Happy Halloween

From Snow White and one of her dwarfs.

He was Grumpy in this photo, as he had just awoken from his nap.

Quickly turned into Happy when he realized all of the fun that was ahead of him!


We moved into our new house last Friday, and we are still eye-high in boxes!! Pics to come soon.

The Great Outdoors

After living in the middle of a concrete jungle, it is so refreshingly wonderful to be able to walk out the door into nature. I love being outdoors, and I believe it is very important for children to appreciate the wondrous Earth that mother nature has provided.
I love being able to take the kids outside to collect leaves & acorns, hunt for insects, & roll around in the grass. We look for deer, woodchucks, & frogs. We listen to the birds serenading us as we enjoy the fresh air blowing in our hair. It won't be too long before the leaves all fall away, the animals curl up in their warm dens, and the ground is frozen solid.

No Sleep Till Brooklyn

Yesterday was a gorgeous day, and we decided to head into the City.
We planned to visit the Statue of Liberty, and spent the whole morning building it up for Kate. We told her about the history of it, how we were going to get there (car-subway-ferry), what it looked like, etc.
Then we got into the city, saw the signs pointing to the Brooklyn Bridge, and opted for Plan B: Walking over the bridge into Brooklyn, eating pizza, and doing some more walking around. Kate kept asking why we were not going to see the "statue delivery" any more. Such is life when you tour with the Saevas. Food usually trumps everything. We figured our kids better learn early.


The Brooklyn Bridge. Erected 1883.



Manahattan Skyline.


Did you know Michael is a gifted artist? He had to abandon this project when the cops showed up though.

Ding Dong...

How Kate & Michael do messy

We plop them, nekkid, in the bathtub.



While in Italy, we found delicious juicy peaches. I had not had a peach since moving here, so I was most excited. Kate had no recollection of ever eating peaches, and she loved them. But they were very messy, so I stripped her down and threw her in the tub to enjoy them in all their juicy splendor.
Michael was working on his yogurt, and succeeded in actually getting about 70% of it in his mouth.

Coram's Fields

There are some things that the the US definitely does better than the UK (iced tea, Mexican Food, replenishment at grocery stores), but there are of course some things that the Brits do better than us (looking after the environment, chocolate, putting extra letters in words like 'favourite').

One such thing is Children's Parks/Playgrounds. This is somewhat surprising, given that the climate here is so disagreeable to being outside 10 months of the year (to a cold-natured Texan like myself, anyway). But when the stars align and the weather is right, you will always find the numerous parks busy beyond belief.

The playscapes are much more intricate and involved than ones I have seen at home. I believe there are liability issues at play, as many of the ones here feature tall, open areas that would make an American lawyer's eyes gleam. There are also often adventure items like zip lines, climbing walls, etc.

Last Friday was one of those rare days when it was possible to leave the house without a coat, and so we headed to a favorite park of ours, Coram's Fields. This park is especially wonderful because it is not only close to home, but also is a closed park, which means that adults are not allowed unless they are accompanying children.





They have goats, ducks, sheep & chickens wandering around. They have a paddle pool in the unlikely event that it breaks 80 degrees. They have a sand pit.


They have a tall huge shooter slide. They have open grass for ball games.



They have these cool log see-saw things.

They have a water fountain, that you can splash in if you are wearing your wellies. Kate & Michael were not, so they had to settle for just sitting on the side for a photo.



On Friday, it even had her "favourite friend in the whole world", Luke:


It has sheep statues that you can pose on.

Alone...



...or with Luke, while he smells your hair:

Family Dog

We took Dexter to the park last weekend and I snapped a few photos.

We're trying to acclimate Michael to walking short distances. I am far from comfortable letting him walk on busy streets, as he has no awareness of the street or the cars.
He is also quite enamored with the cars parked on the street, and loves to go up to them, bang on them, and try to rip off the side view mirror. But we'll keep working on it.


Clearly, getting a decent photo of 1 dog and two small children is no easy task .But at least I tried.








Michael is "all done" with the photos. Put the camera away mom.

(Mostly) Wordless Wednesday

How the kids entertain themselves while I cook dinner.
Be sure you have your sound on!

You take the good, you take the bad, you take it all...

..and there you have the Facts of Life.
We believe in giving our kids honest, age-appropriate answers about most things, but I did think I had a fw more years before needing to have the old birds & bees discussion.

Our friends the Kains came to visit us for 2 weeks in March. We had a lot of fun hanging out with them, and Kate loved having another little person to boss around. Jill is pregnant, and this fact sparked many interesting conversations with Kate.
Apparently she doesn't remember my being pregnant with Michael, although she does know about the big belly I had from seeing pictures.

Questions that were asked:
- How does the baby eat?
- How does the baby get out?
- Does the baby have a mouth?
- Can the baby hear me if I sing her "Jingle Bells"?
- How does Jill sleep with that big tummy?
- What does the baby eat?
- Does the baby have nipples?
- Where does Jill's food go if the baby is taking up all the room in her tummy?
on hearing TJ (their 15 month old son) crying: "I think that is the baby in Jill's tummy. She is ready to come out".
And of course,
- How did that baby get in there?

Don't worry, we gave her the most simple of answers, and she did not press the issue further. So next time you see her, she won't be spouting off about sperm or anything like that.


We took them to Hampton Court Palace for a day of Tudor fun, and here are some of the photos we took in the gardens.

Kate took this one of all of us:


In front of the Smurf trees:



I was trying to get a pic of the kids together, and this is how they posed themselves. They thought it was hilarious.




I tried to get down to take a picture like that too, but I'm too old. All that gravel really hurt my stomach.

Bike Tour Redux

Our favorite thing to do with out of town guests is to take them on a bike tour of some of the highlights in London.


Michael was unable to contain his enthusiasm.




We stopped at Green Park, outside Buckingham Palace and I posed Kate in the daffodils that have been blooming everywhere.
She is clearly just posing here to please me, but aren't the flowers pretty?

The Obligatory Snow Pictures

As most of you have likely heard by now, London experienced the most snowfall in 18 years this week. It caught the city off-guard, and everything shut down on Monday. The tube, trains, airports, schools, and the buses all ceased operations. It is amazing that the buses stopped running, as they didn't even stop during the Blitz.

Danny went to work that day, and his normal hour long commute took him 2.5 hours. Fun!





Of course we had to build a snowman. Kate had a blast. Michael....not so much.





Frosty had a mouth made out of bread, but Dexter helped himself to it.




Don't hate the sad-looking snowman. I'm from Texas. We aren't taught snowman building techniques.

A Girl and Her Namesake

While we were in Orlando, we were very fortunate to be able to go visit my grandma in Tampa. My Kathryn is named after my grandma Catherine, don't ya know?

Kate is still talking about Great Grandma, and how funny she is. This was Grandma's first time to meet Michael, and he had a harder time warming up to her.




Soon, both of the kids had a great time. A funny story: Kate was looking at all the pictures around her house of John and me as kids. She would point to the photos and say "Look! There is you and Daddy!". I explained to her that it was actually Uncle John, and she was so confused. "But where is Daddy? Why are there all these pictures of you and Uncle John? Did you marry Uncle John too?". She loves to look at the photos of danny and I "getting married".



Grandma said that she felt like she had her own family back around her, with both a Kathryn and a Michael there. She had a son named Michael too. Maybe my next kid will be named Anthony (her other son) and we'll go for a hat trick.

A Real Live Turkeyhead

Today I took the kids down to Chelsea to visit Battersea Park Children's Zoo. Kate was really excited about getting there "before the monkeys take their nap".

We had a lovely day out, and both of the kids had a blast.
Michael shrieked with laughter and excitement at the monkeys. I think they must remind him of someone he knows. Kate was amazed to discover that the little spider monkey had hands "just like ours, but smaller. Smaller even than Baby Alex's hands".

Her favorite animals by far were the pigs and the emus. She even tried to climb into the pig pen.





When I told her that these were Turkeys, she started cracking up and didn't believe me. "A real live turkeyhead? Nooooo mommy!". She even told me to take a photo of her next to the turkey and send it to Tyler, Lesley & Alex.



(We love to call people turkeyheads for those of you who are wondering what the deal is with Turkeys).


Petting the world's biggest bunny. "Please Mommy, can we bring him home?"




They had a meerkat manor, and there was this tunnel you could crawl through and then stand up and you were in a bubble that was in the middle of the meerkat compound.



Michael was too young for the playground, but he did enjoy the mulch: