Walking

I have been walking a lot lately. The girls school is 1.3 miles from our house. There is a bus relatively close but... it's a pain trying to ride with a double stroller and all the kids during busy times, like around school. If there is no room in the handicap spot, then I can't get on. It also costs 1.40 per ride so I would be spending $5 (I can't find the pound symbol on my keyboard) a day. So, to save money and anxiety, I've been walking. My legs are still sore every day, and I asked Ben when he thought I would stop being sore. He said it took the pioneers three weeks on the trail before they were trail hardened. I laughed, thinking he was joking, but he said he was serious. So now when I push my stroller up the hill with 2-3 children in it I think of it as my personal handcart. We are coming up on three weeks so hopefully I will stop being sore soon. Now if I can only stop buying chocolate, I may be in good shape.

Home Sweet Home

Wonder of wonders, Miracle of miracles.  Two girls are at school most of the day, and the baby and the toddler occasionally nap at the same time. So I actually cleaned up a bit, enough I felt like I could take some pictures of our new house. It is furnished and already decorated,which I love because then I don't have to do it myself.

The front of our house, the garage is off to the right.

Our living room, complete with white couch (which gives Ben constant anxiety)
and a cute coffee table that also serves as our toy box.

Other side of living room with door to our garden, swing given to us by our landlord's
sister-in-law when she found out we came without any baby stuff
 (she also gave us a baby bed and some toys), and our ginormous television.

Dining room and table. We bought a folding chair so Ben didn't have to stand every meal.

Stairs, very creaky. As are all the floors upstairs.

Downstairs bathroom. It's very nice to have two bathrooms again.

Kitchen. A bit smaller than we are used to, but not bad. Washing machine in the kitchen.
 No clothes dryer :(  I'd rather not have a dishwasher since I never use it anyway.

Small fridge, there is a bigger one and a deep freezer in the garage
but we haven't used them at all because we have to carry all
our groceries home so we don't stock up like we used to.

Our cute English Garden. One of our neighbors has lost a few balls over
our fence but we're not sure where they belong so we haven't returned them yet.

Upstairs hall

Janie and BenJr's room

Leah and Anika share this room and bed.
There's a big wardrobe to the right that holds all the girls clothes.

Upstairs bathroom, we enjoyed our baths at the hotel. Last baths for a year.

Our bed, big closet to the right. Do you like my stroller box/side table?

The other side of our room. Big open space with not much purpose except
 to relocate children when people come to visit us. Hint Hint.

That's the grand tour. We feel very blessed to be here.

The Obstacle Course Park

I had intended to post about our new house but that would require having it clean enough to publish pictures so we'll see if that ever happens.   Right now I am listening to the bells ringing at the church near us.  Very pretty music I'm not sure what it is for,  Tuesday night but it's cool.  The more I see of London, the more I feel extremely blessed that we found the place we did.  It has the prefect blend of being very close to lots of shopping, and bring relatively quiet and un-busy.  With 3 bedrooms it's bigger than anywhere we have lived and we have our very own yard (or garden as it's referred to here.) One of our favourite things is the park that is 5 minutes away.  The girls call it the obstacle course park.

The next chapter

We packed up our family and flew around the world.  More to come.

The time I cut my own hair...

So my sister says to me, "will you cut my hair?"
Do I have any hair cutting experience?  Not beyond cutting my girls hair, which I don't think counts.
She's crazy. So of course I look into how hard it would be and decide, "Sure I'll cut your hair."
Might as well cut mine first though.

I found several tutorials online about how to do it.
I first put it in a high pony tail, and cut.

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. I hate going to get my hair cut and have been putting it off for months now.

Before

Here's my pony tail

Making the scary first cut

The end result of the first cut. I evened it up a bit and took
 more off the longest parts and then forgot to take more pictures.

The next day with my hair actually done. Sorry, baby in the selfie.
Long layers and a trim, just what I was wanting.

More to come on my sister's hair, it's for her ComicCon costume!

The baby sleeps in a suitcase

The porta-crib was too big and too far away. I wanted something small and right next to the bed so this is what I came up with...

Happy 30

(Didn't actually get this posted til a year and a half later)

I turned 30 years old this week. I feel pretty young.

The day began badly, waay too early, but it ended well with dinner with my family, flowers and Girl Scout cookies (samoas naturally). And lots of people love me, I had lots of calls and texts, thanks to everyone.

Funny things said to me on my birthday. (Yelled) "I want you to die!!  And "it's not your birthday tomorrow!"