It's been a while...

So Byron is loving our new puppy! (and I secretly am too!) The pictures of them both sleeping at the top were from the first weekend we got him.  By stayed up the whole night taking him in and out for toilet breaks and attending to him when he was crying! so it was no surprise when I turned around at some point on the Sunday afternoon to find them both out for the count! It made for a cute pic! 

We haven't been doing anything else too exciting recently, which is sad! but we have been saving our pennies because in 2 DAYS Mara arrives! which is just crazy exciting! and so we have all kinds of fun things planned upon her arrival so the blogging front will be more exciting once she is here...watch this space! 

I've been learning quite a bit about the differences between England and America in the past few weeks due to my American colleagues! Some of my little finds have been quite surprising like the fact that on Sunday when I made a pass the parcel for the kids at church they had no idea what it was or how to play! in fact my American co-worker even had to google the word parcel!!! I couldn't believe it, pass the parcel is like one of the best childhood party games ever...my childhood would have certainly been more deprived without it! You know what else doesn't exist in America? Christmas crackers!!! now that was a shock...for America, who celebrate every holiday in O.T.T style, to not have Christmas crackers gracing the Christmas day table! Today I found out they don't put butter or margarine in their sandwiches ever! and sliced cucumber in a sandwich is unheard of, along with sweetcorn on pizza.  They don't know what squash is (as in Robinson's, not the vegetable) and they don't seem to have an equivalent (Kool Aid definitely does not count!) They don't have the abbreviation P.T.O, I got some very strange looks writing that on the bottom of some sheets at work! They have some pretty funny verses in 'The Wheels On The Bus' like 'the driver on the bus says move on back' and they've never heard the rhyme 'Round and Round the Garden'.  I'm getting quite good at using the words 'diaper' and 'trash' when I'm at work but then switching back to their English equivalents when I'm back at home, and I'm thinking I should just go ahead and make my own American-English dictionary since every week I learn of new meanings and pronunciations! 

Last Friday was 'Funday Friday' and we had a play park/beach/ice cream day with the boys.  Here are a few pictures we took to document the fun:

It's not always easy taking pictures of children with ASD so sometimes we have to settle for the backs of heads 'cause it's the best we're going to get!  Josiah is more than happy to pose at any time of day though and his 'cheese' face is what he does best!