Our First Snow of the Season!

We had an inch or two of snow overnight on 12/20.  We had errands to run that morning and hoped that the snow would still be there when we got home that afternoon!  Thankfully, it was and Hailey and I whipped up a snowman in record time while Leevi was trying to coax Kai awake from falling asleep on the car ride home. 

The weather has been 40's and rainy all December unlike last December when it was 30's and snowy!  Apparently, this Winter is more of the norm.  We'll see what the New Year has in store for us!  We are hoping for at least a few more snowfalls! 

Christmas Day

Our first present of the morning was the girls sleeping in!  Hailey came in around 8:00 and waited patiently (playing on my iphone) until we finally woke Kai up at 8:30!  The video was in an earlier post but you see the reaction to the dollhouse....they have played with it constantly since then!  I think we are going to keep it downstairs and get more use out of it since the girls don't like playing upstairs by themselves. 

A goodbye letter from Snowy, our elf and stuffed stockings!  Snowy said he's excited to find us in our new house next year.  Sniff, sniff, I'm really going to miss this neighborhood!!!  No clue where we'll be going yet other than somewhere else in Germany...this post is closing in August!

Christmas morning mayhem! Actually, it wasn't bad...Kai took her time, like last year, wanting each present completely unwrapped AND opened.   And the girls probably played with the dollhouse and opened stockings for the first half an hour.  I need to make a note of the headache I went through to get that dollhouse shipped here.  Actually, not that dollhouse but the one I really wanted.  It was from the same company (Kidkraft, which makes wooden toys which I was really pushing for verse the plastic true Barbie dollhouse that Mattel makes)  There are about 10 models of this size dollhouse but the one I wanted had one more story (baby's nursery) and an attached garage.  I couldn't find anyone to ship it here, couldn't find an international company that sold it here and even went the route of buying one and shipping it to Tiffany who then tried to ship it USPS or UPS and they wouldn't ship it.  Amazon.com said they'd ship it to my German address........for $600!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   After a month of leads, I gave up and settled for this one.  I wish I could have looked at them at a store verses online but I'm really happy with the one we picked (it had to have an elevator like the true Barbie house and it also has bunk beds which the girls really like)  They love it and don't know what they could have had!  :) 

The girls got a lot of Barbies (and our first boy barbies...a few Kens, Prince Adam and Prince Eric...Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid) and Squinkies.  Kai got quite a few Belle things and Hailey got lots of Ariel Jewelry.  Leevi got his annual photo mug and calendar for the office and a bunch of Cowboy gear including a golfbag and I got a completely unexpected iPad!!!! 

The girls giving Leevi one of his gifts from them...they each made a Butterfly Garden Stone for him (since he's the one who does the yardwork, he can think of them when he waters the flowers!) :) 

By the time we got through the presents and made breakfast it was after 11am and we needed to get ready for Christmas dinner at our house.  Thankfully, we had cleaned the day before because it took me FOREVER to sort through all of the presents and packaging and get the new things in their place before our friends came over at 3:30.  We had a great dinner with two families from our neighborhood (Doziers and Harris') and one guy from Leevi's work.  After dinner we headed down the street to the Roberts who had people over for dessert and eggnog. 

Merry Christmas!!!!

Christmas Eve

I'm not sure where I am going with all of the backwards posts, but here is Christmas Eve!  We went to church at 5:30 for a service that we as a community threw together ourselves.  I think they wanted us to join the Heidelberg chapel for Christmas Eve and only offered a Christmas Day service.  The ladies of PWOC bible study were able to "sponsor" a Christmas Eve service, so we threw together some songs, had the older kids do readings from Luke, and closed with a Candle Lighting to Silent Night. 

Christmas Eve Service

The girls hammed it up during the service...it could have easily gone the other way depending on Kailee's mood.  I told Hailey that if Kai started doing something wrong then she should just ignore her instead of trying to correct her because there surely would have been a scene!  :) 

Before I could adjust my camera settings for this picture of Kai, Hailey's wax dripped on her hand and she started panicking!  Thankfully she wasn't burned! 

Christmas Eve present and Hailey's list to Santa

Once we got home from church, the girls spread out their reindeer food, opened their present and played with them for a bit while I made dinner (Kai opened Snow White Squinkies and Hailey opened a long-haired Barbie).  We set out milk and cookies for Santa and Hailey even found a few leftover carrots from our garden when they played outside that afternoon so she added them on the plate.  They surprisingly went to bed very quickly and Leevi was able to get to work on the dollhouse. 

So much to do before bed!

All ready for Christmas morning!!! 

We weren't up late at all...Leevi finished the dollhouse in record time and then stayed up to watch the Cowboys game. 

Tidbits from Hailey

And finally Hailey's tidbits!!!!  We can't believe that she is going to turn SIX in a few months!  She is planning a Beauty Spa Sleepover with a few close friends! 

Hailey's first ever grading period ending in November and I had a parent-teacher conference with Mrs. Winter (whom we absolutely LOVE!)  She had great things to say about Hailey and had many samples of her work to show me (Leevi was in Spain...boo) One thing she pointed out was that Hailey was the only one in her class to get a perfect score on the Listening Comprehension part of their assessment testing.  I mentioned this to Hailey and when she talked to Leevi on the phone that night I told her to tell him what Mrs. Winter said about her and she said, "Mrs. Winter said I was the best student in the whole school!"  Ha!  I love the interpretation...guess we need to do a little lesson on being humble! 

She is learning so much this year and it's very interesting to hear her talk about the things she is learning at school when I know it's not something that we've taught her.  She asked me the other day if the book I was reading was Fiction or Non-Fiction.  :) 

I took the girls swimming at the Ramstein pool recently and you have to be 6 to be able to go down the big slide by yourself.  If another adult isn't with us, then the girls can't go down the slide because I can't leave Kai by herself at the bottom while I take Hailey.  I told Hailey we would just say that she's 6 so we could all slide.  In my defense, she is just two months shy from turning 6, AND she can swim, AND the deepest part of the pool is only up to her shoulders.  :)  But then Hailey replies, "You mean we are going to LIE?!?  But that will be disobeying GOD!"  :)  Yes, it will and please remember that when you think about getting your first fake ID!  :) 

Hailey helped unpack all of the groceries without being asked and when I thanked her she said, "I'm just helping a pregnant lady out!"  :) 

Our Christmas Elf arrived this season and after a few arguments with her sister I asked our Elf, Snowy, if he had witnessed that naughty behavior and Hailey said, "Mom, it's kind of like you are tattling!" 

I don't remember exactly how the conversion came up but we were talking in the car about Heaven and how Heaven will be better than your best day on Earth. Then Hailey added that Heaven will even be better than being the line leader at school! :) 

Showing off her monkey skills

She set up a beauty salon outside...

 

Trying to have patience with Leila!  :)

She was so happy at their physicals this past summer to be offered a gown to wear like a big girl!  :) 

Her Rudolph performance at school

Giving Kailee the present she bought for her with her own Awana money she had earned...she had enough shares to get a gift for each of us! 

Happy Birthday, Leila!!!

Happy 8th Birthday to the spunkiest "old lady" that we know!  She'll always be our first baby! 

Merry Christmas

Where did December go????  I'm so far behind I guess I'll just start with Christmas and then eventually get to what led up to it!  Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!   The video is from our Christmas Eve Service at Church and then Christmas morning!

Tidbits from Kailee

I've been jotting down little things that Kai says for awhile now but just now am finally getting to this post.  Hailey has a bunch too and there were so many between the two of them that I decided to separate them into two different posts.  Not to mention I had a ton of pictures from my phone that usually make it to Facebook but not to the blog....PURGE BELOW!

Kailee really cracks us up and is just a laid back kid.  We passed the Terrible Twos with really only "climbing" issues and we are still waiting on the Terrible Threes to kick in (which I think is is definitely the HARDEST age...they are old enough to know better but still learning how to balance their independence!)  So far, she's cake!!!  When she does have a "three year old moment" I have to remind myself that she spoils us rotten 95% of the time and that this behavior is normal!  My memory could be failing me but I'm pretty sure that a certain other family member had me taking deep breaths and counting to 10 a lot at this age!  :) 

Here are some funny tidbits...

She will sometimes speak "Germaly" to me or play store and ask if I speak "Eng-a-lish".

We babysat a family with 3 girls, ages 10 months to 7 years, and my girls were just in heaven with the baby.  Kai said at dinner the next night, "I really like babysitting Katie!" and then almost in the same breath "and I really like Cheetos."   

In the bathroom: 
Kai: "I thought a shark was coming so I had put my bum up like this."  
Me: "You silly girl...there aren't sharks in the potty!"
Kai: "Yes, because it's too stinky!"

Hailey is afraid to go upstairs by herself (no matter the time of day), but Kai will go as long as you reassure her that there aren't any "monsters, ghosts, or bears" up there. 

Kai's favorite Christmas decor this year has been the nutcrackers (they hang out with the Princesses and the Pollys often) except she forgets and refers to them as the Graham Crackers.

If I bump into Kai or hurt her she'll say, "that's ok.  You're a mom, it was an accident!"  Implying if a kid did the same thing she would think it was on purpose! 

There is a little boy in her class who apparently (according to Kai) is pretty naughty most of the time.  She thinks that "he needs a sticker chart at home!"  :)  (We use a very basic one here for rewarding positive behavior.)

And not a tidbit but a quirk of Kailee's...she is constantly playing with something and for some reason (only known in her brain) she will put a toy in a random place but 9 times out of 10 if you (or Hailey) asks her where it is, she'll be able to find it. 

Sometime Kailee will ask if a cashier (or random person) is a boy or a girl.  Innocent enough, but I'll tell her that it is rude if that person hears her say that and they might get their feelings hurt.  Recently a friend of ours had a baby and Kai asked if it was a girl or boy baby and then she stopped herself and said, "I'm sorry...that's not appropriate"  :) 

And my favorite from this bunch....I chuckled about it all day (how mature of me!)  When she coughed and passed gas at the same time:  "If you pooter, when you cough you don't have to say excuse me because it was only an accident!"  :) 

And finally a picture catch up from my phone....some of these are from the beginning of summer!

Never too young for a pedicure!

Kai and Coconut out for a scooter ride...the hat that Coconut is wearing is his helmet

 

Absolutely no fear!

Poor girl

Of course that is a comfy place to put your babies to bed

Biking to school

Kai's Dinosaur

Such a good dog!!!

Was finally able to get a few Thanksgiving Feast pics from her school off of my phone

And a video of the Pledge of Allegiance...

 

Trimming the Tree

We pulled out the decorations a bit early since we were going to be out of town over the Thanksgiving weekend but we waited until Leevi returned from his trip to decorate the tree! 

On the bottom left the girls are pretending to be presents...

The final touch!

  

Will it ever not be torture?

Merry Christmas

I got the lights up outside the week after Thanksgiving.  We got a new tree this year because our old one had several strings of lights that are out...we moved that one outside and just added a string of lights. 

Paris!!!!!

Our trip to Paris for the long weekend reminded me of when we'd fly over to Maui or Kauai for the weekend when living in Hawaii...again, we are sooooooooo grateful for the opportunities we are given because of our duty stations!   After the long day at Disney, we took our time getting ready the next morning and linked up with the Doziers to take the 30 minute train ride into Paris.  My favorite quote from the whole weekend came from Hailey while on the train...

Leevi: "Hailey, what do you think of getting to ride the train?!?!"

Hailey:  "It's kind of like timeout...you just have to sit here." 

OMG, these spoiled, rotten children!  :)  Our adventure really began when we arrived at our stop and we should have seen this as a warning of how the rest of our day was going to go!   It took us some time to figure out how to get up out of the train station.  We had the double stroller, a single stroller and 9 people and there was only ONE elevator that could hold about 5 people at a time with about 20 people in line in front of us.  We broke off from the Doziers to look for a different way up and did find our way out after climbing 3-4 different sets of stairs...Leevi carrying the double stroller and our bags and me carrying Kai (we have no idea why we were that deep underground!)  Apparently that was the reason for the long elevator line...it was a straight shot to the top but it was quite irritating that people without strollers or wheelchairs or even without children were waiting in that line.  Once we emerged, we had no way of getting ahold of the Doziers (we had our German cell phones off)  We decided to head off on our own which was probably the best idea considering the amount of walking we had to do and the many temperments/opinions of our large group. 

Our first stop while we were getting our bearings...Kai had to use the bathroom, hence the face in the picture, but I made her pose first! 

We really only cared about seeing Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower...any other things we passed along that route came as a bonus.  It was cold but sunny so the girls were even out of their hats and gloves for part of the day.  Paris is a lot like New York City but with amazing architecture and much older buildings!    





Notre Dame!  We didn't go inside....Leevi and I didn't have too much of an interest in that and having two young kids with us was way more than a legitmate excuse! 

Cute park on the walk to the Eiffel Tower...this contraption spun around...too fun but a little scary for Mom!  :) 

This is where our fun began!  The walk from Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower was supposed to be about a mile and a half...no biggie since we had the double stroller, BUT we went in the wrong direction!  :)  Leevi and I laughed that we would have failed miserably at the Amazing Race!  Thankfully, the weather was nice and the girls were entertaining themselves in the stroller with their Snow White and Ariel dolls, so we decided to hop back on the train/subway instead of back-tracking on foot.  After a few more mishaps with the directions/routes of the train and lugging the double stroller around (any many laughs!) we made it to the Eiffel Tower!!!!!!! 



Typical tourists....Leevi looking at a map and me taking a picture of the bathrooms!  This is the cleanest public bathroom in a major city that you will EVER go into.  After each use, the door locks and the bathroom gets powerwashed and then dried automatically. 

It was a Saturday and the lines were sooooooooooooo long to get up to the top of the tower.  It was about 2:30 and we had nothing else specific on the agenda for the day so we decided to wait.  In hindsight (I felt like we said that a lot that weekend!) we shouldn't have waited!  We were in line for about 2 hours (standing!  My stomach really hurt!) with two patient kids and we finally made it up.  Kai had to go to the bathroom when we had about 15 more minutes in the line and was able to hold it until we made it to the top WHERE WE HAD TO WAIT ANOTHER 20 MINUTES IN A RESTROOM LINE!  That did it for me!  I was done and ready to go back down and go home!  I'm sure Leevi wanted to shoot me (or himself!)  I snapped a few pictures and down we went!!!!!!  We even had tickets to the very top but there WAS ANOTHER LINE.  No way!  So if you ever go to the Eiffel Tower don't wait in line...it's not like you are waiting in line for a cool roller coaster or something....you wait for a view (albeit a nice and romantic view!)  :)  The girls started loosing it around that point (maybe because I was) but we did manage to snap one family shot back at the bottom and then headed back to the train station.  Both girls feel asleep instantly on the walk to the train station and Kai slept until we got back to the hotel.  We were train/subway experts on the journey home and we were baffled at how simple the return trip was. 

View from the top

View at night with the lights on and a view underneath looking up.  At 6pm, twinkling lights came on....we saw it briefly from the train. 

The MacDonalds in Paris, 2011

We got back to the hotel a little after 7pm, ate more leftovers for dinner, and started packing up a little for our return home the following morning.   Leila was excited to see us after spending two days in the hotel room alone but we have found another reason why Melatonin is our new miracle drug!  We brought some just in case the girls needed it if they were restless for Disney or not sleeping in their own beds (or in Kailee's case, taking late afternoon naps and throwing off her bedtime).  We had brought Benedryl for Leila hoping to calm her down in the hotel while we were out for the day.  (She barks and barks and barks when we leave her somewhere new)  When she's had it in the past for allergy related issues it knocks her out.  For some reason the thought popped into my head to google Melatonin for Dogs and sure enough there is a website www.melatoninfordogs.com which gave us the proper doseage, etc.  She was calm and not barking when we left and arrived back at the hotel hours later so we are guessing it worked!  :) 

It took me about a week to catch back up from our vacation (you always need a vacation from your vacation, right?) and poor Leevi had to travel again just three days after we got home from Paris (not to mention, he had just gotten home from Virginia and Spain the night before we left for Paris!)  But the extra money he'll get on the trip to Norway is paying for our Paris trip and Christmas so I guess it's worth it!  :)  We are anxious to have him home and relax for the holidays!  He'll be off of work the whole time that the girls are off from school (Dec. 19-Jan.2) so we are really looking forward to some family time! 

I'm still playing "blog-catch-up" so check back for some holiday fun!!!!!!