Fun Stuff

On Friday, Heather had her Winter Dance at school. She was super excited and looked gorgeous! She took some pictures with her phone at the dance and then we took some at our house. Her boyfriend, Jacob, did not get to go; she was a little disappointed about that. She still had a good time hanging out with her friends.

Heather and Sarah Langhoff

Heather and Erika Erwin

Sarah Mary and Erika Erwin

Heather and Paul

Heather :)

Sunday night we drove the kids out to Prestonwood Forest to see the lights. Zachary loved it! He continuously yelled "LIGHTS, LIGHTS, LIGHTS!" for about the first 30 minutes. He also yelled "FROTHY!" anytime he saw a snowman (for Frosty) and "SANTA" whenever he saw a Santa yard decoration. I think we all had a nice time seeing all the decorations. I took pictures of some of the really neat ones. Zachary didn't make it all the way home, he fell asleep in the car from all the excitement.

Catch Up!

I am SO FAR behind, but I am going to try to catch up with one very long blog. The weekend after I came back from Germany, the boys and I went to Savannah's 4th birthday party at Build-A-Bear! We were so happy to see our friends and the kids love their new stuffed animals. Zachary made Rudolph and Caleb made the Abominable Snowman. Unfortunately, Caleb and Zachary got very tired and we had to leave before the boys got to have cake, but we all still had a great time.



The weekend before Thanksgiving, my grandparents came over from Louisiana and stayed for several weeks. They had only intended to stay one week, but my Papa had some health complications and ended up in the hospital. They are back in Louisiana now and feeling much better. I enjoyed getting to see them. Here is a picture of Heather with my Nanny.

Speaking of Heather, she has a new boyfriend, Jacob, who looks just like Justin Bieber!!! We haven't met him yet, but we would love to. Heather says he has cut his hair since this picture was taken (I "borrowed" it from his Facebook page).

The day before Thanksgiving, our friends Kamie, Emma and James came over and we decorated sugar cookies and went to lunch. All the kids and mommies enjoyed hanging out together. Here are the kids enjoying their lunch.

We had a very nice Thanksgiving, we even fried the turkey this year! We also had a Native American dish called Three Sisters Stew that we all enjoyed. It seemed fitting to include a Native American dish into our feast. The weekend after Thanksgiving, we decorated the house for Christmas. We decided not to put up our full sized tree this year, as Zachary is too little. He is in the destructive phase now and we know our tree wouldn't make it. I collect ornaments whenever I go on trips and my ornaments all have a special meaning to me so I don't want want them to be broken. My mom bought us a little tree with un-breakable ornaments for the kids to put up. They had a great time. Once, the cat knocked the whole tree over and a few times Zachary has snuck past the gate and grabbed a few ornaments off the tree, but for the most part, the little tree has worked out well.

I took the boys to the Galleria one day so they could see the HUGE Christmas tree there and they thought it was amazing! We even saw Santa ice skating! The boys loved all the beautiful decorations.

The weekend after Thanksgiving our elf friend, Barney, returned! The kids LOVE Barney and race downstairs every morning to see where he is hiding. If you aren't familiar with Barney, here is his story www.theelfontheshelf.com Last year, our friend Alicia told us about her elf, Ernie, and how to invite one to come spend December with us. Our friend Kamie also has an elf and his name is Jack.


I absolutely love to bake and decided to try something completely different this year. I attempted to make a Figgy Pudding! It didn't come out quite right, the flavor was fine but the texture was weird. The boys seemed to enjoy it more than Paul, Heather or myself. Caleb thought it was called Piggy Pudding and we all liked the name and it stuck! Every now and then Caleb will ask when we are having Piggy Pudding again, but he clarifies that "it doesn't actually have pigs in it, we just call it that." It cracks us up.

This week, we made Gingerbread cookies. The boys helped me make the dough and they did a great job. I measured the ingredients and let the kids pour it in the bowl. Rolling out the dough didn't go so well. Somehow, that ended with the boys playing in their room while I cleaned up dough that had been thrown all over my kitchen. I was not particularly happy with the boys for getting in a food fight! Decorating the cookies went much smoother and we all enjoyed that. Even Daddy got in on the fun and made a "headless" gingerbread boy. It was pretty gross but Caleb and Paul thought it was hilarious. My cookies were much more traditional.

I am working hard on getting my Christmas cards in the mail. I am hoping that they will go out on Saturday, at the very latest Monday. This year is the first year I haven't sent them out right after Thanksgiving. There is just so much going on. These are some of the best pictures of the kids. Unfortunately, Zachary did not want to have his picture made and wanted to watch Barney instead. He was not exactly happy during picture taking time, but he is still pretty darn cute.

Germany

OK, so I'm very far behind in blogging. Life has been so busy!!! Please bare with me because these pictures are going to be backwards. I am stealing a few minutes to catch up a teensy bit and don't have enough time to fix the order of the pictures. These first few are Jansen & Julia's apartment in Wurzburg. These pictures were taken on Sunday, the day before I left.Their kitchen

View from their balcony

Living Room

The next set of pictures were taken in Potsdam. On Saturday, Julia's parents, Heinz and Angelika, Jansen, Julia and I went to Potsdam. It was a very neat town and I had a good time.

I had some real German gingerbread!!! It was very good.

Potsdam

The grounds of the castle

Heinz, Angelika, Julia and Jansen on the grounds

Jansen & me

me

I like windmills (well, the old style, not the new ones)

Friday evening, we went to the Open Markets in Berlin and then to a little bar.

Julia and me

Jansen and me

Heina and me at the Open Markets

The next pictures are of my hotel room in Berlin.

On Wednesday, November 10, 2010, at 6 PM, my plane left Houston to fly to Germany. I arrived about 11 AM on Thursday(about 4 AM our time), made it through customs, found the trains, got on my train, got off because I was in first class and everyone was staring at me, went to find 2nd class and the train left. For anyone who ever plans to travel to Europe and take a train. . . DO NOT GET OFF THE TRAIN! They only stay about a minute, two at the most. I was supposed to walk through the cars to get to my area. Live and learn, right? So, I waited an hour, got on the next train and and arrived in Wurzburg, Germany at 3 PM (for us, it was 8 AM). Jansen and Julia picked me up at the airport and we started the 5 hour drive to Berlin. Then, I checked into my hotel, and went to Julia's parents house for dinner. I was about to sleep on the table I was so tired!

Friday we drove by the church Jansen & Julia will get married at and met Julia's friends Nina and Laura and had a nice lunch at an Italian restaurant where we all got to visit and chat. Friday evening we went to the Open Markets in Berlin and had a nice evening.

Saturday we went to Potsdam and that night we had a nice dinner at an authentic German restaurant and I had the best chicken and noodles. It is so easy to dry out chicken breast but this was wonderful! And the noodles were in a creamy mushroom sauce and it was delicious!! Saturday night I got to go out with Jansen and Julia and meet many of their friends. I had a very nice time meeting everyone and it was nice to remember that I'm a real person with thoughts outside of being a mom. None of the people we were with had children other than me, so we talked about so many other things. It was strange to me, but a lot of fun!

Sunday, Jansen and I drove to Wurzburg and had dinner at my favorite German restaurant, Auflaf!!! I also got to meet Jansen's friends and had a very nice time.
Monday morning, Jansen and I got up super early and he drove me to the airport in Frankfurt and I flew home. I was so happy to see my family that I started crying like a baby in the parking lot. I had a wonderful trip and am so happy I got to go!