Post #102- Holly's Birthday & Thanksgiving

I just looked at my posts. I passed the 100 mark two posts ago! A while back I determined to do something special for it, but it came and went without my notice. So, here is the very anticipated, celebrated and special post number One Hundred and Two!

Yes, the bold text is what makes this post special! It's more of a personal celebration I suppose. There are a lot of things as a mother or wife or anybody really that you determine you're going to do before life gets in the way and they fall by the wayside. You explain them away as unimportant or unrealistic. But, this blog is NOT one of those things. I've managed through all the moving, having babies, computer crashes, and general life, to keep this thing going! Wow. If you're in the same boat, give yourself a pat on that back. Just because blogging is fun, doesn't always make it easy.

So, now to get to the point. My little baby is no longer a baby! Holly turned 2! For her birthday, we had Thanksgiving! We knew her birthday would be on Thanksgiving this year since she was born, so I've had 2 years to think about ways to make it special and separate it from thanksgiving. Well, I didn't really know we'd be in England for Thanksgiving, but that actually turned out to be a blessing. Here's how the day went down:

The night before we set up her presents in the living room so she could have them when she woke up. We were most excited about her shopping cart (trolley) full of food! She loves to play pretend kitchen, but those are very expensive and very not portable so we went with the collapsable alternative.

Atley was pretty sure his birthday had come again.

He sat chewing on a plastic french fry for about 20 minutes before I told him he could have some real ones to which he said "That's a great idea!"

After the morning birthday festivities, it was time to get started on the Thanksgiving food. We had a lot of American comfort foods planned and I wanted to be sure they were ready in time for our guests. Ian was a big help, though goofy at times.

We made twice baked potatoes, corn, rolls, homemade stuffing, turkey (of course), green bean casserole, a veggie tray, apple pie and ice cream. It was a GREAT meal. I was so proud of how well my turkey turned out. It was the first one I cooked by myself and in our tiny oven it was an especially great accomplishment.

Some notes about having Thanksgiving in England. We loved it! We were able to find just about all the comfort foods we have back home, but we didn't have to fight the crowds to get them! The lady at the grocery store even made a comment about that being the first turkey she'd seen. We'd purchased it the Monday before Thanksgiving and we had the pick of the lot.

Another positive was that nothing was closed on Thanksgiving so I sent Ian on that morning to pick some things up from the grocery store. As long as we were inside our house, we could have been anywhere in the world and it would've felt like we were in the U.S.A. The moment we stepped out however, we were reminded that we are in a different country and nobody was even thinking about Thanksgiving.

That also provided us with another positive. On black friday, nobody was crazy! We could go shopping without fighting crowds of people and begin our Christmas browsing and spending. It does however have the draw back of no extra special sales, but I find the crazy people come with the crazy sales. Ian always says he'd rather pay more for something or do without then fight through a crowd for it.

All in all, Thanksgiving was a great success! We really enjoyed our company and I think our company really enjoyed the Holiday. Only 2 of our 10 guests were American, but who doesn't love a good meal and a grateful heart? It's nice to share special parts of our culture, like Thanksgiving, with others. And what a better way to say we're thankful for our blessings then the share them with others!

Holly really enjoyed her birthday also, and I think we did an okay job of separating the two. A little update on Holly:

• She lets me put bows in her hair now!
• She LOVES to pretend! The other day I found the wise men from our nativity set swimming in her milk!
• She does not love babies! In fact, she is extremely jealous and has no desire to play with dolls at all.
• She is still small for her age, but she can keep up with the biggest of them.
• She LOVES more than anything, her Daddy! Ian always says "I don't know why she likes me so much!" She loves her Mommy too, but Daddy and Holly have something really special. She prefers him and that's okay with me!

London & Les Misérables

This one is an experience for the books. It was an adventure of a lifetime and such an uplifting experience I have to set it apart from the rest of our time with Darien.

Fristly, thank you to Emily and Charlotte for looking after our kids. Secondly, thank you Mom for encouraging us to go. I'm certain I would have backed out if you hadn't urged me to invest.

The morning was stressful. I had to get the kids up and dressed before Charlotte came to pik them up. I was very worried about all the pressure I was putting on her, and told myself I didn't disserve to enjoy the trip because her day would probably be rough. As I look back on that feeling, I regret it. My kids aren't little demons. In fact, they usually behave better for others then they do for me.

We hurried down to the train station and arrived in plenty of time. That was a good feeling. I often worried that we would miss our train and that would be a disaster.

But our train arrived right on time and things were still going off without a hitch.

When we arrived in London I was greeted with an awesome sight. The only way to describe it is to share a photo with you!

I had never seen a train station so large in my life. People in the US don't really ride on trains unless they're scared of flying. Plus it was awesome seeing the Olympic rings in preparation for the 2012 Summer Games.

Then we took the tubes down to Chinatown and the Queens theatre where we were greeted by this sight!

And to prove we were there...

We had some time to kill before the show started so we took a little walk down to Trafalgar Square.

Now that we were out of Chinatown, it felt like we were in London. We could see "Big Ben" in the background and we enjoyed all the hustle and bustle of a big city. The sights were awesome...to visit. I did mention to Ian on a couple of occasions that I was glad we decided not to live in London. It is very much a big city with all the good and bads that come along with it.

We walked back to the theatre and sat down to enjoy our show. It was fantastic! I had never seen Les Misérables on stage before, but it made all the difference. I knew the songs, but they don't mean what the mean when you see them in context. The theatre was small and intimate and I felt connected to the story. I'm not a big crier and there were a couple times where I was tearing up big time! As I pondered the themes from the show over the next couple days, I came to find that it was a very spiritual experience for me. I saw evidence of God in the lives of these people and felt like they very closely mirrored lives of real people. I could see evidence of the atonement working through the lives of the characters as well as the roles of justice and mercy. I was profoundly touched by the story and felt a greater love for Jesus Christ.

That being said, I highly recommend it! And seeing it in London if you get the chance, isn't a bad perk either :-)

After the show we had some time to kill before our train left, so we walked around a little more and found more treasures!

Big Ben. Surprisingly, not as big as we expected.

Westminster Abbey

The sign says it all!

Then we got back on the Tubes and headed home. I found my children asleep and well cared for. I found the caregivers had all their limbs and all their sanity. Finally, knowing that I shouldn't have felt as guilty leaving as I did, I was able to look back on the whole day with a glad heart and say, that was AMAZING! It was certainly an experience of a lifetime.

A Visit From Darien

We were blessed to have Darien come to visit us these past couple weeks. We enjoyed her company and the excuse to get out and explore a little more of England.

Frist, we explored downtown Sheffield and did some shopping.

We took a picture of these sweets instead of buying them. They are called dark chocolate liqueurs. By the name and shape, I'll let you guess what is inside. Needless to say, we looked, but did not partake.

This picture was taken after our stop at Thorton's. It's a gourmet candy shop owned by a family that lives right here in Sheffield. They sell their candy throughout England, but they choose to live in Sheffield :)

Next, we went to York! It's a really great old city with a lot of old architecture. We ran across buildings that are hundred of years older than the USA! A special thanks has to go to Daemon and Teresa Bamforth who drove us there and gave us the grand tour! They were so knowledgeable and kind and the whole day was wonderful. There are too many pictures to post individually, but here's a slideshow for your enjoyment!

Holly really enjoyed having Darien in her room. When she woke up in the morning all she wanted to do was snuggle. I think Darien enjoyed the snuggling in between all the morning moans.

We also visited the Sheffield Botanical gardens which were beautiful! It's only a mile from our house but we hadn't been there before and it really is a treasure.

Then, Ian and Darien made the trip out to Chatsworth House. It's the manner of a Duke (I believe he's the Queen's cousin). The estate has been used in a couple of modern films. Most recognizably it is featured in Pride and Prejudice (the Kiera Knightly one) as Pemberly. See if you can recognize anything that was used in the film.

Certainly, this wasn't everything we did, but I think the rest disserves it's own post :) Until later!

Halloween/Atley's Birthday!

So halloween was kind of lame for us. Our kids really didn't dress up and we didn't go trick-or-treating. Apparently they do all that here, but even an English halloween was too much for the Sorensen Family. We enjoyed our ward party and ate some extra candy, but until my kids ask to go trick-or-treating, I just can't get myself to do it. Maybe next year.

Halloween in England is kind of watered down. They do a lot of the same things we do in the US (trick-or-treating, dressing up, parties, etc.) but they don't go as big as we do. That's okay with me. I'd rather focus on Atley's birthday anyway.

Speaking of Atley's birthday, our little boy is finally 3! I've been calling him a 3-year-old for the last few months, but now he really is 3! Here are the pictures to prove it.

While the kids were napping we set out all the presents. Atley got a couple of things to draw with so Ian drew some neat pictures for him and a special "Happy Birthday" message.

I let him have whatever he wanted to eat. That resulted in apples and french fries. Go figure. I think he's a vegetarian. He has no desire to eat meat. It's kind of boring to feed him because he's so picky. Oh well.

Holly enjoyed Atley's gifts as much as he did. I'm pretty sure she thought it was her birthday too.

He really has grown an imagination over the last year. He often goes around the house crawling and I have to guess what animal he is. I say "are you being a tiger?" and he'll say "no, I'm an Atley bear!" Oh! My bad, Atley bear. To my defense he has about 4 animals that crawl on all fours and growls. Someday I'll get them all straight!

He's also getting really sweet. He loves his Mommy and has no problem saying it. He's still a little confused on how to properly express it. He'll come and give me me a hug out of the blue and say "I love you too, Mommy!"

We feel blessed to have Atley as a part of our family. He's loving and imaginative. He's Holly's best friend and worst enemy. What would we do without him?

Last is our video of singing happy birthday to him. I think he was more interested in the cookies (even if I did burn them!)

Potty Trained...?

Warning: This is a potty post. If you don't want to hear it, don't read it. You can scroll down to the bottom of the post and watch the fun video. Also, don't become a parent because well that's what parents have to deal with.

Potty training. I have no idea what I'm doing. I have never felt so hopeless as a Mother. I don't like using words like "tinkle" and "poopy." Even when I have to use them I grimace. Ian is even worse. He hates changing diapers (though he does it anyway without complaining) but he doesn't want to have to have the potty talk with the kids. I've been talking to both my kids about going potty for what seems like forever. I waited and waited and waited for them to give me a clue because I heard that they would let me know when they were ready.

While I waited I had a lot of funny days with Atley. Sometimes he would want a poopy diaper changed immediately. I would gladly change him and talk to him about how we should go on the potty and then we don't have to get diaper changes. One day I changed his diaper and when he was all cleaned up he said "Thanks, Mommy! Thanks for the diaper change." It was so sweet. He was perfectly happy keeping things as they were.

Last week, I got tired of waiting. Diapers in England are more expensive then at home. Atley's birthday is tomorrow (crazy, right?) and he'll be 3. He starts Primary and school in January. Do I want to send him in diapers? No.

So, what do I do? I take the bull by the horns and brace myself for a rough day. No diapers. Underwear only. We can do this. Shortly after my morning peptalk, Atley had an accident. It's okay, I tell myself, no big deal. When I thought he was ready to go again, I took him to the bathroom so he didn't pee on the carpet. He was playing in the bathtub when all of a sudden...he went! He looked at me slightly alarmed and I freaked out! I was so happy that he went potty someplace that was sort of normal. When he saw how happy I was he said "I do it again, Mommy!" Okay I think, we'll see. He went again! After high fives and treats, I thought we could really be on the path to potty trained.

The rest of the day didn't go so well. He had 4 accidents and only 2 successes before Ian gave me a look that I interpreted to mean "put a diaper on him already!" Fine. Diaper on. I felt like a failure and almost convinced myself that he wasn't ready.

The next morning when I went in to change his diaper, I expected to put another diaper on because the day before went so badly. He refused. All he wanted to wear were his big boy underwear. Wow. Okay, let's try this again. To my great surprise, Atley had a completely dry day. We even went out to the store and put a diaper on him which was dry when we got back.

What? Potty trained in a day? Way too good to be true right? Of course right! Well sort of. He knows when he has to go. But we still have some hurdles to jump over. He only wants to go in the bathtub and he won't go number 2 except in his pants. That is worse then diapers. But, the good news is, he's pee trained and I finally have hope for the future. I'm not a failure of a Mother and he won't be in diapers until he gets married. Our little Atley is growing up.

Here's the video I promised. Atley and Holly LOVE the Black Cauldron. I have no idea why. Atley always says "Mommy, I'm an Atley Taran. Holly's a princess Eilonwy." We even made him a sword. Holly is especially funny in this video because of how checked out she looks. Enjoy!

Riding the Stagecoach By: Ian

We have really started to feel like pros when we ride the bus or tram these days. We both have bus and tram passes; we just show our cards and can ride to our hearts content. We both are really starting to know where all the stops are, where we need to get on and off, and which buses and lines to take. It is a good feeling--its like we really live here, not just visiting. The kids like riding the bus, however, since there are no car seats, they feel an added measure of freedom, and always try to maximize it. Holly, for instance, always wants her own seat--far from Atley typically--and loves to just roam. This is a problem especially when we stop or the bus or tram jerks because she goes flying. We try to get her to sit down so she does not hurt herself, but she doesn't listen. No matter how many times we warn her, an "I told you so" is sure to follow.

Atley on the other hand, loves to press the stop button all the time--he is obsessed with it. The first thing he does when he gets on the bus is run to the stop button and try to push it. The worst is when he gets on the tram, and rushes to the "emergency help" button (which is right at kid level) and we have to explain to the driver that our son is just curious. Despite all this, they love the tram and bus, and we love to ride it with them because it reduces the walk with groceries and the toil of pushing a double stroller up a hill.


This is Holly and the family waiting at the bus stop on a sunday morning on our way to church. The stop is about .8 miles from our house, so its a brisk walk in the morning. Luckily there is hardly any traffic nor pedestrians, so we feel like we have the city to ourselves in the morning.



This is Atley in the front of a double decker bus (the iconic symbol of London and the UK of course, but ours is not red sadly). We are on the top looking out on the street. (Notice that we are driving on the wrong side of the road)



This is the tram. It is a very comfortable ride, and pretty easy to figure out the various lines of travel.



This is looking out from the Sheffield University tram stop. This is just down the hill from where we are living. It is only three stops from here to the Tesco grocery store, and about 12 stops from the mall.

Family Photos

This layout is only temporary. I'm trying my hand at some new things. We'll see how it turns out :)

So after dragging my feet for a long time on getting family pictures I finally found someone to do them that I could not resist. Geri (of photobygeri.com) is an awesome photographer. Very professional, while also being relaxed enough to put a family with two small children at ease. The result? Feast your eyes...

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I love these pictures. Besides Geri doing a fabulous job, we haven't had pictures since of all of us since Atley was like 4 months old. I told you I was dragging my feet. These pictures will go on our walls here in England and make this our true home. Also, how cool is it that we have pictures of our kids with their 100 year-old great great grandma? That's a treasure.

Sheffield Scenery

Okay, still no internet (yes we're counting down the days), but since I have a minute alone on campus (thank you, Ian!) I'm going to share with you some photos we've taken with you all in mind. It's mostly scenery of Sheffield, and we'll definitely be explaining more later about what all these cool European looking old buildings are. For now, sit back, relax, and pretend like you're in England with us. Goodness knows we'd love you have you here!

Still to come is our church building, Sheffield public transit, and a new park we found! Also, I have the chance to attend a French Language playgroup. It says the parent has to have a good understanding of French. What does that mean? I don't know. I guess I'm going to go there and if I don't understand them telling me to leave, I'll go right out the door. :-) Hopefully it'll be a chance for me to practice French and the kids to make some french speaking friends too.

Also coming up, English Halloween! What's it like? I guess we'll find out!

We're in England!

There’s still no Internet in our home. We’re living in the Stone Age. That being said, no redesign of the blog as I was privately hoping would happen, and this is the first official post from England!! Woot!

Our family is really settling in here. It’s beginning to feel like home. That being said, let me tell you what an adventure we had in getting to this settled in feeling…

We left on a Thursday afternoon at 4PM. The first flight was fine—Orlando to Boston. The kids were great and they even fell asleep. That was a blessing. Our next flight was to Iceland where we would stop over before heading the Manchester. Pretty uneventful, except that I really wanted to get some sleep and the kids were no tired in the least. Shucks! Maybe I should’ve listened when people suggested I bring some Benadryl along. Oh well. I count it a victory that I survived the whole experience without drugging my kids. Score one for Mom! We did however have one casualty on the journey. Somewhere along the way we left one of our carryon bags.Better a bag than a child I guess, but the bag is still missing. We’ll probably never see it again. I guess it helps that after we’ve unpacked we can’t seem to remember what was in the bag.

When we arrived in Manchester we went through customs. It was a breeze. I guess they aren’t very suspicious of a white family of four with visas. We checked out without much trouble. When we passed through into the baggage claim all our bags had arrived. Score again! Then we found the representative from the University and arranged bus travel to Sheffield. We had an appointment to visit with the housing people and arrange our housing before the weekend. Well long story short, the bus was late leaving and we were WAY late to our appointment. I had thought to call them ahead of time and let them know, but that only gave us their sympathy. Because there were no hotels left in Sheffield, they were nice enough to extend their work day so we could have a place. Oh wait, they forgot to mention something. The bathroom is in the attic…on the third floor! Of course my first thought is, that’ll make potty training an adventure. As we go to look at the property we were given the warning that if we didn’t like it we shouldn’t sign the contract because we’d be stuck with it for a year. On the other hand, if we didn’t take it, there were no hotels so we’d be sleeping outside. Lovely.

Luckily, we liked it enough to call it home for the next year. Originally we thought we’d have to get a baby gate for the kids, but they’ve managed the stairs marvelously. Here are the long awaited pictures of our new home.

This is the kids room.

Our huge (although weird) bathroom.

Our bedroom. Please excuse the mess and the fact that we don't have sheets.

The steep stairs up to the third floor (and the bathroom).

Our little living room.

The kitchen. I was actually surprised at how big the fridge/freezer was. Also, I have a washing machine! Big score.

Stairs to the second floor and our bedrooms.

It’s a two bedroom home and the kids have a bunk bed. I think they’re still a little young for it, so for now they’re sharing a bed. Luckily for us they don’t seem to mind.And then the adventure continued. Now that we had a home, all we needed was to find a place to shop so we could get some sheets for the bed! Oh wait, “didn’t we mention? All the shops close at 6PM it’s now 5:45. Since they’re all downtown (about a 20 mintue walk) you won’t make it. Sorry.” Alright then. No food, no sheets, and it just happened to be COLD. Well, if we weren’t sleeping on the street at least we’d feel sympathy for those who were! So we ate cereal for dinner (the last of what the kids had left over) and went to bed hungry and cold. Since we had slept less then 2 hours of the last 24, I figured I was tired enough it wouldn’t be a problem. Well, Ian and I both woke up at about 2AM ready for the day. I cried. I was cold and homesick and this wasn’t turning out like I imagined. We stayed awake for two hours before we decided to put on more winter clothes and try to get back to sleep. Of course of top of all of this Atley wanted to sleep in our bed because he was scared. I count it a tender mercy that Holly slept through the night without trouble. Babies are so good at going with the flow.

Finally, we got back to sleep and had a great night’s sleep. Too great even. We didn’t wake up until Noon the next day! Wow. I guess a 5 hours time change would be a little more difficult than we thought. But, we did get up. No towels yet so we used a sweater of mine to dry off with. That was weird. We went into town and bought tons of stuff we needed. We found a grocery store that was open o we didn’t have to eat cereal, bought towels and sheets and even some pots and pans. That was a relief. Next all we had to do was figure out how to get to church the next day!

We found our bus route and walked to the stop the next morning so glad to have a sense of normalcy in the craziness. Unfortunately, as the bus approached, it passed us right by! Great! So we called a cab. It only cost us £10 to get to church. That’s like paying $15-$16. I guess that shows you how badly we wanted to go. When we arrived the taxi dropped us off at the gate, which was shut and locked. No cars were in the parking lot. Well, if this is stake conference, isn’t this the stake center? Where is everyone. Once again, I cried. Things that were so simple were becoming so difficult and all I wanted was to hear and familiar gospel message and meet people who I had something in common with. Well after a short and sincere prayer on my part that someone (anyone!) would give us a clue as to what was going on, someone did drive by the church! She told us it was Stake Conference and that everyone was at a theatre downtown because they were expecting two general authorities. She volunteered to drive us there while giving excuse for why she wasn’t there. At that moment she could’ve been on her way to the local pub and I still would’ve found her to be sent by the Lord. What a tender mercy and a great blessing.

That theatre was the most ornate place I’ve ever been to church in. The irony of it was the theatre wasn’t far from our house and we could’ve easily walked there. Oh well! They switched up the Stake Presidency and we enjoyed testimonies borne in a British accent. Our kids were acting up, so that made it difficult to enjoy, but I was grateful that we made it. We walked home and enjoyed the rest of the Sabbath day.

The following week was a lot less eventful. We found a better place to get groceries and some other things we were still needing. Ian registered for classes and attended his department meetings. It was a busy week, but it didn’t quite feel like home.

The following Sunday came and we found a different route to church that worked much better for us. We arrived at the building a half hour before it started, but we were so excited that we made it and that the building was open! We were able to meet members of the ward including the Bishop and the newly called Stake President. After church we met the former Stake President and his family and they invited us home to have lunch with them. It was a great afternoon and I only hope that we didn’t over stay our welcome. They brought us home in the evening and finally, after meeting with our new ward family, it feels like home!

I cannot express the joy the gospel has brought to our family these past couple of weeks. When things were uncertain and we felt alone or afraid, we felt the inclination to pray and were always blessed. Having people who instantly care about you is an advantage only the gospel could bring. The members of our ward have a Christ-like attitude that brought us in to their family feeling loved and wanted.

So that was the adventure in getting here. Crazy, I know. But as I said, we feel like we’re at home. Ian has already finished his first week of classes. We’ve had a hard time understanding some people. The lady at the grocery store told me that if I brought reusable bags I’d get a point (on my loyalty card). I thought she said a pint. A pint of what I couldn’t imagine, but she had a good laugh when I told her that.

One of the funniest things I’ve heard is when the Bishop was calling after Holly to come into his office. He said, “Come on jellybean!” I think I like that nickname for her!

More to come on the funny things we’ve heard, but for now I think you’re probably tired of reading about us! We think of our family and friends often and hope this post finds you all well!