German Christmas Market in England?

In Birmingham they have established a new tradition, a Frankfurter German Christmas market. I had planned to go with girlfriends and the boys while Jeff was gone, but Jackson began a fever that day. So as we were already in Birmingham for Cadbury World, we decided to go for a few hours before heading home. It turned out to be pretty authentic in feel and food. We had a really great time. The boys rode the large slide twice and we had a ball trying on hats. The big boys and mommy got new winter hats. Mommy got the Christmas pudding hat and the boys picked long scarf hats.

Cadbury World

Okay, it was the BEST TOUR EVER!!!! Just saying! When you get free candy bars and test samples and the entire place smells like chocolate you know it has to be the greatest! We decided to go with our friends the Higgins to Cadbury World to help celebrate Mike's birthday. So you get there and the entry area smells like chocolate. Then you enter the tour and no like, they hand you 10 items of Cadbury chocolate for a family of 5. They counted the baby! Then as you head through the factory it smells like chocolate. And they give you more candy along he way in case you ran out during the first part of the tour. At the end they let you in a tasting room and they pour hot tempered chocolate in a cup over your choice of ingredients and you eat it with a SPOON! It was the best day of my life I think!

So enjoy the goofy pictures of us eating our curly wurlies, which were 20 for 3 pounds sterling in the gift shop, my new favorite!

Jackson enjoyed the demonstration room where he got to pipe his name in chocolate. But his favorite hands down was the really fun playground outside.

I think Colton enjoyed it too!

A Day at Lacock Abby

I have been wanting to visit Lacock Abby for quite some time. They used the cloisters area for a lot of filming in the Harry Potter movies. Plus, it sits in this quaint little village in the countryside near Bath. We had a great day out. The weather was cold but sunny and there were no crowds. In addition to the abby and the cloisters there was an old brewery.

The architecture is amazing and we had such a good time playing around the grounds. I enjoyed photographing every inch of the place.

The boys even went down by the river and threw rocks for a while. Colton was delighted at getting out of the stroller and playing with the big boys.

Of course, at the end of the day we had to play a bit of Harry Potter and take some shots of the rooms used as classrooms:

the corridors:

and of course the courtyard areas.

After leaving the Abby we wandered around the village.

I loved the doors and the little timbered houses. I do have to admit I caved; after seeing the quaint little tea room and then the pleading look in my children's eyes, we went to McDonalds! Great day for us all! We did drive through Bath before heading home. We planned to get out and sightsee for an hour or two but the traffic downtown was unbelievable and the parking garages were full. The shopping looked incredible, so Jeff and I have decided it would be a place we would like to come for a weekend with no children. So we hit a Toys'r'us on the way back to Fairford. I have to admit I bought more for myself than for anyone else! Fun baby things to be had and of course I had to pick up a few birthday presents for our little birthday boy this week!

We Give Thanks

Thanksgiving snuck up on the White family this year. Jeff was gone for the week and a half before Thanksgiving and the boys were sick so we went to friends for Thanksgiving. We had a neighborhood celebration of sorts. It was fun to spend Colton's first Thanksgiving with some of our med group family the Higgins and Kresin families. Here are some pictures from the evening.

I loved Kathy's creative use of her laundry room for the "bar". Gotta love living in small spaces!

The Higgins are big Steelers fans and apparently the brainwashing is working on Connor!

Barbie Bunco

Each year the OCSC here does a jewelry bunco event. Last year was the retro bunco night where I won with my pregnant hippie. So hoping to outdo myself from last year, I wanted to come up with something really fun when I found out this year's theme was Barbie bunco. My friend and neighbor Kathy Higgins and I decided to go as twin barbies when we found these barbie t-shirts at a local shop in Bury St. Edmunds and cheap, tacky, Barbie-esq jewelry to wear. The purple plastic flower rings were AWESOME! The best part though was the sparkly stretch pants we bought the morning of the event. They rocked! It should be illegial to have this much fun! Things I have learned from this event, I do not ROCK platnium blonde hair and fake eyelashes make me look like a drag queen! Just sayin'!

My ROCKING Barbie neigbors!


My friend Amy was Barbie in a box.

My friend Wendi Lawlor as bad attitude Barbie and Sarah Hall as Oscar/Red Carpet Barbie. And my friend Monica who didn't stay to play so we called her Party Pooper Barbie!