Humphrey the Hedgehog

Helloooo all ya'll. Sorry it's been a while since I wrote. I have no excuse.

Today is Mother's Day in Amer'ca - Happy Mother's Day! We're gonna go to the movies to see The Bridge to Tarabithia. Elijah has been itching to go. We were gonna go yesterday, but he got sick. He said his ear hurt, and he slept for probably 8 hours during the day. Weird. He woke up this morning and is back to his normal self, so we're gonna have a fun afternoon of Tarabithia, Pizza Hut, and ice cream. Lucky little boy!

Not too much is goin' on here. We went to London last weekend to the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum - that was fun. You can see pictures here. It was a bit of an adventure as we took the LONNNNGGG way everywhere. You know, walking for 2 hours in the wrong direction, getting on the wrong train home, blah blah blah. We finally got home at 10:30pm (well, sort of home - to the wrong train station) and took a cab the rest of the way. We left London at 6. That's insane! I think we're gonna look into parking garages and things for next time we go up there.

The house is really starting to come together. Right now Paul is back there plastering the wall that had the window he blocked up. I think we decided on a floor - it's like a streaky wood floor, with light and dark bits all through it. Really pretty. We've almost decided on paint colors too. There's still a lot to do before we get to that point, but it's still progress!

Check out this video of Elijah - it's hilarious:

Overtired Elijah

We had hedgehogs in our garden the other night! Oh my, they were so cute - I named them both Humphrey, because obviously, all hedgehogs should be named Humphrey. They were scared at first so they rolled up in balls. They remind me of big prickly roly-poly bugs. Anyways, we left them alone and they came back out of their rolls and we could see their awesome little faces. I love them and I want a large cage filled with them. And a lemur. You can see some pics of them here, along with some other stuff from the week!

Well, I must be off to take a shower before our fun filled family afternoon.

How many times do I have to tell you to clean your room?

I think I've asked Elijah to clean his room about 486 times this afternoon. I tidied up my kitchen and went to check on him, only to find a Power Ranger had taken over his body. This miniature Power Ranger (with a very similar build & stature to my son) told me he didn't have to clean up. I said to him, "Elijah, how many times do I have to tell you to clean your room?" He looked up at me through his red plastic mask and said, "I'm not Elijah, I'm a Power Ranger". So I reached down, took away his fun, and repeated my question. "Elijah, how many times do I have to tell you to clean your room?" He replied, "Uh, fiiiive?" Ha! So I said, "Clean your room clean your room clean your room clean your room clean your room." He turned around, dropped to the ground with a protruding bottom lip and started his usual meowing. He shortly got over it, and now, as I write this, he's wearing his backpack upside down on his chest, marching around the house singing about sunshine and something I can't understand. Definitely NOT cleaning his room. Ok, time to regulate.

Regulation complete. Good heavens. Oh, we got some good news this week - Elijah got into Capel Primary School and starts in September! I guess Capel Primary is like THE best school in the area and everyone wants to get their kids into that school. I was surprised he got in cause we applied late, but we're thinkin' kids actually living in Capel get priority. It's crazy to think that he'll be in school in 4 short months, sporting his awesome uniform and all. He'll be starting half days at first, and then gradually move up to full days. We'll find out all the info at the parent/teacher night coming up.

We knocked down another wall last night - in between the back lounge and the bathroom. There is so much dust around the house when we knock walls down, it instantly makes me sick. It feels like I have fuzzy little spores growing in my lungs. Siiiick. Anyways, the house is coming along on schedule. The right wall is about ready for paint, but we have to finish the floor first. Soon enough we will be enjoying a cuppa tea back there, watching the sun set behind the fields. Ahhhh.

Ok, I must go start dinner! Byeeeeee!

Earthshaaaaake!

This morning started like any other - Paul and I got up to the lovely sound of Elijah yelling, "GET UP YOU TWO!" Paul and Elijah were heading up to Canterbury to go suit shopping for the wedding, so they had to get ready. The two of them hopped in the shower, and I went into the bathroom brush my teeth (yeah, all three of us can actually fit in our bathroom). After finishing my teeth brushing, I hung around to chat with Paul and all of a sudden, we felt a violent shaking, like, our entire house was shaking. We all looked at each other with priceless shocked faces and I said, "What the hell is that?!" Paul had to take on the surfer stance to keep from falling over, I held the sink and thought, 'Sweet Moses, the back of our house is collapsing!' Hahaa. Most of you know that we're doing a lot of demolition back there, and it wasn't build too well in the first place about 30 years ago, so I wouldn't be horribly surprised if it did fall down. As soon as the shaking stopped, I ran back to check out the house - it was fine. Nothing out of place, but our power was out. What in the world was it? I asked Paul if it coulda been an earthshaaaaake, he said probably not, earthquakes are hardly heard of in Britain. I chucked on some appropriate clothes and went outside to see if anyone else at felt it. Well, the entire street was full of confused people - many rumors beginning to spread - power plants blowing up, gas explosions, etc. etc. No one had a clue what had happened.

To make a long story short - it was an earthquake. About 5 on the Richter Scale - so a "light to moderate" earthquake. You can read about it on most news sites. Pretty weird in jolly ol' England.

Obnoxious little toof gnome

I know this isn't important to anyone but me, and it will show you how truly vain I really am...but I must gripe about this for a minute. I'm not one to normally care THAT much about my physical appearance. Don't get me wrong, I like to do myself up and look nice, but I'm not the girl who obsesses about being a few pounds overweight, or if I have an extra long third toe, or if I have a new wrinkle on my forehead or a grey hair. It's all just me, and that's fine. Until today, I have been mostly accepting of the changes my body has undergone because of various life events, such as pregnancy, general stress, and plain slowly getting older. The one thing I have taken pride in and genuinely love about my appearance is my smile. I gots some nice straight toofs that are pretty white and nice and things. Well, I looked in the mirror this morning, and YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT I SAW!

My bottom teeth have always been completely, totally, utterly straight. Well, this past week, some obnoxious little toof gnome (dressed in lederhosen and pointy buckled shoes) has broken into my house and screwed up my teefs. I think he had an accomplice too. My lovely straight teeth are now C-R-O-O-K-E-D! Yes, crooked, as in, not straight. What is this alternate universe? When did this happen!? My wisdom tooth on the bottom has been acting up lately, and I now realize it's out for mouth-domination and will stop at nothing to achieve it. I know, I know, I'm totally overreacting, It's hardly a big deal, it's hardly noticeable.

But it so is.

I have a slight overlap. Oh my - did you read that? Let me repeat myself. I have a slight overlap. Am I the most vain girl ever to be born? Yes. I have scheduled surgery with Dr. Paul Teeet Martin for 8 o'clock this eve to rid my mouth of the evil wisdom tooth from hell.

Deer Woman

It's Tuesday, after a pleasant 4-day weekend of leisure. We totally let the house go, didn't clean or do anything responsible and just had fun. It was great, and now I have to spend the entire day purging the house of piled-up crap. Anyways, Paul had 4 days off and we did all sorts of things. We went to Leeds Castle on Friday, to Neil's BBQ on Saturday, went to church and did Easter things Sunday, and went to Port Lympne Animal Park yesterday. I put pictures of most of the weekend activities up on the site.

Let's see, what's going on here in England? We're all finally over our sicknesses, I think, so that's a good thing! Today I have one of Paul's friends coming over to introduce me to her babysitter. Yeah - Paul and I can go on dates! It's so weird getting an actual babysitter. Ya know, a teenager, just like I was, who's gonna raid our house for all the good food, have her friends over, talk on the phone all night, do all those things most babysitters do. It makes me feel all growed up, that I'm the one on the other side actually hiring a babysitter! Good lord, I'm the mother of an almost 4-year-old!

This is so not important information, but it's hilarious. Paul and I were flipping through channels late one night, and came across "Deer Woman" - a short horror film that was, by far, the most amazing specimen of acting, directing and production I've ever seen. It was about a woman who had deer legs and seduced men, then trampled them to death. Hahaaaa. At the end we actually got to see the deer legs and stuff, it was classic. She jumped off a balcony to get away and her skirt flew up and you could see her super awesome deer legs. Hahahaaaa. If you ever have a lonely boring night, see if you can rent "Deer Woman". It's almost as good as "Sasquatch Hunters".

OK, I must really stop slacking and get to working cleaning my house, it's embarrassing.

Stinky (but oh-so-cute) polecat

Sorry it's been a while since I added anything to the website. We've all been sick and uh, I've been what's known as "lazy". A few weeks ago Elijah had croup. He woke up at about 10pm from his sleep and couldn't breathe. The only way he could breathe was to violently cough and then suck in air. It wasn't very fun. It took us an hour to calm him down and get him breathing ok again. I took him to the doc the next day and he just confirmed the croup and said it's a virus and it'll go away on its own. This family has caught every virus known to man in the past 3 months. It'd be nice to feel totally better. I think Paul & Elijah would second that.

So I tried being a master baker again - I've come to the conclusion that it's my oven that's the culprit here. 'Tis my new nemesis. There's no way I can be THAT bad at mixing ingredients. I made a 10" cake that's supposed to be a nice light & moist butter cake, and it turned out like pound cake. Actually, more like ton cake. It's eatable though. So yeah, then today I made an 8" chocolate cake and same thing - it's like crazy dense pudding. It stuck to the pan despite my thick layer of shortening and butter, and I had to patch 30% of it with frosting. Awesome! Anyways, I think we've decided to get someone to make our wedding cake. Paul has convinced me that I may kill somebody if I'm trying to make a wedding cake the week of the wedding when all my family and friends are here. So yeah - he knows someone at work whose wife does cakes. I'm past the point of caring!

This morning we found a polecat in our back garden. It's like a humungo smelly ferret weasel thing. Of course anyone that knows me knows that I was all like, "AWWWWWW - it's so cute! I must have it! Can we keep it pleeeease?!" When I find cute little animals in my yard, no matter if they're actually someone's pet or not, I assume it's poor and starving and homeless and I want to take it in and nurture it like it was my own wee babe. At first we were just throwing ham at it and it was gobbling it up, then Paul went outside and the polecat ran directly at Paul. Polecats are apparently quite vicious creatures, so Paul jumped back thinking it was gonna go for him. Well, quite the contrary. It got up to him and was jumping all over him like a dog, rubbin' on his legs and lookin' fer love. We came to the brilliant conclusion that it was someone's pet. By the way, polecats STINK! Paul stowed it in a box in our kitchen while he figured out what to do with it, and it let off this insane musky butt stank. Ick. We eventually found its owner about 6 houses down from ours. Weee, fun small cute animal adventures.

I just got back from walking Elijah to playschool only to find out there isn't playschool this week cause of Easter. Nice of them to tell me. Shoot.

My oven is a piece of...

I just had the most awesome ridiculous cake disaster ever. Hahaaa. I think I should start using quality ingredients. I mustn't cut corners with things that are actually supposed to turn out well. I think I'll have to buy the posh ingredients at a time such as this - I must not be budget. I know I'll have trouble spending more than 39p on a thingy of flour and £1 on a carton of eggs, but I must force myself. I made a 12" vanilla buttercake, and it was more like a 12" cornbread ass crust chunk thing. I shoulda taken a picture before I chucked it. I used the flour that cost 39p and crap eggs, and I didn't have a sifter. Plus my house was so cold this morning that the butter WOULD NOT get to room temperature, so it wasn't really smooth, like, at all. Plus, my oven sucks. At first I thought it was just a horrible recipe, so I made a huooge batch of another recipe and stuck it in the oven for an hour or so, and out emerged another pan of baked poop. Stupid ingredients. I'll be venturing to the supermarket tonight to get some quality stuff and give it another go tomorrow. Yeeheeeee. Oh - so I looked online to see if maybe I could find Betty Crocker or Pillsbury cake mixes in England, and I did, but look at the price of ONE box.

Betty Crocker Yellow Cake Mix

Yes, that says £3.39. Yes, that means about $6.50. That is a crime! It costs like 99¢ in America!! I think I need to start selling cake mix on the black market. I could send Elijah to college with the profits. Shooooot.

We're getting some free furniture today! I think we're getting a set of wicker-type outdoor/conservatory furniture, some side tables, and another big furniture thing. I'll let you know how it is when we get it. I don't know where we're gonna put everything, probably in the garage for now.

I posted some more pictures on the site. The other day we went to a place called Kearsney Abbey in Dover - it's a beautiful park with lakes and fields and flowers and swans another other pretty things. There's also some pics of my Mother's Day presents - haha - you'll have a good laugh.

Elijah the drag queen

New awesome video of Elijah:

Elijah Cleaning

Oh man, Elijah woke up on the wrong side of the bed today. Hopefully he won't be like this all day. Whiny whiny whiny. Last night we went to the pub, I only stayed for about 15 minutes and went home to put Elijah to bed. Weee...how exciting. We watched Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny - it was ok. Some funny parts, but The Complete Masterworks is much funnier. We have Pan's Labyrinth on the way, I'm excited to see that!

Today we're dragging our whiny child out sight-seeing. He's been king of the whines lately! Nothing is good enough for him - sounds very much like the rest of us, dontcha think? Ha. We went out yesterday afternoon to look at forts for Elijah (they're old ruins of war bunkers and stuff), and he wanted to see MORE and MORE and MORE, NOWWWWWW! Lemme tell ya, the little punk got a nice trip home. Every day, his cinnamon toast has too much butter, his shoes are too tight, he doesn't want his white underpants, he wants grey ones, he wants two candies, not one, he wants to go left instead of right, he wants green beans, not broccoli, etc. etc. etc. It's exhausting. But still, I love that whiny kid. He made a little flower bouquet for me at playschool the other day (for Mother's Day - it's Mother's Day in England tomorrow). Anyways, not only is my son the whiniest child in the world, he's also the very sweetest. He came running up with the flowers and handed them to me and then reached up and gave me a huge hug and said "I loooovvve you Mama". Awww, what a sweetie. There's a few pics of the flowers on the site.

My house is an eternal pit of mess. I cleaned all day yesterday, and already this morning it's a wreck again. Arrrgggh! If I'm ever rich, I'm gettin' a maid fo' sho'. I'm gonna go clean again...ta ta.

Housewifey duties & house demo

Here's a great video of Elijah boppin' to the music in his carseat, and catching Paul singing like retard-o reggae, so funny -

Groovin' in da car

Good marnin'! I'm sitting here waiting for Elijah to finish his cereal, then we're off to playschool and I'm off for my jog. It's a beautiful day - yay! Spring is a-comin'. I'm gonna spend my day doing laundry. I don't think I've been completely done with laundry since I've been here. As you know, it takes 2 hours to run one load in the washing machine. We finally got a tumble dryer, but that also takes a long time, so I can only get so much done in one day, and by the time I'd done, the laundry basket is full again. Stupid housewifey duties. Ha.

Yesterday we went to one of Paul's friend's baby's Christenings. The Christening was during the service of a local village church, and ohhhh myyyy. Not to knock, but wow - that was possibly the most boring hour and a half of my life. After the Christening the crew went up to the pub, then my little fam went to Paul's parent's house for Sunday roast. That was nice.

Check out the House Progress section of the website - we did some major demolition this weekend. I guess we're doing this whole thing in stages, as to avoid the council man as much as possible. Paul put a make-shift door up at the bottom of the kitchen stairs, and the whole back area is now open. I guess we're gonna put a temporary wall blocking part of the garage and then totally finish the back lounge and dining room, at least so it's livable. Then we'll get the council man up here after that. I've designed a built-in desk/storage thingy for our eventual entryway. I guess that has to be the office, so I gotta make it work. It'll be great when it's done. I want that room to be my job - I wanna do it from start to finish. Now I just gotta convince Paul.

Here's a video of Elijah at the pub yesterday. I was squishing his face making him say "Chubby Bunnies". Hahaaa.

Chubby Bunnies

That's about it from here. Oh, and for all of you who might care, the UK's daylight savings isn't the same as the US, so our daylight savings is on March 25th. So we'll have 2 weeks of being an hour closer in time.

8 meeeelion dollar dress

It is so windy here it's absurd. It's been windy for the past 3 or 4 days, non-stop. Our little fam went for a walk way up on the cliffs the other night to show Elijah the old machine gun bunker things from the war, and we literally couldn't let him walk by himself cause he was blowing over. I wish I brought my camera cause it was quite comical. This morning I had my jog and took Elijah to playschool and I had tears streaming from my eyes cause of the crazy wind. My jog was probably slower than a walk. It's insane. It'd be pleasant weather if it weren't for the wind - hopefully it won't last too much longer.

So let's see, what's going on in England...um...not much new really. I called the city council yesterday to find out about getting permission to turn our garage into a living space. Paul thought it would cost all sorts of money and that the council man would have to be up here every step of the way, but it sounds like (cross your fingers!) we won't have to do anything at all, we can just get goin' with it! The lady said that unless there's something in the archives about our house having a ban on changing the inside, we're free to do what we want to it. Yeehee!! If that's the case, the demo will be starting any day now. Woohooooo I can't wait to knock that wall down in the kitchen! We may even have that area livable by the time everyone comes out in November. That would be grrrrreat.

The wedding planning is kind of standing still at the moment. I went wedding dress shopping this weekend and found a GORGEOUS dress. To the tune of 8 Meeeeelion dollars. No, it's £680. To all the English folk, £680 for a wedding dress is a steal. To me, not so much. That's over $1300 - haha, yeah right. I've found nothing cheaper, so I think I'm gonna have to take a chance and order one off the internet and pray it's not a piece of crap. Paul thinks I should buy the one for £680, but seriously, I could fly me and Elijah out out to America round-trip, AND buy a wedding dress out there for that money. Shooooot. I think we're gonna hire a harpist for dinner though - that's gonna rule. You know this wedding be fo' da Queen and King and all...

Elijah and I have been having dance parties all the time. He's awesome. Check out his moves:

Dance Party with Elijah

I've posted a few more pictures too.