Let the celebrations begin!

Evie's first birthday is coming up and she had her first of several celebrations today, along with her closest baby friends: Oliver, Oliver, Holly, Zoe and Niah (they were missing Elodie, Sorrel and Eden, who were off having international adventures and attending weddings). A bunch of other baby friends also came to celebrate and Holly's mom, Amy, cake maker extraordinaire, made several cakes. This one was the main cake, which went along with The Hungry Caterpillar party theme. Very impressive (and delicious!)


Evie brought her pink ball to share with all of her friends and the party started off calmly on the floor. The great thing about these babies is that they really are all friends. They have been together since they were born and just happily co-exist.


Everyone contributed food and drink to the spread, but I have to hand it to my friends, who were super organized and really decorated and made the party really nice. I contributed by bringing some oatmeal cookies, but it was the other moms who really made the party look professional! Here Melissa and Poppy pose in front of the spread.


The big fun started when we got to go into "Treetops" a toddler soft play extravaganza. Evie threw herself into the fray with her usual enthusiasm for such things.


Evie and Jim prepare to conquer Treetops from the first ledge.


At first I thought we had gotten in over our heads. Treetops is definitely geared towards older toddlers and if any actual older toddlers had been there, our babies would have been completely trampled. But I also underestimated the fearlessness of our babies. Although Evie was a little nervous about some of the rope bridges, she quickly got over that.

We made our way across the first treacherous bridge, hand in hand

After that she was very pleased.

Evie, Niah and another guest baby in the tunnel:

And Oliver, looking especially ethereal.


Evie and Jim crossed that bridge when they got there.


Good times in the ball pool (balls are a favorite these days):


Time to eat! The food was YUMMY. Evie especially liked a little quiche which was actually for the adults. She was also very interested in eating Niah's food.


And finally the fabulous cake! The dark room plus the candles plus the singing created a very SCARY effect (for Evie). She wasn't too sure about the whole situation and refused to eat the cake so Jim and I ate her piece. It was delicious!



It was a happy time and a fabulous way to kick off Evie's birthday week! We are lucky to have so many wonderful friends here who make things so fun for us and for Evie. We will keep on celebrating Evie's big day for as long as we live...what a fun thing to look forward to!

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

It has been so wintry around here lately! Yesterday, Evie and I joined Kate and Oliver for a traipse across Hampstead Heath. It was incredibly beautiful and, unlike the streets and sidewalks, not icy yet.

Evie and Oliver posed in front of one of the frozen ponds.



Cotton snow in the trees:


This guy was walking 14 excited dogs in the snow. Evie was delighted.


Sun on the snowy Heath:


A rather large snowman outside of Kenwood House.


Evie found her snow legs yesterday and toddled around Kenwood House in her hot pink snowsuit, much to the delight of many spectators. We all were thrilled with the snowy wonderland that was the Heath and I think she would have wandered around in it for hours if I hadn't been concerned about her getting frostbitten feet.



We are supposed to get more snow tonight and tomorrow and Jim is planning to build a homemade sled, as all of the stores have sold out around here. Should be interesting. Hopefully no one will end up in the A&E!

Evie in the winter

Come and get it!


Hot pink marshmallow hits the paths of Kenwood House:


Snow baby:

Memories of Buster Brown

In the fall of 2003, after our storage shed was burgled, I decided that the solution to all of our security problems was to get a dog. This vicious and protective dog would bark and snarl at the intruders,sending them terrified into the night. Then I started researching beagles, not exactly known for their fierceness, but for their love of food. After much searching on the Beagle Rescue League website, I happened across a particularly sweet looking beagle named Buster Brown, who I knew was meant to be ours.

I should note that Jim was not really into the idea of getting a dog. All the way out to Spring, TX, where Buster was temporarily living in a foster home with four other beagles, we bickered. But there was no denying Buster once we saw him. He was bowlegged and sad eyed, a piece of his ear was missing and his teeth were horrible. He was overshadowed by the other dogs in the house and it was clear that he needed unconditional love. We swept him up and into our car. He rode on my lap. He expressed his anal glands onto my sweater. At the dog park he sniffed with a passion that he never lost. We loved him. He wasn't so sure about us.

Our love was tested on many occasions. The first challenge was Buster's food aggressiveness, which no one had warned us about. I was the first victim, bitten when I tried to prevent him from eating cat poop in our back yard. He proceeded to bite Jim and several of our friends. We realized that treats like kong balls or anything that he couldn't eat very quickly and without feeling threatened were off limits. We soon also learned that no food was out of his reach. He ate cat food from the top of a table, managed to get to a carrot cake that we left on the counter (and threw it up on the couch), regularly foiled our attempts to keep him out of the trash can, couldn't be dissuaded from eating poop out of the kitty litter (an image of Buster chewing cat poop like gum and with kitty litter on his nose will never leave me. It was a delicacy for him)! Over time and with a lot of patience, we got the food aggression under control, but he ate with gusto until the end.

Buster loved to be with us and when we left for work he would, at first, tear at the blinds frantically and later, when he got used to the idea, he would stand forlornly and droopingly at the front door. He hated thunder and lightning and taking a bath. He loved to go for walks and when he caught a good smell he would give a howl of delight, followed by some enthusiastic moans. He never caught what he was smelling because he was far to interested in sniffing to notice where his prey had gone. He was always looking for a way out and frequently got out of our back yard in pursuit of some particularly wonderful smell. At the dog park, which was impenetrable, he spent half of his time there sniffing along the outermost perimeter. No space was big enough if there was a fence around it. He wasn't interested in other dogs. He loved his froggy, which made froggy noises and which he would parade around the house proudly.


He loved my parents most of all. When we were about to move to London and my parents left Dallas with the cats in their car, Buster howled forlornly. I thought he was sad that the cats were leaving, but now I know it's because he thought the cats were going to have the good life and he was being left behind. When he moved in with my parents, his life was complete and he had everything he needed:constant companionship, mutual adoration, table scraps, long walks. It was the happiest time of his life.

Some of our favorite Buster stories:

The Great Fence Scaler:
After a month of failing to figure out how Buster was escaping from our well fortified back yard, I caught him climbing onto the top of the six foot fence via a plant, scaling across the top, free falling onto the ground below and under the house, only to be drawn out by a particularly tempting treat.

Buster as Hotdog:

Each Halloween, much to his dismay, Buster was our Halloween Hotdog. That tradition stopped as soon as he moved to the farm.

Buster vs. Kristian:
Buster bit Kristian and Kristian bit back (vocally, at least).

Buster and the Brownies:
I can't tell this story on the blog, but it was memorable.

Buster and the ibuprofen (see: for his own account)
After I left him in the house while going for a run, Buster ransacked my purse and ate an entire bottle of ibuprofen. His stomach was pumped and his body was flushed with charcoal and when we came to visit him in the hospital he was wearing a satellite dish and had a sign on his cage that read "cage jumper."

Buster and the PigRoast:
In Houston we went next door to a pig roast, leaving Buster in the backyard of Jim's parents' house. After much scrabbling, Buster eventually managed to dig a hole and get half of his body under the fence. His determination was unforgettable!

Buster and the India Ink:
One day I came home from work and noticed Buster had black stuff all over his paws and face. It was also all over our white couch. It was ancient India Ink, which he had somehow unearthed and consumed.

Buster's age:
Buster has been '10 or 12' since we got him. No one really knows how old Buster actually was...he was like Moses.

Buster's breath:
As I mentioned, Buster had really bad teeth...and really bad breath. This was part of his charm and part of the reason no one could tell how old he was.

Buster the Traveling Wilberry:
Buster loved a good road trip. His favorite place to sit was in someone's lap, of course, but he also would settle for a prime spot on the back seat of the car. When he went on road trips with Mom and Dad, they stayed in Buster friendly hotels and never went out to eat because Buster didn't like to be alone in the hotel room. When I went on a road trip with Buster and Mom, Buster and I shared my bed in the hotel room (and some pizza).

Buster the Night Walker:
Buster also loved his night walks with Dad. Sometimes exciting smells would surface. One time they came face to face with a coyote. Most of the time they just walked and sniffed.

Buster the Pot Licker:
I'm pretty sure that the highlight of every day during his retirement was when Mom would let him lick the dinner plates and the greasy pots and pans. It was Buster's dream come true!

There are so many Buster stories and so many Buster memories. He was a wonderful, sweet dog, who enriched a lot of lives with his charms and antics. He was a big part of the life that Jim and I built together and a big part of Mom and Dad's life after we moved to London. We all loved him and we all miss him.

A New Year...and what happened at the end of the last one

Well, here I am again after a short hiatus. Although I was thinking about blogging, we were so busy socializing that I haven't had time to actually write about our Christmas and New Year. One of my New Year resolutions is to blog more...

Anyway, rewinding a little bit to Christmas Eve. Evie thoroughly enjoyed the excitement surrounding Christmas and especially the excitement of wrapping paper. She chipped in and did some wrapping of her own. DouDou was wrapped and unwrapped several times.


The festivities kicked off on New Years Eve at Julie, Phil, Joe and Maddy's house. We were accompanied by an pretty unhappy reindeer.



Fortunately, as soon as we got to the party and she saw one of her friends, our reindeer shed her outer layer and perked right up.



Tiny Santa hats were all the rage:



After multiple glasses of champagne, lots of yummy food and one minor reindeer meltdown, we made our way back home to get ready for Santa! Unfortunately, someone ate all but one of the slightly stale snickerdoodles, so Santa got a little gypped at our house, but he was still very generous.

But before I get to Christmas morning, Jim went to the midnight service at St. Paul's cathedral. He said that the line was thousands long and wound around the building and no pictures were allowed inside and the organ nearly blew his eardrums out and the tube was closed and there were no buses running, so he didn't stay too long for fear of never being able to get home again. But he did take some nice pictures and it was a good effort! Evie and I stayed at home and slept.


On Christmas morning, Jim and I were up hours before Evie and finally just went in and woke her up. Apparently the roles are reversed in this family. I think that next year she will know better than to sleep in on Christmas morning and we will be sorry that we didn't take advantage of her obliviousness this year and sleep in!


With a hungry baby, one cannot just jump right into the present opening. A banana was necessary to give her Christmas morning energy.


Then it was time to get down to business:


But not before rubbing a little banana in her Daddy's hair!


First up were the stockings.

After that, it didn't take her long to figure out that the boxes under the tree were really more exciting than she had anticipated:


We all got a lot of wonderful and generous presents from our family. We were very spoiled and if I put up all the pictures of all the presents that Evie got, it would take me far too long to finish this blog. Judging from the smile on his face, Jim's favorite present was the pack of Chips Ahoy style cookies that he got from Cookie Monster.

After we opened presents and had our coffee at home, we headed next door for breakfast with our neighbors Simon, Hua and Jack. Evie had a blast playing with Jack and Mouse (their cat). It was a delicious breakfast with salmon and scrambled eggs and bagels and more champagne (do you see a pattern?) and we rolled home afterwords, wondering how we were ever going to eat again in few hours at a pub near our house.


Somehow, though, we managed. Our pub Christmas lunch was delicious. Evie rejected her peanut butter sandwich in favor of some roast goose and some roasted pumpkin. She also had the opportunity to pick up some tips from older kids, who were demonstrating the proper way to throw a tantrum, including lying on the floor and screaming, hitting your Dad, and throwing yourself at the locked front door while yelling. Evie was very well behaved!



After all that gluttony, we felt it was necessary to walk up to the top of Primrose Hill and catch the last few minutes of daylight. It was cold, but felt good to move a little.


The day after Christmas--Boxing Day--is also a holiday in England and we were lucky to have been invited over for a late lunch and leisurely afternoon/evening with our friends Joan and Anu and their baby Niah. Evie and Niah go way back (from birth) so were happy to have the afternoon to play together.

There were a few rough moments, but we got through them.

And there was lots of good food and, of course, champagne.

Anu:

Joan and I tried to take a nice picture with uncooperative babies:

But everyone likes a good book, especially when there are lots of flaps to flap and fuzzy things to touch:


After a couple of days of recovery, we were so excited to see Rashmi and Siddarth who were in from LA visiting Rashmi's sister. Rashmi, Jim and Jackie all worked together in Houston, so it was a reunion on several levels!

The wine was flowing and we had gumbo for dinner, followed by a delicious cheese cake made by Simon (you can see our waistlines slowly expanding as the pictures continue). We laughed in a way that you can only laugh when you are hanging out with good friends.

It was a lot of fun and we were definitely sad to see see Rashmi and Sidd go. They are among the many friend we would like to import to London!



The next night was New Years Eve. Evie stayed with a babysitter and we headed down the road to Julie and Simon's for another raucous evening. Despite Julie's best efforts, guitar hero happened.

Then I was given the distinguished honor of being lead singer in "Rock Band" (guitar hero plus other instruments). It was horrific, but a lot of fun. We chose to play and sing Bon Jovi's living on a prayer, so I only really had to scream for a while. Even tone deaf people can sing that song.


After all the silliness, we rushed up to Primrose Hill, where we could see the fireworks all around the city. You can't tell from these pictures, but a lot of other people had the same idea and there were many, many very drunk people out celebrating. London doesn't appear to have any laws regarding when and where you can shoot off fireworks, so we found ourselves ducking for cover on more than one occasion while we were up on Primrose Hill. Not wanting to lose limbs or hair, we decided to head back down pretty quickly. Jim and I went straight home, but everyone else partied on until 4am (we are the only couple who had an early morning with a baby to look forward to). On our way home, random people wished us Happy New Year and called out from windows. It was rare and wonderful to experience such unabashed friendliness from Londoners!



Although the holidays are over, we have lots more celebrating to do. Evie turns one in less than two weeks and other festivities will be happening, too!