Just in the (St.) Nick of time

We made it out of London just in time. There has been horrible fog in London that started the day after we left and tons of flights out of Heathrow have been cancelled. It would really stink to be stuck in Heathrow with lots of cranky holiday travellers.

We're at Amma and Afi's house have loads of fun and seeing old friends. Anna couldn't be happier -- lots of attention and a Christmas tree with a number of ornaments to rearrange.

Christmas came early!

I just found out that the grant for my work has come through! Hurray!!!!

P.S. We're off tomorrow morning to spent Christmas with Amma and Afi in DC. 8 hours on an airplane with Anna and Elsa (and Carlos). Fingers crossed that we arrive in DC with our sanity intact.

9 Months ...

and sitting pretty. Elsa still doesn't seem interested in crawling. She just wants to stand or scoot around in circles on her bottom.

Am I in Kansas??

A tornado touched down in northwest London this morning. Yup, you read correctly, a freakin' tornado! What on earth is going on? Thankfully, only a few injuries and no fatalities. By the way, I'm in southwest London, so just some really really crazy weather here this morning (torrential rain, hail, thunder, lightning and whiplash-inducing winds).

By the way, I just looked at the earlier post. When I said that Anna was a little star in her Christmas show, I meant that she was a little star like in the sky rather than the star of the show. Of course, I thought she was a star, but the reality is that Anna was a bit overwhelmed with so many people watching the show. She had her back to the audience a good bit of the time. I got a number of pictures of the back of her head.

Three

Miss Anna is 3 years old as of Monday. What a busy week we've had!

Sunday: Anna's birthday party. Her friends (and their parents) came over for a lunch-time party. They all had fun decorating paper crowns with stickers, and eating potato chips (who knew that Kettle chips can keep six 3 year olds quiet for 30 minutes!!).

Monday: Anna's birthday and observation day at her gymnastics class. Carlos took the day off of work and he was able to spend some extra time with the birthday girl. We spent 45 minutes laughing at observation day at her gymnastics class. There is a little girl named Olivia in Anna's class that is very taken with her. She's one of those little girls that has the mother hen instinct, and Anna is her little chick. She always wants to hold Anna's hand and help her with the activities. Anna doesn't seem to mind, but a couple of times it looked like she'd had enough.

Wednesday: Christmas concert at Anna's school. Anna was a little star in her school's Christmas concert. The whole thing was super cute, but I'm not not interesting for anyone who doesn't have a child in that school.

Phew. Now I need to get ready for a meeting on Saturday with the organization I work for. Hopefully, I should find out if the grant has come through that would allow my job to be expanded and paid! Woohoo. Fingers crossed.