Rain dance and a host of other unrelated things

We happened upon Katrina and Duncan on campus this week, and this pic cracked me up. Duncan is attempting to body-slam Pudgy...not gonna happen. If you zoom in, you can kinda get a glimpse of Luke's panicked expression, as he stares at Katrina for help.

Have I mentioned how much Luke LOVES to sit in the trunk? (No, I have never, ever closed it.) Anyway, anytime I'm getting the stroller out, he lunges for it.

Onto the title of the post- Rebekah chose to dance out in the rain when we got back early from our walk (due to the rain). She decided a construction worker's hat would do the job of water resistance nicely.

A little catch-up- a few weeks ago, we were invited to a BBQ at our old building. It was a ton of fun...Josh is helping barbecue below.

Rebekah enjoyed her sausage.

Luke enjoyed crawling on the pavement- he LOVES to crawl in lines- meaning, if there is a concrete square enclosing a grassy area, he will choose the crawl the cement rather than the soft grass. (Similarly, under supervision, he adores crawling the precarious ledge in his loft-room, too)

Wow. No one asked me about this one. Evidently, our neighbor girl got a hold of Rebekah and this was the result! This was not a fake smile- she was that jazzed about pink make-up and men's aftershave. Mom, good thinking on your Christmas present idea!

Rebekah loves to stop and smell the roses...literally....as in every time we pass them. She comes by this naturally, as there is little I love more than the smell of roses.

As for development- Luke cruises here and there, but shows no zeal for walking. He seems to like to climb, a bit scary, but is learning to go down the stairs backwards, praise the Lord. He is a very picky eater, but devours carbs, which we are limiting big time due to his "husky" :) body type. He is adorably plump in all the right ways, but he does not eat in a healthy way, so we are working on this. He went to bed without dinner tonight (and several nights this week :( ) due to choosing nothing over the variety of offered foods. He would love to eat cookies, Pringles, toast, cereal, and marshmallows all day. He has a lot of words and sounds and understands a lot! he can say Mama, Dad, Ba-kah, ba (ball), eeeees (keys), nuh-nuh (night night and milk oddly enough), buh-buh (bye bye), bow-bow (bounce, meaning he wants to jump on the couch), etc. He also has strings of sounds I am unable to decipher. As for Rebekah, she is practically writing how-to manuals. Seriously, she wants to know how EVERYTHING works and misses nothing! (much like her engineering father). I won't bore you with details/examples, especially since I wrote a lot this post.

In other news, I have waffled on preschool for Rebekah about 100 times just this week. She has been a WRECK! I attribute this to several things: 1) bad choices- we all make them, a 3 year old is certainly not exempt, 2) overly tired (has not napped most days), and 3) I have been too task-driven and have not prioritized time with her (or Luke) enough. So, today, after her 3rd or so meltdown, I realized my role (see #3), and committed to spending more quality time with her. This is a tough one for me. It's not that I don't adore hanging out with her, I am just not a quality time girl myself. I believe my daughter is like my husband and needs focused "me-time", meaning not hanging out while I multi-task. It is only fair. So, after a nap and some Mama time, Rebekah was much more herself this afternoon. We also have plans for a swim date tomorrow. :)

All this to say that her overly-tired disposition and Luke's reluctance to drop his am nap make me less inclined to put R in school on 9/10. Plus, it will only be 2 months before we leave for the US for 2 months. I am tempted to defer until Jan (if they'll let us) or just pull out for this year. We'll see.

On a happy note, Josh is wrapping up his Master's "dissertation" (they flip-flop the terms here, so his PhD will be a thesis) and I think he feels good about it. He has worked hard and almost nonstop on something, be it 2 sets of exams, a series of lengthy papers, book reviews, or this dissertation, since January, so I will be glad to see him finish it up. Granted he then has contracted to write a book review to be published and will then start what we ultimately came here to do: a PhD. But, I know we're ready, so I am confident he will persevere and continue strong.

Lastly, I have been blessed with a writing job. My mom happened to mention how I wasn't currently writing curriculum to one of Josh's best friends (who used my mom as a realtor, smart guy!), and he happened to have some copywriting I could do. So, I took a whirlwind look at his sound-masking company and did a few articles for them on the need and advantage of corporate sound-masking. As it turns out, I might be able to help with some other areas, kind of like a consultant, so we'll see how it pans out. Regardless, every dollar helps, and our monthly expenses have really gone up with our new flat and recent storage fees. So, losing my writing job was a tough one. Thus, we are thankful for this opportunity, and for the chance to expand my writing skills.

Sunday fun and nap update

Our church was having a family service for their version of VBS (but for older kids- bummer) Sunday and therefore would not be offering creche (nursery). We decided to stay home and listen to a sermon (kids and we were coughing anyway and some people would prefer not to be around that, I guess). Anyway, it was beautiful and Josh thought it would be fun to hit Dunnottar again (the ruins I have pictured 3 or 4 times). We have season passes there and try to go once a month or so.

If I were a cow, this is where I would want to live...

Luke is getting too heavy for me in the backpack, so I finally gave up. :( I really liked carrying him and having his sweet face next to mine.

The girls 9rebekah insisted upon a short-sleeved shirt over her long-sleeved shirt, just like mine)

What a ham- this was the pre-taping of the happy birthday video from yesterday.

Luke didn't get up until 8am Monday morning and didn't want to take a morning nap. So Monday and yesterday (also a later morning), I tried to 1-nap it for him...whoa. We are not there! Even though he climbed to the baby gate at the stairs and said "nuh nuh" repeatedly and grabbed his own paci, he still only slept 1 1/2 hrs Monday afternoon (fairly normal even when he has a good am nap) and 2 hrs yesterday. While I was happy with the lengths of the naps, they were not sufficient to get him through the day. He was cranky and rubbing his like mad by 6pm and just crashed before 7. (I should also mention he is currently cutting his 2nd and 3rd molars, teeth #10 and 11, and tho he is much braver this go round, he is still gnawing on his own hand and fingers :( Additionally, he has my cough and cold ) Well, he was up and at 'em at 6:30 this morning, so we reverted back to the normal 9:45 nap for 1- 1/1/2 hrs and I just put him down for his afternoon nap at 2. The reason I wanted it to work for 1 nap was so that he could sleep while R went to "school" 12:45-3:15. I am now thinking keep the morning nap (yea for sanity- looooong morning without it, eh?), just keep it short ( 1 hr or so) so he can still go down without a fight in the pm nap. Plus, I feel like if you're still crawling, you can still have your morning nap if you want it. ;)

Funny one- 2 nights ago, Rebekah was fussing about something, so I threatened her, "If you don't stop fussing, I'm going to put you straight to bed." Confident that my threat was powerful, Rebekah took me by surprise when she said, "Thank you, Mama. I do! I do want to go to bed. Thank you, I'm, tired." Well, um, bed it is. :)

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Some UK snapshots

I thought you might enjoy some things about our lives in the UK ...

We have a tea drawer! Look at all those options!

We have a double bed...yikes. Shockingly, our marriage is surviving this gross turn of fate. :) While we're at it, here is our bedroom. There is a lot of blue, but it doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would. There is so much space and it is very peaceful. Plus, Rachel left us this lovely duvet cover (and incidentally, I believe her predecessor, Becky, left it for her, as well as some great sheets- so thanks!).

The elliptical Josh got us for FREE! (Josh is on a huge health kick and is currently recording his work-outs and every single calorie he consumes on...you guessed it, a spreadsheet)

Now, back to the UK...GINORMOUS snails (thanks for the tip, RO!), which tickle Rebekah to no end. She has been known to coax them out of their shells by offering lush green grassy appetizers.

Same day- on our tire- AFTER we drove a few miles to KC Kangaroo's for the kids to play.

KC Kangaroo's- no such thing as a free play area at the mall, so here we are at KC Kangaroo's...for the first time since Luke has been able to crawl.

I could pretend Luke loved that, but he didn't. Fortunately, it made Rebekah's day, so it evened out.

Entertaining is quite different here...rarely does everyone get their own seat...or even sit at the same table.

Rebekah was bummed the chair blocked her face and requested a retake.

As if squeezing an extra table in our kitchen weren't (I tried the subjunctive here and realized it was an inappropriate usage since we did in fact squeeze in an extra table...so, yes, it should be wasn't) enough, let me remind you that we no longer have a dishwasher...well, we do, but it's me. :) So, after a quick washing up, a sweep, and a mop, we were all back in order. And, yes, the Ellises were worth it.

My 30th Birthday

Tuesday was my 30th birthday- yikes!! The fun thing is that Josh instituted birthday week a long time ago- you get a whole week of birthday festivities! So, needless to say, I had a great birth-week!

Josh, the kids, and I went out to lunch Sunday at the Ashvale, a great fish restaurant. Then, Tuesday night, Josh collaborated with Kate for a girls' night at Friday's. We had a great time there! I think there were 8 of us, and I felt very special. :)

Josh also set up a date for us for Wednesday night. He got Katrina to babysit for us (thanks, Trina!) and planned the whole evening. The cool thing was my parents contacted Josh and payed for it all! So, we went to Rustico (my fave!) and I got an olive appetizer and a delicious shrimp pasta. Then, we went to the movies and saw The Proposal (definitely what I wanted to see!) and I got a huge fountain Coke Zero and popcorn- yummy!! It was great- truly, I enjoyed our date sooo much! Thank you, Josh, for planning it, and Mom and Dad for paying for it! I even got to wear a cute new sweater from the pile of new clothes Josh's parents gave me for my bday last month- am I loved or what? I also got more cards than I know what to do with, including 4 from the States!

Precious Rebekah was so happy to wish me a happy birthday all day. :) She asked me where my princess cake was, and seemed distraught that no one was here to make Mommy a cake. 10 minutes later, she called to me from upstairs, saying, "I'm ready, Mommy!" Luke and I joined her and that darling girl had found her pretend cake, candles, ice cream, forks, and drinks for us all! She even sang happy birthday to me. She is so amazing.

Luke just looked cute. :)

We then played dress-up

And Luke pretended to feed himself with R's dishes

(and was quite proud of himself)

And we walked on walls (this was actually yesterday, I think)

And shared Diet Coke

This was this morning- Luke loves sitting in the boot (aka the trunk)