Advent 2014

This year is the first year Ethan is starting to get Christmas. As a result, and as I'm excited to have someone to get excited with on Christmas Day, I'm trying to build momentum through advent.

This year the Elf has joined the family. Currently called 'Elf' as that's as inventive as two year olds get, he's here to help us get ready for Christmas. (Some people tell their kids the Elf is here to report back to Santa if they've been naughty or good but this is not a concept that we apply so our Elf is just here for some fun). Every morning Ethan has to find the Elf and then go and see what the Elf has put in his advent calendar overnight ( or the number box as he calls it, which is different to his chocolate box, a chocolate advent calendar given to him by a friend).

Here is our Elf waiting for Ethan on 1 December

And here are some of the things it has been up to:

Our Christmas tree also went up early and Ethan helped decorate it:

I took Ethan to see Father Christmas. However he refused to go anywhere near him so photographic evidence is lacking! Here is a photo of Ethan and Joshua after we got home:

We did go to the Mamaroneck village tree lighting to help us get in the Christmas mood:

 

Looking forward to flying back to the UK for Christmas!

Thanksgiving 2014

Last year we went to Boston for Thansgiving. This year we decided to host some friends; Caoihme, Dave, Lucy and Ben (our Irish friends) and Jo, Chris and Elsie (our Yorkshire friends). Impressively though we managed to have three Americans (Lucy, Ben and Joshua) and a South African (Elsie) by virtue of birth.

I'd intended on cooking a full meal until I finally listened to Caoihme who had pointed out many times this was crazy with a 5 week old baby. So I ordered a 'heat and serve' meal from a grocery delivery service. They made it very easy!

Which was particularly helpful given someone didn't want to sleep!

Matt had expressed serious concerns about the lack of food (in his perception). Thankfully the leftovers proved him wrong!

And just because it's cute, here's one of all the kids.

We had a lovely day, we are truly thankful to have made some good friends while here that make being far from home so much easier.