Earrings, round two

Kailee initially had her ears pierced when she was almost three, but a few months later, one of them got infected and the back of her ear swelled up around half of the earring backing.  Leevi had to basically put her in a head lock to hold her still so I could get the back off.  It was traumatic to say the least and there was a ton of blood!  I'm not certain that she specifically remembers the trauma, but she has said for the longest time that she was never getting her ears pierced again....until about a month ago!  I told her that I would take her, but I wanted it do be during a time that Leevi was home and could keep Luke for me!  And thankfully he did, because we had to wait about 2 hrs for the 2nd Claire's employee to show up so they could pierce her at the same time.  The girls were easily occupied in Claire's and then we walked the Hauptstrasse popping into stores to kill time. 

 

 Pretty girl!!

 It's hard to tell, but it is a rainbow colored diamond flower.

Halloween 2013

We had the safest street in the neighborhood on Halloween with our little superheroes out in full force!  I'm glad the girls still wanted to stick with a theme this year!  They are already talking about being pirates next year, so we'll see what Luke has to say about that!  

 

Wonder Woman!

Spiderman! 

Spiderman and Batgirl!

 Supergirl!

 

 To the rescue...

 

Patiently waiting for Daddy to get home from work!  Trick-or-Treating was from 5-7 which I felt was way too early with parents having to work!  And it's sooooooo crowded on post because everyone who lives off post, comes on post since the Germans don't celebrate Halloween.  The candy goes fast and most people are out before the two hrs are up (not that we need a ton of candy!!!)

The Miller girls joined us (since they are off post) and we linked up with the Green boys. 

Our rushed family shot...I'm soooooooo bummed that I held Luke in front of me....grr!!!!  Oh well!!! 

Luke followed the big kids lead and went door to door on our street and then was content with Leevi carrying him the rest of the time.  It was chilly but not unbearably cold initially, but as the sun went down our finger and toes were hurting!

Sorting their loot!!!!  Both are pretty picky about which candy they like, so they shared a bit and then made a pile for Leevi to take into work.  

 

And on a side note, I'm not sure if you noticed in our group picture that we now have grass in the front yard!  They've been working in our neighborhood for a few months now, ripping out all of the bushes and mulch and replacing it with sod.  We got our sod on Halloween!  I'll be curious to see what happens to it this winter!!  It seems a little crazy to be putting it down so late!  It looks so much better, but I still wish that they would have taken out more of those mid-size bushes!  In the broken English/German translation, their contract said something about leaving bushes/trees over a certain height.  

Pre-Halloween Fun

The year is flying by and we'll blink and it'll be Christmas!  I feel like I'll never be caught up on these posts, but here is some pre-halloween fun!  We didn't even make it to a pumpkin patch this year because the weather never coordinated with a time we were free to go!  They aren't the same as in the states, so we really weren't missing out! 

 

Our little skeletons!

 

The girls and I made Frankenstein nails courtesy of Pinterest!

Each year Hailey's school does a Harvest Moon Reading one evening after school and the kids get to dress up and go room to room to listen to Halloween stories read by a few teachers.  My favorite part is that they get to pick out a free book from the PTSA on the way out!  There were too many good ones to choose from!!

Silly boy...it wasn't naptime but he wanted to snuggle in his crib with his wawas. 

Pumpkin carving!!!!

Luke had pumpkin slime everywhere...you see that he's in a different chair in every picture and he definitely needed new pajamas before bed! 

Leevi and I both said that this was the last year we were doing creative carvings until the kids are old enough to do it themselves!  Ha!  I'm sure we'll have a change of heart by the time the next Halloween rolls around, but man, are they time-consuming!!!

Wonder Woman, Spiderman and an Owl...I couldn't talk Hailey into doing Supergirl to match her costume like Kai and Luke.

I was really surprised at how well Wonder Woman turned out...it was pretty hard to tell what she was without a candle in her!

Fall Fun Photo Shoot

It finally made the shift to pretty cold once we hit November, but our Sept and Oct weren't too bad.  We had more days of sun than I remember in years past.  There is a fun row of trees near our house and when I asked the girls if they wanted to do a Fall leaves photo shoot they surprising said yes!!!  Thankfully, we did it the day we did because we didn't see the sun again for awhile and the workers came by pretty quickly to clean up the leaves.  

 

 My heart....

And to randomly add...when I saw this picture of Luke, I immediately thought of this picture of Hailey...no denying that they are related!! (it's a bad quality because it's a picture of a picture in a frame, but you get the idea!)

Thundercats Soccer

This is the 3rd season that I've been able to coach Hailey in soccer and I got to do it with Charlie Green (Luke's dad).  We had an amazing season with some really talented players.  It's quite the jump in the level of skill from the 5-6 yr olds to the 7-8 yr olds.  The season was pretty short (just under 2 months...and we were furloughed in the middle with the government shutdown...isn't that nuts!!???!!)  We had a blast though and Charlie and I truly enjoyed spending the extra time with Hailey and Luke. 

The opening ceremony parade to kick off the soccer and football season...you can't see it all in the picture, but all of the teams and the cheerleaders squeezed into a semi-circle...we paraded in and then there was a short ceremony with the National Anthem and a speech from the sports director.  We only had 3 kids from our team show up (two, because of the coaches!) because it was raining and early in the morning.  It made for a long day with our first game later that afternoon, but the concept was neat. 

Hailey-girl in action...she scored the first goal of the season!!!

She loves playing goalie, but it makes me nervous!!!

A few of our games were during the week (hence Leevi in uniform) but most were on Saturday.  There was definitely some juggling in kids going on with Leevi rushing home from work to watch Luke and Kai before our 6pm practice or me picking up Luke Green if Charlie went straight from work to practice...it takes a village!!  Kai was excited to get an extra jersey with her favorite player's number (Alex Morgan #13)

Go Thundercats!!!!  We smoked everyone all season EXCEPT for ONE team that beat us by ONE goal!!!!  It was quite crushing and even though they don't keep score at this age (or even have refs!) Charlie and I had our bubbles popped!  Yes, we thought we were all that and a bag of chips!  :)  We just didn't show up that morning and our kids were out of it.  But other than that day, we were flawless!!!  :) 

 "Thunder Cats, Rooooaaarrrrr!!"  There are quite a few siblings mixed in there!

 Luke and Hailey with a photo bomb from TJ!

 Luke stealing Luke's snack during a game...

 Kai wanted a picture with me too! 

Our end of season party at the bowling alley!

I LOVE that she wears my old number and I LOVE my new "number".  Here's to many more awesome seasons!!!!