January 2009

It's about time I update the blog, huh? I can't even really say that we've been very busy. We've just had sick kids for a while and have been tired ourselves. But I want to keep you all updated, so here is the month in review! :)

We started out 2009 by going to bed early on New Year's Eve. HA! Apparently, intoxicated Germans like to set off LARGE firework displays in their driveways to celebrate the New Year (somewhat like Meadowlake Park- my neighborhood as a child- on the 4th of July but way bigger.) The explosions started in earnest around 11 pm and lasted until 2 am!! I spent most of that time trying to convince Charlotte that she was safe in her bed as we watched the lightshow going on out her window.

Anyway, then we had a quiet little while and spent some evenings playing games and having dinner with friends.

Anastasia and Anna were very sweet playing with Toby and Charlotte!

Toby had his 4 month checkup this month and weighed in at 17 lbs. (95th%) and was 27 inches long (90th%). I like to call him "Little Big Man" "Toby-Meister" and "Buddy." He tried very hard to make friends with the doctor by cooing and smiling- until she gave him a shot and then he was offended.

We got Toby an exersaucer thing so that he can entertain himself a bit more- and I can have my hands free a bit more. I was surprised how much he already likes it!

Toby has also started trying rice cereal, peas, and carrots. So far he only likes the carrots. Oh, the German Doctor told me to start foods with him like this- "First we do carrots for a week, then add potatoes for a week, and then add meat. After a month you can give fruit and cereal in the evenings if you like." Oh, and some of the infant cereals in the store near us are "mit Honig!" WITH HONEY. Like it's a good thing. Life is different in a foreign country. ;)

Charlotte has been challenging us A LOT this month. Here she is kissing Toby and saying "I love you," but right after the photo she was hitting him and saying "no, don't eat your hands Toby!" One minute she wants her hair done up with clips and the next she is pulling the clips out and crying that she doesn't want it. Today Rob offered to take her to the playground, but first she wanted cereal and juice-- until she was told she could go to the playground or go take a nap, then the cereal and juice were no longer necessary. Rob and I are both getting exhausted by the "terrible twos" and we're only 3 months in! Any advice?

And finally... we celebrated the inauguration with these festive cupcakes I made. hee hee Everyone asks me what the Germans think about Obama, and truly we don't actually talk with that many Germans, but what we have heard (and what we can figure out from the German news on the radio) is a sense of relief that Bush is finally done and a lot of anticipation to see what Obama actually delivers. I think that I concur with that sentiment.

So that is our January in a nutshell. In other news items, I have to say Happy Birthday this week to my sister Pam who is going to becoming a grandmother this Summer! Congratulations to Allen and Robin on your upcoming baby!!! I guess you won't be making it to Oktoberfest this year- but you will have A LOT of new adventures together. I can't believe I'm going to be a great aunt. ;)

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! ;)

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.

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!

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".

Herr Doktor visits

Both Toby and Charlotte have recently had well baby visits- or Untersuchung as they are called here.

Toby's 1 month visit was a little late- it's not easy making an Untersuchung appointment over the phone in very broken German. At 6 weeks he was 5.85 kg (12 lbs. 14.5 oz., 90-95%) and 62 cm (24.5 in., 95%) long. He is very healthy... but has an umbilical hernia, which I've been told not to worry about. Hopefully it will resolve itself and won't get any worse.

Tall Toby and Daddy napping.

At birth (since I don't think I posted it before) he was 4.12 kg (9 lbs. 1 oz., 90%) and 53 cm (21 in., 75-90%) long. His head was 36 cm (14 in., 50%) around. If that was an "average" sized head, I'm going to have to think long and hard about doing a natural childbirth ever again!

Charlotte had her 2 year check-up today. Do they do this in the US?? They had her draw, do a shape sorter, throw and kick a ball, identify pictures, say her name, and asked me lots of questions about her development milestones. This was tricky, since the nurse's English was relatively limited and my German vocabulary is minimal... but we muddled through with a lot of pantomiming and me serving as translator to Charlotte. Oh, and she did great. And she is most definitely left handed.

Anyway... Charlotte is 14.8 kg (32.6 lbs., 95%) and 87 cm (34.25 in., 75%) tall. Trying a few different handy dandy internet calculators... her predicted adult height will be 5'9". Huh. That's exactly the height that I always wanted to be! ;)

Rob took this video of Charlotte the other day. She was entertaining herself in the infant carseat on top of the stroller. By the way, she isn't normally dressed in a yellow shirt, polka dot pants, and striped socks, but we've been experimenting with her picking out her own clothes.

Halloween and Toby's baby blessing

For Halloween this year, we went to our Church for a little party. We had a very nice time eating yummy soups and Charlotte enjoyed taking a swing at the pinata, "bobbing for apples" (she reached in with her hand and grabbed one,) and walking around for the trunk or treat. She was so tired by the end of the night that she was giving her candy away to other kids! :)

Here is Charlotte in her puppy costume (the same one she wore last year, but this year it fit her) waiting to swing a stick at the pumpkin pinata. She totally didn't understand this until after the candy came out. The next day she told me the "pumpkin candy" was her favorite thing about Halloween.

Okay. So Toby dressed up as Santa Claus for Halloween. We were given this Santa outfit and there is NO WAY it will fit him by Christmas, so I put it on him for Halloween. Clearly he isn't thrilled. He was too warm and I took it off of him shortly after this photo was taken. Toby was the same size at 6 weeks that Charlotte was at 4 months!!!

Charlotte coloring Halloween themed pictures with her buddies William (the Sheriff) and Benson (Peter Pan.)

Also, last Sunday Rob gave Toby a very special baby blessing. In our Church, infants are blessed by their father or another man who holds the Priesthood and has been chosen by the family in front of the congregation.

I picked out this little outfit for Toby to wear because it has a hedgehog on it and I think they are adorable and very German-- we've seen them out in the street in the evenings here. Oh, I posted this photo on my Facebook page and a friend commented that he looks "so serious." That made Rob and I smile, since that is what we were both told our entire childhoods as well. ;)

Schloss Auerbach

It's hard to blog with two kids!

These photos are from 2or 3 weeks ago I think. We drove to Schloss Auerbach and walked around one Saturday afternoon. Germany is gorgeous in the fall! The leaves had already peaked, but even now we still have beautiful Autumn scenery. This castle is from the 1200's, is not nearly as big as some in Germany, and is in ruins, but it is quite pretty there and we very much enjoyed the afternoon out. :)

From the top of the tower

And from down below

Beautiful rolling mountains and hills

Rob and Charlotte on the walk up to the Schloss.

First official family photo with all four of us.

Toby TV

Toby turned 6 weeks old yesterday! Time is really flying... and he is really BIG! He goes to the Kinderarzt (Pediatrician) on Friday, so we'll have some official measurements then, but I had time to video him today, so here's our growing baby boy. :)

PS- I know the video is sideways... I just don't know WHY the video is sideways. I promise I did not turn the camera sideways. Weird.

the circus came to town!

Last Tuesday we went to the Carl Busch Circus in Darmstadt with the Carley family. We sat in the first row and had a lot of fun! We were DIRECTLY below the guy in the trapeze act that catches the other acrobats... under the net... where a few acrobats fell and we got to see their faces when they let go of the bar (Rob thinks that look was concentration- I think it was fear.)

Anyway, neither Rob nor Charlotte had ever been to a circus before. Charlotte loved the elephants and "lions"-- there were no lions, only tigers. There was even a little baby tiger that really was quite adorable. Rob thinks this circus is better than the "big" ones where you expect all of the acts to go just fine... this one had real potential for people getting hurt. Rob and I both agree that we think it would have been better without the animal acts though- they aren't as exciting as the human acts and we just kinda felt sad for the animals the whole time.

Yay for the European style clown though- way less scary and more genuinely entertaining! He didn't wear a wig and had on similar clothes to the other performers and did neat juggling and audience participation gags.

Here are a few shots--

Charlotte's favorite thing about the circus.

This guy looks about the right size.

I don't think Michael and Charlotte blinked once during the trapeze act. Rob tried to get a picture of the acrobats... but it was hard being directly below the net and he wanted them to be facing us, since the women were in THONGS and we didn't really want a bum shot. ;)

Oh, one last random shot- Charlotte and her new friend Sammy playing "nap time" at playgroup on Thursday. I think Max is there as the chaperone.

2 years!

Charlotte celebrated her second birthday this past weekend! Boy, it was an interesting weekend too- we have officially entered the terrible twos.

Saturday morning we were getting ready to go for a walk and Rob took some trash out and came back in the house to brush his teeth before we left. The problem with this is that German doors are ridiculous. Our front door automatically locks behind you from the outside, and opens from the inside by just pulling on it- unless you lock it with the key, which we ALWAYS do, except when we're getting ready to leave the house like this. So anyway, I came downstairs and the door was open and Charlotte was gone. She wasn't visible anywhere on our street, so I took off in one direction and Rob in the other. Rob found her in the middle of the road a block and a half away with a woman holding her. She was safe and it was okay in the end... but it was a very scary experience for us.

So, after our walk, she was supposed to take a nap so we could clean up and make her cake, etc. The first time Rob checked on her she had climbed up on the changing table and pulled about 20 wipes out of the container. A while later I went upstairs to the bathroom and found Charlotte, who exclaimed "you scared me!" dipping toilet paper in the toilet and then wringing it out onto the bathroom floor. Are you kidding me? FINALLY we got Charlotte down for a nap in our bed- where there are no toys and fewer distractions.

Anyway, here are some pictures from the big second birthday weekend...

Charlotte loves looking at that last picture of her and Toby and wanted to do it again, so here ya go. She's a cheeseball! And you can see how much they look alike, and how much Toby has chunked up in just one month.

I made Charlotte a Blue's Clues "paw print" cake and blue cupcakes. She loved everyone singing to her and blowing out the candle.

Charlotte and Anna dig into their cupcakes.

After dinner and cake we all went up to play in Charlotte's room for a little while. (William, Jack W., and Charlotte playing in this picture.) Notice in the back all of those toys in "Charlotte's Playhouse." Rob asked her to bring him everything one day- and boy did she ever! Every toy, plus her bedding, and many books.

Since she loved it so much, and since we ended up only eating the cupcakes on Saturday, on Sunday we put the candle back on the cake and sang Happy Birthday again. :)

Charlotte is really her own unique little person. She is stubborn and strong-willed, usually happy and sometimes emotional, very affectionate with her stuffed animals, and loves to sing, dance, read, and do ANYTHING social. She has made our home a much more laughter filled place these past two years and we love our Peanut very much!

3 little pictures

Charlotte managed to squeeze her head into one of Toby's little hats. Rob and I both had to laugh at how much she looks like a little Mennonite. ;)

Sometimes Toby likes just hanging out on the boppy, sucking on his pacifier, and looking at the world. I'm so glad he takes a pacifier!

Cuddling on the couch. This is my new favorite picture!

video day

We are back online! Woo-hoo!!! :) It finally feels like we are getting settled into our new home here in Germany. Our furniture has arrived, Toby has arrived, and now we can communicate with the world. :)

Anyway, we are still adjusting to being a family of 4. And it HAS been an adjustment for all of us. Charlotte likes Toby most of the time, but has been acting up more than usual... is it the terrible twos??? Is it the new baby?? Probably a bit of both. I hope she gets over it soon.

Toby is a typical newborn I suppose... beautiful, brilliant, and perfect in every way! ;) Except, of course, that he doesn't sleep very well and he screams his head off when he has gas, which is often... especially at 1 am, 2 am, 3 am, and 4 am. Oh well, maybe I'll sleep next year?

Rob and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary on Wednesday very simply with Pakistani food, roses, and chocolate. :) I have been especially mindful since we've been in Germany of what a wonderful husband I have: he takes Toby for an hour or two each morning and gets Charlotte her breakfast if she is up so I can sleep uninterrupted, he comes home from the store with little treats that he thinks I'll enjoy, he calms my fears and worries when I have them and yet gently encourages me to be braver and to new things more than I would on my own. And he STILL laughs at my silly jokes and terrible puns. I am very blessed to have such a companion for life's journey. :D

Okay, okay, time for some stories and videos of the kids, since I know that is why you are really here! ;)

I took this video while waiting to pick Rob up from work yesterday. (We had the car to go to a playdate.) It's a little hard to hear Charlotte... I was trying to get her to tell me what Toby was saying, but it didn't happen. (Usually when Toby makes a noise Charlotte interprets for him... "says ehh," "says hiccup," "says cat" etc.) I thought the video was still cute though, and you can hear how verbal she is these days. She talks non-stop!

And this is a kinda boring video of Toby sleeping. ;) He is adorable though, isn't he? He looks very much like Charlotte did as an infant, but I see a lot more of Rob in him somehow. We'll try to get some video of him awake soon. :)

introducing Tobias Paul

On Tuesday, 16 Sept., Tobias Paul joined our family. He was 9 lbs. 1 oz. and was 21 inches long. We will have more details later, but here are a few photos of Toby for now...

Welcome to the world little one!

Proud Papa

Charlotte loves her baby brother.