Week 43

Aiden decided it wasn't enough to watch Connor cry last year when he stuck his tongue to a pole... he had to try it himself.

Aiden was invitied to go rock climbing with a friend from school. He was so nervous to go and asked his friend if his Mom could come! I had to stay with Whitney because Jeremy was at scouts with Connor. I felt bad "making " him go but I'm glad I did... he came back and said "I had a blast!!!" Here he is with his friends right before they left.


Meanwhile... Connor was at the Space Derby.


Even Santa came

He had time to see the little siblings too!


Despite all of Jeremy's efforts... Connor still got last place. :(

In the end he still had lots of fun. He LOVES scouts!!

After scouts I went into the library really quick to return some books. I turned around and Whitney was gone. Within about 20 seconds she found her way to the kids area, lined her little library friends up and started reading them a book. She didn't waste any time. lol!

Ludwigsburg Palace

This week we took a bus to Ludwigsburg for a tour of the Palace.

The Palace started out as just a hunting lodge but the Duke liked it so much it became his home, as well as the home to other Dukes and Kings.


Today it is used for Weddings, among other events. The day we were there a bride and groom were rehearsing for their big day. It seemed like such a romantic setting for a wedding!


Aiden's favorite part of the palace... King Frederick's throne

Connor's favorite part... The King's bed. He liked that there was a rope right next to the bed so the King could ring a bell any time he wanted something from the kitchen. There is a small door right next to his bed where the servants would come in to serve him.

This was the Queen's room. You can see the port-a-potty next to the bed. Apparently it was an considered an honor if the Queen asked a servant to aide her whilst doing her business.


The wall of portraits. These were all the Dukes, Princesses, Kings, and Queens that lived here. The art work through out the palace was very impressive.

The Queen use to be carried in this. On hot days the top would come off like a convertable.


The grounds... I can only imagine how beautiful it must be in the summer!

Aiden's idea: "Connor, let's pretend like we are reindeer".

Back to the bus!

Next Stop: Stuttgart Weihnachtsmarkt

It was very crowded


Thank goodness they had rides for the kids!



Poor Connor... too big for the little kids rides.


I caught Jeremy off-guard as he is buying MORE hot chocolate and waffles!!

The kids found a moment to remember the true meaning of Christmas

Roasted cashews and macadamia nuts... YUM!!!


Nutcrackers!!


Whitney fell asleep while we waited for the bus to pick us up


I didn't have the heart to tell the boys that their snow angels would never work with that much snow... they just kept trying!


Such a beautiful site... a nice, warm bus that pulled up right to the Market!


Settled in for a long bus ride home.


ONLY 5 MORE DAYS 'TILL CHRISTMAS!!!

Week 42

This was a really hard week for everyone. I was in Ramstein, Germany all week for training with my job. It was really hard to be away from everyone for a whole week.

While I was gone I had Lauren take some pictures at the Christmas Party for Whitney's preschool class. Whitney goes to a preschool class twice a week with some other German kids her age. Some of the Moms speak a little English but they mostly speak in German the whole time, and none of the kids speak any English. The language barrier doesn't seem to affect Whitney though... she loves playing with those little kids.


Like I said, this week was the Christmas party. They had a Santa come in and call each child by name to come up and sit on his lap and then he gave them a present. When it was Whitney's turn Santa spoke English (kind of) to have Whitney come up and then talked to her in English. I thought that was really sweet for him to make the effort to communicate with Whitney in English.
Whitney loved her little toy too!!


We finished up the last of our Christmas shopping this weekend and now just have to wrap it all!! After a full day of shopping on Saturday we rewarded ourselves by going to our local Weihnachtsmarkt.



Our little village had a very small Christmas Market for today only. There are so many here but most of them are open for the entire month of December. Even though this one was small it had all the "Must-Have's" for ALL Christmas Markets...

Gluhwein (even this one had 4 different kinds!)

and Bratwurst (3 different kinds)

The kids especially liked seeing Weihnachtsmann (Santa)


He gave each of the kids a Kinder Egg (Whitney calls them 'dinner eggs'). They LOVE these things. They have the cutest little toys inside of them that you put together - so the kids get chocolate AND a toy! Unfortunately, they don't sell them in the US because the little toy parts are so small and could potentially be a choking hazard, if swallowed. (The German kids seem to be ok with them though.)

It was a nice ending to a busy/hard week.

This morning we woke up to beautiful, BIG snowflakes!


Kayla was so funny. She thought they were little balls falling from the sky and was trying to eat them.

Week 41

'Tis the Season!

Everything is Christmas-y now... I love it!!

The backerei's have their special Christmas breads out. I had to get a Weihnnacht's Bretzel for everyone to share.. it was huge.

Friday night Connor had scouts but he was really excited since it was his first meeting with his new scout uniform. He also got is Wolf Scout handbook that night and hasn't put it down! He's already half way done reading it. He's really into scouts I guess.

That night after scouts we went to the Holiday Magic festivities in Heidelberg. I thought they really did a nice job for this.

There were horse and buggy rides (which we did not do since we were freezing!!! The boys still insisted on getting their pictures with the horses though).

They had a little carousel that was Whitney's favorite part!

Lots of yummy food!

Then they went to see Santa.

I had a very embarrassing moment here because I could NOT stop laughing! There was a really long line of parents waiting to see Santa with their kids waiting in the freezing cold and I was just cracking up...

So this is what happened. The first picture I took was ok, but I wanted one with Whitney on Santa's lap. In the second picture I noticed Connor was making this funny face. I pulled him over and realized he had a bloody nose. I gave him Aiden's glove (the only thing I had on me) to hold over his nose while I took the last picure with just Aiden and Whitney.

After the last picture I looked at Connor and his face was covered in blood!
Poor guy... he didn't even know (which was making me laugh even harder).

Saturday Connor was invited to a birthday party at Kid's World. We have been here once before right when we first moved into our house. It's a really fun place for kids (a nightmare for paranoid Moms - like me!!).

Even though Connor was there with all of his friends from school he still chose to do everything with Aiden. It was really cute.

I didn't take a lot of pictures because I was going crazy trying to follow Whitney around. She was a mad woman! She didn't stop for 2 seconds. One of Connor's classmates had a little sister there who was 4. Whitney immediately bonded with her and they were attached at the hip the whole time. The hilarious part though was when I tried to take a picture of the 2 of them together Whitney was acting so weird! She was trying to act like she was really cool. Nothing I did could get her to smile she just had this "I'm so cool and hanging out with a 4 year old" look on her face the whole time. lol!

St. Nikolaus Day

December 6 is St. Nikolaus Day. Apparently, he is Santa's German brother. The boys learned, in their German class at school, that if they shined their shoes really good and put them outside their bedroom doors on the night of December 5 that St. Nikolaus will fill them with toys and goody's in the morning when they woke up.

The boys came home Friday and informed us of this German tradition and made sure their shoes were in tip-top shape!! We were a little worried if St. Nikolaus came to American children or not but it looks like he does! :)

Connor was worried about St. Nikolaus being able to walk up the stairs to the bedrooms "cuz he's really old" and insisted on us putting the shoes on the bottom stair.

Week 40

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

It was interesting celebrating Thanksgiving in a different country for the first time. In Germany, it's business as usual. However, in our home it was as American as you can get! Unfortunately, since we don't have any family to spend the day with, I had to make the entire meal myself. No problem though... it was fun! Plus, we got to have the Missionaries over and our German "Grandparents", so we still had a full house.

Thanksgiving Morning

Hanging out

The Feast

The next day we got out all the Christmas decorations. Aiden wasn't feeling good so we just took it easy and spent the weekend decorating. The Germans don't decorate their Christmas trees until Christmas Eve, but we decided to keep that part of Christmas tradition the American way.


Another major highlight of this weekend is that Jeremy and I had a Soprano's party! We've been watching the entire series for the past few months and then celebrated as we watched our last 2 episodes this weekend. I tried to convince Jeremy to dress up like Tony and I would dress up like Carmela for the party, but he wouldn't play. lol! I'm not sure what we are going to do with ourselves now that the show is over.

Week 39

We tried to get into the Christmas spirit this weekend. I know it's early... but to send presents back to the US you have to start early! We went to the Mannheim Holiday Bazaar with high expectations, I guess, because we were a little disappointed. Then we went to see A Christmas Carol and were disappointed again. It was WAY too scary and deep for the kids! It didn't help that at on a really scary part the movie died and then the theater went black. Kids were crying and had to leave. It was like that for almost 20 minutes!!
So... we decided to go to our first Weihnachsmarkt (Christmas Market) of the year. They all start sometime next week but a few started this weekend. We decided to go to the one in Colmar, France.
What a beautiful city!!

The streets are lined with charming cafe's and half-timbered houses, most of which are painted in bright colors instead of the usual white.

Small canals run through the town, which once were used by tanners. One area is called "Little Venice" because of the canals and the little bridges that cross them.



Again, however, we were somewhat disappointed though. We got there around 1pm and waited all day for the markets to open. Finally we decided to leave around 5pm and most things still hadn't opened. We still had a great time though. I know we'll be getting our fill of Christmas Markets before it's all said and done!!

One cool thing about Colmar is that it was the home of the great artist and sculptor Federic Auguste Bartholdi, born in 1834. Bartholdi is well known for being the world-renowned designer of the Statue of Liberty.


We walked around a little to get a bearings first. The city was so picturesque!


Everyone was hungry since it was past 1:00 already so we found a little boulangerie and got some Pannini's.

The crew waiting for me to come back with lunch


Mmmmm.....


Meeting some of the locals.

Exploring the city



Stopping for some chocolates


Waiting for the markets to open...


Still waiting...

Warming up with some hot chocolate

Making several trips back to van for potty!!
Whitney stayed dry all weekend and went potty in the potty chair every time we took her. She hasn't done #2 for 2 days though... :(

Jeremy had a hankering for some chestnuts roasted on an open fire to snack on for the ride home...

Overall we had a great day!
Now we know not to go to the markets during the day.
oh well... lesson learned. :)

I wouldn't trade a day like this for anything. I think one great advantage to living here in Europe, as opposed to visiting, is that you can take a short day trip to some small city off the beaten path that you would never have visited otherwise. They aren't main tourist attractions but so surprisingly interesting. These spontaneous little adventures are some of my most favorite and treasured memories.

Week 38

For those of you who follow my blog you will be shocked to hear that I didn't take very many pictures this week. Weird, I know! I guess I will have to blame it on Whitney....

Our lives pretty much revolve around peeing and pooping on the potty. She has done so good! She actually did her first #2 in the toilet this week and she's gone several days without accidents. But... we still can't let our guard down just yet.


The other MAJOR occasion this week was Elder Jenkins birthday party. The boys were soooo excited to celebrate. They decorated his cake all by themselves and made birthday cards and banners to put up all over the house. lol! It's going to be a sad day when he gets transferred. We had the Bishop of our ward and his wife over too for the party.



This weekend Connor was invited to the bowling alley for a birthday party. It's always tricky when one gets invited and the other one doesn't. We invited 2 of Aiden's best friends from school over to play while Connor was gone. That seemed to take his mind away from not being invited to the birthday party. His little friends are really cute and the 3 of them together are so funny.

The biggest event this weekend was the ward primary program. It was the best one I've ever been to and it was all in German!! About a month ago the primary teacher wrote a scripture in German on a peice of paper and asked us to help the kids memorize it for the program. It was hard because we didn't even know if we were telling the boys the right way to say things. The week before the program different people from church came over to practice saying it with the boys while I was at work. They were also asked to memorize the first verse of "I'm a Child of God" in English.
The day of the program the boys were so excited. There was so much hype and preparation for this program compared to any others in the past. Half of the time we forgot or didn't even know about the primary program until we got there! The beginning of the program all the kids and the leaders were on the stand. All of the sudden one of the leaders just stood up and sang the first first of "I'm a Child of God" in Greek (she went on her mission to Greece), then 2 girls stood up and sang the same verse in French, then the Bishop's wife stood up and sang it in Chinese, then all by themselves little Connor and Aiden stood up and sang it in English.. without music or anyone helping them, then the other 2 primary kids stood up and sang it in German. It was such a spiritual and powerful moment to hear that song in all the different languages and knowing that no matter who you are, how old you are, or what language you speak we really ARE all children of God!
Then it was time for them to say their verses in the microphone. Aiden needed a little help but everyone was very impressed with his pronunciation... they said he speaks better German than I do (which isn't too hard to do). Then Connor got up there and read the whole verse all by himself. I was so proud of them knowing how much work and effort they put into that. I wanted to record Connor reading his verse later that night but we couldn't find the paper. I was so sad! Then Connor said he didn't even need the paper and he remembered how to say it. And he did!! AMAZING!!!

Week 37

This week wasn't too eventful... it barely justifies a blog post, but I couldn't just skip a week!


I thought I would write about the traffic here... A Stau is a Traffic Jam on the Autobahn. One day this week I was driving to Stuttgart. I left my house at 6am to avoid traffic. At 7:20am, I was 3.5 miles from my exit into Stuttgart, when traffic completely stopped. 6 cars ahead of me a Semi-Truck over turned and was completely blocking the entire Autobahn. After an hour the firemen came around to each car and instructed everyone to turn their engines off and not to smoke. It was a really cold day and was raining hard all morning. Around 9am I finally found someone walking by that spoke English... he had talked to the firemen who said it would be a minimum of 3 more hours!!! Finally a little after 11am they realized that it was going to take longer than that so the firemen and policemen went to the very back of the line and directed each car, one by one, to back up and turn around going the opposite way on the autobahn. When they got to me I could barely drive because I was shivering so bad from freezing the last 5 hours and also because all the windows were fogged up so I couldn't see. There were 5 rows of cars on a 3-lane autobahn so we were all jammed in tight. Everyone was yelling at me in German and blowing their whistles. It was really scary! Finally 5 1/2 hours later I got to my office and could use the bathroom!!!! I spent 30 minutes there and then just had to turn around and drive back.


The boys were out of school half day on Thursday and all day Friday. It's been getting cold here too so they were all going crazy from being inside for so long. Friday night we decided to go out for pizza and some bowling. We had so much fun!!





Jeremy took his game very serious! ha ha!! He was even true to the Mavs and wore his Maverik shirt. :) As you can see he won:

Whitney has been so funny lately whenever we tell her not to smile. She will be busy doing something else and as soon as we don't "don't smile" she just gets the biggest smile ever! She'll look right at you smiling but acts like she thinks she's not smiling. It's too cute!


Like I said... it's been getting cold here. The highs have been in the low to mid 40's and rainy. So, we've been spending more time indoors. I caught the kids playing really cute this weekend.