City Girl

Josephine is such a city girl. The other day I was trying to get her to take a nap. She was kicking, playing with my hair, chattering, etc. Then a car alarm went off and she was asleep within 15 seconds. This has happened more than once.

Josephine started school last week! She officially starts preschool in September, but the school has them come in for one hour a week with their parents to get them acclimated. She loves it and wants to go every day.


The gardener at the park is tearing up one of the flower beds, so he let the kids pull up the tulips and play with them. Pascale and Josephine played with the flowers for maybe 5 minutes before they made guns out of them and ran around shooting each other. I guess if you don't give them guns to play with, they make them out of flowers. This picture is not great because I took it with my phone.


We had some nice weather last week


Pascale started her tennis lessons.


Playing in the sand at the park


We went to Holland Park on Saturday. It was warm and beautiful so we had a picnic there and spent the day.


Josephine shows off her climbing abilities

Party!

Pascale's 4th Birthday was yesterday. We invited her whole class for an extravaganza at the local Pizza Express. Pascale had a fantastic time. We got her an outrageous cake, pictured above. She did not want a mere 4 candles, so we put lots on. Here are some photos of the highlights:

Balloons for everyone!


It was difficult to keep their hands off the cake.



A magician entertained the kids. Pascale was very helpful.


The lovely assistant



Josephine and Pascale got matching facepaint

Pascale getting her face painted. Check out the extensive makeup kit.


Blowing out the candles



Dancing


Pascale opening presents

Opening presents that arrived earlier in the week.


Nonna sent Pascale and Josephine money for their birthdays. They decided that they wanted to buy egg cups, so that's what they did.





Looking in my camera, I found some more images from when Vince was visiting and we went to the butterfly exhibit at the Natural History Museum.



The girls are posing in cocoons.


Earlier in the week, we went to the London Aquarium. The kids just loved looking at the fish. They even have a tank with rays where you can reach in and pet them.

A Short Visit

We've had a short visit from Uncle Vince this week. It was a lot of fun seeing him. He was playing with the PhotoBooth software with the kids, and thank goodness for that, because this is the only picture we have of him from this weekend.


We went to Westfield Park, where they have a nice sandbox.


There has been lots of sun and rain, often at the same time. Here's a nice London rainbow.


The One O'Clock Club at Battersea Park. It's always nice when they can each have the same toy to play with. Notice that they're both wearing their new Crocs that U-ma sent them.

Primordial Cuteness

The weather has been really nice this week, and no school, so we've been running around having fun. We went to the Whipsnade Zoo on Thursday. It's kind of a lot of trouble to get there, but it was totally worth it. The highlight, for me, was the mommy and baby rhinos, pictured above. They were running around in the mud and they were so primordial and cute! They also have elephants, many kinds of deer and lots of smaller animals that run free, like wallabies and large rodents. All in all, a wonderful trip.

We also found a new playground (Westfield Park) that's not too far from our house. Our local playground lacks a sandbox but the new playground has a really nice one. I think we'll be going there a lot. Josephine is a little timid about walking on sand, but she'll get used to it.


Picking flowers from the grass in the park


They sat on the clean laundry that I was folding. They found it hilarious.


It's snowing today. They both wanted to go out, but Josephine wanted to go back in immediately.


Josephine climbing on the bed just so I'll have a heart attack.


Riding the carousel at the zoo.

Antelopes