24 December

Merry Christmas!

23 December

Some last-minute Christmas Crafting, using discounted stuff I got the last time we were in the States for Christmas...

22 December

Bowling with Friends!

21 December

a fresh haircut followed by lunch with friends a (their) favorite restaurant!

19 December

Perhaps the only reason we continue to do piano lessons...meet Nero.

at lessons:

18 December

sweet baby girl. trying on some new clothes that arrived just before Christmas. you see, we noticed a week or so ago that she'd outgrown most of her stuff...

17 December

"Mommy! We are having a party tomorrow and we need to bring COOKIES!"

thanks for the notice!

16 December

Someone was a darling little Christmas Tree at the J+J Christmas Party.

well, okay, here were a lot of cute little Christmas Trees at the party.

15 December - MOVIE day!

Movie Day! Finally got out to see Frozen. We went all the way to Museum Lichtspiel just to see it in English. When it started, what to my dismay, Miss G says: "is it in English?!"

And after the movie was over, she asked: "WHY did we see it in English?" Break my heart, man.

14 December

Tee ball today. And grocery shopping. Kids LOVE grocery shopping...

The photo for today? The woman behind the lens. I can't even believe the camera focused so well. I literally stood in front of the mirror and pointed up kinda sorta and pushed the shutter release. didn't look at the exposure or anything...

back to tee ball for a sec, it's a total mix there, mutts of all sorts. One Mom is 1/4 American (or half?) and we got to chatting today. Turns out, she's a flight attendant! Awesome, she said: need anything? Let me know, I love to go shopping when I'm in the States...!

some photos (from last week) of the kids playing.

warming up before starting drill-practice. never knew how difficult arm-circles are, or touching toes for that matter!

This one is pretty damn amazing at catching ground balls. I always sucked at those!

Getting ready for the line-up. Miss G is chatting up the coach's son. She is quite taken with him, the little squirt, which is good, because he's probably the reason she decided to stick with tee ball!

They never get put on the same team. G is on 2nd for this inning, D is getting ready to run to 3rd.

And here, she was first base-man and he's OFF to 2nd!

SA-WING!

*    *    *

Merry Christmas to Me from Me! The ring? It didn't fit *sniff* and is being exchanged. The new one won't be here until the 23rd, if I'm lucky, otherwise it'll be after Christmas, which is okay...because it's also my birthday present.

And I have to share this, in case Miss K is ever reading the blog (I know, I neglected it for a year...) but this is something she gifted me like 12+ years ago. I was never able to hang it, because I couldn't get the plug for it and someone kept saying he'd wire one for me, but it never happened. So this year, we were at Ikea and I bought one of THEIR stars, just for the plug (my star is so much better!)

13 December

Vegan is cool. It's yummy. It's cheesy. It's totally not lacking in comfort foods...Who'da thunk it? Yummy, steaming, creamy, 'mac o geez' from 'let them eat vegan' for lunch today...

and due to the sicks, and a double header on stay-home-from-kindergarten...I pulled out a new 1000 piece Christmas puzzle. What to my wondering surprise...it was Mr. D who jumped at the opportunity to puzzle! And he did an amazing job before giving up for the evening!

12 December

Sick day for small ones, (big ones too, but she doesn't have as much leeway to miss school) led to boredom. So we played with gingerbread.

creating a gingerbread sleigh. (the box was packaged wrong, we had two santas, both facing the same direction, so we couldn't glue him together...)

chose the house, because of the Santa-problem with the sleigh, and because of one broken bit on the reindeer...

11 December

December 11th and bare feet? Not only that, you never would have caught anyone lying on the floor willingly in the old place! 

10 December

Learning notes...

and this one thought he wanted to learn the same notes...but NOT for homework, Mommy!

9. December

Learning to read with Sil & Ben  (Silben Methode). He's working on 'mu', 'mi', 'mo', 'ma' and 'me' and can read 'Oma', 'Omi' & 'Mama'...

8. December

decorating the tree (future baseball player?)

be merry!

I maybe mentioned in passing, that we got our tree yesterday? Here are the rest of the photos. Oma and Opa grabbed one to take home with them, ours was too big for me to photograph AND hold at the same time, and the kids were too busy being 'cold' and wanting to go in to the playground. So ours got wrapped up and set aside before I got a real idea of it's size or shape. We decorated today and it is VERY bushy. 

anyway, after choosing trees, we went into the newly remodeled Pflanzenkölle and had to have coffee at the Bamboo Restaurant, because it had hanging basket chairs, and couches and was all green and jungle-y! And then we walked through the store and the kids made paper angels (€1 ea for a bit of paper and a watte-ball) and then we got a bit of this and that (iPuro christmas raumduft!) before eating bratwurst (them, not me) and heading home again, exhausted.  (Because this all happened AFTER teeball practice).

7. December

At Pflanzenkölle. It's tiring, NOT helping  choose the Christmas Tree...

6 December - Nikolaustag!

This was a crazy-busy day. It started with the discovery of the Nikolaus-stash in the morning and moved on to an 8:00am school assembly and then crafting until school was out, then piano lessons and I ended the day with a Christmas Party/Dinner for work (for me).

That doesn't matter though, Nikolaus DOES.  The stash:

5 December

First: Happy Birthday to Grandma! 
We made an insta-video for her this afternoon.

Then Oma and Opa came. And then we had a concert! Miss G was singing in a little choir, all thanks to this lovely lady:

who asked a few weeks ago whether G wouldn't like to come sing on Thursdays with Maria? And then she was singing in a concert for Nikolaus!

singing:

so serious...

4. December

Let her out of my sight for a few hours today and she came back like this:

good thing it was a bath night!

3. December

Very probably over-tired today = whiny. Fussy. Annoying. Had to make due with the 7-year old neighbor girl for the afternoon as Sissy was out. That meant coloring. and cutting. and other crafty things. There was a lot of complaining...my kids are spoiled.

2. December

5:30 - wake-up call
7:20 - bus to school
8:00 - work
12:00 - stop by P.O.
12:30 - lunch
12:45 - homework

Yes, she's reading this herself. So proud of her! 

14:15 - D comes home from J+J
15:00 - D has a friend over
16:00 - still doing homework
17:00 - Homework coming to an end
17:30 - 19:30 - dinner, showers, bedtime stories, piano practice, kitchen clean-up...

doing what I needed to do...? not so much. Mondays...suck.

1. December

If I were making Christmas Cards to send out this year, this would probably be the photo...

29 Sleeps

I know, because G made me check the Christmas Countdown on the iPad today...eep! That does mean however, that it's almost time for...

yay! Join me this year, as I try, try, TRY to keep up, starting December 1st. Or even join along with!

december photo project

Do I still exist?

Barely. I am going to do a very quick check-in, as December is nearly upon us (oh my) and I would like to attempt some bit of normalcy and do a daily photo for the holiday month. We were unable to celebrate Birthdays or Halloween and it is unlikely we'll get to do much for Thanksgiving.  Christmas is looking bleak what with piles of boxes still in every available corner, making it difficult (if not impossible) to put up a tree, or decorations...

So at least we can try photos. Even if the photos are only of Sparkles escapades, as I do believe he'll be making an appearance come Dec. 1st. Or maybe he'll be sending his cousin? We'll see. Not sure the kids even remember Sparkle. I can't wait to see their unexpected faces on December first. Assuming that is, Sparkle can find us at our new address!

The Tooth fairy did find us, though she was late...perhaps that had more to do with the number of times she's had to come since we moved, twice for Miss G and three times for Mr. D! We've only been here 2.5 months!

First tooth came out while eating a plum (of all things) in Kindergarten the week before Halloween:

Second tooth came out the Monday AFTER Halloween at Jack + Jill while bobbing for apples:

The Third tooth came out this week at Kindergarten. I don't have a photo yet. And he still has three more loose teeth...

Stopping now, while i'm ahead. Perhaps if I keep entries short, I'll keep WRITING...

School's In

After a week-long break, during which we did nothing huge or exciting, the kids are back to normal this morning. That means no more "help" with the current carpentry project:

looking for safety goggles, she couldn't find anything in HER room, so she raided Daddy's room and found his 3D glasses from some visit to the movie theater...she is sanding away at the side of her desk, which we had only just started - the whole thing being cut with a jigsaw and sanded with super-fine sandpaper because I didn't have anything else.

putting together the frame of the desk

That's teamwork!

Also, someone lost tooth number two this month:

And now they're both gone. I kind of miss them. It's awfully quiet!