France, Part 1

Well, I am not real sure where to even begin in telling you about our holiday to France, so I shall start at the beginning. It was quite a trip- we came home a day early but I'll get to that later.

The day before we left I had decided I had had enough of Addison's mullet so we chopped it. She was amazingly, surprisingly wonderful and sat so still. She looks precious in her new bob.

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We left our house around 4:45am the Saturday before Easter. The sun was just coming up and it was such a beautiful drive into England and over to Folkstone where we drove our van onto a train to cross the English channel. Once you drive your car on, then thirty minutes later you arrive in Calais, France. Easy!

It's hard to picture here, but this is as we were driving onto the train. It's double-decker so we got put on top. I didn't panic like I thought I would, even though we've done this before. It's just crazy to think we are in a car, on a train, under water. Eek!

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As you drive on the train at the back you have to drive through it until you can't drive anymore. They put about 3 or 4 cars in each carriage and then shut a huge metal door behind you. More eek! But look how cool my photography skills are! (There is room for you to get out of your car and there is a toilet if you need one)

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So, from the time we left our house until we got to our holiday place, near Bayeux, Normandy it was about 9 hours. It was a good drive, all the girls were great! Yes, off to a good start! (This is where I should have known it was all about to go south!)

When you shop at Tesco (like we do) you earn points that you can use toward different purchases or merchandise. We cashed ours in to use at this holiday place - so essentially no money was lost. Now, in my head I knew we would be staying in a caravan park- that's just a fancy word for mobile home here in the UK. So I knew, but I guess that didn't really sink in till I saw our place.


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Hahahaha! All I can say is that it was brand new and it was clean. Oh and it was tiny. We were told to bring our own towels and bedding. Well I brought our bath towels and sheets but didn't really think about duvet covers or pillow cases or kitchen towels. See, this hadn't really "sunk" in yet. So, once we unpacked we had to make do. Here is Marc's pillow. The girls had similar looking ones.

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Once we got semi-unpacked we headed to the nearest grocery store to get food. Again, I had packed a few things but I wasn't really thinking I would be cooking all week. We needed some basics, so off we went. Three tired, and by this time cranky, hungry kids walk into a tiny French store with a husband who speaks French but was having trouble "getting it out" made for a very stressful situation. They only had a few things we needed so we found another store and this time I just sent him in for whatever he could find and I would sit in the car with the girls. It's less stressful on him that way and thankfully he got what we needed. Although Cerys will tell you she can speak French easily! She can say "Bonjour" and "Merci"

Here's the kitchen. We had a lovely deck outside that was half covered, so we could open the sliding doors in the kitchen and living room and the girls were able to run around on the deck. It was gated too so I could trust Addie out there. The first night was so warm and nice we ate outside, but the rest of the time was quite chilly so we ate inside.

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The big girls shared a room- as you can see that was the only walking space. We had a tiny bathroom with a toilet and then another shower room off our bedroom with a sink and shower. The "living room" bench turned into a double bed as well that we tried for one night, and put Addison is our room. Nothing worked. If you are my friend then you are sick of me talking about how Addison didn't sleep- but here I go again!

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Addison has had these, what we think now, are night terrors. It started back in December/January when Marc was in the States. She would wake up screaming and kicking uncontrollably and would not be consoled. It was few and far between so we didn't think much of it. The past month or so they became more frequent, even last week before our holiday she was up 3 times that week screaming. So, the first night in our caravan was horrendous, as were all the rest of them. We had her in a room by herself thinking that would help her sleep while we slept on the pull out bench in the living room. I ended up in the bedroom with her half of the night, Marc the other half of the night. It was miserable. No one slept. So, the next night we thought we could nip that in the bud and just push the small bed against a wall and squeeze her pack and play in with us and she would feel better knowing I can reach her.

Nope.

She was screaming every hour, till about 4am. It was very scary to us. She was inconsolable, screaming, kicking and looked scared. We were trying to wake her, turn the light on, get on to her...everything! We have never felt so clueless! After reading about night terrors (thank you Google) they say the worst thing you can do is wake them. Brilliant. Parent of the Year right here baby!

So as you can see, we were off to a fabulous start...

What? Another post this week?

My mother and mother-in-law are going to be so happy I've posted on the blog this much AND with pictures!

Y'all, it's been sunny for days!!! I think it was around 75 degrees today. I know! That is what our van temperature gage thingy said this afternoon about 5:30pm so it could have been even warmer. I had to break out the sunscreen again.

Here are some pictures from yesterday. We stayed outside all day today too and it's just so nice to see the girls having a blast outside together. They (for the most part) play nicely together. The funniest thing is seeing them ride bikes in tiny circles around the garden. Some days I feel kind of sad for them in our tiny garden, but then I'm just thankful we have one!

Cerys, posing for the camera!
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Marc was playing around with water hose and sprayed the girls once. It was cold water but they loved it!
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I'm amazed at Addison sometimes. She rides this scooter like she's been riding it for years. Marc taught her how to do it the other day and she goes fast around our decking! She's so proud and wakes up in the morning saying "I wide cooter?"

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Now don't you be fooled. Bailey may sounds like a British school girl, but she has not lost all her Texas roots. She pulls this horse around by the rope and ties him up and talks to him. Hilarious.

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We cleaned out our big flower pots and now it's just dirt until we find some flowers to plant. Addie loves digging in it. This picture pretty much sums her up. Cheeky.

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This morning we went over to a friend's house for an Easter egg hunt and dyeing eggs. I remembered that I had bought two dye kits at Target last year for 25 cents the week after Easter! Score!

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"Would you please stop taking my picture Mummy!"
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Our friend's little twin boys, they are 3 weeks older than Addison and she loves them!
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Yum! Gummy bears!
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This afternoon we went to another friend's house from school. They are our friends from France and have two little girls, one in Bailey's class and the other is a bit younger than Addison. They had a great time playing in the garden while she and I sat under a parasol and visited. We were both in awe of the lovely weather. This could be our "summer" so we have to enjoy it while we can. She told me all about the area of France that we will be visiting (map and all) and I showed her where Dallas, Texas was on the map. Fun times!

Marc has just run to Tesco to buy more printer ink. I printed a pretty big E-book the other day not knowing how much ink I was using. Oops. He keeps trying to print something and every time he tries it keeps saying it's out of the next color. This is his third trip to the store. He's loving me right now.

So, do you have Royal Wedding Fever yet? It's insane! I sent a package to my mom and aunt with some goodies in it- some fancy paper plates with Will and Kate's face on it and some other memorabilia so they can have a watch party. I bought some extra plate for us and some Union Jack bunting so we can have our own party after we get back from France!

Oh, I hear Marc coming through the back door now...I sure hope that's his last trip or I'll be banned from the printer. *grin*

It's Krispy Kreme Time!

Our Krispy Kreme opened this morning in city centre, so of course we down to see how it was going to work. Apparently one man was in the queue since last night! Since he was first he got a year supply of donuts. They also handed out raffle tickets for someone else to win and I jokingly asked the employee if it came with a gym membership as well. I'm so hilarious. Or not.

They passed out balloons and hats while we waited in line..

This is Addison's "Just give me the donut!" face
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The queue was really not as long as I thought, but they were very organized with it so that was good. The store manager spoke for a few minutes and then we all counted down from 10 and they cut the big red ribbon.

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From the time we got in the queue until we got inside to the counter was about an hour. In other words, a million years for a toddler.

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As we were in the queue we saw a friend who was in the first 12 people in line and he got a goody bag with this shirt.

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"Seriously people, I need my KIPPY KEME DONUT PEAS!"
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Waiting in the long queue with Addison was not fun. But this dude working the counter was loving his job so I held up my camera and said "SMILE PLEASE" while Marc probably rolled his eyes.

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It was a really nice store, much bigger than I was expecting. However, they don't make the donuts there! Isn't that insane? One employee said they will be having deliveries from the Bristol, England store every 2 hours. That seems crazy to me, but I guess that is why just a glazed original donut is 1.20GBP. I was hoping they would have the "HOT" sign but no. They will still taste yummy. Once we are back from holiday and the insanity settles, I would like to go back and try the coffee, I've heard they make a good cup! Anyone know from experience?

We bought 5 donuts this morning and will now be eating Ramen noodles for a week. ;)

I Have Nothing

I'm in a serious blogging funk. Nothing comes to mind. There's lots going on that I can't blog about, so you can trust the Lord is at work!

Marc made it home from America last week, goodies in tow. Thankfully my mom did a Target and Wal-mart run for me and met him at the airport to hand it off since Marc was in meetings all weekend. One funny thing was that when Marc landed in Dallas he phoned me to tell me he had made it but we only briefly spoke. Later that day I saw on his Facebook wall that mutual friends were on his flight and she had written something about the oxygen masks and how scary it was. I kind of freaked out and made sure he told me about it later. It was just an accident. He said he was sound asleep when they fell out of the ceiling with a loud recording, but it ended up being a false alarm. However they had to fly all the way to Dallas with those things hanging down.

Our "good" camera broke but we found an old one that we've been using, so here is my camera dump...

This picture of Addison just about says it all. Raising her is hard work. My mom called this afternoon and I must have sounded stressed because she asked what was wrong and I answered, "What's wrong? Her name is Addison and she's 2."

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Some friends in London were here for a day, so they stopped in for pizza and cupcakes. This is their cute little girl- I think she was overwhelmed by all the girls.

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Another day we kept a friend's daughter for the day and here they are making Easter Egg nests- shredded wheat with dark chocolate and then little cadbury eggs on top. It was messy, but fun!

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Here they are enjoying smoothies outside...Bailey looks impressed with me doesn't she? Ha.

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Schools finished on Thursday so we have about 2.5 weeks off for Easter. We have some fun things planned this week like getting haircuts and shopping at Costco. Ha. If you plan it just right at Costco you can get there just as they are serving samples and it's a big time for us. It's kind of sad when you go to IKEA or Costco for fun isn't it?

I'll also be packing for our holiday to France next week! I'm really excited to get out of this city for a while- no offense Cardiff. We will be driving to Folkstone to drive our car onto the train to cross the English Channel to Calais, France...then on to our destination near Normandy. I'll try not to have a panic attack while under the water for 30 minutes, in a car on a train. It will be a long day of driving, but I've got some fun things for the girls to do and a friend is letting us borrow her DVD player for the car. I know some people might think it's weird we won't be at church on Easter Sunday- but as living overseas has taught us- we are much more intentional in our conversations with our girls and while we do sometimes miss the big productions at churches in America, we also sometimes don't really miss the big productions at churches in America. I hope that makes sense. We will enjoy being together on Easter.

I'll just stop now because this is the most boring post ever.

First Tooth

Cerys has had a "wobbly" tooth for about two weeks. She's been asking for months if any of them were loose and I kept having to tell her no until one day she ate some crusty bread and said it was hurting. I checked and lo and behold there was indeed a loose one! Sunday night it was really wobbly and bothering her but she did not want her Daddy pulling it. So I just knew it would come out at school on Monday and I was actually praying it wouldn't because I wanted to be with her when this momentous occasion happened. Last night during dinner it began bleeding and she was so worried and worked up over it, so we told her to just keep wiggling it around. Frankly, I was ready for the drama to be over. It was really stressing us all out. She worked and worked on it and finally I announced it was shower and bath time so the tooth would have to wait.

If you've been to our house you know how tiny our bathroom is- well all five of us were crammed in there. Marc was running the bath water, Cerys was standing on a stool inspecting her tooth in the mirror, Bailey was busy, um, sitting on the toilet, and I was trying to keep Addison out of the toothpaste. All of the sudden Cerys shouts "MY TOOTH" and she was holding it in her hands. We all cheered, I grabbed the camera and starting crying while Marc mouthed "STOP IT" to me and Addison was jumping up and down because that was all she knew to do! Cerys was so proud. I turned around to see Bailey, arms crossed huffing "I WANT MY TOOTH TO COME OUT TOO, IT'S NOT FAIR!" All in due time my child. So, I was thankful for our little family moment in the loo.

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She was immediately worried that the Tooth Fairy wouldn't know that she sleeps on the top bunk, so she made a sign all on her own accord. (See those *classy* Chuck E. Cheese pictures behind her? That's her Gigi and Papa that she sleeps next to each night)

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The Tooth Fairy did come, but all she had was a 2 pound coin (!) on her, so we told Cerys not to get use to that! Since it was her first tooth, that was kind of a big deal but that the tooth fairy might only leave about 50p next time. I printed out a cute little picture of a tooth fairy and taped her money to it- here she is this morning before school. She could not wait to get to school to show her teacher and friends.

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We were not really sure how to handle the tooth fairy, but oh well. We thought it would be fun. And it was.

And for fun, here's cheeky little Addison before her Tumble Tots class

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Be. still. my. heart. She is growing way too fast.

Random Thoughts on Sunday Afternoon

Well, another weekend has flown by. It seems like time is ticking fast and the weeks are just falling off the calendar to us. We are gearing up for another trip for Marc. Thankfully it's a short one, but the hard part is that he's flying to Dallas without us. Boo. He'll be meeting with our students that come every summer and I know how beneficial it is since we were both able to be there last year. He's pretty much taking an empty suitcase so the shopping that my mom is going to do for us will fill it up! (I'm emailing that list soon, Mom)

Ok, so sometimes I freak out over our girls' education. Some days I feel like they are getting a good one and other days I worry. I've been working with Cerys a lot on her reading, I'm really proud of how far she's come. But the other day we got a list of words sent home and another reader asking that we help her. So just when I think she's doing good. I just kind of laughed when the words on the list were "everyone" and "because" and bunch of other words I thought were kind of tough for a 6 year old. But since they start school so much earlier here, I guess she should be reading words like this. We have parent/teacher conferences next week so I'm really looking forward to finding out more. Cerys said some of her friends were making fun of her for being in the orange group. I've been a public school teacher and I can catch on pretty quick to the groupings they have done here, so I just keep encouraging her and letting her know how proud we are of the progress she is making.

As you know, Bailey is in her first year of "full time/all day" school and is doing really well too. She just told me this past week that she wanted to start reading like her sister so we've been working on that at home. She's reading basics like "The cat sat on the mat." However today she told me that "grapes" and "saw" were rhyming words. Alrighty then. I got up in the loft (attic) this afternoon to get out some of my old teacher stuff and they had a blast looking through everything. Then I freaked out. Should I be teaching Texas history? American history? The girls don't even know all the States! Marc interrupted my panic attack and said, "Honey, Bailey doesn't even know what Cardiff is, Texas is the least of our worries right now!" I just busted out laughing. But honestly, I do worry about them not knowing enough or when/how to teach it to them. I'm sure there is plenty of time to teach them American history, right?

Addison just held up a blue M&M and said, "Momma, blue!" So that makes me feel better. At least we can recognize the color of our candy. I'm sure that was a total fluke by the way!

There's a lot of talk around here about the Royal Wedding next month. I read a newspaper article that said that Cardiff might be having the largest number of street parties outside of London. We will be coming back from our holiday on that day, I hope it won't cause any issues getting back into town. I'm sure it won't, but you never know. We didn't really mean to plan our return on that day, but Marc got confused on the wedding date. He thinks they moved the wedding date from a previous date that was set. I'm not sure about that, but it really doesn't matter now! Speaking of holiday, since the girls are out of school for 2 weeks at Easter time, one of those week we will be driving to France. We are really excited about it. The girls cried when we told them we were going on holiday- have I told you that already? We were a bit shocked, but as we began to talk about things we realized that they thought they were never coming back to our house in Wales. I think because of our long "holiday" in Texas and the fact that kids come and go so much in their school they assumed we weren't coming back. Ahhh, that was a long drawn out event. Marc and I were exhausted after two nights of crying about it. They were crying, not us. I mean, seriously, it's ONLY FOR 6 DAYS!

Have you heard of the 100 Push up Challenge? Marc and I are 3 weeks in and I've hurt my wrist! I actually hurt it a few months ago and it's been acting up since then. It got so bad this weekend that I'm sitting here with a homemade bandage on it trying to keep it stiff. I cut some holes for my fingers in this elastic band and I'm using a piece of cardboard from a, um, feminine product box, to keep it sort of stiff. Don't laugh. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I'm thinking I should see a doctor this week. With this challenge you are suppose to be able to do 100 push-ups by the 6th week. It works, but I'm not sure I will be able to finish it. Marc is blasting through them though and I must say, he's always had nice arms. *grin*

Oh, how could I forget! We found out a few weeks ago that Krispy Kreme is opening in Cardiff! Can you believe it? We read about it online and this past week when we were in town we saw the space where they are putting it in. Lo and behold it's right under Starbucks! Lord have mercy. My 4 day a week gym workouts might have to turn into 7 days a week.

Thanks for reading this far. There's a lot going on here but these are just the small things that come to mind.

Gifts

I can't believe it's already Monday! Our weeks seems to be flying by, yours? I enjoy our weekends. I love having my big girls home from school. They have ballet lessons every Saturday morning so while they dance their little hearts out for 45 minutes, Marc, Addison and I walk around Roath park for a while and watch the ducks. Addison sits on every bench! She will stop and climb up on one and say "Ahh, rest" and then pop up and run to the next one. Ah, the things that entertain!

I just want to freeze time y'all.

Addison is in a fun stage and just keeps us laughing. Her new phrase this weekend is "COME ON DUDE" - she can thank her Daddy for that one. He's been watching some basketball and tends to shout at the TV or maybe that was when he was driving?!? It all runs together. (I love you honey!) I was changing her nappy today and just looking at her chubby feet and thighs and my heart was breaking. I had just cleaned out a few things she can't wear any longer and while doing that I found some baby items and I just had to stop and have a moment. Only a few tears shed before she cracked me up again. I just scooped her up and hugged her till she squealed.

Speaking of moments like this, I've just finished reading Ann Voskamp's 'One Thousand Gifts' and I'm kind of speechless. Not only is she a beautiful writer, her story is one that I could relate to in many ways. She talks about her anxiety and of course if you know me, you know that struck a chord with me. She says, "I know my supreme need is joy in God and I know I can't experience deep joy in God until I deep trust in God....If I deep trusted God in all facets of my life, wouldn't that deep heal my anxiety, my self-condemnation, my soul holes?" Wow. I had to let that sink in for a while and it finally moved me to tears. She says, "The fear is suffocating, terrorizing, and I want the remedy, and it is trust. Trust is everything." That is so true. And one more, "I had never known what the door of eucharisteo (giving thanks) might lead me into- and all the fears it might lead me out of." I was really moved by her story of flying to Paris. Goodness, I can so relate. Sometimes I'm not sure how I was brave enough to leave Texas to move across the ocean. Only God. If I ever get to meet Ann Voskamp, I would tell her how much her book has meant to me and how I'm going out tomorrow to buy a new journal to start my 1,000 gift list. If you don't know what I'm talking about, head on over to A Holy Experience , you will be blessed.

So while we are on the topic of what God is doing in my life, let me share one more thing. I am doing a Priscilla Shirer study (my first one ever, she's a hoot) and today she said, "The area of sensitivity and tenderness in your life is probably the area where God wants you to experience the most victory..." Amen, let is be so Lord.

London Calling

I never know what to write on here anymore! I feel like our everyday life is probably pretty boring. I don't need to share every little thing that is going on, so when nothing major is happening I am at a loss for words on here. Anyway.

Marc and I took Bailey to London yesterday to get her passport renewed. We had arranged for Cerys to go home with a friend from school and Addison to play at a friend's house all day so we could just enjoy being with Bales. It was a long day of sitting- a 2 hour train ride- then 2 hours of sitting in the embassy waiting room- then 2 hours back on the train. Things didn't go according to plan and we wish we had had more time to do something fun for Bales, but in the end the only thing that mattered was that she got her Krispy Kreme donut at Paddington train station! I do love London. It's busy, fast-paced and fun! Now I'm not sure I could handle living right in the middle of it, but every once in a while it's really fun for me. I love the tube and the diversity of people everywhere. We had forgotten to get Bailey's passport photos taken (I know, duh!) so we stopped at a hole in the wall place off Oxford Street that we have used before to get her picture taken. It's a dark, dingy, tiny room that apparently a bunch of famous people use because they have the walls covered in celebrity passport pictures. The most recent additions were Katy Perry and Russell Brand. Interesting. Bailey had a meltdown over having her picture taken by the Polish dude who was very nice and trying to work with us. Her new passport has a wonderful, pouty picture of her and will serve as a good reminder of the delicate 4's.

It's always "fun" to be on American soil at the embassy and always interesting to see other Americans living in the UK. There's always a few characters that I enjoy watching! There are your loud, obnoxious, arrogant Americans who think they are in charge. There are your Americans who are married to British people and that's always fun to see them interact. And yesterday there were two very devout Jewish families there. It's always a mixed bag, I like it. There were several tiny newborns too getting their birth certificates, well with their parents of course. It seems like just yesterday we were there with 2 week old Addison. One thing that would make waiting at the embassy a great experience would be if they could just serve some chips and queso. I didn't see a suggestion box, but I do feel that this would help us have an even more wonderful experience.

Bailey was so happy yesterday having us to her self, she was so pleasant and entertained herself well while waiting. I really enjoyed her, (apart from the picture taking fiasco) she's quite a character! I was watching her interact with two other children in the waiting room who were obviously American but had been living here. It was obvious because of their mixed accent and it was really cute to hear them chat. The little boy was fascinated by the kids puzzle of the United States and all three of them stared at it in wonder for quite a while. It made me think that I'm really thankful that our girls get to experience another culture. Sure, there are things that make me cringe about both cultures. I like that our girls have some Texas in them as well as some British. Makes a cute combination!

Welsh Cakes

It's been a busy week getting back into the school routine after a week off. I'm not sure where my brain has been all week, but not in my head apparently! I have forgotten so many things this week- one of which was showing up for ballet this morning with two ready and excited girls only to find out it was cancelled for the week so the older ones can do their Royal School of Ballet exams. Nice one!

We had decided to meet up with some friends- another family of five- at St. Fagan's Welsh Museum of Life. We always enjoy this place, it's free entry (only pay to park) and it's a place to run wild and free for the kids! It's an outdoor museum of old houses and buildings that were across Wales at some point in history and they have been taken down brick by brick and rebuilt all on a large space of land just about 10 minutes from our house! I'm sure I've talked about this place before as we've been there so many times we've lost count. It's the touristy thing to do so we've taken everyone that's ever come to visit us there, plus it's fun to go from time to time to just let the girls run around. If you get there about 11am you can get fresh, hot bread from the old bakery. It was cold today but not raining, so we packed a picnic lunch and met up with our friends!

It's lambing season so we were really hoping to see some lambs being born, but we didn't get to! My friend had been there on Wednesday and saw two being born so I was just sure we would see some today. I stood over that large sheep pen staring at about 20 swollen sheep willing one of them to start labor, but it didn't work. Cerys is going back with her class from school on Thursday for a field trip, so I'm really hoping she will get to see one. Bailey yelled out today while staring at the very pregnant sheep- "Where are the lambs going to come out Mummy?" Gee honey, I'd really rather not explain it right here. I looked over at Marc just snickering because he's extremely thankful that I get to have "those" conversations with our three girls. I'm not real sure what I said, but I remember hearing myself say birthing and canal. Wow. Moving on.

The best part of the day was that in the farmhouse there was a lovely Welsh lady in her "old timey kitchen" as Cerys called it, baking Welsh Cakes. We were talking to her and just watching her flip them over on her cast iron skillet when she asked Bailey or Cerys if they wanted to help her. Cerys for some reason looked as if the lady has asked her to jump off a cliff, so she wouldn't do it but Bailey jumped at the chance. We washed our hands in an old metal bowl with one of those huge blocks of "old timey" soap and Bailey got to help roll the dough out and cut the circles out. The nice lady told us we could wait for a few minutes and she would let us have the ones Bailey cut out for our family! Score! (Our camera is broken, so no pictures have been taken in weeks! Except on our phones.)

We enjoyed our picnic lunch and what little sun we had left crept behind the clouds and we declared it was time for a quick stop at the playground then home for some hot tea! I was absolutely freezing. We got home and threw Addison in her crib for a nap, got the big girls coloring and making things and I got me a cup of tea while I snuggled under my fleece blanket, still wearing my fleece jacket that I wore under my heavy coat! Marc and I tried to watch American Idol that we had recorded but I kept falling asleep. I think I annoyed him by waking up every little while asking what song they sang and if it was any good. I'm sure he was loving me so much right then.

So, if you are in the mood for a little Welsh flavor- whip up some Welsh Cakes and pour yourself a cuppa- you'll be glad you did!

Welsh Cakes

8 oz/200grams self raising flour
4 oz/100 grams butter
4 oz/100 grams sugar
1 oz/25 grams black currants (you can use raisins if you are in America)
1/2 tsp. mixed spice (optional- cinnamon, nutmeg)
1 egg

Rub butter into flour to form breadcrumbs. Add sugar and currants. Beat egg and mix to form a dough. Roll out to form a dough 1/4 inch deep. Cut out small circles (I use biscuit cutter). Warm the bakestone or skillet and bake for about 4 minutes on each side (golden brown). Cool on a wire rack and sprinkle sugar over the top.

You're welcome!

2 Years Old

Today, Addison is 2 years old! After the weekend we have had I'm so glad we did a mini-celebration last month when family was here! Today did not turn out to be the day that I had imagined, but oh well.

This first picture has nothing to do with her birthday and everything to do with the fact that she can be a stubborn 2 year old. Having a refrigerator that is the same height as your child is not fun. I wish I could tell you how many times this week she's brought me the milk carton or a RAW EGG or something else. This week she figured out that all you have to do is pull the handle and you can get whatever you want! I sometimes feel so ridiculous talking to her real slow so she doesn't drop the raw egg, "Addison baby, I love you honey, can you bring that egg to Mommy baby? Ok, thank you baby." It's like I'm talking her down from the ledge.

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So we saved some Christmas money and decided we would use it to go to Build-a-Bear for Addie's birthday. We thought it would be fun for her to choose an animal and the girls would love it too. Maybe going so soon after a horrible tummy bug wasn't a good plan? She's still not 100% and is not eating much, but we decided to go anyway. She was a grump. But so cute in her new H&M dress.

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And the big girls were afraid of the machine that stuffs the bears because it sounds like a vacuum cleaner. So, they would not talk to the people stuffing their animals nor would they put their foot on the pedal to stuff it themselves. Marc and I had a great time building 3 bears.

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We tried not to faint after paying for these 3 stuffed animals. Then we headed to The Pancake House for lunch. If you ever come to Cardiff, I will take you to eat here. It's a tiny place, but oh so yummy.

The girls shared a Nutella and Banana Pancake! They thought they hit the jackpot! Aren't they huge?

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Marc got the basic lemon and sugar pancake- I love my very basic, sometimes plain man.

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I got a ham and cheese pancake, but didn't post a picture of it, it's not as pretty as these! The lady that runs this place heard us talking about Addison's birthday and asked us how old she was. A few minutes later she brought Addie her own tiny pancakes with 2 candles in it. I was shocked, what a sweet gesture!

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As we were eating, Bailey started shivering and went white as a sheet. I took one look at her and told Marc to get her out of there. We ditched our food and got home as fast we could. So far she's not been "sick" yet but had a slight fever for a few hours. I'm not sure what is up, but I'm praying so hard that it will pass over all the rest of us.

Happy 2nd Birthday sweet Addison! You were God's little surprise to us and we love you so much. Life is more fun with you around!
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