The girl can sleep!!!

We seriously wonder if Kai is going to be one of those teenagers who sleep until 2 pm (or do all teenagers do that?!)  Since birth, she has been a great sleeper and will nap just about anywhere you put her down.  The carseat is still an instant knockout and she knows to ask if she's allowed to take a nap!  :)  Sometimes yes, usually no....we stopped napping her around age 2 when she would fight us at bedtime.  Now that she's old enough to know better than to get out of bed at bedtime, the occasional nap doesn't seem to mess her up too much and she's just look at books a little longer at night.  

She'll usually stay asleep getting out of the car and into the house or on what ever errand we are running...

Fish shopping...

I can't even remember where this is??

Playing one minute...out the next!

She fell asleep on the way to the bowling alley and stayed asleep with all of the chaos around her

Hailey Hailey Hailey

Hailey has made amazing progress in Awanas and will complete her entire book this week almost a whole semester early!!!  We are so proud of her!  Her memory is amazing and she flew through her book memorizing multiple verses each week!  Below is a video of her reciting the 27 books of the New Testament in order!  

She also had another school project which she put together all by herself....picked out the photos,  cut them out, typed the phrases, etc.  She had a vision in her head and I thought it came together lovely and I'm so proud of her independence...she's definitely a woman who knows what she wants which will be super handy later in life!  :)   

Facebook...

A lot of the time some Facebook uploads don't make it to the blog...I pulled some below to have documented on here for my blog books (which I'm soooo far behind on!!!!!!!)

I walked in and thought there was a scary part in their movie but they were just snuggling! Love!!

Princess Pumpkin Potato head from the Iversons

Creating her own manipulatives!

Not sure if she's a barbie ballerina or a drag queen

The girls found a ladybug in the house...hailey is drawing her a landscape to try and get her to think she is outside ;) (she's in the middle next to the tall tree)

Matching dresses from the Kownacks!

The monkeys before Awanas

Movie Theatre playdoh from the Reeds

I love when I find them like this!

Hailey's self portrait from school

Scrooge counting her money!

Special dinner and movie night for good behavior

Jumpy house fun!

Guess my belly makes a good pillow during bedtime stories!

And a few Status' that didn't make it to the Tidbits...

While driving home from a fabulous day with a newborn and her wonderful big sisters( Allison Arrington ), Hailey explains to me the art of getting a baby to sleep "just in case she's at school and not here to help me when our new baby is crying" :) She's going to take her awesome big sister role to a whole new level come April! :)

The girls got a Princess SingALong DVD for Christmas and one of the songs from Mulan 2 says something like "just to be like other girls..." but Kai is singing "Justin Bieber other girls"

Happy New Year! Our 2011 was great...here's to hoping our 2012 will be just as wonderful! It's full of many changes: new baby, new house, new job, new schools, new friends!

When I walked in for dinner tonight Hailey said, "Daddy gave us jello with dinner!" I didn't say anything bc there was an assortment of fruits/veggies on their plate (AND I didn't have to make dinner!) but Kai saw my face and shook her head and said,"Leevi, Leevi, Leevi!"

I can't believe how many presents under the tree that Hailey has correctly guessed what's inside! I haven't told her she is right, but man she is good! Definitely going to have to be a little more sly in my wrapping next year!

I opened the door coming out of a bathroom today and smacked it pretty hard into a man (he was fine) and after apologizing profusely Kai said, "It's ok Mom. He's still alive"

I refuse to read The Rescuers again for bedtime tomorrow (although I said that last night!!) I'm going on strike! Leevi gets home in 4 days...he can take over Rescuer duty!

I LOVE the infectious giggles I hear coming from upstairs (I would just prefer them NOT to be at bedtime!) :)

Just had to use tweezers to remove a piece of wadded tissue from Kai's nose (when they are supposed to be asleep!!!!) Thought we were going to have our first trip to the ER! Hailey said they tried blowing her nose, making her sneeze, and picking it out before they decided to call for help! Ughh!!!

You know you have a house full of girls when your two year old (can't say that for much longer!) comes running in so excited from another room because she can smell you painting your nails!!!

I called Hailey to the table for breakfast and she replied, "Can I finish this show? I'm learning about Inertia." What?! :) Gotta love Syd the Science Kid!

St. Nikolaus

I'm finally on my final Christmas post!  For the first time we celebrated the German holiday, St. Nikolaus Day....

I got this from Wikipedia...

In Northern Germany, Nikolaus is usually celebrated on a small scale. Many children put a boot called Nikolaus-Stiefel (Nikolaus boot) outside the front door on the night of 5 December. St. Nicholas fills the boot with gifts and sweets overnight, and at the same time checks up on the children to see if they were good, polite and helpful the last year. If they were not, they will have a tree branch (Rute) in their boots instead. (I should add that in some legends it says that the tree branch is for the parents to beat their bad children with!  Oh my!  I'm glad we just get coal in the States!)  Sometimes a Nikolaus impersonator also visits the children at school or in their homes and asks them if they have been good (sometimes ostensibly checking his golden book for their record), handing out presents on the basis of their behavior.  (Click here to read more in depth about St. Nikolaus)  The rest of the article is pretty interesting considering St. Nikolaus is where the modern day Santa Claus stemmed from...

I decided to do this last minute and since we hadn't really talked much about it, I explained to the girls at dinner the night before that we'll celebrate it since we live in Germany, but since we aren't German, then I'm going to be the one to fill their boots.  I hate all of the lies tied into Christmas and like I said earlier, we tried to not emphasize Santa too much this year.  An American friend of ours who lives here does ONLY St. Nikolaus on the 6th and not Santa at all, keeping Christmas Day about Christmas and not Santa!  I love that idea but I'm not sure I can cave in that much!  :)  Me telling them kind of backfired though because kids in their classes talked about the real St. Nikolaus coming to their house which in turn, I just had to make up more lies!  :) 

 

Kai dug right into the Kisses!  I'm glad I only put a handful in!  Chocolate at 7am would brighten anyone's day!  :) 

They got some glitter foundation, books, Pollys, Kisses, and a Princess Lollipop. 

Happy St. Nikolaus Day!

Four day weekend in Grafenwoehr

EVERY single month here in Europe the Army gets a four day weekend (tied into whatever holiday is that month)  We haven't been able to take advantage of all of them because of Leevi's current job....when he travels he doesn't get those four days.  Over these next few months he is gone so much that we decided to drive to stay with him over this four day weekend for Martin Luther King's Day.  He still had to work, but since he's the boss of this exercise, he was able to sneak away for long stretches during the day.  His hotel room has a separate bedroom so we were able to get the girls to bed and hang out without tiptoeing around.   The girls and I found things to do around Graf on Friday and Saturday and then we left Sunday around noon when Leevi went into work.   It's nice to be back home on Monday with one more day of break to relax and regroup before the week starts! 

We went to this park last summer when we were here visting Leevi. 

Her name in the snow.....it dusted a few times that we were there but didn't amount to being able to "play" in it.

The girls had a blast feeding the ducks and swans when we were here a few months ago but this time they absolutely refused our bread!  Maybe they sensed we were Americans!  :)  There were about 30 ducks and 2 swans and NOT ONE came to eat from us!!! 

We were able to take Leila with us at the hotel (which is always the number one reason for not getting out and about Europe more often!)  Dogs aren't allowed in the front seat in Germany (I think they aren't even supposed to be in the back without rails up)  so I scooted the passenger seat up as far as it could go and made Leila a "bed" at Kailee's feet.  She was a great traveler and slept at Kai's feet the whole time and made a comfy foot rest for her. 

I don't know how our parents survived traveling with us when we were kids!  This 3 hour trip was bearable because of DVD players, iPhone, iPad, and the Leapster.  And for me, the GPS!  There is no way I would have attempted this trip alone in a foreign country without a cell phone and the GPS.  I think even printed Map Quest directions would have failed me.  Such a security relief! 

How are we supposed to fit another kid back there?!  I guess someone has to go!  :) 

Speaking of no room....I scored one of the two narrow based carseats that we'll need once the baby comes (Sunshine Kids (I guess now called Diono) Radian....it's about $225 new and I found it on Bookoo (like Craigslist) for only $50.  I have no idea why she was selling it so cheap!  It's in perfect condition!

Grant Circle Field Trip

Our neighborhood got an invitation to bake traditional German Christmas cookies at a local bakery.  Each year, this specific bakery closes early and lets in a select group of Americans.  When Leevi is out of town we are always looking for something extra to do to pass the time and this seemed like a really neat experience for the girls to see the back of a bakery and all of the big equipment. 

Huge sheets of rolled out sugar cookie dough

Sprinkles galore!!!!

After at least 400 cookies were cut, the kids started to get creative with the extra dough

 Everything that was baked, we were able to take home (free of charge) 

We were there from 4-6pm, so we had COOKIES for dinner that night!!  They did come home and eat some apples, carrots and yogurt and then they were off to bed!

The group of kids who participated along with Chef Peter!   Such fun!!!!

I think we came home with 5 containers of cookies!!!!  BUT, not a single kid washed their hands and quite a few were coughing and sniffling (mine included)!  The germs bake off, right?!  Hailey insisted on bringing a box the next day to her teachers at school so I sent Mrs. Winter a quick email saying just to toss them at the end of the day but lie and say how wonderful they were!!!  :)  We ate quite a few over the week and didn't get sick but I would have felt horrible if her teachers had!  

Christmas Traditions

I've been tackling a LONG list of things I'd like to get done before the baby comes in JUST three more months!  The blog is somewhere on that list and hopefully I'll eventually get caught up!  Leevi is in and out of town (mostly OUT) until 3 days before my due date, so I shouldn't have any excuses of not having any free time in the evenings.  We had a relaxing holiday without too many plans knowing that we'd be Daddyless over the next few months.  I'm having such a hard time getting things accomplished now that I can't imagine how far behind I'll get with a newborn!  A lot of the things have to do with the upcoming move at the end of the school year and sorting through things now while I'm free and before the 3rd trimester exhaustion kicks in!!!

Christmas traditions are something that I can't say we've done every Christmas since Hailey has been born but now that she is old enough to remember years past I'd like to develop that nogstalgic feeling of the holidays!!!!  There were a lot of ooo's and ahhh's when we unpacked the Christmas boxes and a lot of "I remember this!!!" 

Christmas cards....these are definitely a MUST every year (we have one saved from the last 10 Christmas's since we've been married that I hang up each year...the MAIN reason why I do them!)  I also added this year a string of Holiday Artwork from years past from the girls that get packed away in the Christmas boxes...

I also do a photo ornament each year of the girls...they get a special alone picture from their first Christmas and the following years, a together shot!  On the right pictured below is a Hallmark Memory Album that we've done since Hailey was 2 and Kai was a newborn.  It's 10 years worth of a memory page about the holidays and a 15 sec recording.  I make a collage of about 15 favorite pics from the holidays to glue to one side and write specifics about that holiday season on the other.  It's really cute to hear the change in their voice from year to year.  They must have played Hailey's first recording from 2008 at least 100 times...she said "Happy Christmas Pretty Princess"  I don't know why she said that!  But it's really cute! 

We started the Gingerbread House tradition last year.....

We started the tradition of making "Christmas Trash" (aka Puppy Chow or Garbage) at least 5 years ago when we moved into our new house in Hawaii...a lot of the neighbors exchanged goodies!  This mix of Crispix, Chocolate, Peanut Butter and Powdered Sugar has to be saved for a special occasion otherwise we'd make it all of the time and be huge! 

Her eyes are closed intentionally on the picture on the right as she was savoring her bite!  :) 

We didn't make it to see Santa this year!!!!  He doesn't come to Germany...they do St. Nickolas on the 6th (a post to come eventually on that!!!!)  We could have driven to Heidelberg one day to see a Santa that come to their post, but Hailey didn't want to go.  She said that he's not the real Santa and since we have our own personal elf (Snowy) then she didn't need to tell him what she wanted!  :)  Ha!!!  I only wanted to go to have a picture for my collection!  :)  The picture we had last year was pretty lame anyway....nothing like the Mall Santa's in the States!  We tried not to put a lot of emphasize on Santa this year anyway.  We talked a lot about the Reason of the Season and did an Angel Tree and donated old toys to an orphanage and things that revolved more around family and Jesus than PRESENTS!   Hailey made a couple of comments over the holidays that shows she's really getting it!  As we were putting the tree topper on the tree she explained to Kailee the significance of the star!!!  My heart was proud!  :) 

Our tree stumps from each of our first Christmas's (guess we'll need to go back to a real tree next year!), the yearly Santa pic (and Snowy, our elf!), and this year's advent calendars!

Each year they also get matching Christmas pajamas...this year I opted for more of a Winter theme to get more bang for my buck!  They wear them throughout the holidays but specifically on Christmas Eve/Morning!  And they also get matching Christmas dresses (which for the past two years I've been lucky enough to find on clearance now for next year...still looking, but it's a bit trickier this year considering I have to coordinate an infant without knowing the gender!!!)