Paris Adventure: Day 6 - James turns 4!!

James turned 4 today!! This birthday was especially fun because he seemed to "get it" for the first time. He asked to open a present this morning when he woke up. It was a train, of course... Daisy - a tram engine. We are missing her friend Boco if anyone happens to see him. Like we need more trains. Then we were off to school where James had cupcakes with all the friends from his new school and his new teachers.

I picked James up early for a trip to . . . the train store, you guessed it. We were going to get a bike for James for his birthday but that doesn't exactly go well on a plane to France. Trains will though!

We had dinner at McDonalds, James' choice. When James announced McDonald's as his choice, Mary Martin sang out, "E I E I O." She loves signing these days. After dinner we went back to the house for another cupcake and more presents. A few pictures to enjoy are attached. Love those 4 year old smiles!!

In Paris news, we are getting our health insurance set up through Jim's new company. It will be effective April 1, so we won't have a gap in coverage. Hooray for not having to purchase COBRA for a month! For us to purchase COBRA for our little family for one month was around
$2300.00 - and that was just medical coverage, not dental or vision. The new coverage covers us in France and at home. One thing off the massive list of things to do!

Paris Adventure: Day 4

OK so I sent an email to the casting people for House Hunters International. We will see if they want to talk to us. The website specifically mentioned buying overseas and since we are only renting, that might knock us out. But I have seen people looking for places to rent on that show. You had to submit a photo with your email describing your upcoming move. I attached three pictures, including our Halloween shot that made the Christmas Cards - which I am attaching to this post. Thought this might make the casting people think we were fun. They might think it is just sad.

No real Paris news today. Jim is working late and I am preparing for a long day in court tomorrow. I am watching a Defendant's interview - fun times. Countdown to leaving my office: 3 more work days. My girlfriends at work are taking me out for drinks on Friday and did a Top Ten list to invite others to come to have drinks with us. I will save that for tomorrow...

Top Ten Reasons Kate should NOT go to Paris...

Paris Adventure: Days 2 and 3

Day 2 of our Paris Adventure and we didn't do anything, um, to get us ready to go. We did go out to Aunt Kelly's house to let the cousins play. The pictures are from our afternoon at Aunt Kelly's. What did we do? Maddie, Mary Martin, Coach Day and Jim all napped. Kelly and I and the boys - not so much... The boys had king cake, put together puzzles and played TRAINS, of course. The cutest part was when we got to Kelly's, James ran inside and immediately found Spencer. Then he yelled, "Spencer! I missed you!"

Day 3 was a work day but Jim did return his signed letter of intent so we are official! Also, Jim and I have begun the debate over whether to live in the city or out in the suburbs. City = smaller apartment but in the heart of the action. Suburbs = bigger apartment and maybe an extra bathroom. We are taking all comments and advice...

Also anyone have thoughts on whether we should go on House Hunters International with our apartment quest? I am a little afraid of seeing myself for the next 10 years every now and again on TV. That is scary. Besides you all know Jim and I can be goofy. Why would I want that preserved for all eternity?

Paris Adventure: Day 1

We are moving to France! Holy cow! The Thorntons are moving to Paris.

I will document our adventure here and post pictures often.

Jim got his revised offer letter today so we will count today as Day 1. Today we took the kids to the post office to get their passports. We tried to accomplish this last weekend but did not have an appointment. Yes, you need an appointment these days to get a passport, at least at the post office. Who knew? And, for children, both parents need to be present with the requisite ID. Applications can be filled out online but you still need the photos with exact measurements. It probably took the same amount of time to get the photos we needed as it took at the post office.

That behind us, we headed to the train store, i.e. the toy store, to get a birthday present for a party next weekend and then lunch. For lunch we had Mexican and then home for naps. Well, Jim and Mary Martin napped. James "rested" but did not nap. We are sadly approaching the end of James' naps, I fear.

I forgot to take the camera to the post office, but here are a couple of recent pictures of the kids from our snow days and spaghetti dinner...

Mary Martin is six months old

Mary Martin turned 6 months old on Saturday! We went to the doctor today. Since I didn't have her stats, I saved this post for today.

Our little princess is 15 pounds, 9 ounces (50%) and 27 1/4 inches long (90%!!). She is long and lean just like her brother was. Her head also measures in the 50%. She is progressing right on track.

MM can sit up on her own now and enjoys watching her brother and especially loves watching the dogs lately. She is starting to get frustrated when a toy gets out of her reach. She will start rocking forward and thinks about how to get it. She will work on crawling very soon we think. Mary Martin has two teeth on the bottom. And we are grateful that is all for now. It was pretty rough getting those in.

After initial failure with squash, she has gotten the hang of the food thing. Well if you can call it food. Peas and sweet potatoes have both been big hits. The pictures of her eating are from tonight and are our first adventure with sweet potatoes. Check out her cute outfit - thanks to Meme!!

On the whole, she still sleeps well. She wakes up about one night a week and just needs a little comforting before she goes back to sleep. We call her the Princess because she is on her own schedule but likes some things a certain way. She wants warm to hot bottles and wants her peas and other food warm as well. We (OK me) are adjusting to the fact that she just does not want to be on a routine. This is completely the opposite of James who was all about a routine from about week 3.

I love the photo of her in dad's big hat. I know it is a safari-type hat but it made me think of Scarlett O'Hara for some reason - a big antebellum hat. Something about the way it is tilted I guess. Our little princess...

We had some six month photos made of MM this weekend so stay tuned for the link to those photos. We took about 400 and probably 40 will be good and 5 will be great.

The only other tidbit about MM is that lots of people have told us lately that she has my eyes. What do you think?

Traditional Christmas Cards

My grand plan this year was to have "traditional


My plan this year was to have a "traditional" Christmas card with both kids sitting on Santa's lap. I didn't even care of they were smiling, just both on Santa's lap. Well that plan quickly went out the window as James would have NOTHING to do with Santa. Would not talk to him, would not get close, would not tell him what he wanted for Christmas. The previous post shows just how close we could get James to Santa - with Jim holding him next to Santa.

On to Plan B: the kids sitting together in a Christmasy setting, smiling sweetly. The first two photos show the attempt to catch that picture...

On to Plan C: Separate but cute pictures of the kids. That works - the two individual photos are the ones that made it on the Christmas card. Maybe when they are 12 and 10 they might actually both sit on Santa's lap and smile at the same time. Until 2019...

Resolutions?

So one of my resolutions for 2010 is to post to my blog more often. You see how well that is going so far...

What have we been up to? We are slowly but surely getting our house back to normal after Christmas. There are still toys EVERYWHERE. We need to have a toy purge. But James is still enjoying everything and playing trains upstairs, downstairs, in bed, etc.

We had a couple of inches of snow last week on Thursday night. Everything was cancelled on Friday including the kids' daycare. Of course Jim was needed at work and my courtrooms didn't cancel (why? oh why?) so James spent the day with Aunt Kelly and Spencer. Me and Mary Martin headed to work and yes she went to court with me, strapped in the Bjorn. She loved the attention!

Anyway here are a couple of shots from Christmas... Will try and post more often this year I promise!