March

At first thought, as I tried to recollect our experiences over the past month, I was not feeling very optimistic.  I feel as if we have been struggling with one health fiasco after another.  Not to mention, the never ending, lingering 'cold/flu' that seems to hit this time of year.  But after looking through our pictures, I realized we still had a lot of fun in between.  I probably need to learn something from that...and start having a better attitude and showing more gratitude for what we have.  We have been listening to General Conference today, and Elder Uchtdorf's talk really hit home.  I want to be the person who truly has an attitude of gratitude, no matter the circumstances.  We are so blessed.  And I truly do feel that way.  There is no other place I would rather be right now, and no other people I would rather be sharing my time with right now.  My little family is so special to me--I love them more than I can say.  And my faith in the Gospel gets me through the occasional bumps in the road--for that I am especially grateful.  

Around the beginning of the month, Germany celebrated their version of Mardi Gras, called Fasching.  We heard about a parade in Ramstein village, so I braved the crowds along with the three kiddos.  I do feel like I am getting better at going everywhere and anywhere with all three.  We have had a lot of practice since moving here ;).  It was a gorgeous day.  Sunny and warm.  And everyone was healthy!  So we had a fabulous time.  We found some friends from the ward and stood together while watching the parade.  The people in the parade just walk down the road literally throwing candy at everyone (as in, I got pelted in the head by a hard candy and it actually hurt!).  The kids loved it, and we left with a nice bag full of candy.  

This giant chocolate covered pretzel was the highlight of the day for me!  Yum!!

On St. Patrick's day, we were at the BX shopping.  Nathan met up with us after work and we decided to have dinner at Chiles.  

I always buy these little bundles of 'soup vegetables' from the German stores.  I love them.

I don't know why I've waited so long to give Violet a hair cut.  Call it fear of losing those little curls, or call it laziness.  Either way, we finally took the plunge and I even did it myself!  It was a good experience, and now she asks me every other day if she can 'take a haircut'.  

We have had a very unusual winter here in Germany.  We never really got snow, and it has been mostly sunny during the month of March!  We have been loving it.

Playgroup at the Wild Animal Park.  I love the double teeter totter approach.

The Young Women had a Fundraiser for Girls Camp.  It was a Cafe Rio Dinner with a dessert auction.  We realized super late in the game that we hadn't planned any decorations.  So I pulled this together the night before.  A little paper garland, confetti, and tulips from Aldis and we were good to go!

After setting up for the fundraiser, I found out that downtown Kaiserslautern (city where the church is located) was having a 'fabric market' that day.  I was already there so I decided last minute to take the stroller and walk downtown to check it out.  It wasn't too far and it was a nice day.  I found some cute pieces and got the kids their first ice cream of the season!  Win for all of us.  

Every now and then, I actually try to pull something creative together for my kids to do (i.e., Pinterest).  This Sunday morning we added food coloring to some milk and painted our bread.  It was a huge hit!

Nothing like a little swinging at the park...

I have been trying so hard to get Sawyer into preschool, to no avail.  The poor kid is starting to go crazy.  He tells me at least 10 times a day that he is bored.  So I put him in the only available sport on base--pre-karate tech.  He is LOVING it.  I was a little worried that it would just make him more aggressive.  But not so far.  I have actually been impressed to see how disciplined he has been during the class and how much he wants to learn/pay attention.  It gives me hope for kindergarten!

I was cleaning up breakfast one morning (Nougat Bits--nothing but the best for my kids, lol)...found Ariel taking a dip.

We finally made it out on a date!  Well, sorta.  We took Isla along.  It was a dinner date to a nearby Italian restaurant...and Isla was really good so it was fun.  Went with our friends, the Barons, and decided it was Zach and Isla's first date.  

Just some pics of Isla Bea...getting so big.  She's got 2 bottom teeth and is working on cutting the top four right now.

And she learned how to drink from a straw!  Yay!

Another attempt at creativity.  I said, make some shapes with tooth picks and marshmallows.  I showed them how to make a triangle, square, etc.  Left the room for a minute and when I came back, Sawyer had created this huge 3D thingy.  He was way more creative than me!

First ice cream cone at Ikea

Scored a some free bunk beds on the Ramstein Yardsales a couple weeks ago.  I painted them white.  And I hated every minute of the process...but I love the result!  Their room is finally starting to look 'put together'.  And I have no energy to paint the walls, so I'm thinking they will just stay yellow the whole time we are here.  Not my favorite, but who cares!

 I also decided to just throw up everything from their old rooms on the same wall.  I'm still working with it but I think it's pretty cute so far.

This Past Week...

 Well I am finally caught up!  Until tomorrow, that is ;).  This past week has been pretty normal.  We had Monday off, for President's Day.  Whenever we have 'American Holidays' that fall on a weekday, we like to try and go somewhere because Germans won't be off and places are less crowded, etc.  We had heard a lot about a store called, Cora, in France.  We like only about an hour from the French border, so we decided to check it out.  It was pretty much like a Walmart.  Honestly, we weren't super impressed with it.  They had a few fun things that we don't see in Germany.  When we got home, we laughed about our selections.  I bought a bunch of baguettes and this fancy lemonade (it's just like sprite, but i like the bottles!)...Nathan got about 10 bags of chips, all different flavors.  So funny.  After our trip to Cora, we went to Saarbrucken, a larger city in Germany, right on the border.  I had heard about a clothing store there that I wanted to check out.  It was one of those days with the kids, where you kinda just wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out.  By the time we got the kids in bed that night, we both felt like we had aged 10 years.  You win some, you lose some.  At least we didn't sit at home and watch TV or play Wii all day, right?!  (which is what we did today, because Nathan, Isla, and I are all sick) 

Of course Sawyer had to use his baguette as a weapon...always

 So we got the Wii U for Christmas.  It was a big debate, for Nathan & I.  We really didn't want to add one more thing to the vast array of 'screens' that we seem to get sucked into these days.  But we have been pretty good about limiting the time on Wii.  And honestly, it has been the best form of punishment/bribery for Sawyer that I've had yet!  It works SO well for that!  lol. But Nathan and Sawyer love to play Legos Avengers together.  And Violet always shows up at some point, begging to play along.  So Nathan gives her a wii-mote, and 'tells' her she's 'playing'.  Problem is, she's not that dumb...she eventually catches on. 

 This made me so happy!  Violet giving Isla some real attention (for about 15 seconds)!  So cute!

 We try to do some good activities every now and then as well.  On this day, we made homemade play doh.  The kids did so well with it...kept them entertained for quite a while.  They were doing so well, that I thought I would go outside and vacuum the car real quick before Isla woke up.  When I came back inside, I was in the middle of a full-on play doh massacre.  Play doh EVERYWHERE.  Not funny.  I guess that's the last time I leave them unsupervised with play doh again.  In the picture, Sawyer was very proud of his play doh airplane creation, as was I.

On Friday, Nathan took the boy scouts camping in the village right next to ours.  He is the scout master, so this is a common occurrence for Nathan these days.  But since he was so close to home, he decided to take Sawyer along for a few hours in the evening.  Sawyer had so much fun, he ended up asking if he could go to bed in the tent at 7:30.  He wanted to stay so that he could wake up with the boy scouts in the morning.  Nathan said that in his prayer, Sawyer asked Heavenly Father for the boy scouts to be quiet so that he could sleep.  Ha! 

Violet and I had a 'Girl's Night' while the boys were away.  We didn't want her to feel like she was missing out.  So I rented a Barbie Movie, and we had popcorn and did our nails.  And then she got to sleep in mommy's bed that night.  It was really fun, actually.  I enjoyed spending the one on one time with my little Viley.

 

The sun actually came out the other day!  So we grabbed our bikes and scooters, and went for a little walk.  I loved this picture of Violet, dirt on the face and all!

Sunday Morning Pictures

Isla Bea--9 Months

Sawyer Rafe--4 yrs 10 months

Violet Abigail--2 yrs 10 months

Isla Bea--9 Months

Hard to believe this sweet babe is already 9 months old.  Partly because we have been so busy moving to Germany that time has flown by, and partly because she is still so tiny!  Our smallest baby so far, that's for sure.  Here were her stats at her 9 month visit:

                       HT: 27.17 in (38%)   WT: 15.87 lbs (7%)      HC: 16.93 in (23%)

Oh how we all love little Isla!  She is the sweetest baby ever.  Extremely even-tempered, a truly happy girl.  The only thing I can honestly say that was ever a struggle with Isla, was her crying in the car.  That lasted for quite a while...probably until about 8 months.  Then suddenly it got MUCH better.  Who knows.  But other than that, she has been SO easy.  She sleeps like a champ!  To the point that I have actually considered googling, "is my baby sleeping too much?".  Most days she will sleep until 8, sometimes 9 (or later!).  I often have to go in and wake her up, for fear of our entire days' schedule being thrown off.  And she is hovering between waking up to eat once during the night (between 3-5), to not at all.  Most days she goes from 7 pm until she wakes up in the morning.  And to top it off, she will sleep through a considerable amount of noise (I guess 3rd children have to learn that).  Crazy.  I've never experienced anything like it.  Sawyer was a pretty good sleeper, too.  And I've always been a strict 'sleep scheduler', although that's gotten less and less with each child.  Violet struggled the most with sleep, and she is still my earliest riser, ready to eat the second she wakes up.  But Isla is a miracle sleeper.  And I am so grateful.  On top of sleeping through the night, she still will take 2, 2-3 hour naps during the day.  I don't even know what to say, except, we'll take it!

Isla is also a wonderful eater.  She is still nursing, but gets the job done quick, which we all appreciate.  And she hasn't really come across a food that she doesn't like, yet.  She will eat most things that I give her.  And she is excited about all of the table foods she's been getting lately.  Some of her favorites are, sweet potatoes, avocados, bananas, cereal puffs, and crackers or bread.  She finally got her bottom two teeth around 8 1/2 months...and I'm sure the others are not far behind.

Isla has been a tad slower than her siblings on learning to move around.  But not by much.  Sawyer and Violet both crawled at 6 months, walked by 10 months.  Isla started crawling around 7 months.  One challenge that I have not had to deal with until now, is that of keeping my baby from ingesting small toys (LEGOS)!  It is a nightmare, and I am hardly ever relaxed when she is crawling around, for fear that she will find some hidden piece that got lost on the floor.  But luckily, Sawyer and Violet both know how dangerous it is for her, so they help me in the effort to 'save Isla Bea'.  Shortly after crawling she mastered sitting on her own, and around 8 months she started pulling up to stand.  Now she is walking around the furniture a bit and I'm sure it won't be long before we have another toddler.  I hope she doesn't rush it too much, though.

Isla LOVES her siblings.  Whenever they pay her any attention, she just grins from ear to ear, and squeals with delight.  And they love her.  Sawyer is definitely more interested in her than Violet.  He is totally gonna be that 'protective' brother--which makes me so happy.  And every now and then, Violet shows her some love too, and I just know they will be great little sister friends.  I'm excited to watch their relationships develop.

Isla is a mama's girl, but not to the point that she won't go to anyone else.  She will still be happy in someone else's arms.  But when given a choice--it's mom.  One of my favorite things is when I put her to bed, I give her a binky and she lays her head on my chest.  It is so snuggly and wonderful.  I want those moments to go on forever.  But after a short time, she will start trying to reach for her bed.  So I lay her down on her back, and she smiles and starts energetically pumping her legs (she does that all the time, and has done it since she was born).  I wish I could just keep Isla this way forever.  I know there is so much joy in watching your children grow and develop into great people, and that it only gets better, but I am perfectly content to soak up every minute of them 'right now', the way they are today.  When I think about my baby Isla, I will always remember a perfectly sweet and happy baby who brought us all so much joy in our day to day lives. 

Favorite Things Party & Valentine's Day

 My friend, Mandy, had the great idea to throw a 'Favorite Things Party'.  I was all about it, because, 1.  I love to throw a good party, and 2.  The theme sounded like so much fun!  We asked everyone to bring their 'favorite thing'.  The item needed to be around a $6 value, and you had to bring five of that same item.  When they arrived they put their own name in a jar, 5 times.  We later had everyone introduce their 'favorite thing' and then pull 5 names out of the jar...those 5 people would get that item.  So in the end everyone would walk away with 5 new things.  It was really fun and people got very creative.  I think the best part was just seeing what people came up with.  Not to mention, it's always fun to get together with out kids every now and then.  ;)  We had a sugar cookie dessert bar, with fruit for toppings.  It was a blast.

Valentine's Day was two days later.  We always focus mainly on the kids for Valentines Day.  It's just more fun that way.  Besides, we have birthdays and Anniversary in the two weeks before that, so we've had plenty of 'us' time by then.  They got crepes with strawberries and whip cream hearts for breakfast, then heart shaped sandwiches for lunch.  That night we surprised them with going to see the new Legos movie, which we ALL LOVED!  It was so funny.  Even Isla went.  She did ok, but I don't see myself taking her to any more movies in the near future.  After the movie we ate at Johnny Rockets and went home.  A fun day for all of us. 

 

Valentine's Day...

Isla's Breakfast...strawberry, raspberry baby cereal.  I seriously LOVE this stuff.  Almost better than crepes.

Sawyer thought he was so clever, putting his PB&J heart over his heart ;)

 This was my first attempt at 'Pinterest hair'...not too shabby.  Completely lopsided, but cute nonetheless.

 I love Violet, covering her ears, in the background