A less busy week.

Hello! How are you? Hope that this finds you well! We are fine here and have enjoyed a cooler couple of days this week,although it is set to be dry and hot again over the weekend!

We have spent the last couple of days seeing friends, which has been good and we are going to see the new English family tomorrow again, which will be nice! Today we went to the library in the morning and then to the little zoo this afternoon with Maddie, Vanessa and Alex. The children really enjoyed themselves and all played really well! They especially liked feeding the animals and I was impressed that Esther had remembered how to feed them properly and that she had the confidence to do it herself! Naomi has been able to do it for a while now, but it was the first time that Esther had been able to!

Yesterday we spent the morning at our friends house with Nina and her daughter, Alexandra. The girls loved playing there as she has a lot of Disney princess toys so our two were very excited!! It was good to see them! We went straight from there to Gym class and then came home from there! Esther and I were able to watch Naomi again yesterday which was lovely and I was thankful that it was the last lunchtime session that we will have to do! Naomi starts going on a Monday afternoon once the schools start! Phew!

yesterday afternoon I met with a man from one of the play equipment company's that I hope will provide us with an exciting new neighbourhood playground in a shortish time! The girls were great whilst I talked to him and I felt that it was a very valuable time! I feel at least that he understands the issues now and I certainly have a better idea of limits and possibilities and things!

On Monday the girls had their hair cut in Redmond and then we went onto have lunch with Tim at work! The girls enjoyed drawing on Daddy's white board and were excited about having lunch in the restaurant! Esther unfortunately got bumped into by a man and wailed loudly "that man banged me!!" Poor guy! I felt quite sorry for him really as everyone looked at him as a bad man!!

After lunch we had to return to Redmond town center to retrieve the bear that we had mistakenly left at the shop! However it gave me a chance to do some birthday present shopping and enabled the girls to play on the small structure in the center for a while! After we came home, we played in the garden and indoors, which was great after such a busy weekend!

So that is about it really! I'll write again on Sunday!

Tim's Birthday weekend

Hello there! Hope that you are all well and are enjoying your bank holiday weekend! Ours is next weekend which is nice!

We have had a wonderful weekend this weekend but it has flown by so fast; I can't believe it is Sunday evening already!Yesterday was Tim's birthday and he had a good day! Naomi had been asking me everyday this week whether it was Daddy's birthday today and so she was very excited when the day finally came! Tim had help opening his presents from the girls and then went back to appreciate them properly later as the girls only liked taking the paper off!

Later on, Melinda and Chad arrived and we had a quick lunch before heading up to Monroe fair, which was fun, although extremely hot! We all enjoyed the fair, Esther enjoyed riding around on Chad's knee on his scooter and going on train fairground ride and Naomi loved looking at the rabbits and guinea pigs and going on a boat fairground ride!

Unfortunately, we were very late in coming home, because it took longer than we thought it would for a couple of different reasons and so it was late before the children were in bed. Esther then decided to wake up at 6:15am which meant that she was incredibly grumpy at the beginning and end of her day although reasonable in the middle of it!

Once the children were in bed last night though, we enjoyed a birthday Chinese meal with Melinda and Chad! They stayed the night and so this morning we headed off to church and then to the beach this afternoon. It was beautiful down at Discovery Park and we were fortunate to have Chad's disabled pass which meant that we got parked right down at the bottom! All of the Sneaths enjoyed a paddle in the sea, although the tide turned suddenly and it became very rough for a short time but was calm again just as we were leaving! It was very odd! The girls enjoyed themselves! Esther fell asleep in the car coming home and didn't get to say Good bye to Melinda and Chad, which really upset her when we got home. She sobbed for a good few minutes "Chad, Chad, Chad!!" As you can see, he is still her favourite!

On Friday, the girls and I headed over to Seattle to see Becky, Darin and the boys one last time and to take Eli out for an hour or so! All the children and I had a great time at the park and we were sad to say Goodbye, although we hope to see them soon!

After this the girls and I went into Seattle to go to the Children's museum and we had a fabulous time! Everything there is so fascinating that the children just love it! It took me 10 minutes to get them out of the toilets as there are 4 different sized toilets there, ranging from very small to adult size! Esther really enjoyed going on the smallest toilet and washing her hands in a sink just her size but the child that was in the toilet that Naomi wanted to go in took ages to come out, which didn't help!

When I finally did get them out of the toilets, the children had a great time playing at shops, at being a waitress in a restaurant and as actors in the theatre! We then went to do some painting - I think the poor student who runs the room must have the messiest job in Seattle! There was paint and glue everywhere! I wiped it off the girls shoes yesterday! The had great time painting and sticking and then we went to another section that depicted African and Japanese life which was interesting even for Esther. After this though, I had had enough and as it was 4pm by this stage and we had been out since 10am I decided it was time to go home. Just as we were leaving though, Naomi spotted the Microsoft sponsored computer lab and said "Mummy we haven't been in there!" but we will have to see that bit another day!!

As we were leaving, the girls had a quick go on the merry-go-round which they enjoyed and then we came home! It was  a fun but busy day!

On Thursday we met Helen and Marigold, Jo and Zoe at the park for a picnic and a play on the playground which was fun and then we did a bit of shopping on the way home. I made a birthday cake for Tim in the evening and had my hair cut - not keen on the result, still need to find a good hairdressers here! Never mind!

So that has been the end of our week really! It has been busy but at least no snake sightings to report today! We are having a quieter few days this week I hope though, before school and our other activities start in about 2 weeks time!

Well, that is it for now!

Snake!

Hello there! How are you? Hope that you are all well! We are fine and have done very little the last few days! Unusually for us we have not been anywhere today, yesterday afternoon or Monday morning but we have amused ourselves very well and will likely be out much of tomorrow and Friday!

It was very hot again on Monday and so we did some jobs around the house in the morning and made some chocolate crackelates which the girls enjoyed! In the afternoon though, I took the girls to a Doll's museum in Bellevue, which they absolutely loved! We were there a good hour and a quarter but we still only had seen about two-thirds of the museum when they threw us out at 5:00pm.

It was a delightful little museum that was very sensible, if you know what I mean in that the dolls were all behind glass cases and they also had drawers for the children to pull out that had more dolls in too. The children couldn't get anywhere either and so they were able to run and explore on their own a bit too, which was good! They both would run off and come back a few moments later saying to me"Mummy, I want to show you something" and so I would go and see it and then they would run off again only to come back a few seconds later!

They had one exhibit that had a toy train, a doll in a rocking chair and a rocking horse that moved on their own every few minutes and Esther was quite happy to run back and forwards to see it when it started to move! She also liked pushing all the buttons on the televisions so that they all started at the same time! She clearly thought that 2 televisions going at once was highly entertaining!

It was a wonderful find and one that we will certainly go back to! I really enjoyed watching the children's enjoyment of it all! There was an article in the Daily Mail (where else?!!) that someone had forwarded onto me about a journalist who disliked spending time with her children because she found them boring. I felt very sorry for her as she obviously had no idea how delightful it is to be able to watch your children clearly enjoying themselves doing something a little bit different and special! The article was very sad!

On Tuesday morning Naomi went to school and Esther and I had originally planned to go to the park but it was damp and chilly and so we set off to find a book about shapes that I wanted for her. We looked both in a toy shop and a book shop but had no success and so I will have to order it from amazon I think! I had a funny experience in the bookshop though as I asked the man where I could find a book about shapes that was appropriate for a two year old. A few minutes later he came back with a book with a sheep on the front cover. It was a touch and feel book and I was a bit mystified, so I asked "this is a book about shapes?" "yes" said the man, "look it has a sheep on the front cover and more inside I think". At this point, I said "No, shapes - circles, triangles, squares, not sheep's!!" I mean, honestly what a stupid man! whenever was the plural of sheep, sheep's!! Did he think I was stupid!! I did giggle though! Hopeless!

As we have been busy on a Tuesday morning, I don't like to go out in the afternoon if we can help it and so yesterday we spent the time at home, making cards for Tim's birthday and the girls played in the house! I brought down the dishwasher so that they can now cook and wash up in their house!! They love it!

In the evening, the girls had a bit of a funny accident! I was in the bathroom, running the bath when suddenly I heard Naomi really yell, so I rushed out and met her in the hall. It took me a few minutes to calm her down for her to tell me what the problem was and it turned out that Esther had fallen down the gap between Naomi's bed and the wall. They had been playing at going to sleep I think and Esther had fallen off the bed, wrapped up in the duvet! Well,, as you can imagine, I rushed into the bedroom and located Esther and disentangled her from the duvet and the side of the bed. She was fine, although upset but the funny thing was, I hadn't heard Esther yelling (although she was!) because she was muffled by the duvet and because Naomi was yelling so loudly! Poor Esther! It didn't seem to put them off their game though - they played it again this evening!

This morning we had to wait in for the man to come and clean the air ducts that heat our house. It was a dusty job and it took a while and so the girls and I did some painting whilst he was here. Naomi is enjoying painting her big princess picture and Esther loves just playing with the paints! This afternoon Vanessa, Rosie and Ulrike came round with the children for them to have a play in the play house, which was fun!

The boys, Rosie, Vanessa and I were sitting on the grass near to the playhouse chatting when suddenly I saw a snake moving in the grass, right between Alex and Cameron near their feet! I shrieked "move, move, it's a snake" and so they grabbed the boys and moved!! I was still sitting on the floor with Esther wrapped round me but thankfully the snake moved off toward the fence and didn't come too near me!! Rosie had seen the snake but had though that it was Alex's toy, even to the point of thinking "that  moves realistically" until I had shrieked!!

It was terrible!! I have never ever seen a snake before, especially not in my garden but I am reassured by Ulrike that it is not a poisonous one as they don't live this side of the mountains! I am going to take her word for it! I have no idea where it came from or why it decided to wriggle its way between us sitting on the grass!! It took us ages to calm down and I kept on looking at Alex and seeing the snake near his feet in my mind's eye!! you can tell that we are all city dwellers!! Vanessa was just pleased that Alex hadn't picked it up and put it in his mouth! I don't think anyone of us would have been able to remove it from him!!!! Believe me, I shall be watching carefully from now on!!

Thankfully, my girls were fascinated by it and were not scared and the others didn't realise it was there!! Oh my!!

Well, on that note, I shall leave you and will write again on Sunday! Take care!

New English Arrivals!

Hello! Welcome from a warm Issaquah. I gather it has been raining with you! We could certainly do with some here! Everything is very dry and in parts of Washington State there are forest fires burning! I hope that you are enjoying a bit of rain anyway!!

We are fine here and have had a pleasant, relaxing day. We all went to church this morning and then came home for some lunch. After lunch we all had a bit of a rest – Esther actually went to sleep which was good – before some friends of Tim arrived in the afternoon! The family have just emigrated here from England and arrived on Thursday and so it was great to be able to welcome them and provide them with some useful tips! We had a lovely afternoon; the family has 2 boys (9 and 11) but the children all got on well! Naomi and Esther were happy to watch them play on the Xbox for a bit!

Tim had a busy day yesterday! The bark play chips arrived on Friday and Tim had to move it to the spot where we wanted to build the children’s play house. He did this quite quickly really and then whilst the girls and I went shopping, he built the house! They were delighted when we returned to find that it was all ready for them to play in and have had a lovely time playing with it the last couple of days! It is good and suits them well! We also ordered some play food for them to use outside and we were amazed that the play food is all Sainsbury’s branded things!! The house is from an American company with an American website and what the American children make of Sainsbury’s apple juice, economy beans and rich tea biscuits, we don’t know! We were a little disappointed that the products weren’t real in a lot of cases! I quite fancied a chocolate rich tea biscuit!! We are really pleased that the girls are delighted with the house and think that it will provide hours of fun for years to come!

After lunch yesterday and before our parties Tim started to strip off the ghastly wall paper in the cloak room. It says a lot about how bad it was before when I say that it looks better in its current undecorated state than it did before!! We were hoping to paint it though but the wall paper has removed the top layer of paper on the plaster board in a few small spots and we now will have to repaper we think.

As a family we had 2 parties to go to yesterday both at the same time, but one was in Kirkland and the other was in Seattle. It worked out well as Tim took Esther to Becky, Darin, Eli and Zeke’s leaving party in Seattle and I took Naomi to Caitlin’s birthday party in Kirkland! We all had a great time! Naomi loved bouncing on the bouncy castle that was at the party and playing with Caitlin’s doll house and Esther had had a great time playing with Eli and Joanna! Vanessa, Maddie, Ulrike and Fritzi plus the boys were all there too so the mummies had a great afternoon too! Caitlin, Maddie and Fritzi are all coming round on Wednesday afternoon to play in the house, which should be fun and the girls and I will go to Seattle on Friday to say goodbye to Becky and Darin, so it has all worked out well!

On Friday Nicole came round in the morning whilst I did a bit of clearing up and made some phone calls. We won’t see her or Brooke for a while as we are going to have a cleaner for a couple of months whilst the baby is born and is still little! It will be nice not to have to worry about the cleaning for a bit, although I need to clear up before she comes, which is fine!
In the afternoon we met up with Vanessa, Maddie and Alex in the park which was fun! It was nice and shaded there and so not too hot either which was good!

On Thursday, Naomi went to school in the morning and Esther and I went to Gym class! Esther was funny, she doesn’t like standing on the high beam and will cling onto the teacher for dear life if she goes up there! She is usually quite happy to go up there but then hangs on. Anyway, the teacher and I were encouraging her to sit on the beam which she did but at one point she leant forward and gave the teacher a huge wet kiss! Poor teacher!! The teachers are very child centric and so didn’t mind but it was one of Esther’s really sloppy ones!

After class, Esther and I had to go to the Gynecologist and we hopefully set the date for the delivery of the baby to be 24th October! Let’s hope the baby is listening!! We collected Naomi after school and then popped to the shops to pick up a few bits before coming home!
In the afternoon we went to the park with the usual gang and had a lovely time there! The girls all enjoyed playing in the sand pit and it is a good park as there is a fence which means that they can run without having to be reigned in at all!

Naomi was organizing us all this afternoon with her games and poor Esther gets organized the whole time! I keep trying to explain to Naomi that Esther doesn’t always want to play her games her way but it falls on deaf ears! Naomi made us laugh though; we had all just sat down to dinner when Naomi announced that her knickers were all twisted! I felt sorry for the 9 year old though as he giggled and then got told off by his Dad! I laughed too though!!

We were listening to the Now Show (Radio 4 is great on the internet!) today and there was a silly song about the Israeli /Hezbollah crisis and the chorus went “Hezbollah, lalala” and it was funny as Esther was then singing, “lalalala” with them and afterwards! It made us laugh!

Well, that is all I am going to write today! Will blog again on Wednesday as usual!
Bye for now!

I little

 

Hello! Hope that you are all well! We are fine and have had an enjoyable couple of days here!

On Monday the girls and I met our friend Nina and her daughter (Ali) at the park; we had a lovely time! We hadn't seen them for a while as they have been on vacation and so it was good to spend the time with them again.

In the afternoon, the girls and I went shopping - or rather the girls went to Playland whilst  I did the shopping!

Yesterday whilst Naomi was at school, Esther and I went to the park and made a new friend, a little girl called Elizabeth who is 2 and her mother Amy. I hope to see them again next week as we exchanged phone numbers! Funnily enough we have seen them before in a couple of parks and have spoken before but only briefly! Yesterday we had a good chat!

Esther and I also went to Costco shopping before picking up Naomi from school. Naomi had made some interesting pom-poms yesterday which were very jolly! Naomi then went onto her Gym / dance class and we then spent the afternoon at home! Naomi is now painting a large picture of all the princesses! At least they all wear a different coloured dress which is about the only way you can identify them!

Today, the girls and I went into Seattle so that we could look after Eli for a short while! Darin has a new job in Oregon, where Becky's family live and so they are moving in about 10 days time. They are trying hard to pack and so I took the children (minus Zeke) to the park to give Becky and Darin an hour or so free. Their local park is lovely, really shady with swings, exciting climbing frames and a sandpit. The children all had a lovely morning together and Esther is going to miss Eli when they go!

After we had returned Eli to his Dad, the girls and I went into seattle to the Aquarium, which was great! The girls enjoyed seeing the otters and the fish as well as feeling the poor sea creatures in the tanks! They were in that section for ages! Esther was more interested in the fish and exhibits this time - when I took them in April, all Esther wanted to do was run and run!

It was quite late by the time we came home and the girls really only had time to watch a little bit of television before tea, bath and bed. They were tired today and went to sleep fairly quickly.

Esther is now only rarely sleeping at lunch time and is slowly learning the art of resting! The first couple of days she shouted almost constantly but yesterday she rested very well and only shouted once I think. She is so delighted to see me though when I come in and happily says "wake time now" for a few minutes once I have picked her up! She obviously thinks I am very cruel to make her sit in her cot for so long! (About 25 mins in practice!). Still, she has plenty of toys and books and so it will do her no harm!

Most of the day, Esther says to me "I bigger", which loosely translated means that " I can do it myself mummy, go away!" but at bed time when she is tired she suddenly switches into "I little" mode which means that she wants you to pick her up! She is funny!

Amazingly I managed to persuade Naomi to wear trousers today - mainly because I showed her the weather forecast and told her that it was going toget hot and that she would be able to wear either her shorts or her dresses without a tee shirt underneath! She looked great in them! She was trying on some of the flippers for deep sea diving at the Aquarium and she looked very funny!

Naomi continues to baffle me with long questions and monologues about anything really but she is very sweet and delightful most of the time!

Esther is going to be on the Stage I think! This morning Naomi very slightly over balanced in her chair at breakfast, nothing dramatic, just a slight lean too far in one direction. However when Esther was retelling the event to me, she was demonstrating and was showing Naomi to be falling on the floor in a very dramatic way! It was very entertaining! naomi and I were both laughing!

Anyway, that is all for now!

Woodland Walk

Good evening! Hope that this finds you all well. We're fine here, although I spent the morning in bed! Nothing serious, just a busy few weeks catching up with me and a few sleepless nights this week!

We've had a lovely weekend and have done lots of different things! Today we went for a lovely woodland walk around a lake on Tiger Mountain (we live on Squak, Tiger is the next one along). We went with Vanessa and the children as poor James has been affected by the terrible news this week and didn't catch his flight home from the UK yesterday. He is due to arrive into Vancouver today and somehow get back to Seattle.

The girls did really well on the walk and until the last 5 minutes didn't run out of steam at all and ran round most of it although they did stop to look at a few things that we pointed out along the way. There were lots of spiders webs which the girls enjoyed looking at and a few upturned trees which they found very fascinating! Esther however, still enjoyed picking up stones and sticks best of all though!!

Tim carried Alex in the back pack and Alex loved looking at the trees and the girls running along! He is so keen to join them in their activities these days but today he was happy to watch! It helped that he had such a good view from the back pack I think!

Tim took the girls to church this morning and I think they all enjoyed seeing friends! I know I enjoyed sleeping!!

Yesterday I took the girls to the market to buy some raspberries and then cooked lunch. It was the neighbourhood picnic yesterday afternoon which was well attended and great fun. We had to take something to eat along to share and so the girls and I had made a cake in our together times. We made the cake itself on Friday and yesterday just had to fill it!We put in lots of fresh raspberries and then poured a chocolate fondant icing on top! The girls really enjoyed it and it tasted good!

As the picnic wasn't until 4pm we went to our local supermarket, PCC as it was having a food fair! It was brilliant! It was free to get into and they were giving away loads of things as well as having hundreds of free food samples at the fair itself! We came home with loads of goodies! It was great!

We were one of the early ones to arrive and leave at the picnic and were a bit disappointed at first, but in fact we had a lovely afternoon and met loads of our neighbours, which was great! The local fire station sent a truck for the children to go in and they loved looking in there and even got a chance to drive it! Great excitement was caused when the truck got called away from the picnic on an emergency and left with its lights and sirens going!

The local police also sent a car, although crime was not a problem!! (And, before you ask Mum, no I didn't recognise him!!) The girls got stickers from him and were able to see inside the car, although they couldn't go in. The girls enjoyed playing at the play ground and I was able to speak to lots of people about the playground which was useful.

On Friday I did some housework in the morning and then we met Vanessa and the children at the KidsQuest museum, which they always enjoy! In the evening Tim and I watched the 2003 version of the Italian Job which was great fun! It is not the same story as the Michael Cane one but very watchable especially if you need something light weight!

On Thursday morning I had to go to the Dentist to have my broken tooth sorted out and I was not looking forward to going and had nightmares on Wednesday night about it! However, I had a really good experience firstly because they have television goggles for you to watch whilst you have the work done, which is very effective at taking your mind off it and secondly they had a very short lasting local anaesthetic that had worn off more or less by the time I came home.

Tim looked after the children and took Naomi to school and then Esther and I did some shopping before picking her up. In the afternoon we met our friend Rosie, with her children Caitlin and Cameron at a lovely park in Redmond. We hope to meet them there next week!

Esther has done really well this week and apart from the odd couple of car trips we have not had any puddles at all! She made us laugh the other day! Tim had been given a free gift from work that had a tee shirt in a large round flat tin. It was easy to take the lid off the tin but a struggle to put it back on again! As Tim was struggling with it, Esther said very seriously, "Maybe it's run out of batteries!" It was very funny!

Naomi has enjoyed being at school this week and will go for another fortnight before starting 3 days in September. She is very kind and patient towards Esther most of the time even when Esther seriously provokes her! Naomi and I have had some good together times this week but I know that she wants to do another big painting this week! Heaven help me!!

Well, that is about it for now!

It rained today!

Hi! There is not much news today and so I will keep this short! Sorry!

We are OK here – the girls and Tim are fine but I am feeling a little under the weather as I haven’t been sleeping too well! It has been much cooler today and so I hope to sleep better tonight though!

It has in fact rained today for the first time in ages and so the grass and plants will be very pleased! And Tim as he won’t have to water them today!! It was such a novelty that Naomi suggested that we should go for a walk in the rain with our umbrellas, which we did! IT was good fun and the girls enjoyed splashing in the puddles! Unfortunately for the children the drainage system is so good here that there are very few puddles but we did find a couple to splash in! This afternoon it dried up and so we went to the park, which was fun too!

Yesterday Naomi went to school and Esther went to the doctor for her 2 year check. She is now 25lb and growing along the centile, which is good! She is quite tall though, which was a little bit of a surprise as she doesn’t seem to be that tall compared to her peers! However her dresses are looking a bit short and I put a cardigan on her in Vancouver that fitted only a few weeks ago but that doesn’t fit now! So she obviously has grown! The doctor was asking how her speech was (she hadn’t said anything to the doctor!!) and I reassured her that she was fine! This morning Esther said “it’s raining – need umbrellas” and this evening said “want door bigger open” at bed time!! I think her speech is just fine!!

Yesterday afternoon we played at home in the garden or in the house, which was nice especially for Naomi as she has such a busy day on a Tuesday with school and then with dancing class!

On Monday we had a list of short jobs in different shops to do which we did in record timing and then met up with Vanessa and the children in the afternoon. We went Blueberry picking which, although fun, I would not want to do again! It was very fruitless really as we were there for over 30 minutes and only picked a pound of blueberries! The girls discovered too that they could get underneath the bushes and I was worried that we would lose Esther in particular! They may be expensive to buy in the market but I would much rather pay for someone else to pick them!!

Esther spent much of the afternoon feeding Alex and me blueberries that she had picked – maybe that was why we had so little in the bucket at the end!!

That is about it really! Hope that you are all well and that it is not too hot with you – apart from the odd day it is not supposed to be too hot here for a week or so now, which is a nice thought!!

Take care!

More Sunny days.

Hello there! Welcome from another hot evening here in Seattle! I’d like to say it was a peaceful, sunny evening but unfortunately the man across the road is power washing his car and it is very noisy! I hope that the girls can get to sleep!

It has not been too hot this week and it is not expected to be too hot this coming week but it has been nice that it has been warm and sunny over the weekend! Otherwise Tim never gets to see the sun at all! The girls and I have made the most of the nice weather though and went again to Pine Lake Park with our friends on Thursday. It was definitely chillier though and we didn’t stay in the water too long. In fact under the shade of the pine trees even the playground was a bit chilly and Naomi wanted her jumper! She had to make do though as I had left them in the car!

We had a great time on Thursday again and enjoyed being with old and new friends! The girls made either kites or paper chain dollies on Thursday which I had taken with us to do, but Esther was most confused though! I said that we were going to make a craft and Esther said “Helen no here” as our friend Helen, who had shown them the craft the week before is visiting her family in San Francisco this week! I explained to Esther that I had brought one along and all she said then was “Oh”! She was very funny but I was impressed that she had remembered though!

In the evening I went to a meeting to plan what the neighbourhood housing association can do about the local play ground. I have some work to do for it now and need to read all the information to work out what I do next! Basically the three of us who were there need to come up with a proposal to put to the Housing Association and we need to work out the finances and what we want! The girls are very excited but they think that it is going to be done much quicker than it will be done in practice!

On Friday we stayed at home whilst I did some housework and the girls played with the babysitter. They did some painting and some sticking which they enjoyed. In the afternoon we went to the library and then to the park, which was good!

Yesterday our friends Becky, Darin and the boys came over for the day; we went to Pine Lake Park again for a picnic and a splash in the lake, which the children loved! We had a great day and it was lovely to catch up with them! Esther and Eli both enjoy having a playmate their own age and Naomi is very good with them! Zeke is now just over 4 months and my girls enjoyed having a cuddle with him on their knee yesterday – Esther more than Naomi which was funny! Zeke was a lot more tolerant of having Esther play with him than another baby we had seen who doesn’t have any older siblings! She is sometimes a bit rough but she doesn’t mean to be and gets upset if the babies cry!

In the evening, after tea, Tim and I cleared up and then watched our latest Netflix DVD! We’ve now watched the first two seasons of “srubs” which was fun!

Today we went to church and then went onto Redmond Town Center for some lunch and a wander around. Our destination was chosen carefully as the I90 (our normal route across the Lake Washington) was closed. There has been something called “Sea Fair” on this weekend that has had speed boat racing, an opportunity to go on to a warship and a display by the Blue Angels (USA equivalent of the Red Arrows!) . Unfortunately, the girls need to be a bit older to be able to go and enjoy it but we did see the Blue Angels perform some of their display whilst we crossed over Lake Washington on the 520 bridge. We were glad that we were a safe distance away as they fly so fast and so low!! We were also trying to calm Naomi down as she had a bit of a panic that all planes looped the loop!!!

Naomi made me laugh this evening! She was watching PIngu and was very concerned that Pingu’s mummy didn’t grease the tin before she put the mixture in to cook! I had to explain that Pingu’s mummy was making a special cake that didn’t need butter in the tin before you poured in the mixture! I don’t know that she believed me much though!

Esther has a new word too “strange” or “range” in her case! She comes out with it in all sorts of funny occasions and thinks it is very “range” when she sees a car with no roof – or worse a jeep with no roof and no sides! It is very funny and she makes us laugh! Tim and I were listening to the Now show this morning on the way to church and one of their sketches included a take off of the teletubbies! It was quite funny but not as funny as then trying to explain to Esther why she could hear the teletubbies on the radio!

Ulrike and I had a funny conversation on Thursday! She was asking whether or not she could have some yarn to tie on to the kite that Fritzi had made at the park. I explained that it was actually string and that I didn’t have any yarn; Ulrike then went onto say that if we had knitted with the string would we call it yarn? She was most put out when I said that actually, no I would call it wool if I knitted with it and the Americans call it yarn! She gave me this look as if to say “I wish you English speaking countries would come up with a common language otherwise it is very difficult for the non-native English speakers to follow! It was funny and just another example of the differences in language!! Poor Ulrike does her very best to speak American and then she has me as a friend just to confuse her!

Anyway that is all for now and I will write again on Wednesday!

Naomi's chocolate crackelates.

Hello! Hope that you are all well! We are fine and are enjoying cooler weather this week! What about you all?

We have had a quieter Monday and Tuesday, which was great and then we have been busy today, which has been fun but tiring too!

On Monday the girls and I did a little bit of shopping in the morning and then went to the park in the afternoon! Naomi and I made some chocolate crackelates during our together time, which was fun! Naomi was very kind and only told me a couple of times that I hadn’t made them quite like Grandma had when they had made them together!! Like most children, Naomi loves licking the spoon when we have finished the mixing and she was a real sticky mess when she had finished. I was teasing her and said that she didn’t look very kissable right then and she puckered up her lips and gave me the largest, stickiest kiss imaginable!! She then giggled and giggled!! She was very funny!

The girls enjoyed having Tim around for 3 days last week and Esther was very upset at Daddy having to go back to work on Monday morning. She told him that “Daddy no go work, mummy go work”!! My feelings of persona-non-grata increased when Daddy came home and Naomi offered him a chocolate crackelate but not me!! However I had the last laugh though; when I was putting her to bed that night, Naomi said to me, “Mummy, Daddy had a crackelate and I had a crackelate, that is 2 but there are 3 holes in the tin!!” I then called to Tim and asked if he had anything to confess and it appeared that he had had 2 chocolate crackelates instead of one!! It was so funny and Tim learnt a valuable lesson that you cannot eat pull the wool over Naomi’s eyes especially now that she can count and can use her logic! I was very proud of her! Tim said that he thought he was a step ahead of Naomi! He was very wrong!!

Yesterday Naomi went back to school in the morning, which she enjoyed. She is going to be with the same teacher this year as she was last year but not during the summer school sessions. In fact there are only 16 – 20 children all together at present which makes it nice and small for her to get used to it again.

Naomi had her dance class yesterday lunch time and then Maddie came round in the afternoon for a play in the garden, which we all enjoyed! Tim and I went out yesterday evening for a short while whilst Claire and Greg babysat which was fun and then today we went to Bainbridge Island for the day.

It was lovely to be able to take Claire and Greg there as it is hard to get to on the bus! We had a lovely day and the girls enjoyed wandering around the shops this morning (especially the nice toy shop!) and then playing in the play ground this afternoon. We were disappointed that the large boat structure that they had enjoyed playing in in April was being used as a stage for a concert so we were unable to play there today but we had fun at the play ground for quite a while! Caire and Greg enjoyed looking at the boats and in the bookshop so we all had a good day. We say good bye to them tomorrow.

Well, that is about all our news here and I will write again on Sunday!