Lily's 4th, Israel, Italy, Chicago

Our first turned 4.  Lil likes wearing skirts under her dresses, blowing bubbles in her milk, singing loudly in public, saying i love you at the most random times like when pooping, and only talks in German now when playing on her own.  She's also insistent on wearing no jacket whenever she can, talks about having her feelings hurt, eating dinner frustratingly slowly, and screams "it's too loud"when her siblings are yelling or crying too much.

Here are pics from her special day.

 Lily got to invite 4 friends to a puppet theatre.

 Lily speechless over her new dollhouse.

 rare shot of just us 3.

 Elise loving Lil's unicorn costume while lily opened up gifts,

It's an eventful time for us.  Lil's bday wasn't exciting enough to close out the week so an ER visit, one operation, and one night in the hospital for royally cutting up my hand by accident closed out the week.  Nate then left for Israel and I muddled through the week one handed and with extra help.  We are about to leave for a long awaited family trip to Italy and have been excited about finding warmer weather to only discover that we aren't going south enough and instead of bathing suits and sunscreen, we are packing snow suits and gloves.  O well.  We will still be in Italy trying something new.  Then right after we get back, Lily and I will fly to Chicago for my sister's wedding.  Lily will be a princess for a day aka flower girl and I get be part of one of the most important and special moments in my best friend/sister's life.  Giddy for it.

Neuschwanstein

I played my first league tennis match in Germany today.  Fitting that it happened on Mother's Day.  Tennis is the only hobby I keep up with these days.  Motherhood is such a selfless mess of a roller coaster.  Tennis is not or doesn't have to be; Find my zone, hit the ball, and use my skills confidently.  Win or lose, whatever.  Why wasn't I like this when I was younger?  I'll probably say the same about motherhood when I'm old.  Damn 20/20 hindsight.

Thursday was a Holiday in Germany so we decided to do a last minute trip to Castle Neuschwanstein and spend one night in a nearby hotel.   We did it.  Just like any day in the Mather house, the trip was hard, draining, and fun...and yes in that order.

What doesn't make a trip like this fun with 3 little kids? Hearing Lily ask 50 times while at this amazing castle when we're going to the hotel so she can go swimming and hearing her whine way too much that she wants to leave.  Holding 2 crying babies when we do finally make it to the pool while Lily happily swims and then dealing with an inconsolable Paul when we try to get changed afterwards - SO.MUCH.CRYING!  Paul throwing a fit in the breakfast room because we won't let him move all the plates and mugs to our table like it's his job - why can't he be interested in the pile of napkins?  Hearing "very much need a nap" Elise wail for 30 minutes while we take a joy ride around the area to let Paul and Lily snooze and kill time before check in time.  Getting through dinner at a restaurant with only one high chair.

What does make a trip like this fun with 3 kids? Lily's face when I tell her Sleeping Beauty used to live in this castle (very short lived interest), the amazingly quiet horse and carriage ride back down from the castle, blowing bubbles on our hotel balcony while all 3 kids are giggling, and kids occupying themselves at the playground.

I'm looking forward to them showing more interest and asking questions about the new stuff we see but in the meantime, Nate and I will enjoy the views.

View of castle from Mary's Bridge

Kinda goofy shot with castle in background

View of another castle in the distance, don't remember name.

 Family shot before heading down the hill by horse and carriage.

 View from hotel balcony.

Oma in Munich

I thought I would be blogging about Elise's surgery this weekend but the day that screams at me whenever I look at a calendar and keeps me up at night was postponed last minute to July.  

Because my mom had already bought a train ticket to come help, we were all super thrilled she still decided to come.  The last couple of weeks have felt overall tough and draining in the Mather house so Oma's presence was relieving.  It's ironic that even though Elise is the one that keeps me up at night with her diagnosis, she's by far the easiest of the 3 lately.  Here are some of my favorite recent pics.

Oma and Elise right when Oma arrived at the door.

 Lily multitasking - holding Paul's hand and picking her nose.

 Paul doll and Elise doll going for a ride.  Fabric ripped soon after.  Shocker.

 One of the few moments Oma and Lily were able to play alone together

 Singing German songs to Paul

Learnings

We learned a few things since our last blog entry.  Most of them were about food.  A couple were from 79-year old photos, and one was from grunting pigs.

We ventured to Oma and Opa's house in Leimen to celebrate Easter.  We were completely spoiled as usual with delicious food and drink and love and company.  It's hard to choose what was the favorite dish... rouladen or filet?  We learned about traditions of German Easter:  pickled fish for Good Friday dinner (accompanied by a tasty cold cream sauce with dill and apples along with potatoes), and a special way to eat the traditional hard-boiled eggs.  First you cut them in half and pull out the yolk, then put some mustard, olive oil, white vinegar, and salt in the yolk hole and eat up.  Not sure if either of these traditions will make their way into our yearly festivities, but it was fun to learn about them regardless.

Lily and Paul enjoyed an Easter egg hunt in Oma and Opa's living room, while Elise suspiciously watched the candy hunters in action.  They all enjoyed banging on the piano and Lily couldn't wait to hit the zip line at the park in the woods.  The only downside was that there are a lot of stairs in the house and Paul and Elise are a) not to be trusted on stairs and b) addicted to stairs.  So they had to be watched constantly and we were definitely playing zone defense, handing off the one going up to whoever was helping the one going down.  

Another thing we stumbled upon while in Leimen was a handful of pictures from 1934 and 1935 of the twins born to Nicole's grandparents.  You might recall that before we learned there were two babies growing inside Nicole we had no idea that twins ran in the family.  The boy twin passed away at a few months of age for fuzzy medical reasons, but we had never seen pictures of them before.  It was exciting but sad to see these pictures which no living person could tell us about with any certainty. 

On the way home from Leimen we made a two night stopover in the tiny town of Gundelfingen (don't search for it on Google maps, the wrong one shows up) at a sort-of farm B&B.  It would have been great if it was about 40 degrees warmer.  As it was, it was hovering right at freezing the whole time we were there which meant we couldn't spend a lot of time outside checking out the several ruined castles within sight.  You might think there's not much to do in a tiny little town with about a dozen houses, but there's a lot less to do in a small apartment without your usual supply of toys and books.  All was not lost, we did visit the assortment of animals on the B&B grounds which included four donkeys who gave us loud hee-haws, a couple of young lambs, and some pigs making horrible grunts and squeals.  And we had a couple of nice meals at the two restaurants within walking distance with friendly staff.  We decided we were going to get out and see more of Germany this year even if it's a pain to get everyone out of the house, so at least we were successful on that front.  

So what did those grunting pigs teach us?  They were in a little barn or something and were squealing and grunting as if the butcher were chasing them around and they were trying to escape to the great outdoors.  So even if you freezing your butt off, sometimes it's just better to get outside.     

All and Nothing

Lots of planning going on here over the past couple of weeks, for Easter, for vacations, for Elise's surgery, flights for Sonya's wedding, work travel planning, and on and on.  But at the same time, not a lot has been decided.  Ok, our Easter plans are set with a visit to Oma and Opa and a couple of days in a country B&B, but besides that everything is a bit in flux.  I think that's how most days turn out here... lots of things happen but not much gets "done".  Between work and kids, it seems anything that takes more than two minutes to complete gets pushed to the evening.  And by the time the kids are in bed, sometimes the last thing we feel like being is productive.  Oh well, the important things get done and in the meantime we've been having some fun.  Last weekend we made it to a big farm and Lily, Paul and Elise got to see lots of horses, pigs, and cows.  We're trying to make more of a conscious effort to get out as a family and do more 1/2 day trips to make the most of being in this great place.  There's still a lot of inertia to overcome to get us all out of the house at the same time, but it is a bit easier now that the twins are down to a single nap per day.  We end up with a big chunk of time weekend mornings where we can go and do something fun.  Hopefully the weather will warm up so we can get out for more outdoor outings soon.  In the meantime, here's what we've been up to lately.

Lily and her pal Livvy, matching swim buddies.

A typical after-dinner scene of random activity at our house.

Silly Lily with a friend from school over for dinner, hamming it up.

At a neighbor's birthday party earlier today.  We had a moment of feeling like everyone was suddenly a big kid, all three of them sitting and eating and behaving like civilized children.

Elise definitely likes to draw.  Especially while Lily's at school and can't guard her art supplies...

And she can now propel herself around on Thomas, one advantage of having a big ol' foot.  Another is climbing since this little monkey has about an extra inch of reach vs. her brother.

Sisters playing before bed.  They're all starting to play with each other a bit more, especially if the game is chase.

Bathtime fun, Lily can even help a bit now.

Paul having a celebrity moment wearing his stylish shades indoors.

February 2013

February is already done and don't even know where to start when it comes to summarizing the month. It felt like a very grown up month with big decisions to be made, praying for current and future family medical issues, and also a very fun month celebrating Fasching (Kinda like Mardi Gras but longer) in Munich, seeing the twins interact more and more, having family fun in the snow, and joining a tennis team for this coming summer season.  I'll just post some of my favorite pics and videos from the month. We would have blogged more but our computer went kaput. I wouldn't recommend the MacBook Pro.

Elise discovered coloring (and her belly button)

My favorite picture of the month...maybe because Lily is playing nicely with Paul and Elise.

Whenever a dance worthy song comes on now, Paul goes to the speaker and starts to dance and Elise comes to me wanting up so I hold her while dancing.  This is a self pic after dancing to Hey Ho from the Lumineers.

Paul has liked trucks for a while but now he is obsessed with Garbage Trucks.  This is Paul seeing the Garbage Truck from our window.  Shortly after this pic, he was so excited and stunned from the Garbage Truck driver waving to him that he fell off the couch, ouch.

Lily's first time EVER falling asleep during dinner.  As you can see, she was pretty sick.

No, we did not build this.  Just thought it was cool.  Some guy and a ladder built a pope snowman 15 feet high because he can.

Some interaction - Prost.

Paul is usually such a bad eater wanting out so soon but this moment, he was mesmerized by food for a change.  Elise decided to have a little fun...as did Lily.



It feels like these moments of loving sibling interaction are few and far between but at least it's so cute when they do happen.

Kids Snapshot

Thought it was time again to do a snapshot of where the kids are at these days.  

3.5 year old Lily is very much immersed in her own imagination these days.  We went for a boat ride in the dining room and swimming in the living room and that was all in one morning.  I found her sleeping  on the floor tonight with all her blankets nicely laid out on the floor and her doll stroller with a baby in it right next to her.  She's much more interested in having playdates and going ice skating.  She's starting to ask more questions about God and death, asks me what every street sign she sees means and she'll come home from school once in a while now and talk about how her feelings were hurt.  She can be fiercely independent one moment and then completely babyish the next.

1 year old Elise is walking more and more and would say she still prefers to crawl but just barely.  Elise is still so full of smiles for everyone.  I can tell when I get alone time with Elise, she likes to seek out attention from other people and will have a smiling contest with them while Paul - not so much.  Unless Elise is really angry about something, she can be super quiet playing away alone.  Elise is very much like Lily when it comes to eating habits, the giggle, and temperament.  Elise loves to put any kind of fabric on her head and put on her coat while playing inside.  She's a little sweetheart who enjoys kissing (open mouthed), blowing kisses, and cuddling when she's tired.  She's down to 1 nap now too and likes to sleep on a little pillow she got as a gift.

1 year old Paul is a chatterbox. He can still be quite a cry baby but much of the time he's busy making me either laugh or go "hmmmm."  He is all about the garbage truck, any trucks really.  He's my worst eater but really good at using a spoon and fork.  He very much enjoys taking stuff from one spot to another over and over again.  I find pans next to the toilet now, Jenga pieces on my pillow, puzzle pieces in the diaper pail.  I always think Elise expresses herself so much with her smile and Paul with his eyes.  Paul is very observant.  He knows my routine and will get his broom when I start to clean, put away his hat in the right box, help with the laundry from sorting to putting away and he always looks at me first when he's not sure if he can do something which also means he listens when I say no. He's also all about taking every dirty diaper and taking it to the diaper pail - hope he enjoys that for a while.  He still takes 2 naps and must have his bear blanket with him while sucking his thumb to go in his crib.

Nate is in the midst of work travel, just about to get over jet lag and heading to Scandinavia all next week.  He's here right now to make sure he can travel with me and Elise up to Hamburg tomorrow to see a surgeon about her foot.  Definitely more to come on Elise's Macrodactyly when we get back.   Oma has been here to help and now Opa is here too to keep life moving normally for Paul and Lily.