Blog Neglect!

A long long overdue update. The story of why we have been so out of it is at the end of the pictures.
Innkeeper #3 grooving in the hay!

She's a natural!

Oliver being very serious about his stage debut!

Katya with Innkeeper 1 and 2

Oliver with the angels.

Katya getting a present from Santa! She had her face painted and when they asked what she wanted to be she said "a pink leopard of course".

Can you see the little boy excitement on his sweet face?

Waiting in anticipation for the arrival of the man...

I think pictures says it all, a little too much chocolate!

Decorating fairy cakes with Daddy and Nanny!

Christmas Shopping with Noddy and Makka Pakka

All bundled up, Oliver is sporting his mega black eye!

We have had a pretty eventful last two months. We have made 5 trips to the emergency room at the children's hospital with Oliver! He has been diagnosed with asthma and 4 of those trips were for oxygen and nebeulizer treatments. Twice they hospitalized him for 3 days. The extra trip was to get his face glued together after he ran straight into the edge of the coffee table. The brits say, "he's been in the wars". It seems we finally have treatment on a daily basis that is helping and he hasn't been in the hospital for almost 3 weeks. We are aiming for a hospital free Christmas. I guess this is my explanation for being sparse on the updates.

The kids have, amidst the insanity, been to see Santa and starred in their nursery school nativity play as a Shepherd and Innkeeper #3. You might not have known, but apparently there were 3 innkeepers and they all wore pink outfits, also the boy shepherds seem to be pretty in purple and pink! Hope the pictures make you as happy as me. Oliver is ENAMOURED with Christmas. He loves the decorations, Santa Claus, the Nativities, you name it he is so happy with it. I think being 2 at Christmas is amazing I wish I could remember it!

The Smartest

I know every mom thinks her child is the smartest in the world, but Katya really might be ; )
She can now write her name all by herself. I am so impressed. She is getting more and more confident. Sometimes the letters are in the wrong order, but she gets it right most of the time!


All her own doing, except the example name written by me!

She signed this card for Ollie that they helped her make at nursery!

She even tried Ollie's name! Plus you got to love his hair and the fact that he is apparently suffering from gangrene!

Halloween Party Fun!

We have been meeting up with some other moms from our ward on Friday mornings, so we decided to host a Halloween party. Teigan came to sleep over Thursday night and we had so much fun getting things ready. This lot is such a bunch of characters. It amazes me how little 2 and 3 year olds can already have such distinct personalities!


Eating the vegetable kitty!! Can you believe that the little girl sitting next to Katya is only 2?!

The carved pumpkin madness! In the garage with the light off. Good thing Martin is a quick thinker, I couldn't work out how to show them off properly to the kids in the middle of the day!

Teigan, Poppy, Katya, Ollie, and Eliza

Martin helping Joel to carve his pumpkin. Joel is so cute and such a little individual. He kept poking me in tummy to get my attention the whole day!

Teigan and Katya posing as witch princesses.

Oliver looks like he has a bad case of acne, it is supposed to be a pirate beard. Here he is a witch pirate. He wasn't really into dressing up! He mostly just wanted to wear his pirate wellie boots.

The proud creators of the scary vegetable cat! I would like to take credit for the creativity behind it, but alas I found it online!

Hello Vegetable Crudite Cat with a hummus head!

Teigand and Katya assembling the critter!

Oliver mostly chewed up pieces of veg and then spit them out, he didn't really want to eat them, but they looked so pretty and he knows you're supposed to eat them. Yes, Hank, he still has his dummy in his mouth. He doesn't need it, I need him to have it! Someone gave me a really good idea to cure him of it though. Collect all your dummies, I think we have 5 on the go now, and have your child put them into a build-a-bear stuffed toy themselves and they will have a "dummy toy" to sleep with. I am worried Ollie would find a way to tear through to his beloved "ummie" if he knew it was actually inside. I promise we will be done with dummies before Hank, Leah, and Sammy come to visit, you can hold me to it!

Conkers Conkers Conkers!!!

Autumn in England means cool weather, leaves falling, Hallow's Eve, and Bonfire night to many. But to Katya and Ollie Ward it mainly means CONKERS! Yes thanks to Nanny and Daddan we have exactly 239 conkers, 4 pine cones and a few acorns. What do we do with them you say? We count them, arrange them in geometrical shapes, pour them from container to container, throw them, attempt to eat them (if we are Oliver), and even do dances around them (thanks to Katya's friend Joel for the inspiration!). They are really called Horsechestnuts and are not the edible "roasting on a fire" type. But nevertheless they provide hours of free fun!


Ollie sitting in the ring of conkers! He mostly destroys Katya's careful creations!

All 239 of them!

Thumbs up for conkers!!!

Family Family Family!

No one can truly represent in words the maddness, volume, and wonderfulness of the month of August in Sam and Mary Florence's home on 580 North Loop Drive. Friendships were forged (Oliver and Olivia), rivalries created (Katya and Alicey, though a very loving friendly rivalry, but their was competition wasn't there!), and adoration oblated (especially to Hanky, Leah, and Baby Sam). We spent the first week of August having an activity packed lovefest with all the immediate family and their monkeys (children). One thing is for sure, NO ONE went hungry. There was yummy food, lots of beach time, swimming, and even an unbirthday party for the cousins, who don't usually get to spend their birthdays together. It was gratuitous, but heaven for little ones. We even went to Disneyland with all the siblings and their kids. I will do a seperate blog entry for our 2 Disneyland excursions, but it was tiring and wonderful. We had a fabulous reunion with the Bradshaws and once again ate very well. The next 2 days Mandy and Trevor and Lindsay and family left. Hank and Leah struck camp in the way backyard, they had been sleeping in a tent back there during the whole week, and returned to their bed in Thousand Oaks. That left Heather and Cesar and their girls who stayed for a whole extra week. We had park dates, library fun, and tons of swimming and beaching. The day they left Dado, Grandma, Ashley (my cousin Andrew's fiancee), and Aunt Debbie arrived for a weeks visit. It was great to see them and spend quality time. The same day Martin's brother Matthew along with Trudy, Callum, and Teigan arrived for their weeks stay in Carpenteria. So we spent that week playing with Martin's family in the day and evenings with everyone else at home until Dad's 61st birthday when we returned to Disneyland! Another exhausting, but fun filled day. After everyone left Thursday we finally got to chill a little bit, with just my parents and Summer at home, but with Hank and Leah and Sam joining us most days. It was joyous and long and relaxing and manic all at the same time! Despite nightime trauma with Katya and Oliver, they were great and had a magical time. Though on the taxi ride home from the bus station in Birmingham to our house Katya turned to me and said, "Mommy, I love England!"
Sam, Oliver, and Calvin in their matching dungarees!

Katya, Alicey, Oliver, and Olivia cooking up something good in the backyard.

Cuties!! Olivia and Oliver

Katya, Sam and Oliver in the pink bath. (Katya really liked that it was pink!)

Alicey and Katya loving Bampa... he is pretty loveable!

Olivia and Oliver playing with their presents from the cousin Unbirthday party.

Mickey Mouse chicken nuggets and chips at the party!

Bampa and his Oliver playing on the rocks at the beach!

All the girl cousins of Marty and Carol! How can we be so grown up?!

I love this picture of Pa and many of his great-grandies especially their varying degrees of happiness and sadness!
Oliver really loved his Pa!

Four Bradshaw generations. Pa, Mom, Me, and Katya and Ollie
The Florence Family (its funny to me how we look too small without all the spouses and kids)

Ah this is more like it, the whole Florence Family - I'm sure someone has a better one than me!

It will take a really long time...

Love/Hate with Katya and Alicey

Beachtime fun

Matchy Matchy cousins courtesy of Heather

Too many presents...

Happy Unbirthday party to you!

Crying babies with Pa

Family reunions rock

Disneyland Madness

Wagon trips with Bampa

Fun with Hanky and Leah

We had the most wonderful trip to California. It seemed to go on forever and yet it was too short. We saw family and friends and loved hanging out and playing. During the next few weeks I will try to add lots of blog entries with different themes of our trip. The captions to the pictures above are some of the possibilities.