A Sorensen Christmas

Christmas time is extra special for me. More special now than when I was a kid. This year was extra special because without the rest of the country waiting until after Thanksgiving to celebrate Christmas, we got it the whole month of November and December. It was GREAT! For the first time when Christmas was over I felt fulfilled and satisfied.

We enjoyed extra Christmas music, a Christmas film every night, Christmas parties of many varieties, and LOTS of scriptures and stories about the true meaning of Christmas. Our family was blessed to come closer together and form stronger bonds because of the blessings from this Christmas season. I'll give you a specific example:

Since Ian and I have been married, I've never been very homesick at Christmas time. We've always been away from home and enjoying a snowy white Christmas in Idaho. I must say, that snow on Christmas does add a bit of extra magic. But, for one reason or another, this year I felt very sad that we wouldn't be home. Actually, home is kind of a difficult concept for us right now, as our home is technically here in England, but we know it isn't a permanent home and the time for us to leave is rapidly approaching. We don't know where we'll be yet, and having said that, I'll repeat, home is a difficult concept for us. I guess that could be part of the reason why things were so difficult for me this Christmas.

As I got to feeling bluer and bluer each day, I found myself taking it out on my family--especially Ian. I felt like if he really wanted to, we could go home. We decided the expense was too much though and he was really good at reminding me of that. So, after at least a week of feeling frustration and anger with my situation, I realized I was the one causing all this pain and I began to take a hard look at myself. I thought 'being angry with Ian is making me withdraw from him even more, making my homesickness even worse!' So I made a choice to show extra love to Ian and cling to him and my children. You may believe it and you may not, but I have never felt closer with them in all the time we've been together. I no longer wanted to go "home" and began to realize that the home I was looking for was right here with the 3 people who need me most right now.

Our Christmas this year was pretty lean as we realized anything we got we'd probably have to take home with us. That was actually quite a blessing. I wasn't so worried about what I would be getting and really focused on the giving. It was illuminating and liberating!

We began enjoying Christmas as a family with a Christmas Eve dinner. It was small but with such variety, we were sad there was nobody to share it with. We enjoyed the leftovers on Christmas Day as well.

In the morning we opened presents and took some pictures before heading off to church.

Here are some videos of our Christmas fun!

Atley's special present from Santa was a sword. He knew what it was before he even unwrapped it and almost decided not to! He's really into knights which probably has something to do with where we live.

Holly was a good sport waiting for her turn and it makes it even better when she's excited about getting shampoo! Atley needed underwear. He didn't seem to care much.

Ian and I were so excited about this next English tradition. We'd never seen it before but were so excited to enjoy it and will probably keep it forever! Christmas crackers can be found in every store during Christmas time and they are filled with a variety of items. We were blessed to find a kit to make them ourselves so I stuffed Ian and he stuffed mine! As you'll see in the video below, I'm better at the assembly than Ian.

It took me 5 tries to make the cracker part crack. I was beginning to wonder if we were celebrating April Fools day!

All in all, we hope you all had a fulfilling Christmas, with the spirit of Christ prevalent in your hearts. Christmas still isn't over for us, as we are awaiting packages from family and the kids won't stop singing Frosty the Snowman. Maybe that's why I got enough of Christmas this year! Well anyway, Merry Christmas!

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!)