I am so proud to be English!!!

Reasons why:

- Today was declared a National Bank Holiday!!

- British music is utterly glorious

- Everything was so elegant and polite and British

- We still love our Monarchy!

- Kate and William seem a lovely couple and seem to have modernised the Royal family which is lovely

- I love Huw Edwards' accent (Welsh BBC presenter, covering the Royal Wedding)

- Kate and Wills have been named the HRH Duke and Duchess of Cambridge!!!!

- I LOVE the Union Jack

- We ate way too much today: Trifle and cream and chocolate cake and brambley and apples sausages and a fry up including eggs, bacon, and beans! Mmmmm.

- The village church bells were ringing practically non-stop all day

What a wonderful day!

As much as I absolutely loved my two years in the States, I am so glad that I married an Englishman and came back to live in England. East West Home's Best!

A Very Parky Experience

These were taken when we were at Ickworth a couple of weeks ago. I think Oliver looks a bit like Oliver Twist in his cap.

As usual, the park trip was more for us than for him!

Food from a spoon!

Oliver has been regularly waking up to feed five or six times a night for the last month!!! After trying as many solutions as I can think of, last week I gave in and he experienced a wonderful thing: food from a spoon!

So far he has tried baby rice mixed with Mummy's milk, and baby porridge:

 

... and yesterday we started to get a bit carried away...! :)

Unfortunately there hasn't been a huge amount of improvement on the sleep front, but he is only having a few spoonfuls once a day, in the early evening. I will be introducing more in a week or so. Apparently the motto for weaning is "Food is fun!" and so far it is true... if not a little messy!

When the cat's away...

Last week Ben went on a Geology trip to sunny Spain... without us!!! It was dreadfully sad, but we still had a nice time because on holiday in Ipswich for the week! Highlights include:

- A BBQ with the family

-  A catch- up picnic with two school friends, Jazzie S and Ruth

- A trip to Mum's favourite ever shop- Grabs. I was completely converted- amazing little kitchen things really cheap! It was right up my street

- Ed  bought HP7 on DVD and we watched it- woo!

- I went on a 26 and a half minute run, which finished with a big hill!! I was so proud

- Jaz, Ed and I went out for a night on the town (!) and bought last minute tickets to see 'Guys and Dolls' at the theatre for £5!!!! It was brilliant and we got the best seats in the house too

- A trip to the dentist with Mum and Dad, amd popping in to Dad's school, where he showed Oliver to practically everybody. He was a very proud Granddad

- The park with Maureen and her two lovely boys, Anthony and Pip

- Jaz, Tom and Seb turning up to stay and surprising us

- Granddad's 78th birthday party!



All very, very lovely- but it is WONDERFUL to have Ben back!!!!!!!!!!!! Ahhhh.

A Wonderful Weekend

We had a very busy but lovely weekend!

On Friday we went to Ickworth park and gardens (again, I love it!) for lambing time!! We pretended it was to show Oliver the lambs, but really it was for us! We also stumbled across a grass sofa in the gardens- a brilliant idea and surprisingly comfortable too! A nice lady, who we later found out was the President of a photographic society, took a photo of us because my camera had run out of battery, and they're going to use it for a National Trust newsletter! Ah, fame at last :)

We spent Friday evening and Saturday with my family for a pre-Mother's day hommage to my Mum, involving a slightly chaotic picnic and lots of fun and games, and also our friend Harriet's wedding, which I sang at. It was lovely to sing with some friends from choir when I was growing up.

On Sunday we went to see Ben's Mum for M's day, and enjoyed having Ben's brother and sister (plus other halves!) there too.

Our Prophet, President Thomas S. Monson

Another very wonderful thing about last weekend was that it was our church's General Conference- a series of sermons and music, broadcast via satellite and the internet to all our churches and homes across the world, twice yearly. It is where we get to listen to the most up-to-date counsel from church leaders and what we believe is what God wants us to hear and act on today. It was truly inspirational and I made tons of notes- now just to try to be better every day...!!! (The difficult bit!) It was also the 75th anniversary of the church's welfare program, which is now pretty huge and does amazing things around the world, always one of the first on the scene giving supplies and aid to people in need (Japan, Haiti, Chile to name a few) Links to the conference are found here- http://lds.org/general-conference?lang=eng

Again, a wonderful weekend!