GOODBYE MISS ARTEMIOU!

Today is the last day of school for Lilly and the last day with her teacher, Miss Artemiou.

In Italy we have a system where the kids are taught by the same teacher for the first 5 years of schooling, but here in England kids change teacher every year.

For some reason Miss Artemiou was "allowed" to be with them for two years in a row.

She has been a wonderful teacher, and we are grateful for all the help she gave Lilly as she tried (and wonderfully succeeded) to shed most of her shyness away!

Miss Artemiou has been a "local" all her life, she was a pupil in that same school (not that long ago, ehehe...), it's funny to think that she even had the same ballet teacher Lilly and Kim had not so long ago!

It must be so sweet to teach in the same school you attended as a child.

Until last year the welfare lady (a sort of school nurse) was the same that used to put plasters on Miss Artemiou!

Even though we are excited about Lilly's next year teacher (that is said to be particularly good), we are sad to say goodbye to "our" Miss Artemiou, as she has been a warm, considerate, part of all our lives for these past two years!

Lilly and Miss Artemiou

Cooking sensation!

Last week I wasn't feeling very well, so Lilly and Daddy took it on themselves to cook dinner for all of us... The result looked and tasted amazing, they prepared a lovely meal... plaice, salad and potatoes, but the most beautiful thing was to hear them giggling in the kitchen (a kitchen that needed some seeerious mum's attention the next day!).

Kim and I were watching you tube videos in the living room and wandering what they were up to when Lilly showed up covered in corn starch!

So sweeet!

Actually... why am I cooking dinner every night when I have such talented husband and children?! mmmm... mummy might take another cooking break soon!

The apron reads : "Mum, today it's my turn to cook!"

A slightly surreal experience...

Kim's end of the year concert... actually, it was dressed up as a "multicultural evening", celebrating all the different cultures represented in her school... apparently 42 languages are spoken and kids from lots of different countries and many many different religions happily attend the school (including 4 from our church, and that must be some sort of a record for a London school!)

Anyway... the first act of the evening was the most bizarre and to be frank embarrassing thing I have seen in a long time!

This gloriously camp guy accompanied by a slightly overweight black woman and someone that looked like a "scary bondage mistress" came on stage, all half naked in plumes and sequins, performing Brazilian, Indian and Egyptian dances... They were remarkably good, but a rather scary trio! (the costumes were amazing though, I decided that Andrew and I MUST get matching sequins tops one of these days... they look like lots of fun!). All the parents were very confused as we were under the impression that the night was all about the kids and their performances and those were far too old and "consumed" to be kids, so we figured that they must have been teachers, but that was somehow an even scarier prospect... anyway, as I said they definitely were very very good, so we sort of enjoyed the "Vegas" style show... (Well Lilly and I did... Kim had her "We are not amused victorian look on" and Andrew was at his sweetest... too embarrassed to even look at the stage where the gay man in tight hot pants and plumes, or the woman in skimpy bra and thongs were happily strutting their stuff in front of us, and tried to look everywhere else but on stage... eheheh he soooo reminded me of my dad!...) somehow though all the other man in the audience (including the 11-17 year old kids) didn't have that problem, and were more than dutiful in their support with the school, and gave the performance their undivided attention... ;-) !

...you had to be there to fully appreciate it!

Second act of the evening was a dance by some young girls (I must admit very well done) dancing at the rythm of "Roxanne" a song from Moulin Rouge, lovely song, lovely costumes and very well executed, but I am sure that in the history of music there are better songs than ones with lyrics like :

"Roxanne - You don't have to put on that red light, Walk the streets for money, You don't care if it's wrong or if it is right - Roxanne - You don't have to wear that dress tonight - Roxanne - You don't have to sell your body to the night..." maybe... juuuuust maybe not the most appropriate song for a bunch of 12 year old girls to dance to...

Act three, something that maybe wanted to represent the "rap culture" but to most parents in the audience appeared a glorified "gang culture" extravaganza with boys dancing (again very well) to rather inappropriate lyrics...

Those three acts left me somewhat drained and unwilling to draw my next breath...

But I have to admit that after that the evening really took off and there were some adorable performances, Irish, Greek, Bulgarian and Indian dances, a chinese dragon dance... a couple of band performing songs and then, the grand finale!

Kim, my Kimmy accompanying the whole of the teacher's body on the keyboard, singing "Let it be" (by the way... yes... we did see how you let things be... the first three acts were all about that!) but it was a magical moment! Her first public performance... She looked wonderful, totally in control and relaxed! The only annoying thing is that the choir was so loud and the kids screaming sooooo piercing that you could hardly hear her playing, but you still could, and she did wonderfully!

I was and am so proud of her! She is doing so well with her music and after Daddy's concert in the park last week, to go and have my baby perform yesterday , well... I can still feel tears coming up in my cheeks!

I'M WITH THE BAND!

Do you remember when, a couple of weeks ago we went to the RAF museum for father's day?

We heard a lovely wind orchestra performing a vast repertoire of 40's music... When we came home I was still thrilled by the lovely day and I decided to check their website out... They are called the "Kew Wind Orchestra" and they are the top amateur wind band in the UK, they won a bunch of awards and entered competitions all over Europe... so what did I do? I sent an e-mail to the director posing as Andrew, writing about his training and availability to play as a sub if they needed him, and guess what? The next day e-mails started pouring in, asking him to substitute for the second flute at a concert that same Saturday... so he did!

I drove him to rehearsal on Thursday and we went as a family to hear daddy play on Saturday afternoon, it was magical! I always had a soft spot for musicians and being married to one makes me feel so special! We arrived at the venue before it was open to the public and we for the first time I could say "I'm with the band!" I felt such a groupie!

ROCK OOOON!

Ooops... wrong kind of band... anyway... it was great, just that poor daddy was baking and almost got sunburned... all dressed in black under the baking sun! (it was an open air concert) anyway we had a great day and as usual we were very proud of him!

SOOO PROUD OF MY BABIES!

English kids go to school until the 22nd July, and this next few weeks are filled with celebration evenings, award ceremonies, bbq's, picnics, concerts, sports days and so on and on and on and on...

Last week Lilly had a sports day, she did very well.. she ran and jumped and crawled and was very happy and absolutely exhausted after it!

I am very proud of her because she has never been much of a physical girl, but this past year she has really tried hard to overcome her shyness and now she has gained enough confidence and enjoys all aspects of PE, and that's making life much easier at school for her!

Plus she is so cute when she runs and "huff and puffs", it's such a pleasure to look at her having so much fun with her friends!

Jumping sensation

The cutest runner ever!

After the race... too quick even to take a picture!

Then few days later it was Kim's turn!

We went to an award ceremony at her school, we were assured by her that beside the diamond certificate for "excellent behavior throughout the year", given to those students that have been particularly good, she wouldn't have gotten any other awards... so we went just being happy to show our support and meet some of the teachers and parents...

I didn't really know what to expect being this Kim's first year at high school, all I knew is that both boys and girls had to dress formal, dress for the girls and shirt and tie for the boys.

Kim was very happy (any excuse to go shopping!)

Kim and her friend Yanni all made up!

We had to get tickets weeks prior to the event... When we got in we were greeted by teachers in black robes, were seated in a big stuffy room and told of what an incredible year this has been... The headmistress said that this is a particularly good year group, full of high achievers and that they are all pushing each other and progressing very well...

Andrew and I were obviously very pleased to hear that, then I started flicking through the programme and realized what the night was all about... Teachers nominated 6 pupils in the whole school for each category, Oscar style :

"... and the nominees for the English award are: ...."

The great thing was that the kids didn't know who was nominated for what, so there was a great excitement every time that the names of the six nominees appeared on the screen! Andrew and I had printed programs and saw that Kim was nominated for the music award... my baby!

Out of the whole school... I started crying there and then! and when the names of the two winners appeared on the big screen and her name was on it, I was in such a state! I tried to hide it, you know, not to embarrass her in front of everyone, but I was exploding of pride!

I mean... she doesn't even take lessons! She just picks up music very easily, so much so that she has been selected to play the piano at a school concert in a few days... anyway she has been deemed the most musically talented child in the school, and I can melt right here and now just writing this! It means so much to me! And I completely give the credit of her discovering this talent to Andrew... We had a piano, a violin, a flute and few recorders in the house for over 8 years, but she never really shown much interest in any of them, but as soon as he showed up, thanks to his example and inspiration, she started playing beautifully! So thank you Daddy... once more we acknowledge what a wonderful blessing is to have you in our lives!

... and baby makes 4 1/2

Ok I know that most of you already know this (awww... the mighty power of Facebook) but we're having a boy!!!A boy!!! a boy!!!

Ok Sara calm down... ohhh I still get so excited just thinking about that! You know... I would have been this excited even knowing it was a girl, but... having had two girls already and with the incredible history of girls in my family, I was not really expecting a boy, and when they told me I was soooo happy! (and cried accordingly...)

Andrew is also getting exited now, even though (like my father) at the beginning he would have liked to have pigtails and cute pink dresses to play with, he can now picture himself with a little boy, and I am so happy for that!

I didn't mention the pregnancy too much so far, but now that I am almost 30 weeks I think I can safely allow myself to talk about it...

I have had my fair share of pregnancy troubles in my life... not to get into too much details, but this is pregnancy

n°13... so you can imagine how happy I am to be 30 weeks with everything looking reasonably well!

This pregnancy actually started very very well, I was tired but not too nauseous, the baby was active from very early on and that was very reassuring... I was happy and well!

Then, four weeks ago as I was shopping at the mall, I started having early contractions, so I ended up in hospital, thankfully they stopped by themselves, but the doctors gave me steroids just to help the baby's lungs develop quicker in case he decided to make an early entrance (or a quick exit... depends which way you want to look at it!)

Then after few days I started feeling unwell, I couldn't breathe anymore... I ended up in hospital again, where they told me I had two massive PE (pulmonary embolisms) blood clots that travelled from "somewhere" one to the lung and the other one just at the entrance of the heart... now it sounds scary, but apparently it's quite common in pregnancy, and I will be fine as long as I keep up some medications for the time being...

Then, once again I started feeling really unwell, and this time we found out that it was a reaction to sugar (similar to gestational diabetes) quite normal considering the operation I had two years ago, but quite scary until we knew what was going on... now that we know what it is, it's much easier to keep it under control and I feel happy and well again!

So... today I went to meet the consultant that is going to follow me until the delivery and I was soooo relieved by the fact that - for once - I have a doctor that sounds like she really knows what she is talking about, and what she didn't know she says she is going to find out...

To be in the hands of someone that makes you feel good and reassured it's such a comfort... So, for now I still have to take it easy and be careful not to overdo things, but I will be fine!

The baby is absolutely fine, we had scans and test and even though I didnt gain any weight through

this pregnancy, he is growing well...

We decided on his name few months ago... He is going to be called Adam Benjamin Stamp!

So this are baby Adam's first 8 months in a nutshell! He kicks a lot and is very regular with it... 8 in the morning, 9 in the evening and 4 in the morning! He has spectacular reactions to music, (I swear I felt him kicking rhythmically few times), and every time daddy puts his hand on my tummy he goes all shy and stops doing whatever he was doing! That's why when he is really punching me hard I call Andrew to put his hand on me, so that the baby quiets down! Let's just hope he has the same effect when he's born, that would be soooo handy! He already has everything he needs and could wish for waiting for him (including nappies and wipes!) and his mummy can't wait to have him out to start spoiling him!

Kim and Lilly are getting increasingly excited, talking about him all the time... and daddy!? Well... I think he finally got over the "pigtails and pink dresses" and he's ready, waiting with a Batman costume for his first son!

RAF Museum, Hendon

Oh my goodness, once more I have so much catching up to do... these past few weeks have been sooo busy!

But let's start with today....

First of all

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to all our friends out there!

So... for days I wracked my brain to find out something to do for daddy on his first Father's day here, something that we could all enjoy and fairly local (I am a bit "wobbly" on my feet these days and don't want to go to far away, just in case...) and I remembered that we live just 10 minutes from the RAF Museum (Royal Air force). I checked their website and to my delight found out that this week end they were holding all sorts of exciting events to commemorate both D-day (it was at the beginning of June) and Father's day! I was sooooo happy!

It's funny, because the girls and I had always wanted to go, but somehow never managed to before... all three of us have - in a way or another - an "army oriented" mind: I've always been passionate about all sorts of weapons and uniforms, Kim can't wait to join the Army cadets in a few months and Lilly, well.. Lilly in my opinion is perfect "cold blood killer" material, she can do the worst jobs and then turn around with her big Bambi eyes, a sweet smile and you would never even think she IS the ultimate weapon herself!

Now that we have a daddy that actually LOVES airplanes and - above all - helicopters we couldn't postpone going to visit it any longer!

Because of the special celebrations on the grounds there were soldiers and nurses dressed in period uniforms, some of them walked around with their rifles and we were allowed to touch them, hold them and pretend to shoot at things!

Forgive me my hair.... (I certainly intend to try to!)

I think the guy is still laughing at this heavily pregnant woman getting all excited to hold an old rifle!

I'm telling you.... she could kill you just with a smile!

Career girl... this one already has a technique!

She really took to it like a duck to water!

Then we went on one of three big indoor hangars and there was a concert of music from those times... there a wind orchestra (lots of flutes for daddy!) was seated underneath a huge bomber airplane and performed wonderfully!

After that, three girls dressed in full 40's costume with hair and microphone to boot came "on stage" and sang some of the nicest songs of that period, starting with one of Andrew's and my favorites "The white cliffs of Dover!"

The funny thing is that that was the very same song that played as we walked inside the tunnels in the "white cliffs of Dover" themselves a couple of moths ago... so... it meant even more for us, both in terms of memories, and actual love for the song!

The girl had such a great fun trying the weapons and playing in the interactive area, Daddy had fun looking and being able to go in one of the military helicopters and I absolutely adored the costumes and the music!

So... all in all a great day out for everyone!

It was even more magical because it was a new thing for al of us, and going in as a family on "Father's day weekend" meant much more to all of us than it would have at any other time in the past!

All three of us girls are very aware to how lucky we are to have such a man in the family, every day we are amazed thinking to how great our life is, how different, how much richer and want to say to this amazing man...

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY DADDY

WE LOVE YOU!