We didn't have any major traveling planned over Hailey's Christmas break, but we did some short outings over the 2 weeks that Hailey and Leevi had off. One of them was ice skating! Hailey has been once before (actually in Hawaii of all places!) and this was Kailee's first time. It was crowded, but it wasn't like we were going that fast! :) We started off with one "helper" penguin, but as the crowd died down, we were able to get a 2nd one. Leevi and Luke were our cheerleaders and the girls alternated waiting with Leevi while I skated around with the other one until we got our 2nd penguin.
Video snippets....love that they played American songs the whole time (it's like that even in stores!)
And just for fun, the video clip of Hailey ice skating when she was 3 at our neighbor's birthday party. Baby Kai stayed with Jenn Hoffman! For as cute as the penguins looked, these triangle trainers were much more stable...the penguin could topple pretty easily...both girls' stomach muscles were soooo sore the next day after hanging on the penguin!
We had a pretty low-key New Year's Eve with our typical hang out crowd of the families who live behind us (5 families...11 kids...it'll be sad when 3 of the families move this summer!) Definite evening plans weren't locked in until about 5:00 (it was undecided whether the dads were just going to get together for a bit...none of the moms seemed too eager knowing that New Years isn't really a kid-friendly holiday!) The kids and I were still in our pajamas and Leevi had to work on convincing me not to be a party pooper! ;)
Luke hung out with the big boys around the fire pit.
And crashed pretty early....he was a toasty lil bug and Leevi just kept him tucked tight all night knowing that he'd probably wake up if we tried to lay him down somewhere other than his crib!
The kids (and moms) started to fade around 10:30, so we said good night and headed home...the girls were set on stay up until midnight and by the time we got settled at home they had less than an hour to wait. Kailee started fading with literally 4 minutes to go and we had to snap her out of it! ;)
Luke stayed sound asleep and the four of us went outside to blow horns and look for fireworks!
By 12:04 we were back snuggled on the couch (poor Leila snuck up because she's terrified of fireworks!)
And by 12:06 they were O-U-T!
And a New Years video...the German countdown on t.v. was pretty funny!
Our Leila girl turned N-I-N-E in December!!!!!! She is still as spunky as ever even for an old lady! We love her to bits and say countless times how blessed we are to have a tolerant dog for our crazy family!
For some unknown reason, we can't play a board game on the floor without her being right in the middle.
Literally a pillow pet
I think this one is already on the blog, but it's still a favorite!!!
Love!!!!!!
We've successfully trained her to stay off of the new couches, but everything else seems to still be game!
The poor thing doesn't get her daily walk as often as she used to, but we will still play "crazy Leila" to get her energy out!!!!
The first present of the morning was the kids sleeping in until after 8!
He was into everything! We had to clean up wrapping paper as soon as the present was opened and I put the tree gate back up as soon as we finished.
Pure joy....and LOVE (the pic on the right is Kai thanking Hailey for her present!)
More presents....and the girls got our old iPhones that Leevi reconfigured into iPod touches with kid apps, etc.
The girls' big present this year was an Xbox with the Kinect...it's pretty awesome! The mom-vote that I tallied favored the Kinect way over the Wii because of the exercise (no remote like the Wii but a sensor that detects your body movement) We have a sports game (soccer, volleyball, boxing, etc) an adventure game (white water rafting, etc) and a Disney dance (dance moves for many of the Disney movies and tv shows). They also got a lot of crafts...make your own stuffed animal was a big hit as was make your own snow globe. A few others were not as exciting as they looked!
After presents, breakfast, and the unpackaging of presents (which took hours), we cleaned up for friends coming over for Christmas dinner...the Greens (we went from mostly all girl families as friends to all boy families) and a few single soliders from Leevi's and Charlie's work.
And some video snippets of Christmas day...we were in the middle of rearranging furniture and wall decor so I suppose I'll get to that post eventually!!!! My Christmas present was FURNITURE...a new dining room table, entertainment center and a wine barrel from France!
On Christmas Eve we headed to a friend's house for an early dinner and then rushed home to change and go to a candlelight service at our church. We let the girls open their Christmas Eve present earlier that morning since we knew our evening would be busy (and because they bugged us non-stop from the second that they woke up!) They knew that they were getting new Disney Princess dolls for Christmas (like the size of American Girl dolls, but way cheaper) and they were able to guess which they were from the packaging! I think we'll start a new tradition next year of having them open their presents from each other on Christmas Eve. A friend does that with her two little ones and I thought it was just perfect...it is one of the gifts that they are soooo excited about and it ties into one of the December sermons at church about the joy of giving...the chaplain asked us to visualize how excited we are to give our children presents on Christmas morning and then multiply that joy by infinity to express the joy that God must have felt when he gave His son to us.
After church we spread the reindeer food...I laughed at Kailee's reindeer food dump...she was cold and just dumped out the bag and rushed back inside! ;)
We took a quick picture in our Christmas jammies (I know the flash messed up in the picture on the left, but I like that Leila was there in her jammies too!)
We put out cookies and carrots and headed off to bed! I was surprised at how easily they went to sleep, but it was pretty late! Leevi and I didn't have to much left to prep so we weren't far behind them.
Since I'm sooo behind, most of the Christmas fun is going to just get rolled into one LONG post just so I can check this off my list and move on to the other countless things I need to do! (And as I'm typing this, I just heard Luke on the monitor up from his nap, so I guess I'll be back later!!)
This year we had to go with a real tree because we needed a "First Christmas Stump" for Luke (our stump family is in a few pictures down) Otherwise, I'm perfectly fine with our nice fake tree (especially because the needles drive me nuts with kiddos!) I laughed when I saw my friend Lisa's post about being Christmas tree snobs because she'd never survive a Christmas in Germany. The trees here are typically short and fat and gappy with long stems. I sent Leevi and Hailey out alone to pick our tree (at the exciting commissary of all places!) and for some reason was under the impression that they would ship in traditional American trees, so when Leevi and Hailey came home with this pitiful thing I was the biggest Scrooge/Grinch all mixed into one. Of course I didn't let Hailey know (she picked this winner specifically because it was the tallest!) but I huffed and puffed around Leevi not believing that he couldn't talk Hailey into a nicer one. It eventually grew on me and I thank Hailey for humbling me and reminding me the true meaning of Christmas! Our little tree was perfect!
Why do I torture them (and myself!) every year!?! :)
The stockings worked well this year tucked into the lid of the trunk, but Hailey objected to the way her "H" looked and decided to make her own "H" (in her defense the middle line in her H is red and it blends in to the red on the stocking) And Luke's "L" didn't make it in time (STILL ISN'T HERE), so he took Leevi's "L" and Leevi used his Cowboys stocking. The bottom two pictures are the kids first Christmas stockings (the girls' are Hawaiian and Luke's is German) and on the right is our stump family.
We brought out the Christmas decorations during Thanksgiving weekend, but we held off on the tree for a few weeks because of Luke! I wasn't worried so much about him messing with the ornaments but more about him using the tree to pull himself up to stand (AND THEN THE TREE FALLING OVER!) We attempted different barricades and then Leevi just happened to find a baby gate on clearance at the PX for only $27 that could wrap around the tree...I had looked online and couldn't find one for less than $60!
Luke had the honor of putting on the star this year which didn't exactly go over so well (oh, the memories!!) :) On the right is my Christmas present to myself...a demijohn used to make wine. And the bottom two is our card garland (which I still have hanging because cards are still trickling in) and our Santa pics.
Our Santa visit went off without a hitch this year! He had extremely limited hours, so we went directly from church one morning. Luke was fine, so maybe he'll escape the Santa scare (or maybe he'll get him next year when he's about 1 1/2!)
A tradition we do every year is to make Christmas Trash (aka Puppy Chow?) and deliver it to our neighbors along with our Christmas card. I had lots of help this year!
We made reindeer food for Hailey's class party and baked Christmas cookies for Santa with my friend Heather.
The girls dressed up as snowmen one day....
We made sure to take a family picture with Snowy before he returned to the North Pole! Leila was dying to join us on the couch (which I can successfully say we had no problems training her to stay off the new set!) so we let her jump up for the silly picture! Poor Luke was distracted by his hat and we used the timer for the photo so no one was there to make him smile! :)
Random goofy-ness when I had the camera out!
Kai wanted to take a picture in the hat that she was tucked in for her FIRST Christmas! This would have been cute to do every year!
We also made gingerbread houses which were surprisingly easy to put together this year. It was the same German set I had used last year, but I don't remember them staying put so well.
And lastly this was a new tradition we added this year and I LOVE it! The girls went through all of their toys and created a large donation pile...we actually do that part every year but this year I put an ad on Bookoo (like craigslist) and on two pages of FB spouse groups that I'm a part of over here and said that all of the toys were free and anyone could come take as much as they needed for their children (we left the tables set up outside, so whoever could come day or night without needing to disturb us). Leevi was skeptical that all of them would be gone in one swoop to the first person who came (which essentially didn't matter because I was going to take them all to donate to the thrift store anyway) and he probably had a valid point and maybe this won't work so well back in the States with a larger "clientele", BUT it worked here and it was so fun to see the girls' excitement when they'd check the table to see what had been taken. We never saw one person (we were either asleep or away from the house) but at least 8 different times we noticed something else gone. After about 5 days when the pickins got slim, I boxed up what was left and took it to the thrift store. This is definitely a tradition we will continue! I even got a few emails from people who had stopped by thanking us!
And no holidays are complete without a dance party!!!!!!
My baby is becoming a little man so fast!!!!!! As if the holidays alone weren't busy enough, Luke had his busiest milestone month yet! He is taking one/two steps at a time, he learned to wave and play peek-a-boo, he pushes a car around while crawling (is that just ingrained in boys?!?) and his most favorite game in the world is to play catch while saying something prrreettyyyy close to "ball"...which was also both of the girls' first word. He had a dr appt right after Christmas (ear infection!!! Ughh!!! I can always tell!!!) but it was good because he got weighed...he's 20 lbs and still growing on the exact pattern as the girls (he's dropped to the 50% for weight and is loosing those chubs!)
His new cheese face! He's too young to understand the concept of "say cheese" but this is a face he makes when he's flirting with you! He's quite the charmer with the other moms at the girls' sports practices!!!!
His tongue was constantly out like this after his tooth popped through...we are guessing that he was feeling it. Still no second tooth!
A close-up of his tooth...it's in the middle next to a drooly glare spot that looks like another tooth!
He is quite the helper in the kitchen! Our kitchen is so tiny to begin with that his messes make tiptoeing around even more difficult BUT not as difficult as trying to cook/move with him crying holding onto my leg! He is also very helpful when I load/unload the dishwasher and he'll stand at it forever as long as he has a spoon in his hand to bang and put in his mouth!
Santa brought him some football leg-warmers, so I put his jersey on for one more photo-shoot. Let's hope the Cowboys can make something of themselves at some point during his lifetime (unlike my Miami Dolphins have yet to do during my lifetime!) :)
This is probably a huge safety violation in his crib, but he'll often use his bumper as a pillow! We are still hit or miss with him getting himself to sleep and this is typically where he lays crying for us! He's been taking great naps (1.5-2hr twice a day) AND sleeping in until 8-8:30! Let's hope he stays on this schedule (when his sisters' activities allow it!) for quite some time!!!!
He is still the most amazing snuggler and gives the best hugs (without knowing that he's really hugging!!!) I could squeeze him all day long and it's no wonder I can't get anything done! :) And, holy moly, is he a huge daddy's boy! It just melts my heart when he reaches for Leevi. I can foresee many "girl outings/boy outings" in the future...mainly because of the age gap for activities, but it works out perfect!
The parents were allowed into the last gymnastics class before the winter break (we usually have to sit out in a lobby area and watch them through a window or on a tv monitor). Kai is lovin it especially since her buddy, Ella, is in the class too!
To say that I have a recent obsession with the perfect Christmas card would be an understatement. I love the yearly photo update and am so glad I had kids during a time when photo Christmas cards are popular. The quest for getting the perfect photo can be stressful and I suppose I've relinquished some of that desire little by little as we add more children to the card! :) To get this beauty below, we had to do two separate shoots and I still wasn't completely satisfied, BUT without an equally eager assistant AND the lack of decent weather AND time running short to get them ordered and sent out, I settled for the slightly out-of-focus shot because it was the best of the three of them!
Years 2002-2006
Years 2006-2012
(Christmas morning chaos picture, but this was the only pic I could find of the full row of cards on the window!) And a link to an old close-up of them
My intent with these "J-O-Y" shirts was a simple background (I was desperately searching around town for an old ornate bench to no avail!) We decided to check out a castle about 20 min. from us, but it took us awhile to find it and our daylight was fading extremely fast...it gets dark around 4:30 in the winter here!!!! I knew I was pushing my luck on this day after school, but we tried it anyway. It was FREEZING and no one was particularly cooperative!
I was sooooo tempted to use one of these!!!!!
On Thanksgiving day, the weather was gorgeous (notice the drastic light different between the two sets!), so we squeezed in a 10 min session in the woods a mere 1 minute, stress-free walk from our house!!!! My initial thought was to have Luke stand behind the girls and lean on the log that they were sitting on like I had done in October but he was just too excited to stay still! :) I was satisfied enough with the one I had chosen for the card, but I had still planned on putting them in their shirts in front of the tree (and then I forgot!!!)
