Luke's 2 month follow up!

I forgot to blog his stats after his 2 month well baby check up...he was 14.7lbs 22.7in (I'm sure he's gained a pound or two since then!)  :) 

At the dr office!

And I forgot to add this video of him smiling on his original 2 month post!  

Kai!!!!!!!

I haven't had a post recently about just Kailee and wanted to make her I captured some of her cuteness before she turns the big F-O-U-R in a few months!  She's still laid back and other than her monkey-stage which I doubt she'll ever grow out of, she hasn't hit us hard with any of the baby/toddler trials!  :)  Easy baby, easy toddler...does that mean we are going to get double whammied for her teenage years!?!?  :)   She's no "walk in the park" per say, but she's definitely easier than a certain other family member was at age 3!  :) 

She is lovin her Big Sister role but is soooooooooo ready for Luke to be old enough to wrestle with!  We are constantly telling her not to be so rough and in his face!  :)  Luke already knows to brace himself when she comes too close!  Poor guy!  But I think she'll be the perfect middle child for Barbie/House play with Hailey and wrestle/horse play with Luke!   She loves her brother like crazy but you can tell that she definitely seeks our attention!  The second I put Luke down she is jumping on me!  She said something so adorable the other day, yet it made me feel really guilty ....she was watching Ni Hao Kai Lan and it was about one of the characters having a favorite stuffed animal.  It asked the children if they have something special that they like to snuggle with and Kai's response was "my parents"  Awwww....love it and I'm sure she didn't mean it like I took it but I'll admit that I'm having a hard time balancing alone time for each of them!!!!

 

Working hard on one of her many projects!

She has gotten quite handy with the broom and dust pan! 

A picture from church...her latest feature to add is EYELASHES! 

This is Luke!

Writing her name....I love her curly "e"'s

 

Our family...complete with long eyelashes! 

I know I've mentioned before that her dialogue when she plays is so imaginative!  And even when Hailey plays with her, she'll tell Hailey what to make her doll say...it cracks me up.  Hailey eventually says, "Stop doing that!" but I'm always surprised at how long she'll participate!

These little princesses turn up everywhere!!!  She has four and we are looking for the last two to complete the collection for her birthday!  They are definitely one of her favorite things to play with.

She's still super speedy on her scooter!

There is always a friend along for the ride!

Entertaining "Luka-Buk" (as she fondly calls him!) while I made breakfast

The girls with their curls and highlights are the talk of the town around here...it is absolutely ridiculous the amount of strangers that ask about their hair.  I really should start letting them leave the house with bedhead to be able to deflate their egos a bit!  :)  Hailey said the other day, "We should tour around the world with our famous hair!"  OMG!!!  :)  This week alone we had FOUR different people comment about their color and curls...and I seriously think that one lady didn't believe me that it is natural!  

I straightened their hair one day upon their request (I love their curls!!!) I still need to talk with my curly haired adult friends and find the right product to not make it look so scraggly!  :) 

Kailee's hair has the same highlights that Hailey did at this age....

Hailey's blonde curls right after we left Hawaii

She asked me to take a picture of her daredevil skills...seesawing with her eyes closed and not holding on!  :) 

Keeping us on our toes!  She fell off a bar that she was trying to do a flip over and got the biggest fat lip!!!  The VERY next day she cut her chin in a different spot on a merry-go-round.

And a few video snippets...(but ignore the names that pop up....those were for another video and I have no idea how they got on this one!)

The Heidelberg Zoo

The kids and I were able to join Hailey's class on their field trip to the zoo.  I couldn't be an official chaperone with tag-along-siblings, so we just met them there.  There were 8 students, 6 adults, and 3 siblings...pretty crazy ratios!!!  The weather was perfect and the kids had a blast!

Luke was great and napped practically the whole time in the stroller!

The whole class!

And the sting is gone from what I did to the van on this field trip so I'm able to add this picture without being too bitter!   I scraped the side of the TWO MONTH OLD van when I pulled into the parking garage at the zoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Thankfully we only had to pay $500 (ughh) from our insurance deductible for the $3,000 repair!!!!!!!  They were able to repair it the week that Leevi was in Greece so the kids and I ran errands in the truck.  I got quite the look as I turned the Raptor into a Mom Mobile!  :)   

Europa Park

Over Memorial Day weekend we went to Europa Park with friends....it is AWESOME!  Picture Disney World combined with Busch Gardens Williamsburg...they have the Europe country theme of Busch Gardens with a boy and girl mouse as their mascot and completely random princesses walking around (the princesses cracked us up because we don't know their names and they aren't associated with any ride or in any gift shop) BUT they are extremely accessible (unlike the Disney Princesses that you have to wait in line to see) and the girls just love them!  And the park has more coasters and thrill rides like BG rather than Disney.  We had such a great time that we went back a few weeks later when Leevi had a four day weekend....it was PERFECT because the Germans still had school so it wasn't crowded at all!!!  And I almost forgot....Kai's best quotes of the day were:  "Mom, you just have to believe in yourself!" when I told her I was too scared to go on a roller coaster AND my favorite:  "I want to go on a roaster coaster and scream my pants down!" 

With the mascot

With the random princesses!

We didn't see this parade the first time we went but we caught it the second time and I must say that it was WAY better than the parade at Disney!!!  They pulled kids from the crowd (soooo cool for the girls to get to dance with the princesses) and there were acrobats and gymnists! 

The first day we went it was pretty hot and the girls played around in the small water playground and also stood in the splash zone of some water rides. 

There were plenty of fun kid rides

The girls went on all of the rides that they were tall enough or old enough for.  Most of the rides have a weird height AND age requirement.  Kai was tall enough for some rides but not old enough (she had to be four and of course she told the ride attendant that she was three) OR Hailey was tall enough for some rides but if you were under 8, you had to ride with an adult.  It made for a lot of juggling and waiting in the line twice to give both girls a chance while someone stayed with Luke.  Thankfully, it wasn't crowded and the lines weren't long! 

I'm still surprised at how the girls can find excitement on a little kid ride after going on the adult rides!   The bottom right picture is of The Atlantis Adventure which is almost exactly like Escape from Pompeii at BG....you sit four across on a big boat and it takes you down two drops (backwards on the first one and forward on the BIG second one)  Others riders seem amazed that Kai enjoys that ride!  My tiny thrill-seekers!!!   

Spring Soccer '12

Hailey's Spring soccer season has come and long gone without me making a single post about it!  We didn't think that she was going to play soccer this season because our post is closing and we would have had to drive to Heidelberg and join a team there.  We already were driving the 30 min once a week for Awanas and I didn't think that adding two more trips every week with a newborn would be the best for our adjustment to a brand new baby!  I was also willing to let her skip this season because now that she is 6, she moves up to the next age bracket and she'd be one of the youngest of the mainly 1st and 2nd graders!  BUT, a mom here in Mannheim stepped up and volunteered to coach, yet our team consisted of preschoolers, kindergartners, and one 1st grader...we were the youngest team but held our own all season.  They didn't score a single goal (which Hailey reminded of me daily!) but they weren't blown out either.  She had fun, got some exercise, and got to see her friends a little extra each week!   I can't tell you how hard it was for me to be on the sidelines this season and you'd laugh at the mental reasoning I had to come to terms with in my little brain about debating whether I could coach again this season (the season started when I was 39 weeks pregnant!)  :)  

I love how happy she looks in these pics!

She got really aggressive this season!

This was the first season that they have used goalies!  She voluntarily played one quarter each game (I was so nervous!) and she LOVED to exaggerate a diving/rolling save (even when totally unnessasary!)  :)  She'd get quite the chuckle from the parents on the sidelines!    

Kai kept herself busy all season playing on the playground or with fellow soccer siblings!  Not sure if she will play yet in the Fall...I think she wants to do dance or gymnastics and I don't think I can handle them doing school, Awanas, and more than one sport. 

We had a very anti-climatic end to the season because of rain....her last week of practice was rained out (we were going to take a team picture) and her last game was called at halftime because of the rain!

So proud of her!

And a video snippet....PLEASE ignore my sideline coaching!  :) 

And another snippet of the beatings she took during ONE game...after I put this together, I thought, "good grief, this is horrible!" but at the same time it shows how tough she is!  She bounced right back after each hit until she couldn't keep it together anymore right before halftime.  And I put it in slow motion to make sure you don't miss the hits :) 

The Triplets

When I was putting this collage together, Hailey came over and asked me why I gave Luke a pink pacifier.  :)  When I told her that the picture was of her and Kai she replied, "Wow!  We look, like, totally the same!"

Totally :)   And in Luke's chubby cheek defense, he is about a month older in this picture than the girls!  :)

Austria and Sound of Music Tour

Still playing catch up!  When Luke was just two weeks old, we took advantage of Leevi still being off from work and headed down to Austria for the weekend.  We actually stayed the night in Garmisch, Germany near the Edelweiss Military Resort that we've been to in the past (Leevi found a cute bed and breakfast that allowed dogs) and it broke up our driving (almost 4 hrs to Garmisch and then 2 hrs down to Austria and then back the following day).  I was a little worried how the kids would do on the 4 hr Sound of Music bus tour (they had seen the movie for the first time a few months ago), but we were on and off the bus just often enough for them to stretch their legs.  And I was also impressed with how much I was able to pay attention to the tour guide!  I never knew that the Sound of Music was based on a real family.  The 1st vonTrapp wife died after giving birth to the last child.  The head nun at the Abbey felt bad for the Captain and would send a new nun every six months who wasn't quite sure she wanted to be a nun to be their nanny...until Maria came along!  The real vonTrapp family moved to America after they fled Austria and toured the North-East performing concerts!  They sold their mansion and donated the money to the Abbey.  Maria was 25 yrs younger than the Captain and he died shortly after the war ended (she died 40 yrs later).  They had 3 more children together and 4 of the 10 are still alive today.  The actor who played Captain vonTrapp couldn't sing, so he had a "voice over" for all of his singing parts and the directors wanted Audrey Hepburn for Maria but she turned the part down because she couldn't sing either.

At the beginning of our bus tour through Salzburg



The Fortress in Salzburg and our bus

The vonTrap house that was used in the movie (Leopold's Crown Palace)...this was also the lake that the children fell overboard in when their father came home. 

The other movie set house (Frohnburg Palace)....this part is seen when Maria first comes to work for them and these are the trees that the father saw his children climbing in

The gazebo used to film the songs "Something Good" and "16 going on 17"...Lisel broke her ankle filming this scene jumping from bench to bench in the rain.  They used to allow visitors to go inside the gazebo until a NINETY year old women tried to recreate the scene and fell off the bench and broke her hip!!!!!!! 

Gardens at the Hellbrunn Palace

The scenery was GORGEOUS!!! 

We had an hour break for lunch to wander around Mondesee where the church was used for the wedding

The church they were married in for the movie (In real-life they were married at Maria's Abbey

Mirabell Gardens...where Maria and the children sang "Do-Re-Mi"

Our hotel and the Alps!

The girls kept themselves busy in the hotel...I was surprised at the amount of junk that they crammed into their backpacks!  And the bottom two pics are from the Edelweiss military resort where we went for dinner one of the nights. 

Packed in the minivan for our First Family of Five (plus doggie) road trip!   

And lastly, a video snippet of what Leevi and I had to endure during the car ride!  :)  Hailey has in her earbuds with her iPod and Kai is just making up her own song!  Leevi and I were the ones saying, "Are we there yet?!?!"  :)