Marie's Birthday Part 2

The birthday celebrations continued on Saturday when Arnold would be home to enjoy them. We basically did the cake part on Saturday. It's always funny to me to watch a 1 year old try to figure out what to do with a cake that's put in front of them.

Arnold was great with the encouragement and eventually she was willing to try it. After a few little tastes we finally decided it was time to just dump a piece on her plate and give some to our little Sam who was getting quite anxious for his piece.

Marie in the end finished off 2 whole pieces of cake. Once she got going it was fun to watch her devour what we put in front of her. After the second piece she used her fingers to basically lick off the tray. I didn't get a picture of it in the end but it was basically clean.

Marie's Birthday Part 1

So Marie is officially 1 year old now (and a few days). I'm super slow this week with getting anything done because it's been super crazy. So here is the first part of her birthday.

Arnold had to go into work so we decided to do the presents in the morning and then meet up with him for lunch. Here is Marie with her new toy, although I think Sam plays with it as much or more than she does at this point. I'm sure that will change quickly as she does love it and is getting into that type of stuff more.

I think this shows very well how she felt about the whole day. I think she was, for the most part, just really confused. I have to admit it was pretty funny.

And she loves the pumpkin muffins we like to make so of course that's what she got for breakfast. I think she approved. :)
As for the rest of the day...(you do not have to read if you are not interested) We decided as we were walking to the train with Arnold that we didn't want to walk there again in 2 hours to go meet him for lunch so instead we just decided to go with him then. I have to admit it made for an exciting morning (we went shopping) and afternoon (with two cramped up kids on the train) but it was so much fun to be with Arnold on the train and for lunch. Marie was asleep by the time we met up with him and when she woke up and saw Arnold she snuggled right into him and got the HUGEST smile on her face. Almost as if she was saying, "Yes, I'm home now!" It was so great but we didn't bring the camera so there is no documentation of the morning or afternoon. Sorry! Just know it was a beautiful sunny day, just perfect to celebrate her 1st birthday with. :)

Naming Trains

Sam has a book that shows all sorts of stuff for trains like how they work, shows all the different kinds and even shows the ones that go underground/sea between England and Europe. He loves this book and reads it daily. So here is a little video to show you how well he knows the book.



Pretty impressive! :)

Marie Look-alikes

This doesn't usually happen but the other day we took this picture and I thought "Wow, she looks just like Rebecca!" Dorothea, you'll need to correct me if I'm wrong, but I just can't get over how much she looks like her cousin in this picture. While I didn't find pictures of them that match exactly in facial expressions, hopefully this gives you a good idea of what I mean.

Almost a year ago

I looked like this...
*yes, I thought I was smiling. You have to give me credit though, I was in labor.

Now I have this! And she is such a blessing! I wasn't suppose to have this blessing according to Dr's but with a loving Heavenly Father in charge we got her. Now with a second colonoscopy behind me that went so much better than the first, I can say I've been VERY well taken care of in the area of health. So many things could have happened and didn't, and I'm so grateful for that! Hopefully now I can add the fruits and vegtables in higher quantities to my diet and start feeling more like a normal person again. Maybe I'll even be able to get rid of the Captain Barbosa feeling. Either way I'm so grateful for our little Marie and all her smiles! :) I wouldn't trade her for anything!

They are my Sunshines, My little Sunshines...

When days look like this 90% of the time, it makes me so grateful for...
(this is at the Weihnacht market in our little town. Oh and it's the afternoon. Not that you can tell.)

These 3 in my life because they bring so much sunshine! You can see it!

They make my days more like this.
What on earth would I do without my rays of sunshine?

(oh, and this picture was taken about 11:30...so weird! Just look at those long shadows! I don't think I'll ever get use to the whole sun coming up at 8 and going down and 4 thing.)

We love Breakfast Burritos!

So one of the easiest "Tex-Mex" type foods that we can make here is Breakfast Burritos. Sam LOVES them and asks for them all the time. So Arnold got him saying this (watch video below) but until now we've not been able to get it on video. So enjoy!

Starting early

Arnold and I love to try and dance together in the front room. However usually two little people instantly come and join us in whatever way they can which means we don't dance very much. However we are getting an early start on the little ones. :)

Sam recently has decided that he wants to dance with his little sister. It's really cute and so much fun when he doesn't move to fast for Marie. We are just hoping that at some point we can get them dancing good enough that we can dance ourselves.

And just for fun. Here is our little man in one of my favorite shirts. Thanks Sam and Erin for bringing it! It's perfect! :)

Giggles

I love little baby laughs. I discovered that if I tried to make the sound one of the toys makes that Marie would just laugh and laugh. Luckily Arnold thought to get a video of it. :)

She must be related

I guess we all do some pretty funny things as little kids. This is one of them for me and apparently someone inherited the desire too.

Unfortunately every time we try to get a good picture of it she beats us in taking it out. So these aren't of her crawling with it in her mouth and I had to grab her hands to keep the sock there. Either way, it gives you a good idea.
We kinda look alike too. :)

I'm grateful for...

...A loving husband who takes care of us, especially the gazillions of times he has let me sleep in while taking the babies, washed dishes, done laundry and the other endless list of things he does to make my life easier without being asked or expecting anything in return. I don't know what I did to deserve him since he found me but I'll always be grateful for him chasing me down and winning my heart forever. I don't know what I'd do without him! I also love how wonderful and loving he is with our little ones. He's even willing to hug trees with our little man.
For Sam who provides lots of energy, smiles, laughs and new adventures each day. He just throws himself into everything he does with his whole soul and every ounce of energy he has. It's amazing to watch. I love the few moments like this where he's just chillin.
For Marie who provides endless giggles, smiles and new discoveries each day. She is so thoughtful and quietly ponders things while she also has energy and liveliness. I can't get enough of those beautiful eyes and curls. I think my Mom knows a poem for this picture... ;)
I love my little family and all they do for me. I don't know what I'd do without them. Seeing the world through my children's eyes brings so much laughter and fun as they learn and play each day. I just can't get enough of the fun moments and wait for even more as they grow older.

Jammies

Gran (my mom) sent some warm jammies since I couldn't quite find what I was looking for here. These are what she sent and they were a huge hit with Sam. He loves his "Bagga Jammies" (Bagger is the German for construction tractor) and Marie's "Pitty Lala Jammies" (or pretty flower). It was pretty much all he would wear for a while until he got a high fever and we made him wear his Thomas jammies again since they are not as warm.

More Creativity or Clownishness

Yea, so I'm not sure that's a word but it works.

Marie has decided to use her current creative abilities to climb. She's already pushing chairs around to get on things she wants to get things she thinks are interesting. Here she is about to climb on the top of the chair in an attempt to get on the table. Lucky for her I noticed fairly quickly what she was doing and put my foot on the bottom bar to hold the chair down.

The other day Arnold found Sam and Marie using these as hats. It was so cute we tried to get pictures of it. Sam cooperated but Marie got distracted and it didn't work as well for her. Still cute though.

And finally, Sam will use anything that looks like a tool as a tool. I wish you could here his impressively high pitched and very noisy drill sound to go with the picture but this is all you get. And yes, that is a water hose attachment. That's where the creativity comes in.

Creativity

We have two little creative people. It's just fun to watch their minds work and watch them do new things. Now these pictures are a little old (they are from the end of July) but I saw them as I was looking for something else and couldn't resist.

To start with, I hope Marie likes this picture when she's older because she did this all the time for quite a while. We finally got a picture (or 5) and I'm so glad we did cause it's hilarious. It's funny to see the differences between Sam and Marie because Sam never really did this even though they are both little clowns.
Sam saw the boards leaning on the bench and guess what he decided it was. They got put to great use while they were located there (with lots of supervision). He climbed up and slid down over and over and over again.

And finally something that hasn't stopped...The Mommy Playground! Or more recently the Mommy Park!! I'm not really sure where Sam came up with the idea but at this point if I ever end up on the floor that's what I become. I've tried to do exercises to fix my stomach gap(from two big babies) but every time I get attacked by these two one of which says, "Mommy Park!!!!!!" with as much enthusiasm as you can imagine. I don't know if my stomach will ever be the same for multiple reasons all to do with these little people.

Sam actually requests the Mommy Playground now. I guess that should be flattering right?

My little tree hugger

My little man likes to give hugs. He's really cute although somewhat abusive in the way he loves to hug his little sister. She sometimes loves it and other times I get to run to the rescue. Well, the other day we went to a park and walked around a bit. Sam had a ton of fun climbing and running around. He also decided he liked the trees and decided to go around hugging a bunch of them. So here is a short clip of the tree hugger. (When he says "Ih-Ah", it means "Big Hugs" and is said frequently around this place although not usually to trees. This was a bit of an exception. I guess he was excited to be free and running around in nature that day.)

The Playground

Marie and Sam love playing at the park. A while ago Marie discovered the joys of going down the slide. It didn't take her long to find out she could do it on her own. So here she is going down...

My little man

In digging through some of our old stuff, Arnold found his old glasses. Sam thought it was funny to wear them and so we got this picture. He didn't want to hold still for the taking of the picture though which is why Arnold is pinning him down. I love his little grin and how much he looks like his Dad.
Here he is working away at the computer. Yup, my little computer man. He loves it, although I'm not sure why other than he gets to be like Daddy.
And finally, climbing. I can't have a post about just Sam with out a picture of him climbing. Well, almost. He does it so much and finds so many ways to fill his climbing need that it's pretty easy to include yet another climbing picture. The funny thing about this one is that he slipped and got stuck. :)

Soprano? not Alto for sure...

Well, I guess that's more of a yet. For now, I'm pretty sure there are some things that end up out of the range of hearing. Or atleast I wish they ended up out of the range of hearing.

Father Son time

Arnold has been home since July on what's called Parenting Time here in Germany.  You can take up to 3 years of Parenting Time after a baby is born here.  Pretty crazy!  Anyway, We have been using the free time to do many different things (ex. Arnold has been studying for the Texas bar in Feb :P  That's when the parenting time ends :( Bummer. )  However, I have loved this time with Arnold home since it means that a very bored at work Arnold has been here to have moments like these daily.

Our floor is constantly covered in Choo-choo tracks since Sam has an obsession with trains, particularly Thomas the Tank Engine which can be seen on the track above.  (Oh, Thanks Jen for the book that started it all.  We always know what to get him when we are looking for gifts.) 

I don't know if you can see it but they are listening to music together.  I love how Sam is perched on the chair and they are already bonding over computers.  I think they were there for a good 15 minutes or more which is pretty good for Sam who NEVER holds still.

Playing in the cupboards

Sam loves to play in the cupboards. His favorite thing is to climb in, shut the door and then hide in them. One second he's there and another he's gone. When looking for him I usually hear little giggles from the cupboard. Here he is teaching Marie the joys of hiding in the cupboards.

Excuses...

I know it probably doesn't matter to most of you but I've been trying to do posts ever other day ish. So here's my excuse for the lack of posts lately...

I usually do a post in the evening when the kids are in bed because it's the easiest way to do it. No interruptions that way so it goes a lot faster! Anyway, the last few weeks I've been working on this instead.

Arnold met his boss' wife the other day and instantly found out that they were having a baby in 3 weeks so I started this and almost finished it in time. Just a few days late. Not bad for doing it mostly in the evenings and still doing a LOT of other things at the same time. So hopefully the posts will be a bit more regular again. :) Enjoy!

She's walking

Yup! And I've got a video of it too for your enjoyment. Sunday she decided that it was time to start walking. I'm not sure what happened to make up her mind but she got going and on Monday she was doing pretty good with 3ish feet. Tuesday it was even more and now, well, see for yourself...

Oh, sorry about the noise in the background. That's Sam. He found my first pair of tap shoes and loves them. I'm not sure if he thinks they are fun or if he just likes how noisy they are, but either way it's cute.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween isn't really celebrated here but is picking up in popularity. I think maybe in a few more years it will be big enough, due to the fact that stores are catching on the monetary benefits of it, that we might actually celebrate it. Who knows, but for now this is how we daily celebrate Halloween.
My little bandits, Don Juan and his little side kick Chiquita Bonita, with their mustachio disguises. As you can see from their time hardened faces, they are ready to steal the hearts of all those around them. Unmerciful in the laughter and joy that they bring to everyone's hearts they terrorize this area with their smiles and giggles.

When that isn't enough then Marie takes on the fearsome Nutella monster face. As you can see it takes a great artist with many years of dedicated training to master this one.
When all is said and done, the evening usually ends after the clean up. However, sometimes the little monsters get tuckered out and just don't have enough left in them to terrorize anymore. This usually means cleaning off the art work followed by snuggles from the little clean monsters (with occasional brief intervals of a final struggle for more terrorizing) before drifting into dreamland.

The Car

We had some friends, Sam and Erin, here recently...ish and during their visit to Germany they also took a bit of a trip down to Austria. They rented a car and I think there were a couple guys envious of them and wishing they got to do more than this...


As you can see Sam felt right at home even if he was a bit short. I think the guys had fun on their little drive to get bread as it took them quite a while.


I'm pretty sure Sam and Erin enjoyed the driving part of their trip as we heard great reviews of what it was like to drive on the autobahn. Thanks Sam and Erin for coming to visit us! We miss you tons! :)

Random pictures at a castle

It seems kindof unreal living here surrounded by all this history. Old huge buildings everywhere with more history then I ever saw in the US in one spot. So just for fun since these are cute pictures...
This is one of my favorites because it's me and my gal. Marie has this look of "Huh?" on her face and it must be there because of the silly expression on mine. You get a good view of the castle in the distance too.

More Randomness

These pictures are just some random fun from our recent lives. To start with- Nap time with Dad. Yup, chasing these two all day means nap time for us sometimes because we can't stay awake long enough to get them to sleep. I wonder who was more tired. Dad or Sam?
My other little escapee. He figured out that he could open the door with the right assistance of something to make him tall enough. He already rotated the handle down so it doesn't show how high he has to reach to grab the top of the handle. He's too quick for that.
And this last one is of my little clown playing and trying to eat more dirt and leaves. :) I just love those blue eyes!