My Hill Billy Child

Sammy has been losing her two front teeth for the past TWO months and she has taken on a "hill billy look" throughout the whole process. Here she is with her first front tooth that was loose and sticking out all over the place. Of course here they don't say your tooth is "loose." They say it is "wobbly."

She was too guarded and wouldn't let anyone pull it out, despite my repeated attempts.

Look how it just hangs...aaaaccckkk!

....and bends every which way....

FINALLY after many long days/weeks of wiggling the darn thing, tooth #1 came out! Praise the day!  However, we were not done with the "hill billy-ness." Tooth #2 now became loose and looked even worse!

Hanging crooked

Hanging lower and more crooked (this is after the summer fair where she got her cheek painted) .

This is with a silly hill billy grin...

Ugggghhh...disgusting!

Would somebody please yank that thing out! When she talked, it would flap about in her mouth...

There is a good hill billy look!

That's not too bad either...

Ok it's true, I got so tired of watching that tooth flap about, that I yanked it out myself and it didn't even hurt! Now we have a VERY cute toothless smile! No more hill billy-ness! Hallelujah!

When tooth #1 fell out, Sammy did not want to put it under her pillow for the tooth fairy because tooth #2 was loose by then and she wanted to put them together under her pillow. When tooth #2 fell out, we had to search her room high and low for tooth #1. As a mother, I must say, I LOVE the thought of little teeth scattered about my house. Fortunately, we did eventually find it and the tooth fairy has safely disposed of them! Hooray! Now let's just pray those new teeth come in straight....

Seeds from the Gods

These fields of bright yellow are everywhere in England right now (and all over Europe). I LOVE them! Whenever I see a field, no matter how many times I have seen it before, it makes me happy. It is a little bit of sunshine from the ground. The fields are so bright they almost glow. They are rapeseed fields and they are popping up more and more every year. World production is growing rapidly, 36 million tons of rapeseed were produced in the 2003-2004, and in the 2010-2011 season there was an estimated 58.4 million tons. 

What is rapeseed used for? Rapeseed oil. I have some. You should try it! Apparently, all the top chefs in London are using it now. Rapeseed oil is becoming more popular due to the fact that it is seen as a healthy home-grown alternative to imported olive oil. Rapeseed oil contains less saturated fat and has far more omega 3 fatty acids than olive oil and it also contains vitamin E. The oil’s versatility means that it can also be used in the production of biodiesel as well, which is favoured by climate change campaigners as an alternative to crude oil.

For some lovely pictures and more information click here.

The only downside to the increase in the production of rapeseed - my hay fever is lingering much longer this year and it may be a bit more intense than previous years. However, I gladly suffer. The beauty outweighs the misery.

Here is a close-up of this lovely, radiant little plant. 

I just hope that some of England's green lands continue to Go YELLOW!

Birthday Girl

This post is a bit over due since Abby's birthday was in April... However, better late than never. My Abby is 9 years old now! I can't believe it. We have always had parties at home but this year, we decided to do something different and take her and a few of her friends bowling.

It was great fun for all.

Here are the girls eating their dinner between turns at bowling.

Abby's lovely cake - no I did not make it...

The whole gang

The following day, Abby had "cupcake lessons" from a talented friend of ours. They made 30 cupcakes for all the students in her school class. It took four hours to make them all. There were caterpillar, elephant, ladybugs (or ladybirds as they call them here) and sheep cupcakes. I cannot get the other photos to load up so you will just have to imagine how cute the cupcakes were. They really were adorable and Abby was certainly popular with her class mates when she was handing them out.

Jousting Anyone?

The first Monday in May is a bank holiday here in England. So since my parents were here, we thought we would impress them with a favorite English sport from the past - jousting! We headed down to Blenheim Palace near Oxford for a jousting tournament. It was a lovely day. The tournament took place on the grounds of the palace. A great setting for such a historic sport.

It was very entertaining to watch.

Here are the girls getting ready to view the big event with the palace in the background...

Afterward, we went on a lakeside walk near the palace. The grounds of Blenheim Palace sure are beautiful!

Poser Abby near the lake

Two more goofy posers in front of the palace

Back to the tournament - Alex loved watching the horses and cheering for our team (the red side). Abby and Sammy both got a spot right up front so I never saw or heard from them during the entire tournament. They were certainly entertained.

King Henry VIII graced us with his presence and was the announcer for the tournament.

Alex loved watching all the horses get ready for the tournament. She kept dragging me back over there to watch them again and again. All in all, it was a great day. We all came home beet red from all the sun.

Nice Weather Days

Alex fell asleep in Abby and Sammy's reading chair. So cute!

This is when Alex got to bring the special Frog Prince home from school for the weekend. We were supposed to take pictures of him going with us doing fun things. I forgot to take him so we hurried and snapped these pictures of her with him on her bike. She slept with him every night. We will miss you Frog Prince...

Abby learned to ride her bike recently and has only had a fall just about every day. She manages to scrape her knee in the exact same place each time. I have had to go out and buy loads of bandages and anti-septic cream to be more prepared. I have also had to make a rule that if she rides her bike, she has to wear jeans to protect her knees a bit more. But despite all of her falls, she keeps on riding and is getting better everyday! Way to go Abby!

Gangsta Granny

The girls and I have been reading this great book by David Walliams. He is an English comedian, actor, author and television presenter. He is best known for his show "Little Britain."  He is also a judge on "Britain's Got Talent." So I guess you could say, he is quite a big celebrity here. Many times, books by celebrities are built up a lot because of their name when in reality the book stinks. But that is not the case with this book. The book is about a boy named Ben who is bored beyond belief after he is made to stay at his grandma’s house. She’s the boring-est grandma ever: all she wants to do is to play Scrabble, and eat cabbage soup. But there are two things Ben doesn’t know about his grandma - 1) She was once an international jewel thief. 2) All her life she has been plotting to steal the crown jewels, and now she needs Ben's help. The girls and I laughed out loud throughout this book. The girls are begging me to take them back to the Tower of London so they can get another look at how thick that bullet-proof glass is that the jewels are behind and examine those jewels more closely...It is great for the imagination and very entertaining. We WILL be reading his other books for sure!