Reading with Daddy

Since our son is always in motion, I'm glad I caught him briefly not flipping pages. :) 

Pink Velvet Roulade

So I haven't made a roulade since college. And I was really pleased with the results. I wanted to do a practice run as the roulade makes up part of the Southern Bombe I'm making for Valentine's Day. So here tis. Also, I can't say enough good things about the Wilton color gels. The burgundy made this beautiful pink color!

Winter Wonderland

Well I did it again. Stopped paying attention for ONE second and 2 months went by. Sigh. But I'm back finally and trying to keep up with everything!
I should mention how delighted I am to have my first proper English snowfall. The English aren't as delighted but too bad. We have had almost a WHOLE week with snow on the ground and it's been falling on and off fairly consistently as well. Of course this does make it awkward for those of us without cars who are trying to push buggies on unshoveled pavement (apparently, no one here can be bothered to take responsibility for their own sidewalks. Grrr...) but hey it's pretty. And I was trying to explain to people how great this is because it makes us appreciate spring so much more. Usually English weather just slouches into April and then realizes that it can cheer up and pop out some daffodils. Now, I shall feel as though we have properly had four seasons. :)
And of course, this sort of weather is the perfect excuse for me to be baking so today's project is a pink velvet roulade cake. Sounds fancy but really isn't too hard. It looks quite pretty though, so I shall post pics on a future blog.
We've also had fun introducing Colin to his first snow. Sadly, we couldn't let him crawl around as we don't have a snowsuit yet, but he did like touching and eating it while we held him. I'm already looking forward to when he's old enough to go sledding. And then, quite contrarily, I don't want him to be that old because it means he's growing up!! But each stage is fun, so I'm trying to remember to live in the moment.
Anyway, here's some pics of our Bristol snow!!

Giving Thanks

It's been rather intensely busy here and before you know it, a month has flown by! I am constantly amazed how fast time moves. My son is almost a year old and getting very mobile. He can stand with help from furniture and he crawls as though he's racing everyone everywhere. :)
I must admit that I have struggled a lot this month to be thankful. There's been many things surrounding that, but it wouldn't be productive to share that here. Instead, God has been reminding me that the best cure for my discontent is to BE thankful and I thought I should share what I have to be thankful for. And as it's November that seems particularly appropriate.
Mark and I enjoyed a trip over to Cambridge to celebrate Thanksgiving with Brooke and Dan as well as several other lovely Christian friends. It was Colin's first time to Cambridge as well and we were blessed with a GORGEOUS Sunday in which to walk to church and share leftovers with the Newmans as well as lovely fellowship.
A week later we celebrated a second Thanksgiving in order to share that tradition with a large group of our British friends. It was a two turkey feast and my good friend Naomi kindly cooked the second one for us. Another kind friend lent us her home as there was no way 16 people were going to fit in our little flat!
And now we are the verge of the Christmas season (ask me and we're in it, ask Mark and he says wait til December 1st :) ) and I have pulled out all our Christmas decor. I was pondering that the last time I had this stuff out, my folks were here and my Dad and Mark enjoyed tossing our denuded tree over the railing of our first floor flat, rather than drag it down the stairs. And I had just given birth to a small new person. One who is currently figuring out the joys of ringing an oversized jingle bell.
Tomorrow we will take him to pick out our first tree as a family of three. It's been lovely and cold with lots of frost. Since the closest England usually gets to snow, I'm quite pleased. It will be just the right atmosphere for Christmas tree hunting.
These are all lovely things. But they are that-things. I know that I am not to look to outside surroundings and circumstances to find my contentment and happiness. But God has been kind to use those things to bring joy and He has reminded me that the reason the holidays are lovely for me is because I know WHY we celebrate. I have a Saviour to whom I can give thanks, and whose birth I am celebrating and whose comfort and love are not limited to the times when I'm feeling good and spiritually in order. He loves me when I'm a mess as well and that still boggles my mind.
So I am thankful. I'm excited for our season of anticipation. I am thankful for my loving and patient husband. I'm thankful for my sweet boy and the new things he does every day. I'm thankful for my family, a skype away, and friends on facebook, and fellowship with believers here. See you in December!

He gets around, from town to town, or at least from kitchen to hallway

Colin is becoming a little boy now. I see babyhood morphing into toddlerdom and while he isn't 'toddling' yet, he is certainly a travelling man. His rolling abilities are quite impressive. But that's not all. He's become more and more curious about his little world and toys with blinky lights are nothing compared to the fascination of Daddy's socks on the laundry rack.
He loves to bounce and sing to music, whether that is from Top Gear, Frank Sinatra on the computer or just Mummy singing him silly songs about toes. I have hope he will be quite musical. He loves to watch the trees outside our window as they blow in the wind and he REALLY loves spotting Daddy walking home from our window. The wiggling is intense.
He has also learned to wave and will do so with intent though occasionally he'll wave to a program on tv. Not sure what that is....
He loves to skype with his grandparents and is very excited when he sees them come on. He starts to blow through his paci and growl. Again, why he does this is a mystery but for him it expresses excitement and happiness. Of course the fact that Grandpa does the growling as well, may have something to do with it. He talks a lot to me  during the day and I would like to be flattered, but he also talks to a toothbrush, a stuffed toy in his crib and our trashcan, so I'm not all that special. :)
He has also recently expressed his opinion on favorite books and gets bouncy and starts patting pages when I read from the touch and feel farm book and from Each Peach Pear Plum. He can obey the command to 'touch the cow, do it now' consistently and it's fun to see him putting all his little bits of knowledge together.
I often feel someone's hands grabbing my toes as I sit at our counter stool and look down to see a smiley face looking up at me. He's quite a stealthy mover and will surprise me often. And of course, there is nothing so delightful right now as watching the washing machine tumble and we need to applaud it so as to encourage more washing. Apparently.
We're on the verge of crawling and more world opening up. Right now though, I'll enjoy this 9 month moment.

Chillaxin' with Mummy

Hello there!

Laundry inspection

Colin got baptized!

So this past Sunday, our little man was baptized. It was really lovely to share this with the church, but also to give him two sets of godparents.
In England, this is quite common, but for me, this was very new and it was a blessing to be introduced to it. It can of course, be a simple case of picking people who give good presents. Or it could be a situation where you are good friends and picked people for that reason. However, as Christians, there's more than that. It's a very real accountability to people who are taking a vested interest in the life your child will lead--Lord willing--in Christ. And for Mark and I, it is also making a familial connection in England. We asked our dear friends Daniel and Brooke Newman and Will and Katie Corrie to be the godparents for Colin. We are so blessed to have them as both couples have been very indispensable to us in so many ways, but most importantly in spiritual relationship. We are grateful for their faithfulness and their willingness to walk alongside us as we raise Colin. But we're also grateful for a further feeling  of family and rootedness here in England. So here's to many years rejoicing in God's faithfulness together! (And here's a few pics of the baptized boy as well :) )

All the godparents and the blur is the child that wouldn't sit still with Mummy :)

One shoe off and one shoe on...

Someone has officially discovered the drawers

Happy baptized boy. 

Someone came to find me and decided to go via coffee table

Tales of the Emergency room

So the other night, a dear friend of ours had to be taken to hospital in an ambulance. I'll pause right here to say that she's fine and it was nothing deeply traumatic. She's back to work, keeping calm and carrying on. :)
But I felt that this was worth blogging about as it was most definitely a night of drama. I shall skip to getting into the ambulance and draw a privacy curtain around the events that led us there. I've never ridden in an ambulance before so that was actually kind of fun. My friend's husband also accompanied us and a former UK soldier now paramedic was asking questions.
It didn't take long for him to realize I was American, largely as I was being more direct in answering the questions than my very British friends.
"As you can see, we're not racing to the hospital, so we're not overly concerned" he pointed out. Ah, that's why the siren wasn't going. My friend's husband and I exchanged the first of many ironic looks for the evening.
We arrived at the hospital and my friend was wheeled into the emergency receiving ward and the paramedics discussed the situation with the person on duty. Eventually it became clear that there was a shortage of wheelchairs and one doesn't use gurneys from the ambulance in the hospital. Ah. Could my friend walk down to the trauma ward? My friend who had had a few balance issues? Oh sure. She was behaving with typical Britishness--of course, it was fine, she'd be fine, no problem--while I was internally dropping my jaw on the floor. Sure, yeah we'll just walk down badly marked and under construction hallways with her. No problem my eyeball. But we did make it to the trauma waiting room so we could see a nurse. Who wasn't there yet. The trauma/triage nurse wasn't there. Of course.  We sank down upon the bright red and blue PLASTIC chairs in the tiny room. Overhead, a light flickered. I exchanged another ironic glance with the husband. This could be very very long. My friend expressed this thought as well. The junkie across from us, unabashedly listening in, agreed. "You should have gone to Frenchay" he told us. Thank you. He plucked at a few of his guitar strings and jiggled his foot. An old gentleman in a shabby jumper wandered over to show my friend's husband a picture on his camera. This time my friend and I shared the look as the husband nodded politely. Apparently the old man had done some renovations on a home and was proud of his work. Fair enough. His teeth were the  epitome of a British stereotype.
The trauma nurse arrived 30 minutes later, in no hurry. I wondered how the bloke in the wheelchair with a clearly badly sprained ankle felt. The nurse went into a tiny room. The waiting room pretended not to care too deeply, but you could feel everyone's spines getting more painful. Finally a name was called. Not ours. My friend decided she needed the ladies'. Naturally, after hobbling along several hallways to find it (bathrooms in hospitals are stealth bathrooms for security) we discovered it was out of order. "Of course" I said. "Use the men's". She gave me a look of horror. "Oh I don't know..." "I'll stand guard" I insisted "you do what you have to." She went in and I stood outside feeling like secret service. A man wandered by and looked curiously at me. I stared him down and he looked away. Victory. We went back to the waiting room. "It's always like this. Terrible." Commented the junkie. "Frenchay is much better. Treat you better. They treat you like **** here. Do you have a cigarette?" Sorry no we didn't. "Oh well." He wandered over to the people who had just recently come in supporting a man who looked as though he'd been in a club. He rounded the corner and we didn't see him for a while. Two security guards strolled by, thumbs in their vests. Another name was called. Not ours. An overweight girl came over to the vending machine for some poor choices.
The junkie returned. "I've been here before, they just don't treat you right." He let us know. His name was Josh. He wore a cap and carried the guitar around. He didn't open his mouth all the way when he spoke. He strolled down another hallway and disappeared. A moment later, the two security guards strolled by. The friend's husband and I shared a look. Apparently, there was a connection. FINALLY, our name. My friend and her husband went in. I avoided eye contact with the old gentleman as he was impatiently wandering now as well, and I didn't much fancy conversation. I picked up the citizenship booklet I was studying and turned to the health care section. Ha. I also read about women in Britain, the legal system and other largely useless information that most Brits likely don't know. Josh wandered back in and miraculously, his name was called. I looked up. Mistake. The older man took this as a signal and came over with his camera. Ah. However, it was not as I feared. He wasn't drunk, or not much, and was a rather pleasant individual. The look he gave Josh as he went in to see the doctor was not flattering. But he proceeded to tell me about what he did ("most jobs really") whose house this was ("Brunel lived there for a while") and quizzed me on my knowledge of  Bristol history and significance. Josh came out, fussing about needing medication. Shocker. Apparently he was fine. "Frenchay would treat you better. Finally called your friends eh? The **** are terrible here. Shoulda gone to Frenchay." The old man just stared at him coldly. I pasted a weak smile on my face and nodded. Josh ambled down another corridor. The old man continued to talk to me and then his name was called. The door shut and I picked up the booklet again as the security guards returned to stroll down the same hallway Josh had disappeared into. Mhm. The light flickered. After a small eternity, my friends returned. All was well. She would have a follow up at the local GP in a few days but we could go home now. Thus, we wandered out to find the lifts to take us up to a level from which to call a taxi. My friend and I seated ourselves on the small sofa as the husband called a taxi service. A confused looking Asian lady wandered by looking for the exit. Right behind her we explained. She thanked us and went that way. Josh came by. I wasn't surprised by now, though we were now two floors up. "Always throw me out. Frenchay..." His mumblings went down the hallway. But now here were the two security guards, right on his tail. They caught up with him and they all moved toward the exit. "It's time to leave sir" they explained. Josh took up his mantra "They always throw me out. Don't treat you right, it's terrible." After further argument and our little group wondering if we would witness some interesting drama, he was escorted out. "I was looking for the exit!" He explained vehemently, "I was going!" "Yes sir." replied the security guards with straight faces. "Right out here." "I was looking for the exit!" The sounds died away outside. My friend and I looked at each other. It was after midnight and our coach was the pumpkin of a taxi, and our driver was unshaven. But we made it home. I made up the sofa bed for our friends and then went to collapse into my own with Mark. But first I had to share with him the whole drama and we chuckled in the dark.