Our Little Baker

Charlie has a new set of favourite toys:  electric mixer accessories.  That's right folks.  What is more fun than a box full of randomly shaped pieces of plastic?  Coulourful blocks?  Nope.  Books?  Not at the moment.  A wide variety of stuffed animals?  Fuhgetaboutit.  Charlie loves her mixer accessories.  Perhaps she'll be a baker like her dad or maybe even a professional pastry chef like her Aunty Katie!

A Sweet Home

Charlotte and I spent much of yesterday visiting with my friend Mary-Maye.  In addition to being an amazingly kind woman and brilliant painter, she also has the sweetest London flat.  Though it is only a few blocks from our flat, it feels as if you are in the middle of the country when you are there.  It is quiet, peaceful and has such a comfortable, lived-in feel to it.  I absolutely love spending time there.  

Mary-Maye let me take a few pictures to share with you all:

MM says she likes having all of her ingredients where she can see them because it helps her shop more efficiently

I didn't want to intrude too much, so I didn't take too many pictures of their living spaces, but here is a shot from the dining area (and heart of the house) to the back bedroom.

I took this picture of their back patio when Mary-Maye had me over for tea earlier this summer.

This is Mary-Maye and her youngest son, Arthur.  To the right you can see the ladder leading up to the girl's loft-style bedroom.

This is a picture Mary-Maye took of the mural in her daughters' room.

Freshly picked apples basking in the sunlight on the kitchen table.

There are a number of sweet quotes around the flat.  This is one of my favourites.

a painting Mary-Maye made of her children at the beach

fresh herbs on the balcony (which overlooks a sweet garden)

I love the old faucets!

a fruit basket and beloved stuffed rabbit

Dulwich

Yes, we are those parents:  parents who are already thinking about how to get their not-even-yet-one-year-old-child into Oxford or Cambridge.  We want our offspring to have every opportunity in the world.  (Can you blame us?)  That's where Dulwich comes in.  I had heard from a number of people that Dulwich has excellent schools.  After a bit of research, we were intrigued.  Notable schools include Alleyn's School, Dulwich College and the James Allen's Girl School (whose music staff included both Ralph Vaughn Williams and Gustav Holst!!).  All of these schools are right around the adorable Dulwich Village, which is where Jason, Charlotte and I spent our Saturday afternoon.

There is a bus (#37) that runs from Clapham Common to Dulwich, but we decided to take the overground train (the same train that Jason takes to work in the mornings!). 

It was a short trip over to the North Dulwich station which is about a five minute walk from Dulwich Village.

Dulwich Village is the sweetest little village!  It has a very small town feel with an adorable main street peppered with shops and restaurants.  There were loads of families wandering around walking their dogs, sipping lattes and just generally being happy and adorable.  It told Jason that being there made me want to have five more children.  (Just kidding!)

(Well, maybe.)

(Not really.)

(Never say never.)

(Haha!)

(Hmm . . .)

Here is a shot of the main street:

Anyway, the point is that Dulwich is a wonderful place to raise a family.

Take, for example, this park:

Now, Clapham has the wonderful Clapham Common, but it is generally filled with twenty-somethings and fewer families.  Still lots of families (this area isn't called "Nappy Valley" for nothing), but not nearly as many as we saw in Dulwich.

Charlotte approved too:

We are still keeping our options open at this point, but it would be a lie if I said we weren't seriously considering a move to Dulwich.  It isn't nearly as convient to central London as Clapham and doesn't have nearly as many useful shops, grocery stores, restaurants, etc., but it would be a much sweeter, calmer and generally more adorable neighborhood for us to raise our fifteen children little family.

Special Delivery

Here is one very big reason that I am grateful to be a singer and not an instrumentalist: 

Andrew shipped his double bass from Baltimore for the next year and had to borrow this enormous shipping case to get it here.  The picture doesn't do it justice, but it was HUGE!  He was able to rent it from Peabody.  He had arranged for the delivery guy to take it with him when he left, so luckily we didn't have to worry about wrestling it into the house. 

It was so big and heavy (even without the instrument in it) that Andrew had to help the delivery guy get it back into the truck! 

Again, I can't say I'm jealous of instrumentalists.  My instrument is nice and compact and never needs its own seat on a plane!  ;)

Another Social Week

It is turning out to be another social week around Milton's Manor.  We have my friend Andrew staying with us while he is rehearsing and performing with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.  I'm looking forward to attending two of the concerts over the next few weeks!

Here is a link to pics of Charlie and Andrew during his last visit.

Another Peabody friend will be in town with his new wife (congrats Mike and Lill!!) and we'll be having dinner together on Friday.  Unfortunately, this is the only picture I could find of him (that's not actually true, but it is the funniest!).  This was taken when we were performing together at the Indianapolis Early Music Festival (this is not taken from the actual performance!):

We will also be going out to dinner with the pastor of St James Cathedral this week.  Fr Ryan was the pastor of St James in Seattle when Jason and I were both working there.  He later married us in the cathedral and attended Charlotte's baptism there as well. 

No flash is allowed during weddings at the cathedral, so all the pics were a bit fuzzy.  Wonderful!  But fuzzy.

We are going to have to get videos of Andrew and Mike and Lill for the Marmite Project.  (Unfortunately we won't be able to get Fr Ryan on video as we are doing dinner out.  Too bad, too!  His would be a great video to add to the collection!)  

Communication Skillz

She speaks! (Well, kind of.)



We've been working on some simple sign language signs for quite a while now and she seems to (finally!) be catching on!

(PS: I'm not sure why the sound is a bit off. I'll see what I can do about that.)

boring, random, post-baby hair weirdness

One of the many weird things that happens to a woman after giving birth is that she loses A TON of hair about three or four months after giving birth.  For some it comes out in clumps and for some it wouldn't be noticeable if it weren't for what looks like a small, wet rodent in the drain after a bath (sorry for that visual, but you mamas know what I'm talking about here, right?).  For me it was more of a wet rodent experience and frankly, I welcomed the hair loss as my hair tends to be too fluffy to begin with.

Now that I am about nine months post birth, I've noticed that all the hair I lost five months ago is growing back very strangely.  It almost looks like I have short, wispy bangs (or fringe as they call it in the UK).  I took a picture of it for your viewing pleasure:

And for comparison, here I am pre-baby hair:

Fascinating stuff, I know.

Anyone else in this boat?

Tandem Bathing

Charlotte, Jason and I spent Sunday evening at Emily Bemily's house. Emily gets a bath before bedtime and invited Charlotte to join her. They had a blast! (Well, truthfully they mostly ignored each other and focused on eating foam letters, but it was still a good time.)

 

Books with Papi

Charlotte always gets so excited to see Jason when he gets home from work. Before he's allowed to change out of his work clothes, she needs a cuddle, a little play time and sometimes a couple of books: