Merry Christmas

Someday I'll come back here to finish up London pictures and cover Lucy's birthday, but for now, Merry Christmas from the James Family. Blessings to you and your families during this special season!

London - Part 2

We meant to set off bright and early on Monday morning to be good tourists. Switching to the new time zone proved difficult and we slept quite a bit later than we meant to.

I think all visitors probably get at least one picture with a red phone booth. We had to chose our angle carefully to not let the KFC trash in the booth show up in our picture.

We walked past this old church building on the way to the tube. If I remember right, it is being converted into a theater. Lots of old church buildings are being used for other purposes (rather than being torn down.)

The Tube (subway)

Waterloo Station - both underground and above-ground trains stop here. It looked like a mall on one side and was covered with glass (plastic?), but it was still very cool and a little breezy.

Oliver in his brown pea coat

The London Eye

Oliver loved it...

An example of how the weather goes from sunny to rainy to sunny to cloudy to rainy, etc. This was a fast moving cloud and it did get very windy that day.

The 3 of us on the Eye - If I converted meters to feet correctly, it is about 442 feet high.

Not so clear view of Big Ben and Parliament

Big Ben from the Eye again

Walk way along River Thames

Big Ben from the bridge

Two impressive and important-looking old buildings with a monument between them. We were amazed at how many things you see like this that aren't marked well, and don't get mentioned in some travel guides. I guess when everything is old and beautiful, some just get ignored.


It turned out that the building on the right is over the Winston Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms. We came back a couple of days later to go down into that bunker. I learned a lot about WWII and what a sense of humor Winston Churchill had.

London - Part 1

After lots of careful packing (notice the emergency item at the bottom)

and a little bit of airport waiting

we said goodbye to the south plains (by plane)

in the hopes of eventually seeing something more like this (by train),
and we did

but first some more airport waiting in Houston.

Our 9 hour overnight flight from Houston to London was supposed to include many hours of a baby sleeping in an airline bassinet.

Oliver was only kind enough to sleep in it for enough time for me to get a picture, then he decided it was too cramped and that gross stain that looks like pureed carrots just wasn't going to cut it. We took turns holding him the rest of the time. Thankfully, he didn't cry much at all.



Finally, a picture actually taken in London. Here is Oliver at Heathrow Airport in the borrowed collapsable stroller that saved us.

8 am in "the tube", London's subway
We spent the morning finding our way to our friends' house, ate lunch, then Brad and Brent went to a football (soccer) game. Go Spurs!



Jody, the girls, the babies and I went to the high street to see the Christmas festival and the lighting of the tree. Here is Oliver with substitute big sisters for the week.



We saw a puppet show on the street

and a real reindeer.

We went to church, then stopped by a crepe stand on the way back to the house. Words cannot describe how delicious a warm crepe with melted Belgiun chocolate tastes on a cool night.

At that point, I seriously thought if we had to leave right then, all traveling would have been worthwhile. I'm holding my crepe and wearing Oliver in a blue wrap here. (In other words....I'm not pregnant!)

More to come (lots, actually)...

Amen to that

In Lucy's school folder on Monday was a slip of paper with the prayer intention she is supposed to say at Friday's prayer service.

"For helping us to be patient and kind as we wait for Christmas...Lord hear our prayer"

Not just good advice for the kindergarten kids!

Proof

that he is now 8

and 8 things that Kilian says make him happy:

• bugs
• bowling
• cake
• the beach
• Magic Tree House books
• Bakugan toys
• Carlsbad Caverns
• tostadas

I didn't mean to not post anything from that last post until after he actually turned 8. Our trip to London the week of Thanksgiving was wonderful, but I promised myself I would get some (software developing) work goals accomplished before I spent time on pictures. I am ready to tackle them now!

Remembering 7...

because 8 is just around the corner.

being a scout

making a mess

being a good big brother

being silly

reading

being a scout / helping make a fire

being a good big brother

being very silly

building

being a good big brother

reading by the fire

8 sounds so old, but I sure am enjoying having such big kid around here.

I don't know what we would do without our Kilian!

Not very loved

Can you tell?

Kid Quotes

Lucy: I have fat legs.

Me: What??!!?? (they are seriously toothpicks!)

Lucy: Just like Oliver, my legs are fat. (Then she proceeds to show me how her thighs are about the same size as Oliver's). She must have overheard me saying how much I love, love, love his "fat baby legs".

==============================

Camille to Kilian: Oh look, here is the 'T-Rexasaurus'!

==============================

Kilian to Lucy: I 'pacifically' told you that you can only.....(insert complicated rules to his made up game here).

===============================

Halloween 2009

Remember our unhappy flower from Halloween 2008? (click here and scroll down to the 4th picture for a reminder)

Well, we started out with an unhappy Lion for Halloween 2009.

We took off the costume for a picture with my four and cousin Avery (a happy flower).


Then we put the costume back on once we learned that only kids in costume actually get the candy in their buckets.


What fine ninja moves - don't break my camera, please! Kilian was actually Superman for the school Halloween parade, but wanted to switch to last year's ninja costume for Saturday night. I liked the Superman better, so maybe this will teach me not to forget my camera for school functions.

No candy for them this year, so the babies chat about how unfair their lives are. They don't look disgruntled, do they?

Jackpot!!

Accessorized Insomnia

Kilian and Lucy have been doing a great job of going to bed and falling asleep when they are asked on school nights. Camille on the other hand....not so much.


I just find it so hard to be a consistent disciplinarian when she comes out of her room looking like this: