A beautiful day.

A few weeks ago my friend and I were out running. I couldn't help but feel so grateful for a beautiful spring morning. I turned to her and said "Look where we get to run!" It was just a simple and beautiful view. Pretty grassy field, a winding stream running through it, an old stone bridge. Sadie thought it was beautiful, too. There were dandelions everyone just begging to be picked. She was sad when we didn't stop and let her get out, so I told her we could come back later and have a picnic. And that's just what we did. Nutella sandwich, anyone? 

They explored the river for about an eternity. Throwing sticks and playing in the mud. I caught Sadie while she was brushing her wild hair out of her face.


And this is where too many pictures come in...


Hey guys!


Throwing sticks.
 
Seriously. So serene.


What in the world? Not sure if she was trying to scare me or just be silly, but she made me laugh. That is for certain.


Hugs.


Okay now get away from me and we'll pretend that never happened.
 Yes, I see your stick little buddy.


"Mom! Come play ponies with meeeeee!"


No, really. They were there.
  Hanging out, enjoying the view. I love watching little kids explore.


Something was apparently very funny.


A cute, very German house across the street.


Some other neat buildings across the street. I think one of these is an old mill that still runs on water. Don't quote me on that.
Canon didn't want to eat his huge handful of pretzels and threw them on the ground. I asked him to pick them up. He didn't. Sadie gladly offered. She's so helpful. "Here Mama...these are for you." Spring has brought many flower bouquets my way from Sadie. She expects me to take proper care of them, too.

 She decided she wanted to throw these ones down the river. I thought it was a neat little experiment.

 Emmett, who had been sleeping in the car (doors open) during all of this, decided to come out and play.

 Wrestling with a pony.

  Yelling at the pony.

  Sadie thought it would be fun to roll up her pants and test out the water. Until she actually got near the water. Too cold.
 I love this mud covered bum.

 And I love living in Germany.

Emmett is half of one.

Oh.Kay. Six months just flew right by, and now my baby is halfway to one year old. He is growing and changing so much. He looks different to me all the time. He is turning into a happy boy and we have a pretty good routine going on for him. Nothing rigid or strict, but predictable. It is nice to know what he needs when he cries. Makes life so much more enjoyable. I put him in this handsome little shirt the other day and decided to take some pictures because 1. I forget to do that a lot these days, and 2. He was looking adorable and oh so happy laying on my bed. Turns out I took them right around six months. Two birds. One stone. Bam.


Yes, these are essentially all the same photo. I narrowed. I promise.


Gah! That big gummy grin. The drool. His bright eyes. Gobble him up.


Eyes closed! This one makes me laugh, and that's why it made the cut.


Oh there we go. That's better.


Seriously, why did I not wipe that teeny tiny speck of whatever it is off his right cheek? I even saw it while I was taking the pictures but thought "There is no way that will show up." Easy Photoshop fix. Maybe when I make prints.


Eat your heart out.


"What was that?"
 I tried to get some of him sitting up, because he's doing a little bit of that nowadays. Not for very long, but then again I don't make him practice a whole lot either. I gave him that bowl to hold to help him balance. It didn't turn out so well...

Falling over...
 He just wanted to see the TV that Sadie was watching.


 Okay. Let's try again. Yeah, this isn't going to work.  And here's a zoomed out shot so you can see what it really looked like on my bed while I was trying to take these.
 Canon. Could your face be any closer to that tiny screen? Not like he had much choice...any further back and he would have been in the way of Emmett's photo shoot. These three. Oh these three. They make me happy and crazy all day long. Sometimes both in the same minute.

Back to Emmett. He is on the verge of crawling. He is all over the place and can army crawl and scoot his way to anything he sees. I'm thinking that baby proofing is much easier when you don't have two small children leaving their choking hazards laying all over the house. He is also up on his hands and knees all the time (or hands and toes in plank position, sometimes bum up in the air), but hasn't figured out true hands and knees crawling yet. Any day now. He's so close. I have yet to take a picture of his plank pose. I just know that any day he's not going to do it anymore and I'm going to kick myself. I have taken video and sent it to Dusty, so it is somewhat documented.  Anything else I'm missing about a six month old? Oh yeah. Stats. Well the soonest he could get in to the clinic was about a month from when I made the appointment, so we'll just have to wait and see on that. He's healthy. Seems pretty average for a baby of mine.   And he's oh so ticklish on his chest and neck. Gives a big ol' chuckle that can brighten your day...which has come in handy from time to time.  I guess tomorrow I'll be posting pictures of his first birthday party. Or his Senior Prom. Slow down for crying out loud!

April Fool's Dessert

I've never before done something "tricky" on April Fool's Day with the kids. Or probably most of my life. I am not a prankster. I feel terrible playing jokes on people. But dessert pranks? Yummy dessert pranks? Well that I think I can handle. I saw this idea on...you guessed it...Pinterest. It came from Our Best Bites, a yummy, funny, food blog that I use frequently for ideas. So, here are our Spaghetti and Meatball with a side of Peas and Carrots Cupcakes: You could find the instructions on the website (and really, I don't think you'd be disappointed if you went there...they had even more ideas), but just to give a little explanation...

The spaghetti is vanilla frosting piped through a small round tip. A Ferrero Rocher chocolate candy dipped in warm strawberry jam is the sauce and meatball. White chocolate shavings make a bit of Parmesan cheese.
The peas and carrots cupcakes are frosted green and topped with green Runts candy and quartered orange Starbursts. That's it! But let me tell you, if you plan on making several of these, you're going to need a big bag of Runts and a big bag of Starbursts to make sure you have enough of each color.

We had the missionaries over for dinner and this was our dessert. One of them wouldn't even touch the peas and carrots because it looked too real.

I think I could get used to tricking people like that.

Auf Wiedersehen Grammy

    Grammy was able to stay with us for ten whole days. I hope she enjoyed our little town and got a good taste of Germany. She was a big help watching the kids so I could get settled and run errands without hauling all three of them around with me. Before we took her back to the airport we got a couple of pictures on the trampoline.




If you thought the kids were sad to say bye to the sheep the other day, you can multiply it by 100 and get the weeping and wailing that accompanied a goodbye to Grammy. I think Sadie didn't realize that Grammy was getting out of the car and leaving and she didn't actually get to say "goodbye." She was a mess. On our way home I told the kids we would stop at the thrift store and they could each pick out one thing. You know...nothing like a $1 toy to lift your spirits. It worked.
And then it was just the four of us. Lots of feelings behind that realization. Some good, some lonely, some overwhelmed. It certainly took some time to get readjusted to life without any grandparents around. For the past seven months we had two sets of loving grandparents taking care of us. I know that sounds terribly spoiled of me...having all that help...but I think it was the best decision for the circumstances. There are challenges associated with both situations (being alone vs. living with parents), and I am forever grateful to my mom and dad for welcoming us into their home. When we got back Canon switched to a big boy bed because Emmett was now sleeping in the crib. I could have put Emmett in a pack 'n play, but I decided it would be better to just get all the crazy adjustments out of the way in one fell swoop. We are, for the most part, in a groove. Some nights the bedtime routine takes too long because a certain little boy will not stay in his bed (and I put him back in nearly twenty times before I give in and sit there next to his bed because my patience is on the brink and I know he will fall asleep in five minutes if he just lays there long enough), which makes a certain little girl feel left out and want to know what we're doing in there, which makes the boy too excited to fall asleep, which makes mom have to use her mom voice, which wakes up a certain baby who shares this room, which makes mom so excited for the day when daddy is home. But then I remember that daddy was often not home for bedtime even when we was here. We'll see what his schedule is like post-deployment. One can hope!

Bayreuth

I have some great friends who wanted to take a little day trip to Bayreuth (pronounced "Bye-royt" in case you're like me and don't know how to say the names of foreign cities), and I am hardly one to say "No" to hanging out with awesome people in cool places. Plus, it isn't too far away, and has some fun things to see. We went to walk around the gardens of the "New Palace" and enjoy a beautiful day. This was a little fountain we came across on our way there. I'd bet that wall in the background is pretty in the spring and summer.

 This is the front of the palace. Built in the 1700s (thanks Tera!).
 We played around this fountain for a while, because kids love fountains and water, and we didn't have an agenda.
 Sadie got a bit wet and dirty.
 Everyone looks deep in thought...

  This is what we like to call a "real life" photo. No gimmicks. Just life.

 Sadie playing peek-a-boo through this statue of a man draped in a cloak of lion skin.
  ♪ ♫ I love the flowers, I love the daffodils...♬ ♪

 More fountains. Just can't get enough.



  We played on this bridge for quite some time. Sadie and Canon fed pieces of pretzel to the ducks below.

  Emmett slept. Like a baby.



  Then we came across a little gazebo that looked like a good place to have some fun. The kids are pretending to be statues in this picture.
  Statue Sadie. She really wanted me to take this picture.
 Then my totally fun friend, Tera, came up with a game where she clapped a little beat and told the kids what kind of statue they were going to be when she stopped clapping. Everyone danced around acting crazy while she clapped, then froze when she stopped. There were scary statues, animal statues, baby statues, rock star statues, and many more. There were also too many pictures to choose from. So you get to see too many.





  I think Canon is saying it is "Mommy's turn" in this one.
  "Hi, my name is Canon. One day I will break your heart. Hopefully I will learn how to wipe my own nose by then." Goodness I could just squeeze him.

Oh, don't worry, we're still playing the statue game!

 Sweet Chanda was ever so kind and spun Sadie around in a circle.
  Off to feed more ducks.
 Then we happened upon an awesome playground. It had a zip-line, a merry-go-round, a sandbox. Sounds pretty much like Grammy's backyard! Canon went down this zip-line by himself, which is definitely a first. At Grammy's house he was always in the "baby swing" attachment. He held on great!


 Grammy is so good at playing with the kids. I didn't get any pictures of it, but she was right there in the sand pile digging with them.
  Whoopsie daisy.
 His face..."What should I do next?"
Not really sure why I stopped taking pictures after that. We stayed at this playground for a good long time, then headed downtown to get ice cream and some dinner (in that particular order). We were all pretty worn out that night!