months 10 & 11

 Warning- lots of pics. Mostly suitable for grandparents and family who like seeing copious amounts of grandkid pics. :) 

But all others are welcome, as well.

I'm grouping months 10 & 11 together, because, well, that's how we roll right now.

These past two months with sweet Annie have been full of new adventures- getting the hang of walking down, climbing up stairs, getting lots of teeth, going to some fun places like Kew Gardens, Marble Arch, Westminster Abbey, Windsor Castle, having Aunt Amy and Uncle David come and visit, being sick A LOT, not getting the hang of sleeping through the night.... Mommy is tired. 

Without further adieu, here's Annie's past two months in review:

This month, I've become quite adept at walking. Mommy really likes when I wear my pink, sparkly TOMS

I've been sick A LOT. I've had a nasty cold for about 2 weeks, then I got roseola, then I got another yucky bug that caused me to have fever for about 3-4 days, and now, again, I have yet another cold. Boo.

Usually, though, I'm a pretty happy girl. Lots of smiles! And I've gotten 4 teeth, with two more breaking through on the top!

My Daddy likes to help me photo-bomb Facetime chats with Aunt Liz

I'm a pretty good eater. I love guacamole, black beans, cheese, refried beans, macaroni and cheese, veggies of all kinds,
spaghetti, mashed potatoes and cereal bars. My Mommy still nurses me 2-3 times a day and I take a bottle of formula at night before bed.

I like to try walking at famous places, like Marble Arch. 

I LOVE being held by my Mommy!

I've had my fair share of tube and bus rides- this one was to Kew Gardens.

I've learned how to climb up the stairs (and quite quickly, at that!). I LOVE to be where my big sister is and follow her around the house. If she and Mommy are doing anything at all, I want to be involved and will make my opinion known!

I love my big sister, Lucy!

I also walked around Westminster Abbey today

Mommy turned around for one minute and look what she found! 

Months 8 and 9

Again, due to recent events, I was not able to write Annie's 8 month blog post. 

So, we'll combine months 8 & 9 (especially since she turns 10 months tomorrow!)

(*side note- I wrote this post about a month ago, but just got to downloading pics, so some of this info is outdated) 

New things during months 8 and 9:
- found out on her 8 month birthday we were moving to London, for-reals.
- got her first (and hopefully only!) set of ear tubes on November 20th. She did great during surgery (which lasted no more than 10 minutes tops!).

all ready for surgery!

- she applied for her first pass port and visa!
- she had her first Thanksgiving!

- she saw her first "Icepocolypse" the first weekend of December and subsequently got really sick with, what I think was RSV (flu and strep were negative at the urgent care that was open that Sunday). Lots and lots of snot, a terrible cough that wouldn't let her sleep at all for about 24 hours, and fever of 101.5 with Motrin on-board. I've never stayed up an entire night with a child before, but I did that weekend. She was also the sickest I've ever seen one of my kids before. It was also the weekend after Mike had left for London, so my precious mom, dad and sister camped out at our house to help me in my sleep-deprived state of mind (they had also lost electricity due to the ice storm). I'm sure I'll post another entry about that really, really hard two week span. It was not fun.

She was so sick and so pitiful!!

- she got her first tooth! (and is currently working on her second one)
- she started to stand on her own for long periods of time and started cruising around furniture
- she took her first airplane ride (well, two rides, technically) and moved to London before she turned 9 months old

Sleeping:
This momma is so tired. I really was hoping that ear tubes would be the magic bullet that would cure all of our sleeping problems, but alas, not so much. Due to her getting really sick at the beginning of December with RSV, her sleep just got really off (would wake up 2-3 times a night sometimes and up at least once most nights). We had sleep-trained her during Thanksgiving break, but that went out the window with the sickness.
Once we moved to London, we re-did sleep training on Christmas night (we didn't plan that well, but it was much needed). We are currently in the process of getting our schedule back on track and adjusting to everything.
She's taking 2 naps a day and will go to bed around 7:30 pm, wake up around 7:00 am (most of the time). But, like I said, our schedule is a little off and we're slowly getting back. The good thing is that if she wakes up crying, she will get herself back to sleep within about 5 minutes, instead of me having to go in and nurse her back to sleep. Small victories, people.

Eating:
Eating normal, solid foods three times a day, doing well with most foods- she likes to feed herself, thank you very much. Favorite foods are pasta with tomato sauce, macaroni and cheese, green beans, sweet potatoes, beans, rice, refried beans, MumMums, dried Cheerios, etc. She will usually eat just about anything and hasn't had any allergies. She's still nursing about 4 times a day, most days, sometimes more.

She loves to follow Lucy around, likes to be in the same room as everyone else. She puts EVERYTHING in her mouth. Still loves her paci at naptime and bedtime. She, thankfully, is portable when we are needing to be out and about and will fall asleep in my Beco carrier like a champ. Truly, she does well with being on the go, which I am so thankful for. Generally, she is a very chill, sweet-tempered little girl.

Skillz:
She crawls all over the place, is learning how to crawl up stairs, cruises around furniture, will stand on her own for long periods of time, will pull herself up to stand on her own and is taking some steps with the push-wagon. I predict that she will be walking by 10 months (Lucy started walking at 10.5 months!).
She's got the pincer grasp down to a T, and I've got bruises on my arm to prove it.
She's said "Dada" before. She likes to wave.

Stats:
She's been 16 pounds (25 th percentile)  for the last 7 weeks (hasn't really gained any weight), but she has grown in length. Lack of weight gain, I believe, to be caused by starting to become really mobile and having RSV.

The first week or so...

Ok, so I finally got a chance to sit down with my laptop and upload some pics of our first couple of weeks in London. Hopefully I can keep the posts coming!

We arrived on December 21st (the Saturday before Christmas) and spent the next couple of days unpacking, buying out John Lewis (like a 5-story Target/Macy's/Bed Bath and Beyond), stocking up the kitchen (thank goodness for free grocery delivery when you don't have a car!), and trying to make our new house into more of a home.

Thank goodness for Liz being with us- I seriously don't know what I would have done without her. She is a lean, mean, unpacking and organizing machine.

This is what our house looked like on Christmas Eve- she and Mike created our very own Christmas tree out of all the empty boxes. What a fun, sweet memory!

Lucy wasn't quite sure about the Tube at first. This is the Tube stop by our house. We had to convince her that it was okay to get on the Tube. After the first couple of rides, she loves it!

We also had to teach her how to get off and on an escalator, as this is crucial to getting around in some of the tube stations. (Mike taught her how to ride the escalators by going on and off of them in the John Lewis store while I was shopping- I think they rode up 5 or 6 different escalators). 

Because it's nearly impossible to take the double stroller with me into the tube stations on my own, I typically strap Annie to me in my Beco carrier and push Lucy in a small, umbrella stroller that I can easily carry with one hand up and down the stairs (most stations don't have elevators or escalators, however, the one close to us does!). So, Lucy's gotten very used to climbing up and down stairs on her own and getting on and off the escalators with minimal help.

I will say, though, that when you have a child strapped to you, another child holding one hand, and your other hand carrying a stroller up and down stairs, people are very helpful and will typically offer to either carry the stroller or help Lucy up the stairs. 

We took a bus tour around the City of London when Liz was with us. It's a great way to see the city without walking every where. Plus, you can hop on and off when you want to sight-see. Sweet Annie was a trooper that day, napping strapped to me in her Beco carrier. Thankfully, she is a great baby on the go.

We stopped in Covent Gardens and Lucy had fun running/jumping under the gigantic reindeer. 

A view from the bus...see the London Bridge?

One night before she left, Liz babysat so that Mike and I could go out on a DATE!! 

It was so great to get out sans kiddos!!

A very fun perk about our house is that it's on the Hyde Park horse tour. About 5-6 times a day, we hear the clip-clop of horses and get to see the tour go by our house. The girls love it!

My sweet Annie Grace chowing down at the table. 

This front-loading washer has provided hours of entertainment for the girls. (can you tell we have the boring top-loading washer at home?!)

The wonderful world of Harry Potter!

If you know me well, you know I love me some Harry Potter!! 

One of the items on my sister Liz's bucket list (and mine too!) when she came with us to London in December was to go to the Harry Potter tour at the Warner Brother's Studio.

Thankfully, our friend Aileen, was able to hook us up with some last-minute tickets on Christmas Eve, so Liz and I boarded the Harry Potter bus from London and rode for about 45 minutes to the Warner Bros studio.

Let me tell you, this was AMAZING. Totally worth the trip if you love Harry Potter! We were there for most of the day and could have stayed longer. The amount of detail they put into making these movies was incredible. 

They basically let you walk through all of these sets that were used from the movies, let you see how they made all the characters, all the costumes, props, etc...it was awesome!

So, sit back and enjoy the many pics from our day at Harry Potter!

The Great Hall

Costumes from the Professors

The bedchambers for Griffendor 

Griffendor common area with Ron and Harry's costumes

The Weasley's house

Voldemort and his crew

The Ministry of Magic

creepy!

Butterbeer! Which was actually quite disgusting, if you ask me- it was essentially carbonated butterscotch.

Harry's house

Diagon Alley with Ron's brother's game shop

Hogwarts

We moved to London!

I've definitely been MIA for the past two months. Sorry about that. We just had a minor change to the Frizzell family- we moved across the pond to London last week. No biggie. 

WHAT?!?!

I know. It's crazy. 

It's been crazy-times around here, but things are starting to slow down and I can actually take a breather and attempt a blog post while the girls are sleeping.

Frequently asked questions about our life right now:

1. Why did you move to London?

Mike's company won a proposal that moved our family to London for a year. We knew in early September that there was about a 10-20% possibility that this would actually happen, when they submitted the proposal. Well, that 10-20% turned into 100% on November 2, when we found out that his company won the proposal! 

We flew into high gear and ran around like chickens with our heads cut off to get everything in order to move. This included getting passports and visas for the girls (envision trying to get passport pictures and visa pictures taken for your squirmy 2.5 year old and 7 month old- not the most fun I've had), selling my car, figuring out what to do with our house, sorting through our stuff, getting stuff packed to be air-shipped to London, getting stuff packed to be moved into long-term storage, figuring out who would rent our house, finishing up repairs/improvements to our current house, etc.

2. What are you doing with your house in Richardson?

My lovely sister, Liz, and her two friends are renting our house for a year. Truly a win-win situation!

3. What about your job at Children's? Will you work as a nurse practitioner in London?

This was quite a bittersweet choice. There was no option to take a leave of absence, so I had to resign. Very sad as I'd been at Children's for almost 10 years and loved what I was doing in the out-patient endocrinology clinic. But, I know that God is bigger than our circumstances and am looking forward to spending a year a home with my girls, as I will not be working while we are in London. We shall see what I'll be doing when I get back home, though (I have to work 200 hours a year to maintain my NP license in the state of Texas). 

4. Where are you living now? 

We are living in a lovely 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath, two-story mews house (meaning, has a garage) very close to Hyde Park in London. Once everything is set up, I'll post some pics. Our house is unfurnished, meaning that we've had to start from scratch in regards to furniture, dishes, etc. I spent a stressful 2 hours online the Wednesday before we left (with the movers there), furnishing our house from IKEA, so that it would be delivered by the 27th, right after we arrived, before Mike had to leave for a week-long business trip. Crazy-times, people. 

We are loving the close location to lots of fun things to do here- Mike is about a 20 minute walk to work, Paddington tube station is about 10 minutes away, Hyde Park is about a 10 minute walk from our house. It's been wonderful, so far. We won't have a car while in London, so everything will be by foot. Hence, having a house close to everything was important!

5. How long will you be living in London?

Mike's contract is for a year, so we anticipate returning back to Texas right before Christmas of 2014. 

6. When did you all leave? What about all your stuff?

Mike left for the UK on December 1st. The movers came on December 2nd to pack up all our stuff that was air-shipped to London. My last day at work was December 13th.  Another set of movers came on December 18 & 19th to pack up our stuff that was moving into permanent storage (not all our stuff is being stored, as Liz and her friends are using most of our furniture, kitchen stuff, etc- like I said, a win-win situation!). 

The girls and I and Liz (my sister) boarded a plane for London (with a 2.5 hour lay-over in Miami) on December 20th and arrived on the 21st. We had 10 checked bags, including a pack and play, double stroller and breast pump, plus we each had one or two carry-on's. It was insane. 

Another post to come about that lovely plane ride. Not for the faint of heart, my friends. Needless to say, I was VERY GLAD to see my sweet husband waiting for us at the Heathrow terminal. Imagine the opening scene of Love Actually- it was kind of like that.  

Like I said, more posts to come on our adventures here! I just got a UK phone and am trying to figure out how to sync it to iCloud to upload my pics. But until then, here's a pic that Liz took as we boarded the double-decker bus to go on the Harry Potter Tour at Warner Brothers Studio. It was AMAZING.