Back Home

We have now been back home just over a week and things are finally starting to settle down a bit. Calleigh has gone back to daycare today and I will be spending the day giving the house a well needed clean and tidy up. The problem we had when we arrived back home (you can read about it here) has now pretty much been sorted and it's starting to feel like home again here. 

Calleigh has settled well back into a routine, although she is still waking much earlier than usual. She also seems to be having some sort of growth spurt, she has literally not stopped eating these past couple of days. It's really good to see though as she did go off food a bit a while back, so I'm happy that shes now eating well again. Her stomach also seems to have settled down as we have had no more "accidents" since last Wednesday night. 

She does appear to be missing her family a bit though, she is always pretending to be on the phone to Wa Wa (Lana) and Jack (Nanna's Dog) and she loves to see and stroke kitty on Skype. But being back with all her toys seems to help. 

Since we got back I jumped straight into the thing I have most been looking forward to.. Updating Calleigh's room. All her furniture and other bits and pieces have been ordered and we are just waiting for them to arrive. I'm really excited to give Calleigh her own big girl room! 

I will be writing about our time in England, so look out for that to come soon! 

A Quick Update and a Short Goodbye

Well what a couple of days we have had! 

I woke up in the early hours of Tuesday morning (the day we were set to fly back to St Louis) quite ill. By the time morning came around I was feeling a bit better and ready to set off home. Then Calleigh woke up and threw up, aah! We dealt with it as best we could and then headed off to the airport. By the time we got there she had stopped being sick thank god. 

The flight went well and we only had a short delay in Newark. 

When we arrived back in St Louis we went to claim our bags, only to find that Calleigh's suitcase failed to make it back with us. It had all of her clothes and Christmas presents in so I was really gutted and worried. We were told that it would fly over on another flight and we should get it delivered to our house soon. 

Little did we know that that was the least of our problems. 

When we arrived back to our house we walked in the door and it was absolutely freezing, 28 degrees Fahrenheit! All the pipes had frozen and even the toilet bowls were frozen solid. It was a nightmare. We managed to get the heating back on and hoped that heating the house up slowly would save the pipes from bursting. Unfortunately that didn't happen and water began poring out of the pipes, flooding the basement and the utility room. At that point we managed to turn the water off and Paul decided it would be better if Calleigh and I stayed in a hotel that night. So we quickly packed up our bags and went to the Wildwood just down the road. 

We had a great nights sleep and Calleigh seemed much better in the morning. Paul picked us up in the morning and we headed back to the house, it was now lovely and warm and we stayed in until a plumber came out to fix the pipes. Calleigh had so much fun playing with all her toys all day. 

After the plumber had finished with the pipes where the water came leaking out he turned the water back on, only to find out that there was now water leaking through the ceiling and he feared there was a lot more damage than we first thought. So we faced another night without water until he could come back the next day. 

After that bombshell we seriously thought things couldn't get any worse. And that's when Calleigh became sick again, all over our bed! I was extremely worried about her because she was irritable and very tired. Shortly after cleaning her up (as best we could without a bath!) she fell asleep on the sofa and we took her up to bed. Shaking with worry and feeling a bit ill myself I went to bed too and hoped that the morning would be better. 

We took Calleigh to the doctors today to ease my worry and he seems to think she is fine and the sickness is just due to some mucus a the back of her nose. At least that was one less thing on my mind. 

Back at home the roof started leaking again, so we rang the plumber who said it may be worth getting in touch with a contractor instead. We are still waiting to arrange a time for someone to come round and assess the damage but I am trying to stay hopeful that this problem will all be sorted soon. 

I do however have some good news to tell, Calleigh suitcase turned up safe and sound with everything all still there! 

With all this being said, I'm sure you can understand that until the house is fixed and Calleigh is back to her usual self again I will not be writing any new posts, even though I have lots to write about I just feel that my time is better spent sorting out the house and attending to Calleigh. 

I'm really hoping it wont take too long! 

Happy New Year! A Look Back at 2013

Happy New Year everyone! We were thrilled to see the new year in with Family in England.

2013 was a truly amazing and exciting year for us all as a family.

In April we moved from our little home in England, away from our families, all the way to St Louis, Missouri. Calleigh was just 18 months old and was blissfully unaware of how big this move was. She adjusted really well.

You can see more of our journey here.

In May Calleigh started going to Daycare.

In June Calleigh finally called me Mommy for the first time! She also had her very first haircut.

In July we celebrated our first ever 4th of July, my Birthday and we took Calleigh to DisneyWorld in Florida.

In August family came out to visit us. We had so much fun spending time with family and showing them around our new home.

In October we went Pumpkin picking and celebrated our first American Halloween by taking Calleigh trick or treating.

In November Calleigh turned 2 years old and we celebrated with Mee maw who had come back to see us again. I also used this month to post my birth story.

In December we enjoyed playing in the snow in St Louis before flying back to England to visit family.

And that's where we are now.

We have 6 more days left here until we fly back home. I am excited to take Calleigh to London on Thursday to see my friend Charlotte. I have missed that girl! We will also be running around between family to make sure we see plenty of everyone in these last days.

I am very much looking forward to what next year has in store for us. Hopefully we will become permanent residents of the USA and have plenty more adventures to new places!

Christmas White Chocolate Cheesecake

Ingredients:

• 165g Digestive Biscuits, crushed
• 65g Butter, melted
• 6 leaves of gelatine
• 500g Crème Fraiche
• 100g Caster Sugar
• 2tsp Vanilla Extract
• 100g White Chocolate
• 250g Ricotta Cheese
• Decorations

Method:

1. Mix together the crushed biscuits with the melted butter and press into the base of a lightly oiled 18cm springform cake tin. Keep in the freezer whilst you prepare the filling.
2. Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water until really soft. Heat the crème fraiche and sugar really gently, stirring often in a saucepan until the sugar has dissolved. Now add the softened gelatine and vanilla extract to the mixture and stir until the gelatine has dissolved. Leave to cool.
3. Meanwhile, melt the chocolate over boiling water and whizz up the ricotta cheese until smooth. Then add the melted chocolate and the cream mixture and mix together.
4. Pour the mixture over the crumb base and place in the fridge to set, preferably overnight.
5. When set, carefully remove from the tin and decorate as desired.







Hello England! (Better late than never)

Oh my god this post is so much later than I expected it to be. I was really looking to post as soon as we got back to England but we haven't really sat down for longer than 5 minutes since we got back.

The flight home went as well as can be expected. There were no delays with the flight's and everything went smoothly at each airport (even if I did drag them all there 3 hours before our flight took off, oops), although I must admit that travelling with an over-excited, manic 2 year old toddler is a lot harder than travelling with a baby. Calleigh did manage to sleep on the plane but it was nothing like before where she slept almost the whole flight. She spent most of the flight wriggling around, trying to get away and looking behind us at the unlucky passengers who happened to have picked the seat behind the crazy toddler.

When we arrived at Birmingham airport I was so happy to see family there waiting for us and Calleigh was in a really good mood and gave everybody a big smile, which I think meant a lot to them. We were really tired from the flight and photo's were the last thing on my mind so even though I really wanted to get some good reunion photo's, I also wanted to get home and relax so I never took the time to take any. Something that I definitely regret now but never mind.

We are staying at my mums house for the duration of our stay which is good as Calleigh is used to be there from when we used to stay when Daddy went away and it's much better than paying for a hotel.

It has been really amazing being back with family and Calleigh is absolutely loving all the attention she is getting. She settled right in and although she starts off quite shy at first she soon warms up to people and has been having a lot of fun with everyone.

She has spent quite a few nights with Nanna and Grandad, including Christmas Eve night and has been having a great time, she always comes back really happy.

Christmas was amazing and I will be posting about it soon but for now I shall leave it there and hope that I get another five minutes.

We are over the moon about being back in England and spending so much time with family, especially at this time of year. We plan to make the most of every day we have left and make sure that everyone has plenty of Calleigh time!