Grayson's visit

Leevi's cousin, Grayson, was touring around Europe for a semester before he starts his freshman year of college!  We were so happy that he added us as a stop and was able to stay for almost three weeks.  While the majority of the time at home was spent wrestling (as depicted in the first three pictures!)  I promised we did take him out a bit to see the sights of Germany! 

Trier

 Professional soccer game with Leevi (insanity!!!)

 Burgruine Windeck

 Heidelberg...

He and Leevi also went go-carting (I probably need to get those pics off of Leevi's phone)  Picture autobahn style racing!!!  Holy moly!!!!  Both of them were soooooo sore the next day!   And Grayson was also able to spend Thanksgiving with us!  He was beyond helpful with the kids and it was so good to have some family visit! 

Our 10th Anniversary!!!!!



Leevi and I were able to celebrate our T-E-N-T-H wedding anniversary in Budapest, Hungary where we were engaged!  Almost 11 years ago Leevi was deployed to Bosnia and I was teaching in Virginia Beach...we met in Budapest during my summer break and his R&R.  Never in a million years did we think we'd ever be able to go back, but how could we pass up the opportunity being so close!  Our good friends, the Kents, watched the girls for us (we took Luke because I'm still nursing him).  There was quite a bit of logistically finagling with getting the girls to Heidelberg (1hr 15min one way!), dropping Leila off at the dog sitters (30 min away), and then getting to the airport (1hr 10 min from the dog place)  BUT it all worked out and Luke did great on his first flight (about 1 1/2 hrs).  It was a quick trip, Thursday thru Saturday, and we opted for public transportation and our two feet (and a stroller!) 

Lots of snow in Germany as we were leaving!

Our dinner the first night after settling in the hotel...I would have gone back and eaten here again!!!  I had the tastiest quesadilla EVER and a greek salad...Leevi wasn't totally in love with his meal, but my quesadilla was way too big so I shared! 

After dinner, we walked to the main bridge which separates Buda from Pest, the Chain Bridge.

Friday was on only full day there, so we set out on foot to explore! 

Heroes Square...we tried using the GPS in walking mode (which TOTALLY failed us) and we ended up on the complete opposite end of town than I had planned for our morning.   

Christmas market...we got some gluwein to warm up!!!! 

Because we were on the wrong side of town, we stumbled upon the restaurant where Leevi proposed that we had planned on going to for dinner.  We debated for about 10 minutes about eating then for lunch or coming back for dinner (our dilemma was that we were only in jeans and had planned on dressing up, BUT we didn't want to have to walk all the way back and since we had Luke it was probably better that we ate when it wasn't crowded vs. a dinner rush on a Friday night.  We didn't have any baby food for Luke, so he ate the dinner rolls and drank water from a fancy long stemmed glass!  :)



I know I have a photo of me outside of the restaurant (in addition to more around Budapest), but that album got packed by mistake with a bookshelf that is in storage back in the States.  It was July when we got engaged and we sat outside in the gardens (the blue tents in the background of the picture).  It took us a second to find the exact location because a big tree we sat under has since been cut down.  

I framed our receipts together...the only reason I probably saved the receipt from 10 years ago was because it was so original and now of course most restaurants use computers.  I had the most delicious aparagus soup and pumpkin ravioli and 10 years ago I think I had fish.  Even though our meal was cheaper this time (lunch and not as much alcohol and dessert!) you can see the inflation on two matching items on the receipts. 

More sight-seeing!  It was freezing and we were so glad that decided to bring the stroller (we thought about just using the Ergo carrier, but his face would have been chilly!)  The stroller rain/wind cover isn't made for this stroller and I had it in a donation pile, but decided to try it out and it was PERFECT!  He was so toasty and took great naps while we explored! 

Our hotel!!!  Just kidding!!!  But we looked into it when we got home and it really wasn't too outrageous!  We said we'll stay there for our 25th!  :)   

 

Our flight was delayed almost 4 hours coming home!!!!  I was hoping that Luke would sleep on that flight but we had to let him nap before then.  That delay really threw us for a loop gathering up the rest of the family when got back but it was a great trip!

 

On our actual anniversary, we Leevi grilled steaks and we celebrated as a family!  Here's to 10+ more wonderful years!!!



Thanksgiving!

Luke's handprint was near impossible to get much less 4 different colors!!!  We made these for family and I just drew in Luke between the girls' handprints!

Slowly making my way through November!!!!!  There is so much to be thankful for...our health and job stability being so cliche but truely hitting the nail on the head...we couldn't be more blessed in those areas!  We had a great Thanksgiving this year with about 6 families and a few others passing through.  There was WAY too much food which was nice because we all had a lot of leftovers!  Our day started with FOUR of the moms getting pedicures while the dads watched the kids and prepped the turkeys!  (I LOVE that I haven't had to cook a turkey in probably 5 years because Leevi fries them with our Infrared Oiless Fryer (Great Father's Day gift, ladies!!!)  The family who hosted lives right behind us, so it was nice to just walk over.  

 

I'm outta here!!!

We had an adult White Elephant gift exchange but each parent brought their own child a present to open (no exchanging = no tears!)  I had my gift stolen twice...an iTunes gift card and a German hat, but I ended up with a Camelback water bottle and Leevi got a German beer mug. 

A few of the 20 or so kids starting to gather for present time!

Patiently waiting!

 Eating the paper...he's gonna have fun on Christmas morning!!!

All of these pictures came from just from my iPhone...we actually re-shot our Christmas card photos (more to come on that!) on Thanksgiving day in between pedis, naps, turkeys, and football!!!

Veteran's Day

Ha!  I'm finally into November with my post updates!  I'm trying really hard to get caught up before Christmas!!!!  My latest excuse reason is that our Internet keeps cutting out (Leevi thinks we need a new modem, so HOPEFULLY over the Christmas break, he'll be able to fix it for me!)

We are so proud of all that Leevi does for this country AND for our family!!!!  And of course we couldn't be more grateful for all of our friends and family who serve and who have served!  I have been meaning to do a blog post of how fortunate we have been with our duty stations in the Army, but it always gets pushed to the bottom of the list!  Since so many posts are going to be combined this month, I might as well add this one in!  When we celebrated our anniversary (a few weeks early) in Budapest, Hungary, we were talking about all of the awesome places we'd lived and visited because of the Army!  Leevi really has lived the commerical "Join the Army, see the WORLD".  I'm sure I'm cutting this list short, but here are the places that Leevi has lived or traveled to because of work:  Hawaii, Bosnia, Missouri (I guess the only good thing about Missouri was that Hailey was born and we met two awesome families!) Korea, Germany (even before we lived here!), Croatia, Spain, Poland, Norway, Italy Greece and trips back to the States to Kansas, Minnesota, and Washington where he was able to take side trips to visit both sides of his family and see old friends!  AND the places we've vacationed because of the Army are countless!!!!!  We have really embraced the Army way of life, even though the deployments are horrific (one might be looming in the Spring actually!!!!) we really enjoy the new houses, new friends, and seeing the world!!!

(This pic didn't go exactly as I had envisioned...he wouldn't keep the hat on (and I also really wanted to be able to see "MACDONALD" but I felt that it looked silly on backwards) and of course he wouldn't sit still!  I finally thought to grab Leevi's dogtags and that kept him put for a few seconds!)

8 months old!!!!

Yikes, 8 months already!!!!!!  We are still lovin every second of our craziness!!!  I told Leevi the other night, as we literally fell into bed, that I'm sure we are going to miss the insanity one day...although it might be 20 years from now!  I do feel like I'm always "playing house"...sports practices, homework, scrubbing toilets with a baby crawling up my leg or cooking dinner with a baby on my hip!!!!!   I wouldn't trade a single second though!

Luke got his first tooth this month....it popped through on Dec.4th...I'm guessing the second one isn't far behind.  He's been a little more clingy than usual but he still seems to be sleeping ok...we are using the Hyland's Teething Tablets!!!  LOVE them!!!  He actually has been sleeping in until after N-I-N-E all week!!!!  And it's only been able to happen because Leevi has been working out in the mornings here at the gym instead of his boss (making him) work out at the gym where he works.  He's home in time for me to take Hailey to school at 8am without having to drag Luke and Kai along!  Luke's naps are pretty regular now too...twice a day for 1 1/2-2 hours each time!!!!  BUT that typically only happens when we don't have soccer or gymnastics...starting in January will be tough because we'll have gymnastics on Monday (Kai) and Friday (Hailey) and soccer twice on Tuesday.  Having some sort of consistency with Luke is the main reason that I kept Kai home from preschool this year...creating ONE more drop off/pick up would really keep us scrambling all day!  (Kai misses the kindergarten cut off next year, so she'll still have one more year of preschool anyway)

Luke's favorite babble this month is "ba,ba,ba" but it almost sounds like "blah, blah, blah"  Too cute!

He's started doing this cute little smirk!!!!

Seriously, dog!?!?

 Getting him to sit still for a picture is near impossible!!!

Watching a bit of the Cowboys before bedtime!

I expected Luke to fall asleep when we walked to get Hailey, but Kai did instead!  They definitely stay toasty under the plastic cover!

 Maybe next year...

Luke's canvases finally came in....crazy groupon deal!  Two are from Canvas on Demand and two are from Picture It on Canvas...both are great quality! 

And a few video snippets.... 

Halloween

Holy Moly!!!!  Christmas is around the corner and I still haven't posted about Halloween!!!!!  We had quite a few Halloween events that are now going to get wrapped into one post since I'm on such a time crunch!!!!  (And I lost all of the Halloween and Pumpkin carving pictures in the "crash"!!!)  I was able to pull a few from Facebook, but no originals without the collage and none of the actual carving fun! 

 

We went with the most traditional Halloween costume theme this year...a witch, a ghost, a bat, and a pumpkin!  I was pushing for Pirates or Superheroes but Hailey wanted nothing to do with that! 

Fall was here and gone before we knew it!!!!

 We had our first snow BEFORE Halloween!!!!  Thankfully by Halloween night it had warmed up a bit!!!

 Hailey had a function at her school one evening the week of Halloween...A Harvest Moon Reading...6 classrooms were set up with different teachers reading books and we rotated around. 

 The bowling alley also had something one night...free bowling, face painting, t-shirt screen printing where you could choose your own character, and LOTS of candy!

 AND Hailey's class had a Fall Fest party...

 Pumpkin seed counting, hula hoop toss around a pumpkin, face painting, crafts, and food!

 Luke crashed toward the end of the party and we were going to leave before Host Nation started (German), but Kai plopped herself down on the carpet with the rest of the kids and the German teacher said that she could stay! 

 We did a few crafts at home too....Cursive name skeletons, vampire apple teeth, and peanut butter cracker spiders!

 Mummies!!!!!

And finally Trick-or-Treating!!!!!!  Leevi stayed home with Luke to pass out candy and I took the girls around.  It was like something you'd see in the movies...streets FILLED to the max with kids!!!!  Germans don't celebrate Halloween, so ALL of the Americans in this area come onto post...either Vogelweh or Ramstein...I refused to spend a ton of money on candy (although we still spent a small fortune I felt like!!!) but most houses lasted about 1 1/2hrs before running out.  It was pretty cold out, so when we passed back by our house after about 45 min, Kai was done and ready to dig through her candy.  Hailey and I went back out for about 30 more minutes until she started hobbling around because her feet were frozen!!