Oh Christmas Tree!

This year, we got on the ball a little early since we had Lala around to help get us in the Christmas spirit. Everyone loves to go get a Christmas tree...errr, except for Millie:
Christmas Tree 2010!!!
Millie still looked a little skeptical, but she seemed to embrace the whole Christmas tree thing eventually...as much as a few weeks old baby can:
Evie could hardly contain her excitement and danced among the Christmas tree lights
Everyone helped to decorate!
Lala showed us some alternative uses for our Christmas themed coasters:


Cute girls in front of the tree:
and, last, but not least, the most laugh worthy family picture ever. Don't we look great with our chicken pox, blobby post-pregnancy figures, mouths wide open and screaming our heads off?
Happy Christmas Season everyone!!

Cry baby

Sometimes even Lala can't make Millie happy!

But we all try!

Snow angel

When you're almost 2 and it snows, it's magical! After visiting Jim in his chicken pox quarantine, Evie and I took a walk in the fresh snow in the park.

Here she is in front of the best located trailer park in London--Hampstead Heath's very own!
And a few days later, when JIm was over the pox, we took her sledding for the first time (see previous videos). School wasn't out, so we practically had the whole place to ourselves and I think it's safe to say that we all enjoyed it thoroughly:

PS Dear Santa, PLEASE bring me a new hat for Christmas. This one is wonderful, but I've had it for about 8 years and need to update my winter fashion a little bit (we won't even talk about the humpty dumpty style ski pants I'm wearing...)!

Hello World!

On November 15, our little Millie came screaming into the world. In the interest of actually getting this blog done sometime before she is five, I'm not going to go into as much detail as I did when Evie was born (sorry Millie, but, as you already know, this is your lot in life as the second child. But it doesn't mean we love you less)!

After a night of labor, which suddenly just stopped, the doctor advised that Jim and I go for a walk, get some breakfast and see if things started up again. When this picture was taken, I was halfway through my oatmeal and totally in labor again. I got my epidural as soon as I could when we got back to the hospital.
And a couple of hours later, covered in meconium and making her entrance into the world before the doctor could even get there (thanks to the midwife!) Millie joined us.
Unlike her sister, she has reddish hair, blue eyes (at this point) and fair skin. Even though she and Evie look a lot alike in a lot of ways, Millie definitely has her own style and is very determined to be heard at all hours of the night and day. You can't tell from these early pictures, but she is feisty! When she screams her face turns bright red and her blonde eyebrows stand out on her forehead like someone has drawn them on with white chalk. It would be funny if we weren't so sleep deprived around here.

One of Millie's first challenges in life has been avoiding getting the chicken pox and, unfortunately, we're still not sure she has succeeded. First Evie had them just before Millie was born and then Jim got them when Millie was about a week old. She has definitely been exposed, but time will only tell whether or not my antibodies are still protecting her. Once Evie was cleared and we could come home, she was thrilled to welcome her new little sister:
And Jim is, clearly, a proud Daddy with his two beautiful girls:



When she was 3 days old, Millie had her first walk in Hampstead Heath:


And, like Evie, she hates taking a bath. Luckily, Evie is there to help her get through her bath and to sooth her after she's out (although I'm not sure Millie is too keen on Evie's affections at this point. Usually after Evie "soothes" there is hysteria).


She's a cutie pie and we are lucky to have such beautiful and sweet daughters to get us through the days! Welcome to the world, Millie!

Winter Sports

Still no time for a real blog with pictures, but here's a video of Evie's first adventure in winter sports: sledding!!!

Unfortunately, it was too cold to take Millie out in the snow, too, so she stayed home with Lala (who is leaving on Sunday. BOOHOO!!!).

New Millie

I haven't been able to blog because we have a NEW BABY!!! Millie was born a couple of weeks ago and since then Evie has recovered from chicken pox and Jim has come down with chicken pox and everything has been wild and chaotic. So, on top of little sleep and adjusting to a new baby in the house, we've also had to quarantine Jim and call for extra support from the grandmothers. Things are calming down now and hopefully Millie won't get sick, too. I have every intention of blogging about her grand entrance (with less detail than before, admittedly), but until then, here are a few videos of life since her arrival.

What not to do just before nap time: hot chocolate.


My attempt to video Millie sweetly snoring...


A new obsession is the Nutcracker Ballet (and yes, I realize these dance moves are very similar to the post-hot chocolate ones):


Millie mostly sleeps these days, but once she starts getting a little more interesting to other people besides us, I'll do some videoing of her in action.

VIDEOS AGAIN!!!

Finally, after a super long time, Jim spent two weekends backing up our pictures and everything else on our computer and installing new software so that we could get the videos off of my camera and onto our Mac. And so I now give you lots of Evie videos from the past few months!

First, Evie and the Crawfish, who we met when we were walking in Hampstead Heath one rainy morning. I was impressed by the size of these crawfish (or crayfish as they call them here) and never really considered England a crawfish kind of place. But there you go. Evie was not so impressed...


Evie was thrilled to be at the beach during our Cornwall trip in September. I thought it was ridiculously cold, but Jim and Evie displayed their adopted English-ness and braved the not exactly beachy weather.


I was very surprised when Evie came flying down this giant slide a few weeks ago...


Pasta dance party:


And finally, the nightly ritual (although now she has gotten really bossy and makes us get down on the floor and be sleeping/hopping bunnies, too. She won't take no for an answer!): frenzied sleeping bunny in her bunny towel. Yes, she really is this fast and yes, she really does have this much energy pretty much all of the time.


Hooray for the videos! Stay tuned for more and soon we'll have videos of the new baby, too!