Meredith Carson... Across the Pond and Back Again...

Yes, Harvey opens tonight. This is probably part of the reason I have been absent from my blog for far too long. Tonight is the night...ready or not. Veta, Myrtle and Elwood Photo taken backstage at our dress rehearsal

Monday morning has brought with it then end of the Easter holidays. Emma and Sophie are back in school, and thankfully our morning went rather smoothly. Much to my surprise, I didn't have to drag Sophie out of bed at all. In fact, she came up behind me at about quarter to eight and shouted, "Boo!" When I turned around, she was already dressed in her school uniform. Way to start off a Monday! The sun is shining, and the birds are singing and no one had a strop this morning...well, only me a little, but I do have an excellent excuse. Blame it on the hormones. I did remind Emma on the way to school that she was allowed to tell our secret now, so of course, as soon as we walked through the school gates, she told everyone: friends, acquaintances and strangers, "MY MOM IS HAVING A BABY!!" It turns out I am not the only one. The mum of one of Emma's best friend's is also expecting a baby this fall... as well as another of my friends who thought she cou...

Today was one of those really great days. Today was the kind of day I used to imagine when I envisioned myself with children (before I actually had children). We woke up at a somewhat leisurely hour and all showered and got dressed in our favorite dresses. The girls were giddy with excitement since the three of us had tickets to see Mary Poppins at the Wales Millennium Centre. Later in the morning we went to the train station and headed for Cardiff Bay. We had plenty of time to spare, so we scouted out the perfect place for lunch: Bellini's overlooking the water. Sophie ordered her own lunch (in perfect Italian): canneloni spinaci, Emma had spaghetti polpette and I had pizza funghi. Everything was fabulous. If you don't believe me, ask Sophia as she ate all of her canneloni, three slices of my pizza and about half of Emma's spaghetti. She still had room, of course, for two scoops of vanilla gelato afterwards. Perhaps she is having sympathetic pregnancy symptoms? After a mo...

And putting on my big girl pants. Yes, I have finally announced to the world that we are indeed expecting baby number three, and probably just in time. The belly seems to be popping out quite quickly this time. The other day, my Sophie, who is five, was writing and drawing. I caught a glimpse of one of her papers on which she had written, "Big Fat Mum." I asked hopefully, "Sophie, did you write this because you were mad at me?" "Nope." She responded casually. In other words, "You are just big and fat, as a matter of fact." Oh well, this is what is supposed to happen during pregnancy, no? And according to my ante-natal check today, I am still in the "green/ healthy" range for BMI, so it can't be too bad. I am actually just happy that food sounds good again. I really struggled during my first trimester and spent lots of time choking down the only foods that seemed palatable: cheese, bread and Rice Krispies. It was an Annive...

What a lovely Easter we've had today! Hope you have too!!

Blue skies smiling at me! Nothing but blue skies do I see! We are loving our sunshine here this Easter weekend. Living in Great Britain really makes one appreciate the sun when it decides to grace us. Today we went for a bike ride on the Taff Trail and stopped sporadically to explore nature's beauty. Sophie biking with her Dad George and Sophie looking out over the River Taff. The girls loved finding this special spot off the beaten path. The ground was covered in little yellow wild flowers. We dubbed it the Secret Fairy Glade. A beautiful day!

Since George was able to take the day off work on Thursday, we decided that an adventure was in order. We packed up the car and drove to Longleat just on the other side of Bath, and we had a great day. We visited a real bat cave, saw all sorts of animals in the petting area...including otters who were feasting on baby chicks...oh my! We took a Safari boat and saw sea lions, hippos and Nico the lowland gorilla on "Gorilla Island." We also ventured through the giant hedge maze and were luckily led by George who has a much better sense of direction than I. We didn't even need to send up red sparks with our magic wands in order to be rescued by Professor Dumbledore. After a really nice wander around the grounds, we headed back to the car, as we had saved the best for last. We were at last ready to drive through the Safari Park. I was not prepared for how fantastic this would be. We were so close to all of the animals. When we were driving through the lions area, ...

Yesterday was our eighth wedding anniversary, and I am afraid that once again, no grand gestures were made. Not that I am complaining; I think maybe the Carsons are just not grand gesture kinds of people. George did bring me the beautiful flowers pictured above along with a funny story about buying them, and I was able to make a really nice dinner for the first time in weeks AND prepare George's favorite: doo doo balls. I mean honestly, is there anything that says, "I love you," more than a fresh steaming batch of doo doo balls? But...apart from that, George had to work all day and I had play rehearsal in the evening, so we didn't have that big romantic evening that I think we were supposed to have. Actually, I don't know that we've ever had a "proper" romantic anniversary. We really got off on the wrong foot with our first anniversary which had me on strict bedrest with my pregnancy with Emma.... and then, life just sort of happened. Every y...

Last night, as she requested, Sophie celebrated her birthday in a posh Italian cafe. Her birthday meal included some of everyone else's dinner as well as her own pasta with cream and proscuitto. That's my girl! She is pictured below inhaling before blowing out the candles on her fab chocolate gelato dessert (just in case you thought she looked terrified--this is not the case). Here is the happy birthday girl, her proud papa and the toothless wonder, Emma jumping in at the last minute. Can you feel the love tonight??

The title of this blog reflects the first words I heard out of my daughter Emma's mouth this morning. Crap! I decided that Emma was up later than usual last night. The tooth fairy must have buzzed by, seen that she was still up, and headed off to collect the other teeth on her list. I conferred with some other mothers today, and they concurred. This is surely what happened. The tooth fairy is bound make it tonight. Yes, not to be outshone on her sister's fifth birthday, Emma made the day special for herself as well by losing her fourth tooth (top front right since I know my mom will want to know). She looks awfully cute and thinks it's quite funny that she now has a bit of a hard time saying her "th"s. Her class presented a school assembly this morning in which she had several lines and read the Mother's Day entry from her journal. She was brilliant, wonky "th"s and all. At the end of the assembly, her teacher, Mrs. Richards, brought in the chicks wh...