Autumn Leaves & Other Fun

Today, I decided to take Gabriella, Isabella, Connor and our dog Mercury on a long walk through the fields to go and visit the library. On the way, we passed a lot of trees, where the leaves had darkened and fallen and carpeted the ground in a blanket of yellows, oranges, reds and browns.

I decided to take some portrait photos of the children in the leaves.















Mercury decided that he loved playing leaves, especially when the children kept throwing the leaves in the air or letting him play tug of war with the leaves. (In some of the photos of him jumping, he is out of focus. I didn't have my camera set for action photos as I wasn't expecting his exuberance at finding leaves to play in.)















The benefit of all of Mercury's running around was that he did, eventually, tire enough that I was able to take a couple of good portraits of him in the Autumn leaves.





Then the kids decided to climb a nearby tree. (Bella was not quite as brave about climbing the tree as Connor and Gabby were. And please keep in mind as you view the photos that I did not choose Isabella's outfit!)









Once we got to the library, I let the three of them choose a book each and I sat on the floor beside their child-sized table and read the stories aloud to them. After we visited the library, we went into the store that was next door to it to buy the kids some drinks. They found a Dolmio display and were quick to ask me to take their photos in it.



All in all, it was a fun day. Next time, I'll bring Cameron too. (He had been napping, so we left him home with his two teenage sisters during our walk.)





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Gabby's Haircut

I cut Gabby's very long hair today. It is now just a tiny bit below her shoulders. We will be sending the hair to The Little Princess Trust to help create wigs for children with cancer.





For an idea of just how long her hair was before, here are some photos of her last October on her 7th birthday. Her hair has not been cut since.

Happy 4th Of July 2010!!!

Happy Independence Day!

Here in England, as you can imagine, there is not much celebrating going on for Independence Day. But I think it is important to keep certain traditions alive for my children, so I try and find ways to make the day special for them.

Usually, we buy fireworks at another time of year when they are available here and save them for today, but we didn't do that this year. There isn't really anywhere that sells fireworks at this time of year. Robert bought some red, white and blue streamers though, and I had to think of a way to use them.

I am not a very craft-y person, but I did my best. I used the streamers to make a ribbon that I hung on the front door. It wasn't very good, but I tried to make it look good, and the children seemed to like it.



I also tied some streamer-ribbons on our stairway.



Then I remembered that I had four bamboo sticks, so I tied (and used some tape to make sure they stayed on) streamers to the ends of the bamboo sticks. When the children came home from visiting their grandparents with their daddy, I showed them the streamer-sticks and told them that they were going to get to "decorate the dog" and have a little parade at the park. They didn't really understand the idea of a parade, but they had fun waving the streamers around and Gabby even made up a song to sing which repeated the phrase, "We're having an American Independence Day parade!"











Mercury kept trying to eat the ribbon of streamers that was tied around his collar, so it started to look scruffy very quickly.

















One really cute thing was that our cat Pagan followed us to the park and tried to join in with the "parade."





When we got home, Kayla put some of the streamers on Pagan and then held him for some photos.







We also gave the children some red, white and blue glow sticks to play with when it got dark.

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July. I know my family did!

£5 Rocks

Gabby, Bella, Connor and a neighbor's kid collected together lots and lots of rocks. Then they had a "sale." They were selling the big rocks for £5. LOL!

They had one customer. The first customer got "the first rock free," so they didn't get their £5. But they were really, really excited that they had a "customer," and they told me that he said he was going to put the rock in his garden. (It was a neighbor from a couple of doors down).

I'm glad I have the kind of neighbors who are willing to humor children.

Happy US Mother's Day 2010!

In the United Kingdom, Mother's Day is celebrated in March, so I had my Mother's Day celebration already. But I am from California, and my mom still lives in the USA, so I am aware that, in the USA, today is Mother's Day.

So I would like to wish my mom, my sisters and all of my friends in the US who are mommies a very wonderful Mother's Day!

Flowers From Connor

Yesterday, Robert left to go to the shop up the road from us to buy a few ingredients for dinner. Connor went with him. When they got home, Connor knocked on the door. I opened the door and found Connor on the other side, holding up a bouquet of red carnations towards me and saying loudly, "I LIKE you, Mommy!" His daddy whispered to him "Love, Connor; you were supposed to say 'I love you!'"

Connor gave me a big hug and told me he loved me. He said he chose the flowers because they were red and red is his favorite color. When I asked him why red is his favorite color, he reminded me that fire engines are red. (He is crazy about fire engines.)



I put the bouquet in a vase and set the vase on my living room window sill. Throughout the rest of the day, he kept pointing out the flowers to me and kept saying, "I bought those flowers for you, Mommy" with absolute pride in his voice. I took a picture of him today with the flowers, and he couldn't have been more pleased.



Happily, I get to sit here and see those flowers sitting in a vase in my window and be reminded how much I am loved by my little boy and how very lucky I am.

Fun With The Kids

While I was exercising on the elliptical crosstrainer today, Robert took the kids outside to play. We have a compost bin that has yet to be used. Connor, Isabella and Gabby decided to play in it, and Robert took some really cute photos of them. Then he took some photos of Cameron and the three of them sitting together in our back garden. For some of the photos, they tried making silly faces.

They all look like they were having fun; don't they?