Christmas Time

The year is almost over and it has been a great one! We have enjoyed our first year in the UK and are looking forward to the upcoming year. Next year we will be a family of 4! Something I never expected.

 Liam has his last day at Busy Bee's Nursery School December 18. His teachers were very sad to see him go and we were very sad to leave. Liam had such a great time there and his teachers were AMAZING! Miss Leanne went out of her way to get Liam involved more in learning. We will forever be grateful to the Ladybird teachers for making Liam's transition to the UK smoother. The Christmas party for his class was great and they asked Mike to dress up as Santa. Liam still doesn't know it was Mike.

Miss Leanne

Miss Michelle

Miss Zoe

 Our first Christmas in the UK was made extra special with the addition of friends. We enjoyed Christmas Eve dinner with the Starr family. Maya made a very yummy dinner and Liam had a blast with their new puppy Bella. Christmas Day was spent with about 12 of our friends. There's nothing worse than not having lots of family around for the holidays, so we invited over our pals to make the day more merry for everyone. We had a great brunch, lots of laughs, and tons of Wii action. The house was full till 4pm! It was great and I hope to host again next year. It's so great having so many wonderful friends.

  The next big To DO for this year is have this baby. My mom will hopefully be here on the 29th unless the weather on the East Coast keeps her from flying out. OR a light dusting of snow at Heathrow! (grr) I am officially 39 weeks today so the bomb is officially ticking. I'm just happy she waited till after Christmas. Liam would not have been happy to have his Christmas "ruined" with the arrival of his sister. Hopefully he will be more excited when she arrives.

  Liam will also be starting Reception (British for kindergarten) January 5. There will be lots of changes this year and I am keeping my fingers crossed they all go smoothly.

We hope you all had a wonderful holiday! Check back for news on the newest LeCroy's arrival.

Busy Weekend

There's a lot going on this month and this weekend was no exception. On Saturday some great friends hosted a Baby Shower for me. It was a great time and LT got some great loot! We are so fortunate to have wonderful friends that love us and our kids all over the World.

While I was having some fun girl time, Mike and Liam had a boy day. The two of them went rock climbing with a few friends and had a blast as usual. Liam doesn't know how lucky he is to have a Daddy that teaches him such fun things. Most kids his age have never even seen a rock gym let alone have their own climbing harness.

Sunday we headed to Ely to stock up on Christmas tree supplies. As most of you know, we moved here with only a few suitcases and some boxes shipped USPS. All of our Christmas stuff is in my parents basement. We have had a good time collecting some ornaments over the last few months and plan to continue.

After a yummy lunch, we picked out our Christmas tree Tubby. He's short but very round! Mike and I decided it would be best to leave the netting on the tree until it was in the lounge because it wouldn't have fit through the door! Liam had a great time decorating his little tree and the big tree. We are now ready for Santa!

Last but not least, I wanted to share Liam's preschool picture with you. He insisted on wearing the alpaca/llama sweater his Aunt Meg sent him. Liam is also in a "I like my hair messy" phase and refuses to let me tame his locks. I am sure he will look back at this picture in 14 yrs and wonder why I let him have his picture taken looking so crazy!

O Christmas Card...

The past couple of years I have really enjoyed planning our family photo Christmas card on Shutterfly.com. I think last year's was my favorite because it announced our move to the UK to all of our family and friends. Plus the pictures I was able to get of Liam last year were awesome (if I do say so myself)! This year I am having trouble. With a new family addition on the way so close to Christmas I can't decide to make a Christmas card or a Happy Holiday/New Year/Welcome to the World card. Today is December 1 so I guess I need to get on the ball and make a decision. I hope you all remember my address because I love seeing your family photo Christmas cards. If you haven't made yours yet you should pop on over to Shutterfly.com and make them now! Hope your holidays are Merry and Bright!

This is one of the pictures from our christmas card last year.

Turkey Day!

I just wanted to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is my most favorite holiday that doesn't involve gifts (except the rare year it falls on my birthday!).

Ice Skating + Sushi = A Wonderful Day

 The weather is cold, the holidays are around the corner and the ice rinks are popping up all over. The fog that has hung in the air for the last week lifted this morning so we decided to take Liam ice skating. Mike took me to dinner in Cambridge Friday night and we noticed they had opened up an ice rink in the park. We also saw a new sushi restaurant (Yo Sushi) had opened next to Liam and I favorite chocolate store. Chocolate and sushi do go together in our book!

  Liam and Mike had a great time ice skating and I froze taking pictures. Thankfully they had an indoor cafe set up but with no heat. It did give me some cover from the wind. Liam did awesome for his second ever attempt at ice skating and had a blast!

  After skating we headed to Yo Sushi! There are a ton of these restaurant in London but this is the first to open close to us. Liam loved picking the sushi off the conveyor belt for us and I loved the small portions. Small portions = more tasting! The three of us managed to polish off 15 plates. Liam chowed and I am pretty sure he had 4 plates to himself. Thanks to my thinking ahead, I joined their club and got a 1/3 off coupon before we left the house this morning. After I went to the till I was glad I had it because it saved me 16 pounds!
  Liam is already asking when he can go ice skating again and I have a feeling we will be frequent customers at Yo Sushi!

Happy Halloween!

  Happy Halloween everyone! Trick or Treat at RAF Lakenheath was Saturday night so Liam got dressed up and we headed to base. We met up with Liam's pal Bryant and trick or treated in Liberty Village. The amount of kids was over whelming and the number of teenagers trick or treating really bugged me. Some of the ques were 20-40 kids deep at people's doors and people were running out of candy an hour after trick or treat started! I guess that is to be expected when you have three bases worth of kids transcend onto one housing area. We started right at 5:30 and treated for an hour. Liam and Bryant managed to fill up their buckets.

  After we left Bryant's house we headed back to the car to dump the candy bucket and hit the cul-da-sac where our pal Doc Neylon and the Bridges live. Lucky for us it was an undiscovered gem! They had almost no treaters and Liam was happy to see his babysitter Robin and her little bro John. Liam ended up playing at the Bridge's house while we chatted outside with the grown-ups and even got invited to dinner at the Bridges. By the time we left it was 9pm and we were all pooped!

  All in All it was a great night and everyone had a ton of fun. Mike and Liam are planning on rock climbing today and I plan on going through Liam's candy while they are gone and relaxing! Hope you all have a wonderful Halloween!

Best Scarecrow EVER! 

These people went all out with a grave yard, human ghosts and spooky music!

Pumpkin Fun

I have always been a huge Halloween fan. My parents always made Halloween a fun time of pumpkins, costumes, decorating the house and CANDY! I was a little worried we wouldn't find a pumpkin patch this year but we lucked out. Liam loved searching the field for the perfect pumpkin and playing in the mud. He managed to pick about 10 "perfect pumpkins" and put them in our wheelbarrow. Mike kept thinning out the pumpkins when Liam ran off to find more. Liam did figure out what we were doing but we managed to reason with him and narrow the pickings down to three.

Just Another Day of Adventure

A month or so ago, Mike and I saw an advertisement for the Spartan Race (check it out because there are many locations in the US). We checked out the website and quickly determined it looked very cool and fun. Once Mike mentioned it to his Hurling pals a team formed, excitement grew and costumes purchased.

Today was race day and we had a strong turn out of 11 Heroes and Spartanette. The weather was terrible, cold and windy but that did not stop the enthusiasm. The Super Heroes attracted a lot of attention from young and old and got their photos taken by many strangers. There was so much fun by all that there's already talk of next year.