We're Ready!

We've got the baby clothes all washed and put away, the car has been vacuumed, the family blog is finally caught up to the present, and I'm constantly cleaning the house and getting our homeschool plans organized for the year (nesting is exhausting, I tell ya),  and we're so excited for our little guy to make his appearance. He seems to be a little acrobat, though, and isn't staying in the right position for birth. I was scheduled for an ECV last week, but the night before the procedure, I thought I felt him move his head down. I couldn't tell if he was still head down the next morning, but when we went to the hospital they did an ultrasound, and sure enough, he was. So we didn't have to do the ECV after all. Unfortunately, I think he only stayed that way for a couple of days. I'm anxious for my next appointment, so we can find out for sure what position he is in now. I have a feeling he'll be keeping us guessing right up until the last hour. But however he ends up in our arms, we're just excited for him to be in them!

More of our Summer

It's been a great summer, but it has sure gone by fast! Although, this last month sure doesn't seem to be going very fast, but I guess that's just what happens when you're almost 38 weeks pregnant and you can barely move and your clothes don't fit anymore. Anyway, here's a short summary of our summer.

The kids found a slug and decided to make him a pet. The named him Froley. You can't see him in this picture because he was caked with dirt. He lasted for a day.

We got a lot of yummy raspberries in our backyard this year. Once they started getting ripe, the kids loved going out to pick them. Grandpa helped too.

Even my little boy got in on the raspberry pickin' action. But he wouldn't eat them. 

The kids did lots of sidewalk chalk art on our back patio... when it wasn't raining.

My girl made a yummy side dish to go with our dinner one night. She found the recipe in a cookbook, made a shopping list, and then I helped her make it. It was called "Polka-dot Rice" and it was yummy.

We visited the Cologne Cathedral, and got in our workout for the week by climbing about a million stairs to get to the top. It was worth every step, though. The bells actually started ringing while we were in the bell tower! The kids didn't like that so much, so hub took them out, but I stayed for a minute, which was about all my ears could take. 

We had our traditional flag toast for breakfast on the 4th.

Hub and I went to a concert where I accidentally spit chewed up food on the Flammkuchen we were eating before the concert started. It was disgusting, but made us both laugh really hard. We were probably the only people there not drinking alcohol (this is Germany, after all), yet I'm sure I appeared to be the one person there who'd had a bit too much to drink. Embarrassing. Anyway, hub caught me with the camera between laughs.

We went for walks in the beautiful countryside around our village. This was a walk we took with Grandpa one day. 

My girl built a "fairy house." This was a really fun activity. Go visit www.fairyhouses.com for some fun pictures of fairy houses.

The kids got to be little archeologists and dig up some of our stuff that I buried in the sandbox. My girl is learning about ancient history this year, so that week we were learning about how archeologists learn about the past. They loved it, and keep asking to do it again.

A couple things that I don't have pictures of: swimming lessons, and trips to a couple of really fun parks in the cities near us. My dad was the photographer for those activities, so I'll have to steal some pictures from him.

So, that is just a little glimpse into our summer so far. I'm still waiting for some pictures from my brother from their visit. I'd better start nagging him. :)

Laundry? What laundry?

Whew, it's been a busy couple of months! I finally decided to just ignore the huge pile of laundry that needs to be folded, let my boy and girl play (and fight it out) on their own, stick a movie in for my little boy (he hasn't been feeling well today anyway... constipation issues... poor guy, he deserves a movie), postpone making a pizza crust for dinner tonight, and instead, just sit in front of the computer and do some blogging. I am so prone to writing run-on sentences, by the way... in case you hadn't noticed. Anyway, here's some of what we've been up to the last couple of months.

We found out that we're having a boy! I love this picture of his cute little hand. I'm 30 weeks along now, but feel like about 39 weeks. I can't believe I still have 10 more weeks of growing to do. My belly got huge very fast this time. Maybe it will just stay the same size from here on out? Yeah, probably not.

Hub has been gone a lot for about the last five or six months. He was going to be gone again for our anniversary (apparently we chose the wrong month to get married), so before he left, we took a quick trip to Italy. We went to Pisa. We were there for a total of about 24 hours, but it was still worth it because it was a cheap flight and a lot of fun! We couldn't resist doing the typical tourist thing and take pictures of us holding up the leaning tower, only we thought it would be even better if my baby belly did it. Looking at this picture, I'm amazed at how much more enormous my belly is now. I can't believe I felt like it was so big then... it is SO much bigger now.

I turned 30, and the nice ladies of the Relief Society presidency gave me this giant cupcake, which the kids and I enjoyed very much. I must say, that at 30, I feel a lot like this cupcake looks... round and droopy, but full of happiness... because everybody knows cupcakes are full of happiness.

We had this for lunch a few times. Rice cakes with peanut butter spread on top, raisins for the eyes, nose and mouth, and fruits and veggies for everything else. A favorite lunch around here now.

We went to the Black Forest one day, and came home with a cuckoo clock. It's hanging on our wall now, and whenever the kids hear it start to cuckoo, they race over to watch the little bird come out and flap its wings. I was happy to find out that the cuckoo can be turned off, so at night, we turn it off and make that bird stay inside its clock. It's amazing how loud that cuckoo sounds in the middle of the night.

Daddy came home from his final work trip (at least for awhile), and then immediately left again to attend his great-grandmother's funeral. When he came home, he brought some toys from his great-grandma's house that he used to play with as a child. The kiddos especially loved playing with the legos.

We finally put some sand in our sandbox, and the boys were in heaven. They got to play in it for probably just a few days before it started raining a lot. We hadn't had any rain for weeks before that, as you can tell from the yellow patches of grass in the picture. But now that the sun has come back, the kids have rediscovered the sandbox. My girl loves it too, although for the last couple of days, she has been more interested in looking for slugs on the underside of the sandbox lid, than actually playing in the sand.

We watched bees on the flowers. I think the bee flew away before I took this picture.

Snowflake learned how to open the door of her cage outside. Luckily, the hutch was attached to it, so she didn't escape. By the way, Snowflake has been a pain lately, but that's another story for another day.

I turned our unused coffee table into a bench. I wanted to take our rocking chair upstairs for when the baby arrives, but that left us with very little seating downstairs. I decided we might as well put the coffee table to good use, instead of having it just take up space in our house. It's not the most comfortable place to sit, but it works.

The kids and I also painted some shoe shelves that we bought at the hardware store to make shelves for their toys. I wanted to utilize the space under their loft beds, instead of having their toys taking up space in their Schranks (German closets).

One of these shelves was totally crooked when we put it together, but it still works great for holding toys.

My girl made me this sugar scrub at girl scouts one day. It was my Mother's Day gift. I'll have to post the recipe. It was nice.

And last but not least, my brothers came to visit. They just left earlier this week and we really miss them. We had so much fun with them here! I'll have to post the pictures from their visit later because I let my brother handle all the photos, since he had his camera out all the time anyway. It was nice to not have to juggle my camera along with my kids for a change. I'm excited to get a disc of pictures from him in the mail soon... hint, hint... if you happen to read this, J.

Even though it was sad to see my brothers go, we are so lucky because my dad came too, and he's actually here to stay. Since my mom got a job here and will be staying for awhile, my dad decided to come on over and get a job here too. I've got such lucky kids... they get to see two of their grandparents all the time. It's too bad we're so far from the other two, though.

Hub and I are lucky too. In fact, I better go get that pizza crust made so the kids can have a pizza party with Grammy and Grandpa tonight while hub and I go on a date. How great is that?

Benelux Trip

Well, it's been a few weeks since our trip, but I'm finally getting around to posting about it. It was just a quick trip, but a lot of fun. We packed a lot in for three days, and for having three little kids with us. We definitely made some good memories. We did a Benelux trip (Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg). Everything is so close together here in Europe. It makes it easy to see a lot in a short amount of time.

Before the trip, I prepared a bunch of food to take along... we like to travel cheap... although, that's tough to do when one tank of gas cost us about $200... gas prices in the States really aren't so bad after all, huh? Also to cut costs, and to make for a more memorable experience, we stayed in a little B&B in Belgium for two nights. It was our home base to go see everything else. It was a little farm house with chickens, sheep, and cats. The ladies there also cooked yummy organic food from their garden, so we ate dinner there one night and it was amazing... squash soup, a leek/potato/cheese dish, and some chocolate pie for dessert. It was also a lot of fun to talk to the Belgian ladies (we learned that Flemish is actually Dutch... in northern Belgium people speak Dutch, and in the south they speak French). These ladies spoke Dutch so we learned a few Dutch words. There were also a couple of cute little girls that lived there, so it was fun for the kids to interact with them. The kids liked visiting the chickens and goats and watching the cats. There were a couple of cats that looked a lot like the cat my family had when I was growing up, and that died just last year. The kids loved that cat so they enjoyed seeing some that looked so much like him.

Some of the things we did:

We visited the Luxembourg American Cemetery (a huge cemetery where soldiers killed in that area in WWII are buried). General Patton is also buried there, as he commanded soldiers there during that time, and died there later on, after the war. We also saw a German cemetery there. It was strange to walk through the two cemeteries and think that many of those soldiers had probably fought with and killed one another. And in different circumstances, many of them probably could have been great friends. I take comfort in the thought that maybe some of them are now.

We also drove through Luxembourg City, where I snapped a picture of the statue of the large, colorful woman. We spent several hours in Brugge, Belgium where we tried some Belgian chocolate (it tasted like chocolate) and a Belgian waffle (it tasted like a waffle), and saw some really beautiful medieval architecture. It was freezing that day, and as prepared as I thought I was for the trip, I didn't pack hats or gloves and we just had thin jackets. You can see our freezyness quite clearly in the picture below. We also visited the Bastogne Historical Center (which is all about the Battle of the Bulge), Waterloo (where Napoleon was defeated), and the Valkenburg Caves and Castle.

It was so much fun, and we're excited to plan another trip soon!

(Probably not for awhile though, as Hub is going to be totally bogged down with studying for the next couple of months.)

Our February so far.

February began with us waking up one morning realizing that our house was colder than usual and we had no hot water. We've had quite a bit of warmer weather this last couple of months, but this happened to be during a really cold week. Fortunately, we only had to go without heat and hot water for a few days. Hub's office building used to be a barracks so there is a shower room in there, which came in handy because we were able to go there one night for a warm shower. 

Here are some of the other things that have been going on here this month:

(One of the side effects of this first trimester of pregnancy was lack of motivation... one result was that I didn't want to bother with my big camera, so took our little camera along most of the time. Unfortunately, the pictures turned out not so great.)

The kids got to go climbing one day (just the older two, of course). The boy wasn't really into it yet... he just climbed once and then was ready to just watch, but the girl loved it. She climbed all the way to the top of one wall, and then we went back another day (no camera that time) and she climbed to the top of two different walls. We'll definitely be doing this more often.

We also took a trip to a fantastic science museum. The kids (and Hub) had a blast checking out all the sciency gadgets. Things like a giant yo-yo, a rope that stuck straight up in the air and did some crazy dancing when you touched it, a hovercraft, and a race track where you could race different animals, including a sperm... which was odd, but the kids just thought it was a snake. :)

Some of the other things we did:

Ate some delicious yogurt, worked on Math on IXL (I love that website), made some more fun shaped little loaves of bread, and watched the pets (one of the kids' favorite pastimes). Squeaky, the baby guinea pig has really adopted Snowflake, the bunny, as his mother. In the picture above he was taking a nap on her, until I disturbed him by getting down to take a pic.

Our Valentine's Day was a lot of fun. The kids and I made some Valentines to take to a party we went to. We also took a pasta casserole and some mini-bagels with strawberry cream cheese. Hub gave me some beautiful flowers and he gave the girl a rose. All the kids also got some special Valentines after church on Sunday (Hub had to leave for a trip that evening, so we celebrated a day early).

Next up... a report of the trip that we'll be taking this weekend. Happy February!

January in Review

Our January days mostly consisted of homeschooling, Girl Scouts, gymnastics, a homeschool P.E. class that started up in January, some video chatting with family in the States, cleaning, cooking, and taking care of our new pets, Snowflake, Squeaky, and Whiskers (the bunny we got for Christmas and the two guinea pigs we got shortly thereafter). On Christmas day we were happy to find out that we are going to have another baby at the end of the summer. We're all very happy about it, but it also means that I spent January feeling very tired and doing a lot of gagging. I'll be going in for the first ultrasound soon, and hopefully we'll come away with a good picture so the new little one can make his/her first appearance on the blog.

Here are some pictures of some of the things that happened in January.

I went to check on the kids before I went to bed one night, and I thought it was SO cute the way my boy was hugging his little doggy, which he has named Brown... very fitting.  The dog actually belonged to me or my brother when we were little... we had two... gifts from our Grandma. Anyway, I had to grab the camera and take a pic. My girl looked adorable too, snuggled up with her current favorite stuffed animal, a little unicorn.

Ahh... so peaceful. At times like this, it's hard to believe that they can drive me so bonkers during the day. :)

We went ice skating twice during January. It was so much fun! Last time we went was last winter in Korea, and before that I hadn't been ice skating in years. The kiddos loved it too. They got to use some big penguins for the first hour, and after that, they were on their own. Grammy is actually pretty good at ice skating and she taught the boy to do some spins. He loved practicing his spins after that. Baby boy got to wander around with Daddy and eat snacks while the rest of us skated. Poor Hub has some really flat feet and the skates really hurt, so he took over babysitting duty. Hence the lack of pictures of him.

1 The happy girl stopping for a picture.

2 Grammy teaching the boy to spin.

3 Me and my girl with Grammy and my boy in the background.

4 Grammy caught mid-almost fall.

5 Me and my boy.

6 Baby boy peeking through the wall.

7 The girl and Grammy.

Baby boy loves to help me vacuum. Hub snapped a picture of baby boy and I vacuuming one day last month.

We had some really great weather in January. There were several days when it felt like spring. It was a really nice break from winter after all the snow we had in December. The snow is fun and all, but I was really ready for some sunshine and to be able to go somewhere without having to spend fifteen minutes scraping the car first. One evening, we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and go for a walk through our village.

1 Setting out.

2 We made it to the edge of the village.

3 Checking out some German construction. Most homes here are built with cinderblocks with a wooden roof. I like how simple they are.

Somebody had drawn some fun pictures on the street.

(Guess I didn't really need to number those pics.)

View of sunset from the village.

All through January, baby boy could often be found wearing boots, carrying a blanket and a bowl. He loves to put on shoes... his and anyone else's. He also loves to eat and is constantly asking for "deeoh" (cereal), or some other snack. I often give him bowls of dry cereal to eat, and of course, he doesn't want to sit down to eat it... I feel like a spend a large portion of my time sweeping these days. He also loved to wear his sister's blue hat, and I think he was pretty proud when he learned to put it on all by himself.

And now that February is almost half over, I have completed my second blog post of 2011. I think I should probably try to not let entire months go by without any posts from now on. :) We'll see.