I'm trying this out this Christmas

Brining the turkey before cooking tomorrow. We'll see how it goes!

Huuuuuuuuuuuug

Silly runs in the family

Ada on the road

With her tray set up, and looking at the Mississippi.

Ada, Avery and Audrey

We met my friend Amanda and her daughters Audrey and Avery for lunch. They're all getting so big!

Ada got to visit the cockpit!

I was super excited... Ada went super shy and only showed her face on the promise of chocolate!

Consequently, I'm the one in the pilot's hat!

(The story is that when we were boarding, I asked the flight attendant if at some point during the flight we could get a signature for Ada's flight book. She said "would you like to visit the pilot?" I jumped at the chance and Ada was excited too, until she got there and there were a bunch of adults looking at her.)

Arthur and Ada: 23 October 2015

Arthur is not sure about the hairdo Ada is giving him.

Coming soon to a theater near you: George's* Day Out

*not his real name

Ada and the Tour de France

My attempts to get the kids interested in the Tour de France continued this year. Ada is, to a point, mostly asking over and over again, "who is the winner?" She also got pulled in by the helicopter shots of castles and gorges as well. There's hope yet!

Arthur is one year old!

Although Arthur was only turning one and doesn't really have any friends yet, Ada had been asking to have a summer party for a while, so we decided to have an actual party for Arthur but invite all of Ada's friends.

We were planning to have everything outside and let the kids go crazy, but then the weather intervened and it was meant to be rainy all day. So Mark brought the party inside:

It may have been an excuse for Ada to have friends over, but for me it was my chance to have an "American" style birthday cake, courtesy of Costco (which, as a result, was enormous):

We invited all of Ada's NCT friends (the people we met through the antenatal class, who we still keep up with, almost four years later), plus a friend from swimming. Ada has a bunch of friends from daycare, too, but we wanted to keep the numbers down. And I'm glad we did because we ended up with nine kids (counting Arthur and three-month old Imogen), plus associated grown-ups and I can't imagine how we would have fit in more in our house!

We had the usual American and British party games including pin the tail on the donkey, pass the parcel, fishing for prizes and musical statues.

The rain stopped long enough before everyone had to go to do the treasure hunt we had set up outside. 

Everyone seemed to have a good time, especially Ada. Amazingly, with seven three year-olds in the house for a couple of hours, there were no meltdowns. The only downside is that Arthur went down for his nap (we do not interrupt sleep even for birthdays!) and everyone had to go, so we cut the cake before Arthur had a chance to blow out his candle. But we gave him a chance when he woke up, and he didn't seem to mind. 

Unlike Ada, who mostly ignored her first birthday cake, Arthur scoffed it down and asked for more and more with obvious delight. I think the fact that he's genetically predisposed to having a strong sweet tooth combined with his interest in eating everything at all times means that he's going to be going great guns for sugar from now on. 

The next day wasn't his birthday but was a day we were at home, so we Skyped with Pa and Mimi and opened Arthur's presents. Ada "helped" but Arthur at least managed to get a look in once or twice.

And then, finally, on his actual birthday in the middle of the week. he got once last present--a remote control of his own, since he loves ours so much.

The Horn-family multi-day birthday tradition continues!

June

July 4th - Clevedon helps us celebrate

Arthur Grooving with his Drum

Daily Ada: 8 June 2015

Ada's first paper airplane.

Daily Arthur: 8 June 2015

Daily Ada and Arthur: 28 May 2015

Babies in sunglasses are always good value.

Ada and Arthur: 20 May 2015

Daily Arthur: 20 May 2015

Salt milk.

At the moment, in conversation about some thing--an object, a color, an animal--Ada will say, "X is my favorite!"

It has got to the point that one night when I said we were having salmon and broccoli for dinner, she said "broccoli's my favorite!" even though she has eaten broccoli ONCE since she was a baby and had it pureed. (Later that evening when she refused her broccoli, we reminded her and she disavowed ever saying it was her favorite.)

Today, while baking a cake, she took it a bit further:

Me: OK, now we need salt.

Ada: Salt's my favorite!

Me: Is it?

Ada: Yes.

         *pause*

         I like it...

          *pause*

          ...in milk.

         *pause*

         To drink.

Team Vallentine update: 13 May 2015

We're all a bit...tired, so here are some photos of things we've been up to over the last couple of months. 

(Looks like Ada is still winning the photography stakes by a factor of 2. Poor Arthur.)

And voila! No hands!