Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Froliche Weihnachten!

Merry Christmas to all! We hope you had as wonderful of a holiday as we did!

Here are a few snapshots of the festivities...

Our Church Christmas party was themed "A Night in Bethlehem."

We enjoyed yummy food as we gathered on blankets on the floor (The Kebaps were just about out by the end of the evening when I took this photo.)
Charlotte had MANY questions for Mary about the baby Jesus in the Nativity-- mostly about whether or not she could hold/have him. And we sang "Stille Nacht."


On Christmas Eve, we went to the Benton's home for dinner. Charlotte just adores Sam. In true Julie fashion, I brought the camera, with brand new batteries, and still only took this one photo. Mandy has more on their family blog here including a very cute one of Sam and Charlotte.
On Christmas morning, we woke to find that Santa had come!!!

Charlotte was a little nervous he might still be here and made me carry her into the living room. As soon as she saw her kitchen though, she said "ooooh Mommy, look it!" It was hard to get her to open anything after that, but she is enjoying all of her gifts now. :)

I made a FULL Christmas dinner for the first time in my life. :D It turned out surprisingly well and we were so glad to have the missionaries and our friends the Francois family here to share it with us. And I didn't take a single picture to remember it!!! I am such a goober.

And here is a shot of Toby. LOL Charlotte enjoyed dressing him up, and he really loved having her pay attention to him. It's a little frightening to see that we have matching double chins, but ah well, that's what New Years is for! ;)

Thursday, December 18, 2008

a sneak peek at naptime


Toby zonked out on the couch today after battling a stuffy nose all morning. He is now in 6-9 month size clothes!!!



I put her down for her nap with ONE polar bear and ONE baby doll.

She is sound asleep-- sitting in the corner and snoring away.




Sunday, December 14, 2008

Michelstadt's Weihnachtsmarkt

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! All over Germany, each little town has it's own Christmas market and yesterday we went to Michelstadt to visit theirs because I had heard that it was a good one. :)

Rob and I enjoyed seeing all of the neat handmade things for sale (ornaments, nutcrackers, nativities, scarves, hats, hairbrushes, etc, etc, lots of food and goodies, and lots and LOTS of beer and wine!!!) and eating some yummy Bratwurst and Currywurst. Charlotte had some Käse-Spätzle - like macaroni and cheese with little bits of ham in it. Charlotte loved going on the little rides even though it was soooooo cold out... that's why Toby isn't in these photos- he was there, but we kept him all bundled up in his snowsuit in the stroller. We went late in the afternoon and were so glad to be leaving as it got dark out and BUS loads of people were arriving! It was really a fun afternoon out though. :)



Just follow the nutcrackers...


... to the nuttiness!

There were only two kiddie rides, and Charlotte went on both of them for a total of 5 rides. She LOVED the Christmas market!

Charlotte and Rob in front of ... I don't know what it's called. Anybody know? The warmth from the candles is supposed to turn the fan thing at the top and make the scenes go around. This giant one has a motor and electric lights though.


And since Toby was left out of the photos above, here is a recent shot.

We hope you are all enjoying this holiday season and preparing for Christmas... just 11 more days!

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Gymnastics class

For a while now I've been taking Charlotte to a "gymnastics class" at our Burgerhaus (it's a town center where events and things happen- not a hamburger joint- although ours does have a small restaurant in it.) I took the camera with us today to show you all the neat stuff that we do there. The teacher wasn't there today though so we moms kinda improvised and set some stuff up on our own. Anyway, when we first get there we sit in a circle and sing some songs- auf Deutsch of course. Then we throw some balls out for the kids to play with while we set up.


Charlotte loves this big, soft mat. Today we set it up like a slide, sometimes it is just there for jumping onto from a platform.

Charlotte at the top of the mat with a friend.

This is how Toby enjoys gymnastics class. Charlotte insists Toby needs his giraffe with him.

This is the tunnel-- how we set it up today.


This hanging bridge thing was new to me today. Charlotte enjoyed it a lot though. The little girl in this one is our friend Catherine, who first introduced us to this class.

After about an hour we clean it all up and put everything away and sing a few more songs before saying Tschuss. Today was the first time Charlotte tried singing a little bit, and asked me about the songs when we got home afterwards. I also learned ways to say "up" (hoch) and "down" (hinunter) today and learned the word for elephant- Elefant. ;)
Yeah, it's a slow process, but our German gets a little better every day-- "jeden Tag ein bisschen besser".