Winter Break

Benjamin and the girls had two weeks off of school for Christmas break. It was so nice to have everyone home. We tried to take advantage of the time off to go see some things, although we did do quite a bit of just hanging out at home, which I really enjoy.

We went to Kensington Palace, which was interesting. It's where Queen Victoria lived the first 18 years of her life, most of the time she was in just a few rooms. It was very fascinating to learn about her, she was quite amazing. This is also where Princess Diana lived and where Prince William, the Duchess of Cambridge, and Prince George live, although the papers rumored they were away for the Christmas holiday.
We also wandered a bit around Kensington Gardens, London seems to do a good job of making sure there is lots of green space. My favorite was the Peter Pan statue.  Also in the gardens is the Princess Diana memorial playground, and it was awesome. You are not allowed in without children and the kids loved it. It has a big pirate ship, Indian teepees and a rock crocodile. In the warm weather there is a water feature for them to play in, we may have to go back. There was also a whole section of musical play things, some you jump on, or bang on to make music. It was a lot of fun.

And no, I don't make my girls wear skirts, they do that on their own. It's making them wear jeans that is difficult.

Here's all of us in front of Kensington Palace. We don't get too many pictures with all of us.

Princess Diana wallpaper

Ben, the royal adviser.

q

In front of Kensington Palace with statue of  Queen Victoria

Pirate ship entry

On the pirate ship

Indians

Life boat

Janie got brave enough to climb to the top of the mast

Jumping chimes

Peter Pan statue

Another day we went to Hyde Park's Winter Wonderland. During December they have carnival rides, an Ice Palace, Circus and Markets that could take up hours ( and enough of them you could get lost in, I know from personal experience, Luckily it was only me that was lost and not any kids.)  We went through the Ice Palace, which had lots of cool sculptures and we went to the circus! We had bought our tickets online, and we got there early so we decided just to wait there. Luckily, we got in line early and ended up sitting on the front row! It was very fun. They had acrobats, a juggler, a clown, and some tight rope walkers which were my favorite. They didn't use any nets or anything and did some pretty cool tricks. I didn't take many pictures that day so you'll have to use your imagination.

Ice sculptures

The temperature inside was - 8 degrees Celsius. Can you imagine anything so cold? It was more like 10 outside. (The conversion for you Fahrenheit people is 17 degrees and 50 degrees. I'm finding that London weather isn't nearly so dreary as Utah weather in spite of all the rain.)

Front row at the circus.

Circus, I've been asking Ben for years to take me.

All in all, a great holiday. Now its back to real life.

Top Ten Reasons I'm grateful for my Smartphone

In no particular order, here are my top ten reasons I'm grateful to live in a time when I can own a smartphone. (By the way, isn't my new case cute?)

1. The first day here, I had an appointment to see someone about finding a place to live. We had mapped out where it was, and how to get there but as soon as I walked out of the hotel, I got lost. No worries, I just asked my smartphone to tell me how to get there and it told me every turn to take, even while I was walking. It's also super convenient whenever we're going anywhere to find directions, which buses and trains to take.  It is not fool proof, sometimes we get stuck or things don't work out how they're supposed to, but it's still very nice.

2. Even though I live on the other side of the world from my family, it isn't too difficult to talk to them. Thanks to Google Hangouts I can video chat, text and even call any number in the US for free.

3. It is very easy to check and see what the weather will be like. So I know when to be adamant about fighting with my kids about wearing a coat and when to let it go.

4. Occasionally I will find a song the girls especially like on you tube and we listen on the way to school. (Their favorites are the songs they danced to on Mom's Wii)  It is a great way to lift the mood in the morning and make sure they're happy when they start their day.

5. I can read my scriptures anywhere, and I find I'm a lot more likely to read when they are right there in my hand already.

6. I have started having my groceries delivered by Asda, and they have this great app that lets me add things to my list, compare prices and set up delivery. It's very convenient, especially because when I don't have them delivered, I have to carry them home all by myself.  You know that game you play called how much can I carry in one trip? It gets a lot harder when the one trip is a ten minute walk.

7. I have a map that allows me to follow Ben on his way home. So I can see when he's still at school, when he was at school 45 minutes ago and it hasn't updated because he's on the tube, and when he's on the bus nearly home. I love knowing he'll be walking in the door soon.

8. Most of the time when I cook, I decide what to make, or look at what ingredients I have and find a recipe on my phone. We would probably have buttered rice every night if not for that.

9. I can take pictures of my cute kids and the fun things we're doing and share them immediately with family and friends.

10. I can listen to my music anywhere, and thanks to chrome cast, I can start videos for the kids without getting out of bed.

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!