Norah's Birthday Swimming Video

School PIctures 2013-2014

I love how the girls school pictures turned out. They both are so adorable!

{Norah's Pre-school Picture (British Sunbeam Class)}


Adeline's 1st grade picture (IY3)

Baby #4

That's right. We are expecting baby #4 the end of June. We have been "cautiously optimistic", as Abe would say. When I found out I was pregnant, I had a lot of emotions. I was happy, excited, relieved, terrified, worried... and the list goes on. We kept it a secret because we have been so nervous about it. Nervous that we would lose this baby too. I was worried that if my kids knew and something devastating happened again, they would be crushed. I can't handle that! After I had a ultrasound at almost 16 weeks, we decided that world and our cute little girls could know.





Every appointment that I have been to has been a little bit of a roller coaster for me. I worry that I am going to see the baby on the screen and there will be no heart beat. So far, all is well. My last appointment, I asked my doctor to please show me the heart first. Before I even had time to finish, I could see the baby moving all over the place. What a great feeling. Those first 16 weeks were hard emotionally, but I was able to keep it together and wasn't SUPER anxious. I am not quite sure what happened, but that is not the case anymore. I am more anxious than I ever could have imagined. Every day for the past several days I have cried a lot. I have almost a panic/anxiety type of attack and feel like it's hopeless that this baby is going to make it. I get excited about this new baby (I'm super excited), but at times I feel like I am trying to hold myself back to protect myself from being completely hurt. I think the reason why I am having such a hard time is that this baby has survived 4 weeks longer than the last. I can't even imagine the pain I would have to endure if something happened at this point. I keep telling Abe that if I had my miscarriage before I had any kids, I probably would have had 1 kid. This is rough. I'm truly grateful that I don't want any more than 4 kids. My heart couldn't handle it!

I keep telling myself that I need to relax and not worry so much. Really, there is nothing I can do about it. It is completely out of my hands. My heart is already so invested in this final addition to our family and I am praying that there will be a great outcome. Our girls are so very excited and Norah asks me every day, "When is the baby going to get here!". Good thing we waited several months to tell them! If you ask them if they want a boy or a girl, they both say boy (but they will be happy with either!). Norah says, "I want a brother, because we already have a baby sister!" I love my girls so much.

Christmas, New Years Norah's Birthday and Visitors

Abe's friend Rob decided last minute to drive from England and spend Christmas with us. It was a very low key and relaxing week. The girls were so excited for Christmas to come and they are at the perfect ages to feel the magic of Christmas! The Sunday before Christmas, Adeline approached our friends daughter who was in town for the Holidays. Adeline loves her and was excited to see her. Katy had asked Adeline if she was excited for Christmas. Adeline told her "yes", but then said, "Can I tell you a secret? I found all my Christmas presents in the basement!" Katy prompted Adeline to tell her what she had seen and what she was getting for Christmas and then later told Abe and I. Stressful! Luckily most of the things Adeline saw were little and were intended for their stockings. I ended up individually wrapping them all and saying they were from us. I still wonder though if she had seen some of the bigger stuff that were in boxes.... That sneaky little thing!

Christmas Eve we went to our friends house (the Peterson's) and had a yummy steak dinner. All the food was so delicious and it was good company. Of course I forgot to take pictures!

Christmas Eve, the girls opened up their traditional jammies. It was extremely hard to find cute pajamas for Meika. Poor little thing ended up with Leopard PJs. those were the cutest ones I could find. It was either that or minnie mouse. Yikes.







The girls left out cookies and milk. Adeline also left a present out for Santa.



Seriously, such a sweet girl



Santa came!



I was a really big slacker and hardly took any pictures on Christmas. Whoops.











On Christmas night, we had a couple families over for a casual dinner and hang out. It was a fun time, but of course this is the only picture I took?



It was really nice to spend Christmas with good friends. Being in the military, we rely a lot on our "military family" and "church family". I am always homesick during the Holidays, but it makes it so much better when we are spending it with good friends!

After Rob left, our good friends the Huber's came and stayed with us from England. My girls had been practically counting down the days for them to come! It was nice being able to celebrate New Years, Norah's birthday and just hang out with them.

At about midnight, the night before Norah's birthday, I decided I wanted to transform the Christmas tree into a birthday tree. Derek, Abe and Brooke were good sports helping me blow up the tiny balloons and decorate the tree. Norah was really excited about it when she woke up.



We started Norah's birthday off with our traditional birthday pancakes. She requested purple pancakes this year!







That evening, we did birthday cake and presents. Norah had originally requested a star birthday cake. I thought I had a star cut out, but turns out that I didn't she was a good sport. She agreed on a heart cake instead.







The birthday crew of kids. Sadly, this is the ONLY picture I took that has all the kids in it!









Before bedtime, we met up with two more families and did some fireworks and sparklers. Norah is pretty lucky to get fireworks on her birthday!



New Years Eve for the adults was kind of a bust. We watched a really dumb movie, fell asleep and then woke up saying, "Happy New Year" and hit the sack. Sorry Brooke and Derek that we are so lame. We need to make more of an effort to make it fun!

Unfortunately, Norah's birthday was kind of an afterthought. I felt pretty bad about it. We decided kind of last minute to go to Aquana (a small indoor water park) to celebrate. We hustled up two other families that are good friends and met at the water park. Norah had a blast and in her eyes had a fun "birthday party". That's all the matters!! I'm glad that she had fun. Maybe next year she can have an actual birthday party where we invite all her friends and it will be organized!

Sadly, once again, this is the ONLY picture I took swimming. We did take a ton of video though that I am planning on compiling and making a cute birthday video. Stay tuned :)




While the Hubers were visiting, we also went to Koln and Aachen. I love seeing those cities again and again. We also went on a couple of walks and the kids enjoyed just being together and playing. It makes me sad that we may not see them again before we leave for the States. Hopefully I am wrong!!



Chloe is also missing the Hubers. She got lots of extra attention from Blake!

December

I cannot believe that December has come and gone.... and I feel the same about 2013. They both flew by. December was a fun month full of lots of festivities.

At the very beginning of the month, we celebrated Sinterclaus. The girls put their decorated clogs outside the door and when they woke up, they had a treat left in them by Sinterclaus himself :) I guess they have been somewhat good since they didn't get sticks!





First of all, we went out to get our Christmas tree. It was nearly impossible to find a night that Abe was going to be home so we could get it before dark. Between his command post shifts, being a Flight Commander, an AFNORTH Wrestling coach, Young Men's President and involved in a tennis club.... he is hardly home lately. So, the girls and I headed out after school one day to a little tree "farm" in our neighborhood run by a family. We just loaded it up on top of the stroller and voila, we got it home!

The girls enjoyed decorating it









Then there was the Santa Train. Somehow, we have managed to do this every year that we have been here. The kids had fun and that's all that mattered.



In the middle of the Santa Train adventure, the train drops you off to this room where you can enjoy a german Brotchen, deli slices and a drink. Of course the kids can also see Santa.







We also attended a little Christmas Celebration on base. The kids got their faces painted, they served dinner and there was a band playing Christmas music. The girls also got to see Santa here too!



Last year for the first time, I decided to try my mom's/grandma's Gingerbread house recipe and patterns and made some for Adeline's teacher and some small ones for the kids to decorate. Adeline's teacher from last year, BEGGED me to make one for her again this year. I love that teacher and Adeline loves her too. Even though Adeline doesn't have her anymore, she goes and visits her every day and is always making her stuff. So I made one for Adeline's teacher, her teacher from last year and my friend (who helped make them) decorated the one for Norah's teacher because our kids both have her. It was a long time baking with those big houses and we also made a little house for each kid to decorate. Our ovens are TINY here!! When I dropped the gingerbread house off to Adeline's old teacher though, it was totally worth it. She started crying she was so excited and made me cry. She even wrote me an extremely nice note and a little bit of cash (that I tried to give back!)

Here are the kids decorating











Ah, look how cute they turned out!





After being tired of decorating, we found them all on the couch like this with Adeline reading books.



Norah also had a little Christmas performance.











Last but not least, Norah had a celebration on her last day of school before the break. We got to join her in class for cookies, a little performance and she got to do a lot of fun crafts.









Norah kept saying, "oops! I keep getting it on my fingers!"