far, were the bears and monkeys who were part of a scene and a little dog who wandered the store with a balloon attached to him. she couldn't decide whether the dog or the balloon was more exciting.



We bought nothing at Harrods so we rewarded ourselves the end of our excursion with lunch at a fun and pretty inexpensive sushi place. The best part about it was that the people who were running it were Indian. What a fun way to spend a windy and rainy day in London!