Learning German Songs

Today we went to the German Musik Spielgruppe (which is the way you say music play group). It was really cute and Maggie LOVED it. She jumped right in from the beginning and did all the motions and tried to sing the words. Owen liked all the singing and dancing around too, he just clapped his hands and tried to sing along. There were beams and mats set up and they were teaching them how to do sommersaults and walk on the balance beams and jump into the mats so Maggie liked that too and did really well. We played a game where the mom's put these colorful scarfs on and the kids had to chase their parent and get the scarfs.




Then the kids did it and we had to catch them, Maggie loved this game, but after the first time she realized there was pink and only wanted all pink scarfs which there weren't alot of. The teacher spoke english pretty well so she would expalin to me what we were doing and there were 3 other moms who spoke english also that were very nice. We all had alot of fun so we will definetly be doing that every week. And in the end I am sure we'll all know many german songs, although we may not know what we're saying. It lasted about 2 hours (from 9-11) so it's a pretty bad time for Owen since he is usually taking his morning nap then, but he was really good and since Maggie loved it so much I figure once a week we can throw out his morning nap. When we got home he was ready to crash and took about a 3 hour nap, he woke up right as Maggie was going down which is always a bummer. :( But now he's enjoying himself in the toy room doing what he always does when she's napping and he's not.....playing with everything she won't let him touch.


It's like he knows this is his time to get into it all and boy does he.

I think we are going to go out to eat downtown somewhere this evening. Joe is heading out early today so we should be able to eat at a decent hour hopefully.

The next Crocodile Hunter????

So it seems Joe has quite the knack for catching wild animals. For those of you who remember the episode with he and the opossum in Washington....it had to do with a oppossum in our trash, fire works, and a hoe......I won't say anymore for fear of someone turning him into PETA. Anyhow, Germany seems to have it's own form of annoying rodents and we got to find out about them the other night. We were coming back from a bike ride to the ice cream parlor and Matt was putting up his bike and yelled at us that there was some sort of animal in the garage. I took the kids in being that whether it was a dog, cat, bird, or racoon I knew I had no interest in seeing it. After a few minutes they come in to get a flashlight and are trying to coax this thing out of a corner to see what it is.


From what they saw it was either a porcipine or a hedgehog (who knew those existed other than Sonic???) Well, they got it trapped under a box and above a board and carried it out back so the kids and I could get a look at it from the upstairs window before they let it go.






When they opened up the box it just stood there for about 5 minutes before running away so we got a few pictures of it.






Scarry looking thing huh.....He seemed terrified but he ought to be glad since he made it out alot better than that opossum did. :)

Monday Matt, the kids and I headed to CitiMart to stock up on grocerys. It helped a ton having Matt there so we could get 2 buggys and actually had a place to put Owen. We grabbed some lunch at McDonalds and headed home for naps. Yesterday maggie and I went to a playdate with a lady I met from church who is from England. Her name is Ose' (pronounced Osah) and she has 2 little girls, Lily and Anna who are 6 and 3. We had a nice time and Maggie loved playing with the girls. They are fluent in both english and german. There mom only speaks english to them and dad only german and it was wild. this little 3 year old was having a full converstion with me in perfect english and their german neighbor walked in and she begins talking to her in perfect german! And I had thought Maggie was smart when she knew her ABC's at 2. :) We plan to have them over here soon for the kids to play again since it went so well. She has a friend who is from American and has 2 little girls also that will hopefully get with us the next time.

Maggie has been so mean to Owen latley and I am not sure why. She hits him constantly with toys, makes her ponies dance on his head, and pushes toys down her slide into him. Today, after she whopped him on the head for the 3rd time I was getting onto her AGAIN and she said, "mom, it was just an accident and Amanda says it's okay if it's just an accident!" So...according to Aunt Amanda as long as you say it's an accident it is okay....Thanks sis. :) I asked Amanda and she tried to explain what she had meant to her but I don't believe it sunk in. Well, tommorow morning we are headed to a German music playgroup so I will let you know how that goes.

Princess Party

Maggie's early birthday party was a hit!! I got up yesterday and began making her cake while she got entertained by Amanda and Tres. They took a long walk and played some before lunch time and nap. Once she went down for her nap we began the decorating and cooking so that when she got up the party would be ready.










Amanda and Tres did a great job at decorating her room.




















Turns out they are quite multitalented as child entertainers and birthday decoraters!! They made the room really cute and even made a throne for Princess Maggie to sit on.



















I got the cake finished,which turned out adorable, and began making the dinner. Maggie got to choose what she wanted for her birthday dinner and it was of course.......Soup. So we had potato soup and I also made chicken bundles for those who didn't want soup. I ended up having to wake up Maggie from her nap and let her watch a bit of Wizard of Oz since she isn't the happiest person when she wakes up from her nap. After about 15 minutes or so she was ready to get dressed and go to her party.


Joe gave her a wand that was her magic wand to use through the party and she thought that was really neat.






We brought her to the room and let her open the door and her expression was so cute. She was so surprised and kept looking at me like, "mom, is this real."



She loved her throne and wanted to get up in it.



From then on she was in princess mode! She was ready for her soup to be brought to her, once that was eaten up she was ready for cake. Although we weren't quite done we told her it was her party so we could go ahead and do cake.





We sang happy birthday to her and this is the first year she got the concept of blowing out candles.





She loved her cake and decided to try it out before getting a piece.







After cake it was present time and she was really excited about that.















She used her magical wand to pick the present she wanted to open.













She got lots of fun stuff, plenty of pets of course! After opening gifts she wanted to open them all up to play with them (just the way mommy liked to do it) So she had a great party as you can see from the pictures. She told me all evening long that "she loved her princess party." I was so glad she did. Since this is the first year she could have had a real kid party and enjoyed it I wanted to make it a fun party for her since we're stuck here in Germany with no friends to really have at a party.








Owen also got a late birthday gift from Amanda and Tres so he loved that. Maggie thought about taking over his gift for a second but luckily had gotten enough gifts that she went right back to hers.


This morning Tres, Amanda, and I got u early to get them to the airport on time. We left out about 6 am since the airport is about a hour away. I realized this morning that we really needed gas in the car to get us there. This doesn't seem like too much of a problem to you I know, but remember I live in Germany!! They don't have 24 hour gas stations here. The gas staions here keep a little longer hours than the grocery stores which isn't saying much. So we had to drive into town to go to the one gas station that is opened early and late so that we could make it to Hamburg. Since we take the autoban there it wasn't a problem being that there is no speed limit so we made it there with plenty of time to spare. They got off great, after a small "crisis" with Amanda's carry on bag. We were sad to see them go, it's been great having them here and getting to spend time with them. Maggie and Owen love them so much and are really going to miss them. I guess I am back on duty with Maggie since when Amanda was here she wanted her to do everything from potty, to bath, to lunch for her!!

Here are some more birthday pictures for you all to enjoy!!

Eating in style

Tonight Joe took us to eat at a Brazilian restaurant in Kiel that serves a meal with lots of different meat, veggie,and other dishes. They bring you different foods throughout the whole meal, most of which is meat. I just got a steak since I am usually not up to trying different foods. Mine came and I ate just as everyone else was getting started. The kids were pretty tired and Owen hadn't had an afternoon nap that day, so about a hour into the meal he was a mess. Turns out this meal is something you should do when you have a sitter for your small kids and have several hours to set aside to eat. I ended up leaving with the kids since I was done eating adn walking around outside and letting them play on a playarea at the bowling alley. They had a much better time doing that. When they were all done eating we headed back to catch the train that leaves at 9 to go back to our house. Well, we all get on the train and sit down hoping the train guy won't walk through so we won't have to buy tickets!! I noticed nobody else was on the train with us but lots of people were sitting outside. At 915 I began to wonder why we were still sitting in this train that has not moved. Right about then, a train guy comes walking back and looks at us trying to ask what we are doing. His english was less than good but he explained to me that the train was out of service so we'd have to catch the next train at 10 to go home. So here we clueless Americans are sitting talking and laughing (amanda and Maggie singing and dancing) on this train that isn't gonig anywhere, and everyone else knew it but us!! So all you Americans....be easy on the Mexicans, it's not easy. :) Anyhow, after another hour of walking around the train station trying to keep the kids from going nuts we caught our train and made it back to Felde. It was a fun night out aside from the crazy dinner and missing our train.


















Amanda and Tres were cleaning their sleeping bags and tents in the bathtub the other day and got some help from Maggie! They have a great way of including her in almost everything they did and making it fun!!!

A full house

We are having fun here in Germany with all the family we have visiting. Amanda and Tres have been here over a week which has been awesome and Matt just got in today so we're excited to have him here for several weeks. They are all out on a walk with Maggie right now before she goes to bed. I got my new camera today so I am pretty excited about that and now just need to figure out how to use it.
Tongiht is the season premire of GREYS ANATOMY so I have been pretty bummed today knowing that I won't be able to see it. Of course, I am counting on my cousin Liv to pull through for me again.....THANKS LIV!! Now I just have to keep myself from getting online to read what happens so that I will be surprised when I watch it.




Amanda and Tres got Maggie the cutest little dress in Greece. It is for next year but we tried it on her tonight and she looked adorable.



















She thought she looked like a princess so she and Amanda did some princess spins for me.




















Right after that they switched to being prisoners locked up in jail?????




Good imaginations huh.


Maggie has had lots of fun with Amanda and Tres. If you keep up with Amanda's blog you have seen her with the sheep they took her to pet and horses they saw. Today they took the kids on a bike ride while I got dinner ready and when they came back had gone to the horse farm down the road and Maggie had somewhat gotten in on a horse class for toddler/preschool kids. I guess they let them feed little ponys, brush them, and take their socks off??? whatever that means. Anyhow, she loved it and I guess they have it twice a week and it's only 6 euros so that may be something we do. Well, I am off to pick Joe up, he let Tres use his car today to pick Matt up so he needs a ride home from work.....yes, at 9 o'clock at night. What happened to shorter hours if we move to Germany????? Mary, do you ever remember Joe getting home this late when we lived in Illinois?????

The joys of motherhood

The past two mornings I have had the "pleasure" of waking up to my precious baby boy chattering..which is always a welcomed noise in comparison to crying. The only problem is when I go in to get him, I hear his sweet little voice say "hi" and when I peek into his crib he's covered in his own poop! He's been having a bit of stomach problems latley and for some reason it hits about 7am. I took him into the doctor yesterday because he's also had a rash all over him for a week or so and wakes up through the night crying alot. So between nurse Burke and Dr. Lawson we decided with those symptoms he could have strep. I call and get an appointment at noon yesterday and had the choice to leave Maggie here since Amanda and Tres are here. I love having family around! The doctor is usually pretty good about getting us in quickly since we are private pay and the money she makes from us she can pocket as opposed to the others who are all goverment paid. It must have been pretty busy because we waited an hour and a half in the waiting room before being called back. Owen was really good considering I wouldn't let him down to play with anything since I am sure there were germs crawling on everything.
He was a champ when she checked him out and just smiled and talked to her. She said his belly sounded upset (lots of bowel sounds) and to not give him any milk or dairy products for 3 weeks since it could be the milk here. It is different than in the states and upsets my stomach too. He isn't goign to be real thrilled with no milk but if that's what is causing these morning messes he is just going to have to deal with it. I ask her about the rash and she acts like it's no big deal and says, "oh all kids get those, it is no big deal." I said, "my kids have never had a rash in their life so what is it?" She says it's a sweat rash. I asked if that was like a heat rash and she says no, it's just from where it's so hot at night and the kids sweat so bad in their sleep which leaves this rash on their body from laying with sweat all over them. So I am totally annoyed that nobody seems to think this is a problem. turns out the rash itches pretty bad so that is probably what is waking him up through the night!! And this is just a common thing here in Germany??? Sounds like grounds for child abuse to me. She said, OH, once it cools down it will go away. Yeah, it is still very hot here in the house although it's cooled down some into the lower 70s outside. So last night I strip Owen down to a diaper and put a fan right on his bed hoping to keep him from sweating.(in the process I will probably wind up giving him pnemonia) So that was our fun trip to the doctor yesterday. Maggie had fun with Amanda and Tres while we were gone. She worked her way out of a nap the whole time and I coudln't get her to go down when I got home either so she was pretty wild and crazy by dinner last night.
I am getting my new camera this week when Matt gets here thank goodness!! Joe lost ours when he went to the soccer games in Hamburg last week. I am so used to taking pictures everyday that I have felt lost without it!

OUR BIG FAT GREEK AUNT AND UNCLE

Okay, so we are so much enjoying Amanda and Tres being here with us. So...there not really greek, and they definetely aren't fat but they were in Greece for a month so I thought it was a catchy title. :) They had a blast on their backpacking trip, as I am sure you all have seen from their blog. We have had fun looking at all their pictures and hearing about all their crazy experiences.
Maggie and Owen have LOVED having them here and having constant playmates. Amanda and Tres are for sure the best "players" ever. They have lots of creative ideas and tons of energy so it's never boring. Maggie is stuck to Amanda like glue, which Amanda loves. :) I have gotten some nice breaks so that has been great for me.
Today they headed out on a bike ride with Maggie and said it was going to be a short one.


Well, about 2 hours later (an hour after Maggie's naptime) they come back home. They had met some Germans that live in our village and they let Maggie come in and pet the sheep and watch their horses get a bath. (they had a farm) They told amanda to bring her back everyday so she could see the animals. Maggie had so much fun with them and wanted to tell me all about the animals she saw. I knew she'd get into some adventure going out with them!! Having fun is what your supposed to do with aunts and uncles.....which is exactly what they did.


We don't have anything too exciting planned this week other than just hanging out. Matt comes this Thursday to visit for 3 weeks which will be fun. And we are having Maggie's birthday party next Saturday while everyone is still here.

Getting so big

My kids just went down for an afternoon nap so I decided to get on here and post while I had some free time. Owen is still actually awake, my kids are at bad times when it comes to napping. Maggie still needs a afternoon nap and takes it fine, although she goes down a little later than she used to. (around 1:30 or so) Owen on the other hand is in that "almost ready to quit my morning nap, but not quite yet" stage. He still needs a morning nap but it is later than it used to be and he sleeps like 2.5 hours, which means when he gets up it's about time for Maggie to go down. This equals out to: Mommy has no free time. About the time he's ready for his 2nd nap Maggie is getting up so I am going to have to find a way to work it out so they are both napping at the same time again.
Anyhow, the point of this post was to show you how big, and independent, Owen is getting. He never wants to be fed anymore, he thinks he is able to feed himself just fine. He has a lot of fun, but as you can see he hasn't quite got it down yet.


















And he loves the slide in their toyroom. Everyday this week he gets braver and braver.
Earlier in the week I would go in and he'd just be on the bottom step, then as the week went on he kept getting higher. Well, today I walk in and he is sort of whining and he's gotten to the top and just laid down. So he's heading down the slide head first. I think he realized when he got up there he didn't know how to go down the right way and it scared him a little. I can't believe he can go up the steps, Maggie couldn't do that/wouldn't do that until probably like 6 or so months ago. (okay, maybe that's an exaggeration) Anyhow, he definetley keeps me busy chasing him down.

Maggie I guess I can say is officially potty trained. It's been about 2 weeks now and no accidents so that turned out to be pretty easy. I keep on her all day asking if she needs to go, and she always says no. This morning I was asking her cause I noticed she hadn't been in awhile and she said, " mom, you always ask me if I have to go and I say no. If I need to pee I will tell you, okay." I guess I am getting on her nerves with it.

We pick amanda and Tres up tommorow morning in Hamburg so we are super excited. Yesterday we went over to the Osbornes (the other american family) for a playdate. Maggie and Andrew had fun playing with just a few small fights over toys. Their mom, Kim, told me that there is a music/playgroup on Thursday mornings down from their house at the preschool so we are going to start going to that. Although it is in German, Maggie will love the music and kids.

Enjoying the weekend

We have had a fun weekend. It's been a nice break from work for Joe and we have loved having him around too. Saturday we headed out in the morning to the downtown shopping area. We basically just snacked on food from all the vendors and Maggie and Joe fed the birds. We also went to the McDonalds there that has stone slides leading up to it. Maggie loved going down them, of course I was scared to death she was going to bash her head open falling on one of them.






Joe and Maggie hit up the candy store and stocked up.
They got candy necklaces and candy cigarettes. Our kids fit right in in Germany with the cigarettes!














As we left the mall I was a little surprised at the route Joe took. :)







We took the kids home to nap for a few hours and then headed back out to Citi, which is our "walmart". While I have been gone all summer they have redone the entire place and made it into a mall with tons of stores and places to eat. We ended up shopping a bit and eating some chinese which was surpringly good. By the time we got over to the grocery store it was 7:40 which meant we only had 20 minutes to shop. We ran through this place which is huge and I tried to think of things that we had to have. As we were getting our meat, the meat guy hands maggie and Owen 2 cold weiners. It's reallly common here for people to just walk around eating a weiner with no bun or anything so he was being nice thinking our kids would like it. Maggie took it relunctantly and then said, "yuck, this is gross." I told her to say Danke and just hold it, so she did. Owen on the other hand started eating on his, which totally grossed Joe and I out so we weren't disappointed when he dropped it a few minutes later. As we are running to the checkout the produce guy practically chases us down to give Maggie and Owen bananas. We take them and say thanks, but when we get to checkout the lady charges us for them!! That is Germany for you. Joe tried to explain to her that an employee gave them to the kids, but after a minute of her blank stare we just paid for them.
Maggie got to go to Toys R Us and pick out a toy for peeing in the potty all week with no accidents and she picked out the Little People ABC zoo, which I think is adorable. The only problem is it speaks in German, not english so it's a little annoying although Maggie doesnt mind it. By the time we got home it was bedtime, Joe and I started to sit down to watch a movie but 15 minutes into it decided we would rather sleep.
Today we had over Bjorn, a friend of ours from church. He told me that this week a family would be there that are either from the states or britain that have young kids. The mom is supposedly looking for other english speakers with kids so hopefully that will make for a few more friends for Maggie and Owen.

Nothing else going on here, Joe has to head back to a busy week at work and the kids and I are just getting ready for Tres and Amanda to get here Thursday!!

UP, UP, AND.......

Okay, so he's not AWAY yet. But he sure is up on his own two feet now. We looked over tonight and there he was just standing in the middle of the room. He gets so excited after a minute and falls down though. Doesn't he look like such a big boy! I don't think it will be very long before he is running around this place.

Daddy's Style

So I am reading this book right now that is about the different parenting styles of mom's and dad's. It talks about how when mom is in charge it's naptime after lunch, stories at bedtime, and baths before bed. And when Dad is in charge it's home depot at naptime since nobody seemed sleepy, lunch is whatever everyone wants, if bathtime gets done there is never soap involved, and instead of stories before bed it's wrestling in the floor until somebody is crying. The point of the book (it is written for moms) is to show that both styles of parenting are very important for kids to have although it's often hard for the mom's to let dad do it his way. (okay, I TOTALLY fall into that catagory)
Well, tonight was definetly a daddy style night and instead of breaking it up because I thought someone was going to bash their head open on the door frame, I got out my camera and snapped some shots of the kids having more fun with daddy than they had all day with me! Joe put their slide up on the couch and had it angled down so that they slid down it into pillows. Owen has never gotten the concept of a slide, he always lays back instead of sitting up while going down, but tonight he sat right up as he slid down. I guess he saw how much fun Maggie was having and didn't want to be left out.















As far as potty training goes..Maggie is back on track. She went all day in panties and didn't have any accidents. She even had her first experience in a public bathroom this evening while we were out for ice cream and did fine! So hopefully we are on the road to success.
Last night we were out back and saw that the last apple was hanging off our apple tree. Maggie picked it off and brought it inside. We never ate any apples off of it, but they looked fine. If Amanda and Tres had known we had a apple tree they would have gotten all over that. Breakfast would have been ready to pick right outside. :)













Nothing else much going on here, the weather has been nice. although it rains about every day it is only for short amounts so that isn't so bad. Owen has begun standing alone, his favorite and best place to do it is in the bathtub...of course. He gets so proud of himself everytime, it is so cute. I will try to post a picture once he gets a little better at it. Well, I am off to bed now while most of you are probably sitting down for dinner!