We went to England at the beginning of the month for just shy of 2 weeks. It was such a wonderful trip. The primary purpose of the trip was to celebrate John’s mom’s 70th and our new baby niece’s Christening, for which we were honored to be named Godparents. We did so much that I don’t really know where to start.
We decided not to rent a car, since Michelle and James would be off work as well and we figured two cars would be enough between all of us since we’d normally be going places together. That meant poor James was chauffeuring us here, there, and everywhere – but always with a smile, even when he was knocked out by a nasty ear and sinus infection, bless his heart.
We were fortunate that even though we were not that mobile, our friends from when we lived in Basingstoke – the Carters, Gemma, and the Roberts – were able to drive up to see us one day. We have 5 kids + one on the way between us all, so it was a lot of fun seeing each other and the kids and catching up on everything with them. The Carters are actually moving to Indy with Rich’s work in January, so we are so excited to be able to see them a lot more soon! Layla was funny, because she was not too bothered about me holding Maddie most of the time, but as soon as these friends showed up with their kids she got pretty protective, not wanting Mommy to hold anyone but her. Compounding the problem was apparently Rich and Anita’s daughter loves dark haired women (oddly, since they are all fair (I’m thinking something to do with her previous life)), so she kept wanting me to hold her. Layla would insist on being held, too, and try to push Sophie away, but it didn’t deter Sophie. I tried to tell them they were going to have to sort it out because they are going to be spending a lot of time together soon!
The big Christening/70th birthday party (M&M party! – Madeline and Maddie) was a great success. Maddie was Christened in the same church we had Hayden and Layla Christened in last year, which we found out later was the church where John’s dad’s grandparents were married! That blew my mind. I guess it’s not AS shocking considering it’s England and they have many more historic structures than we do in America, but it’s a fairly modest sized church and I consider it an unfathomable coincidence that Hayden and Layla’s (and Maddie’s) great-great-grandparents were married there. Anyway, Maddie did very well in the limelight, and our kids were also well behaved which we were happy about. There were plenty of M&Ms being consumed by one Mr. Hayden, as well as cake, so by the end of the night he was literally running/dancing around in circles with some balloons on a sugar high, but I’ll take that over a meltdown, right!
We did some other fun things which I will mention but try not to go into too much detail for fear this post will be too long. We went to a zoo with some of John’s college friends and their families, went to London with Granddad (unfortunate, rainy weather but Hayden got to see Big Ben which he has been waiting months for since it’s featured in Cars 2 which he was obsessed by all summer, and Mommy and Daddy got Pizza Express which they were happy about, plus London is so great that even if the weather doesn’t cooperate, the sites are still amazing, and last thing about it, it was Maddie’s first time out in the city and she did AMAZING – she only woke briefly to feed while we were eating and we didn’t hear a peep from her the rest of the time!), celebrated the evening of Madeline’s actual birthday in an Indian restaurant while an “Indian Elvis” entertained us, went on a grown-up night out with our friends while the kids spent the night at Camp Granddad’s (which they loved and we got glowing reports on them afterwards), went to Legoland twice (can I mention again what a trooper James is??), and sometimes in the midst of all this action, we even relaxed with MMM&J. 🙂
I think that’s enough for this post. I left out so much stuff, I might do another one to try to capture a little more but you are released for now. 😉
Wow, well I don’t even know where to start with this one. We took a family trip down to Orlando to do Disney. John’s mom and sister have a time share down there so we stayed with them and Michelle’s boyfriend, James. It was such a great time!
couldn’t believe it, because he is normally so cautious. He started with space mountain. It’s completely dark in there, so I’m not sure how much he really liked it. He never wanted to go on it again, but he really didn’t show any emotion about the ride afterwards one way or the other. At Animal Kingdom he went on Everest, which was very fast and goes backwards and in the dark and all sorts, and he seemed to really like that. Everyone loved the Star Wars ride at Hollywood Studios, as well as the Buzz Lightyear ride there. In fact, those were 2 of the group’s favorite rides, although overall Hollywood Studios was my personal 3rd favorite of the 4. We did tons of rides, but we tried to have shorter days at the parks so we could also have some down time at the condo. Michelle is pregnant, Madeline has a leg that gives her trouble, and the two kids – well, need some downtime! So most days we had pool time as well. One evening we drove down to my aunt’s house to see my aunt, uncle, cousins, their kids, etc. My brother and his family were also in Orlando at the same time, so they went to my aunt’s as well. We also ran into them at Magic Kingdom on the way to Tom Sawyer’s island!
Over Memorial Day weekend we went strawberry picking. I had wanted to do it last year, but I got to the
farm too late for strawberries (I guess having a 1 week old cramped my style last year 🙂 ), so last year we picked blueberries instead. Madeline (“Nanny”) was staying with us so she came along, and Grandma and Grandpa came, too. I thought Hayden would enjoy picking the berries, but I was wrong. There was a lot of whining and talk about wanting to “go back in my van.” Even the promise of ice cream when we were done picking didn’t really intice him. Apparently he was interested long enough for us to capture one picture of him. 🙂 We got just under 10 lbs of berries, and I made 2 batches of freezer jam (which equates to… lots of jars in my freezer). There were still tons of berries after I made jam. I had them in tupperware to last as long as possible, which really did keep them good for a long time. I was bound and determined to eat every last one of the berries, and eventually we did. Thank goodness the kids are fruit junkies!
And afterwards, we did all enjoy some ice cream. Hayden was funny because 
as he and I were standing in line for ice cream, everyone else was outside. I realized I didn’t have any money, so I asked Hayden to go outside and tell Daddy we need money. He ran outside up to John and excitedly said, “We need money, Daddy!” I don’t think it translates as cute in writing, but you’ll have to trust me that was (so I hear, again, I was inside). It was also funny because it was sort of a test. It’s relatively new that you can tell him to tell someone something and he will do it at all or convey the right message, and it’s not 100%. There was an equally good chance that he would have gotten distracted along the way and never made it to John at all, or not remembered what he was supposed to tell him.
bed’s headboard, cars, really anything that he can find. He is a big fan of this cartoon called Team Umizoomi, and the focus on that cartoon is math. They count (regular counting and by tens so they can get to high numbers), build things with shapes, do subtle addition, and find patterns. With the patterns, they will notice that something has a pattern and they’ll talk the pattern out: “red, blue, yellow. red, blue, yellow. red, blue, what comes next?” “3, 5, 7. 3, 5, 7. 3, 5, what comes next?” I’ll hear Hayden doing this, too, when he’s off counting something. He’ll start saying, “12, 18, 17. 12, 18, 17,” in the same voice/enunciation as the character “Millie” who does the patterns in the cartoon. It’s so cute! Anyway, Hayden is very strong on counting his numbers 1 – 12. Once he gets to 13 he needs a little help. If left to his own devices his counting will go a little like, “10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 80, 40, 100!” He’s getting better everyday, though. John told me that a couple of days ago he counted up to 27! I don’t know what help, if any, John gave him with that one.
eating. Luckily, the way the room was arranged he could not get out of the dining room because people were blocking the exits, so he stayed near enough that we didn’t have to run after him too much. My cousin Mandy and her parents, Aunt Marilyn and Uncle Bill, came down from Chicago as well as Grandma G’s brother and his family and her aunt and uncle. Add to that the five of us and Grandma G’s parents, and it was certainly a full house!
Nanny (John’s mom) loves to send Hayden Mr. Men books. He loves reading them, and he asks for them to be read to them multiple times a day. He’s started to do a couple of funny things with these books the last few days. Nanny always signs the books on the back of the cover: To dear Hayden, lots of love Nanny Mad. So before the story is started we read that to Hayden. Now when he “reads” the books on his own he will open one up and say, “Dear Hayden.” Also, he knows most of the characters names and it seems “Mr.” has become “me” to Hayden. He will be “reading,” say, Mr. Bounce and he will say “Me Bounce” and then make up a bunch of words, then turn the page and say “Me Bounce” followed by incomprehensible words, and on and on. If he is reading Mr. Bump then he will be saying “Me Bump” at the start of each page. He is very animated when he reads and it is so sweet hearing the rise and fall of his voice as though he really is reading.
Hayden and Layla's Place 