Deutsch Dienstag-in the name of safety

10 more months until Christian can get out of a carseat!  Good thing, because I don't think that they want carseats at YM activities.  Germany is a little crazy with their carseat laws.

May 21st

 May 21st is one of my most favorite days ever!  Two of my favorite people ever were born on that wonderful day.  May is, however, a crazy month for me and often makes question my family planning so many years ago. 

My brain has been replaced with my passport and I am unable to plan very far in advance.  It makes the planner in me cry when another birthday or holiday sneaks up on me.  But I am usually in the middle of some fantastic travel plans and so I don't cry until it is too late.  Once again, looking ahead to the Memorial Day weekend, I forgot about the special days that would come first.  I tried to find a day for Jag to have a party, but kept running into the holiday, Davis' birthday, the end of school, or visitors.  So without any advanced warning I called Jag's 2 friends and tried to find a time in their busy day to send the friends over to play.  It all worked out wonderfully making me think that planning ahead really isn't necessary (actually Davis and I are already working on his party).

Jag wanted an Under the Sea party

My cute 8 year old with his cake.

With his friends Sage, Ryan, and Noah.  They ate octopus hotdogs, goldfish crackers, played games, and watched a movie.  Honestly one of the easiest parties ever and Jag still thinks his mom is awesome.  Little does he know.  Jag got to have Saturday as his birthday alone. 

Anya holding up 2 fingers -or 5.

I cry and cry to think that my baby is 2 already.  Oh, how we LOVE this little girl.

I am almost done with birthdays!  I still have leftover cake on my cupboard and no motivation to make another.  It was going to be Elmo, but I needed better food coloring so he wouldn't be pink.  Then cookie monster because I did have blue, but that was feeling like too much work.  So it ended up being a flower.  Not a pretty flower.

For the second year, Anya refused to even taste her cake.  She only wanted the chocolate chips out of the middle.  Actually she got this doll that says annoying phrases and that is all she wanted all night.

Blowing out the candles on his leftover cake.  A kid just can't do that too many times!

She had it all figured out this year.  Blow the candles, sing 'Happy Birthday', and rip open the gifts.  She's getting so very big.

Bye-bye Binky

I found myself thinking one day that Anya could keep her binky for awhile longer.  I've always said that they couldn't have a binky at 2.  Sure her birthday was only 4 days away.  But, really what was the harm in it?  Then a light bulb moment...Oh, no!  I was doing it again.  (This is the same attitude that had me finally weaning her at 16 months.)  Oh, my baby. 

Right then and there, I took her beloved binkies and cut the ends off.  She cried about them being "broken" for a few days, but actually did better than I expected.  I'm still sad that she is growing up, but I do like hearing her talk without that dumb binky in her mouth.

Just seconds before I took it away.  I really am so mean.

Deutsch Dienstag-Yellow fields of flowers

Spring has brought these gorgeous fields of yellow flowers to the green country side.  Huge fields of tall yellow flowers.  They are so pretty to look at.  They remind us of living in Moscow, Idaho with all of the yellow canola fields.

This is the view just over the hill from our house.

Not our village.

For me, they are beautiful from afar because they make me sneeze like crazy when we are close. Darin, who loves me dearly, quickly rolls down his window when we are near and takes a big sniff. He thinks he's funny. I show him how funny by sneezing in his general direction.

Camping in the Luxembourg Cemetery

Father's and Sons Camping Trip

Luxembourg Military Cemetery

May 2012

Patton is buried in this cemetery...remember?  here

Look past the headstones to see our gray van.  Jag had wanted to know if he was going to be sleeping next to the "dead guys" in the cemetery.  I said, "No way, Buddy."  Looks like it was pretty close though. Oops.

The German military cemetery that is near by.

This is a mass grave site with over 4,000 German soldiers buried.  The names are listed around the outside (where Davis is reading).

I was thinking that a girls night with my little Anya would be fun. She agreed and was up all night! Fever. I haven't spent that much time awake since she was tiny.  She wasn't too thrilled without her boys either.  Crying, "Noah.  Jag.  Noah."  We were both happy when they all came home.  The whole girls night thing must be way overrated!

Our Smelly Mess

The sewer backed up into our basement.  Everything was gross and covered.  I  gaged.  It wasn't just our basement, but also the outside drain as well.  We spent days going through our stuff to see what was OK, what was going to need to be cleaned, and what would be trashed.  At first the basement smelled like the pigs at a fair; moist, yucky poopy.  Then after some initial cleaning like a swimming pool, but with a smelly foot problem.  Finally, just like bleach.

This is the big truck that came to snake and suck out the drains.  Turns out there was a separated pipe in the front of the house.

Inital digging with some of our plants still in.

Good-bye plants and tree.  Good-bye bricks.

They had to drill a hole into the house and start with new pipes there, then take it under the road.

It was such a mess and I was sure that our yard would be messed up for a long time.  But, surprisingly, 9 days after the "flood" the yard, bricks, and tree were back.  We are still missing the plants and flowers (we'd planted just 3 days earlier), but it is finally over.  We still have to go through our yucky stuff and clean once more before we move everything back into the basement.  I never want to experience that again.  Just dip me in bleach!

Herr Cappel's Garten Help

Darin, the boys, and Gunter

We have the cutest little neighbor, Gunter Cappel, he doesn't speak any English, he is always smiling, and cheerful.   He always watches out for us and helps us.   (This is the neighbor that Darin had to race in the winter to get to the walks first, because he'd shovel our walks if we weren't fast enough.)

We were trying to get a garden area ready.  Gunter has a beautiful yard and garden!  He came over to help Darin and show him how to do it correctly.  When Darin understood just how to turn the ground over, he let him try.  After two shovel scoops of dirt, Gunter couldn't stand it and took the shovel back.  It was hard work, but he made Darin watch as he made it perfect for us. (I sat in the house, looked out the window, and laughed.)  He made Jag put the worms he was playing with back into the dirt because they are good.  He told us when to plant and then took plants out of his own yard and planted in our garden area.  He tells us when to cover our plants so they don't freeze.  He helped the little boys plant flowers in our front yard making sure that they didn't give them too much water and pushed down hard enough on the dirt.  We managed to plant only 6 of our 60 plants without him knowing and helping out.  If he sees us, he comes to help.  Sometimes we try to be sneaky because we don't want him to feel like he has to come over.

He came in the backyard to explain what needed to be covered for tonights expected frost.  This is only after he brought over the newspaper to show me the expected temps.  When he saw the weeds in the garden, oh the look on his face.  He said they needed to be removed.  I said, "Ja,  Mein Sonn."  I was hoping that he would be a little more understanding of the weeds if he thought that the kids were supposed to weed.  Guess what we are going to be working on this weekend.  The pressure to not disappoint Herr Cappel is great at our house.

We are so lucky to live next to such great neighbors.  I am so glad that he doesn't mind living next to a herd of Americans. 

I hope our plants live.  Maybe next year we'll skip the garden.