The Amazing Tap Dancing Evie and Millie

They've got mad skill...

Tap Dancers

Evie's friend Rufus came over and loaned her his Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire movie, "Roberta." He also taught her some great tap moves and introduced her to a woman who danced without a tutu. Unthinkable!

City Farm

Yesterday we got some sunshine again, so we joined our friends Emma and Sebastian on a trip to City Farm. City Farm is walking distance from us in Kentish Town, right next to the train tracks and to get there you mosey past the giant Royal Free Hospital and wander through some council flats. Then you cross a bridge over the train tracks and, behind a non-descript wooden door there is a fulling functioning, if slightly worn looking farm...in the middle of Camden and next to three train lines. I have seen the horses from the train before, so it was fun to actually check out the mystical City Farm.

The kids were ready to go to the farm...but first we had to stop at Starbucks for coffee and paninis. Millie took this opportunity to take a snooze in the back of the buggy.
When we got to the farm, I let Evie out to run...and discovered that chickens are, apparently, terrifying creatures:
It took a good half hour for her to accept the fact that the chickens were not out to get her, but eventually, after petting some baby goats, she began to embrace the farm:
Meanwhile, Millie was living it up in the front seat of the stroller--a rare treat, as usually she's in the back!
Evie and Sebastian rushed ahead and held hands a lot. Emboldened by the fact that she was over her fear of chickens, Evie went into bossy mode. Here she is telling Sebastian to "WAIT for MOMMY...PLEASE!" Sebastian, not one to be bossed around, totally ignored her.

The pigs were a great hit and part of the fun was yelling at them to wake up:

They did not:
Horses grazing next to the train tracks:
Watching the frogs:
Happy Sebastian:

We all had a fun time at City Farm but when Evie and Sebastian started picking up sheep poop, it was time to go!

That's Bananas!

Although she's only 4 and a half months old, Millie is a voracious eater and after one too many nights of being woken up at 4:20 am, we decided to let her try out a banana. She seemed to like it, although it's really hard to focus on things when there is horrible music blaring in the background and your sister is screaming in your ear about bananas. I think rice cereal will go down better:

Springier and Springier

Today, after a fun get together at our house and a delicious brunch mostly cooked by Jim (during which I completely forgot to take pictures) we went for a walk in the park. Because it was a beautiful day in London, the masses were out. And because we are great promoters of Evie burning off some of her neverending energy and going to be as early as possible tonight, we let her walk a lot. For some reason, the more tired she gets, the more energy she has. I wish I had that problem. It would make keeping up with her a lot easier!
Evie is very into accessorizing, so she wore her pink tutu underneath the dress that she was already wearing. Millie is learning great fashion tips from her big sister.

Hampstead Heath dirt inspection:
From the back seat of her stroller, Millie took it all in with her usual mellow attitude...until she got hungry and all we had to offer her was a cold bottle and she decided that she had had enough of this outdoors nonsense and we went home. Once we were safely inside the house, she was back to her happy self again:
But first we stopped by Keats' House with Jackie and Piotrek!

Evie practiced her ball throwing:

And somehow, when we got home, she still had enough energy to do this:

(Jim is not English, although sometimes he likes to talk like he is. Evie usually has a slight English accent, but seems to have dropped it for this video. It's more pronounced after she hangs out with her English friends.)

What a ham!

Kitchen dance

This morning I had a doctor's appointment and Jim had to stay home from work because I couldn't find a babysitter. AND he got up at 4:30 to feed Millie AND he got up with both girls and let me sleep until 8:00, which is late in our world. And he fed Finchley. What a man!

Anyway, we started the day with a small dance party in the kitchen. As you can see, Jim has some super fly dance moves which he will use to mortify Evie and Millie during their teenage years. Millie doesn't usually wear a hat while we're inside, but she wanted to model her sweet SIX TO TWELVE MONTH OUTFIT!!!!! that Nana and Papa gave her. Also, I'm not sure why Evie wasn't allowed to touch the garlic, but she seemed not to care....


I love my family!

As a side note, today I threatened Evie with loss of her Cinderella dress (plural) and all party dresses and tutus for an entire day if she didn't behave. That worked.

Sun Babies

Spring is trying make an appearance in London! The trees are getting leaves and flowers and the sun even comes out every once in a while. I bought a ball of birdseed to hang in our garden, but I'm a little nervous about the whole cat aspect of our neighborhood. I want the girls to see pretty spring birds eating food outside of our window, but I don't want to set the poor birds up for imminent death in the process. We might take the birdseed ball to the park...

Millie's sunhat is gigantic. When she is in the sling, she is all sunhat. This one was chosen by Evie (obviously...it's big and pink) and should last her until she's about 10.
After accepting that she couldn't sit on the part of this stump that was protruding out of the side, Evie settled for sitting on the top and reluctantly posed for a sunny picture in front of the seagull, Canada Goose, Coot non-duck pond. Then she immediately pointed out and touched the dog poop on my hiking boot. Sigh. People, please pick up your dog's poop so that my kid doesn't feel like she has to wipe it off of my shoe with her bare hand.
Then we went home and washed hands. The end.

next time we'll take the train

On Sunday, in an attempt to get out of our neighborhood, we rented a car and planned to go to Marlow (a picturesque village on the Thames...we have gone country walking there a couple of times). We were all excited, except for Millie, who was decidedly NOT excited about the fact that she was in her car seat. Evie gathered her ballerina mouse and bunny and even though it started to rain we were determined to get out and experience the world beyond Hampstead!

Alas, we made it only to the motorway, just past Ikea, before Evie threw up and our trip ended with a traffic jam, two stops on sketchy side roads and the promise of chocolate ice cream when we got home. I'm not sure what is going to happen when we're in America and Evie has to be in a car on a daily basis....

Party Girl

Millie likes a wild dance party!

Bonding time

Millie and Finchley did some bonding yesterday:

Princess Power!

If you are a regular reader of this blog (and probably the only regular readers of this blog are our family at this point. We've gone from international travel to hanging out in living room surrounded by a ridiculous amount of toys in just a couple of years), you will know that Evie is into princesses. Some people feel that little girls being into princesses is just a big brainwash by Disney and other people who want to keep little girls down and we certainly weren't pushing the princess agenda with Evie...it just kind of happened. When Evie turned one, she was given a Cinderella book by one of our friends. Prior to this she had never heard of Cinderella or seen a Disney movie, so we were surprised when, while we were out and about one day, she got very excited about an advertisement for Disney World that was printed on the back of a magazine. Curious to see what would happen, we got her a Cinderella dress and we ordered her the Cinderella movie. Complete obsession followed and she has seen the movie no fewer than six thousand times.

Besides liking to 'clean' like Cinderella (yesterday I turned my back for a few minutes and found her on her hands and knees with her washcloth dipped into Finchley's water bowl and a pool of water around her on the kitchen floor. She was very proud of herself), Evie also likes to BE Cinderella. Her interpretation of Cinderella involves looking sad, moving very slowly, pretending to sob, and gazing longingly out of the window:

Also, she likes to sing and act out the romantic ball scene (notice how she pretends to trail her fingers through the water like Cinderella does in the movie...before being distracted by a rogue raisin that escaped during snack time). Apologies for the erratic video. I was feeding Millie and trying to film at the same time. Not a good idea:


Anyway, obviously a princess needs a castle, so I couldn't resist getting this princess tent for Evie and Millie. Jim had nothing to do with this decision and probably would have suggested that maybe we don't have room for such a thing in our already overflowing and too small flat. But Evie's reaction to the tent makes the reduction in space worth it!

She even took her nap in it today:

And someone else likes it, too...

Bumbo Disinterest

When we introduced Evie to her Bumbo, her initial reaction was excitement and to tackle the objects in front of her:


Not so much with Millie. Despite my best efforts and the most tempting and exciting baby toys in my regime, she really was not impressed. In fact, I think she was bored!

True and Uncritical Love

If you ever want to feel good about yourself, have young children around. Not only do they think you are endless fun and interesting, but they also don't care what you look like or what you wear or whether or not you are a big dork. They always want to be with you. They think you are funny. There is nothing that you can do to tarnish their golden view of you (until they are about 12 and then it all goes to hell).

Yesterday Evie and I were playing "Cinderella" in the living room. In this game, Evie is obviously Cinderella and I get to alternate between the roles of fairy godmother and prince. One day I will video Evie doing her reenactment of the prince and Cinderella dancing at the ball, because she takes it very seriously and, for a 2 year old, it's pretty impressive. Anyway, yesterday I was dressed like this to be the fairy godmother:
Upon seeing my getup, Evie came up to me, looked me in the eyes (sunglasses) and said, in an awestruck voice, "Mommy...BEAUTIFUL!"

Now that's love.

(Millie also enjoys gazing into my eyes and thinks it's hilarious when use my hair to be a carwash on her face. I must be even more beautiful than I thought!)

All better

Luckily, yesterday ended on a high note,with Evie enjoying milk and other delicious snack items and Millie enjoying her finger:

(Don't worry. I'm not going to add music to every video.)

Grouch-fest

Evie has been sick this week. This video pretty much captures the mood and also gives a good snapshot of what my week has been like.

I'm looking forward to when good health and happiness once again return to our household!