Mittwoch

Well, it's Wednesday. Mid-week. Or Mittwoch for all you Deutsch speaking friends. Ella, Colton and Mason were home today while Jaxon still had school. Colton and Ella's schools have parent teacher conferences today (mine though are on Friday). So, with 75% of my kinder home, how did we spend the day? Well, we tried to cram in as much fun as we could before I had to leave for German and the little ones went to Amy's house. Colton wanted to earn some extra money, so he vacuumed:

We found some Toy Story play doh that we hadn't opened yet, so that provided about 20 minutes of entertainment:

We're getting serious about Christmas preparations. We pulled out all the presents we've bought so far, then started to organize them. Ella and Mason found some fun French cookie cutters I had bought at Cora and decided they would make great designs if we traced them. Then we baked cupcakes to bring to Amy's and let the kids frost and decorate them.


I dropped Mason and Ella off at Amy's, and Colton didn't want to stay there. Of course because he loves his mom so much, he didn't want to be separated from her and chose to come to German class with her. He was a P.A. (perfect angel) during my class while I earned the title of Star Student for the day by using inverted word order in one of my answers. No applause, really, no big deal...After returning to Amy's to retrieve my children, Mason jumped into the car but Ella begged to stay longer and Amy willingly agreed to keep her for a few more hours. She already had a houseful of kids, so at this point, one more didn't make too much of a difference. Mason, Colton and I headed off to the BX for some lunch and some shopping. So, how are you doing on your Christmas purchases? Haven't thought too much about it yet? Well, I am just about done! Yup, DONE. And it feels good! Jaxon is 100% done, Colton is 90 % done, Mason is 90 % done, Ella is, well, if she gets off the naughty list, 50% done, and presents for extended family: Finished! It's a beautiful thing. See, I don't want to be scrambling at the last minute, especially when Sean is coming home, having to worry about sending out packages, ordering things or going to the store (especially the BX). Here are my two favorite shopping buddies as we check out with all our loot:


We picked up Ella and went back to the school to pick Jaxon up from Military History Club. It was 49 degrees, raining, and here's Jaxon walking to the car, still dressed as if we were back in good ol' Hawaii:

I made a Texas sheet cake, yup - from scratch ( I'll save you a piece but you better hurry, it's going fast!) for the boys for dessert while I put Ella and Mason to bed. Scriptures, journals, cleaning, laundry, blah blah blah and finally bed! Woo Hoo!

Happy Happy Joy Joy

Well, I caved. I didn't think I would cave so soon, but I did. Sorry. I couldn't help it. See, this morning the kids all wanted hot chocolate, which was fine, but two of them wanted the same mug. Uh oh. Since it was 7 am and I didn't want any fussing so early in the morning, I caved. I brought Mason out an early Christmas present. I know, PATHETIC! But it was a Toy Story hot chocolate mug set and it made him so happy and kept peace and harmony for a little longer in the early morning hours, so I think I can justify it. Sort of. Here he is with his new mug:

Our day was good: I had German class here but only two ladies could make it, so we really just sat around and talked. In English. Oops. But we had fun. Then Mason and I went grocery shopping. He loved sitting in the big back part of the cart and having me pile the groceries on top of him. We picked up the kids from the bus stop, did some homework, and had a very elaborate dinner. Since Sean's been gone, my culinary skills have just skyrocketed. Tonight I served a rotisserie chicken that the commissary prepared and a loaf of french bread I picked up in the deli. Wow. Emeril would be amazed. But they ate it; sort of.

Then the most amazing change came over Ella. I don't really know how it started. But she went from being normal 5 year old to AMAZING GIRL all within the space of a few minutes. She started being really sweet and helpful. She helped clean up Mason's room. Then she cleaned up her room, all of it, even though she didn't make the mess (you'll never guess who did). Then she cleaned up some paint on the floor from her and Mason's art project. Without being asked. Then she gave everyone hugs. Then she told me if I needed help making my bed tomorrow to just ask her. Wow. Here are the kids' rooms after Angel Ella had swept through them:


Here's Ella with her best friend:

My very own Picasso and his artwork:

And me squishing my favorite girl:

WIll Angelic Ella return tomorrow? Stay tuned...

Happy Monday

Usually Mondays aren't the greatest day of the week. But, truth be told, today was actually a good day. Now, I know I just jinxed myself by saying that and probably guaranteed myself a year's worth of yucky Mondays from here on out, but here are some good things that happened today:
1) The kids went to school. See, in the month of November, the kids only have one full week of school. Thank you Veteran's Day, Teacher Work Days (yeah right, can you say three day weekend so we can travel?), Parent Teacher Conferences and Thanksgiving, my kids are pretty much off for the month of November. So the fact that they actually had school today is a good thing.
2) We didn't miss the bus. Not catching the bus was almost a done deal as we waited to turn left onto the hauptstrasse this morning behind four other cars that refused to turn unless there was no other car anywhere around for miles and miles. We made it to the bus stop with a whole minute to spare!
3) I worked out with Tony before any kids woke up and didn't die. That's always a plus. I will be sore tomorrow, but no death occurred while doing countless push ups and pull ups. I didn't even curse at him for putting me through heck before 6 am on a Monday.
4) Mason went to a new friend's house to play while I went to German class, he had fun, no tears, and all went well. Yea!
5) We went to the local German grocery store on the way home, Wasgau, and loaded up on clementines, chocolate, and pretzels: essential after school snack food. Here's Mason pushing his own little cart in the store:



6) I talked to Sean twice today, and saw him, on Skype. Usually I don't even get to talk to him twice in a WEEK, but today, we got to talk twice. Cool. Oh, and if you're reading this Sean, SHAVE THE 'STACHE!!! (He grew a mustache folks, I know, "When in Rome"...but he has approximately 40 days to find a good razor and put it to good use before I pucker up for his return).
7) The people who were stalking my house as I pulled up to it with Mason after Wasgau aren't interested in kicking me out and moving into my house. YEA!! Everyone pause and do a happy dance for me!! I'll wait.....




Ok, see, I don't really mind moving, IF I FOUND THE PERFECT HOUSE, but guess what? That probably won't happen, and I don't want to be forced into moving especially at this time of year. So, if this nice German couple who speak very little English want to buy this house and keep renting it to this lady who speaks very little German, I think we have a match made in heaven! So far, so good.
8) We had a short and sweet FHE on gratitude. I made a gratitude jar:

We talked about gratitude. I told the kinder that happiness isn't getting what you want, it's wanting what you have. Oh...I know, very profound. We talked about having an attitude of gratitude and then we wrote down things we are thankful for, put them in the jar, and I challenged the kids to keep adding things to the jar over the next 2 1/2 weeks that they are thankful for. We will read them on Thanksgiving. Here's Ella and Colton filling out their thankful leaves:


And here's Mason with two of the things he is most thankful for:
JUICY AND BLANKIE!!!

Rhine River

So what did you guys do today? Or I should ask, what would you guys do if you had four kids, a free Saturday, rainy weather, and some awesome friends? A trip along the Rhine River to see some amazing castles? Well, ME TOO!! That is how we spent our day today, following the greatest people in Deutschland up to some beautiful sights along the Rhine River. We started off taking a ferry to get from one side of the Rhine to the other. Castles line both sides and we wanted to get to the other side to see Marksburg castle. The cool thing about the ferry is that we got to drive our car on it, and stay inside the whole time. All for 5 euros! Very cool. The kids thought it was so fun to be in our car, on a boat. The ride took a whopping five minutes, but it was great. We found the castle, climbed up the stairs, (do you ever notice how all castles are built up on something and to get to them, stair climbing is involved?), bought tickets for all All German tour since that is the only kind of tour they have, and waited patiently in the rain to be admitted to the castle. The kids were running around while we were waiting. I kept losing one or another of them. Then the little old lady with the big key came and unlocked the castle doors and let us inside to start the tour. Great, right? Yeah, except I had lost one of my kids by this point and couldn't find him. We were ushered into the castle and the tour started and I still didn't have one of my sons! No, not Mason, no, not even Colton, it was the big one! JAXON! Yup, the one who is supposed to be Mr. Responsible, Mr. I Will Help My Mom, Mr. Don't Worry About Me Because I'm So Grown Up, was not with us!! The tour was almost an hour, and the whole time I am worried about where Jaxon is. Now, after 12 1/2 years, I can kinda think like that kid, so I knew he was fine, just wandered off, and was probably waiting down the hill at the car for us. So, we tour the castle, see some cool stuff, especially the armory, and then leave. No Jaxon. Not outside the castle doors, not in the restaurant, souvenir shop, no where. At the car? Nope. Dennis goes back to search for him. 5 minutes later, guess who comes down the hill all by himself? Jaxon.
Mom: "Uh, WHERE WERE YOU?"
Jaxon: "I took the tour of the castle."
Mom: "There was no other tour. They only have one every hour! What tour?"
Jaxon pointing to two tour buses: "I went on a tour of the castle with the people from those buses. The armory was COOL!"
Mom: "So, you didn't have a ticket, and just walked in with some German people for a tour?"
Jaxon: "Yup!"
By this point, Mason was crying because he thought Jaxon was missing, and that I was going to kill Jaxon if he ever showed up for leaving us. But, all is well that ends well, Jaxon was safe, realized he should probably keep me in his field of vision when we are miles away from home, and we had cookies waiting for us in the car, so everything worked out alright. Here we are following the Turner's onto the ferry:

Bottom of the castle hill:


Mason looking out one of the tower windows while Mom is ready to grab him any second since Germans don't believe in safety nets, fences, glass coverings, or anything to prevent immanent death from occurring while looking out castle holes or over castle walls:

Mason and Colton sharing an umbrella during the tour:

Picture of the Rhine from on top of the castle:

Ella and Colton in the armory:


I tried to take a picture of Marksburg castle as we were driving away because it is a really cool looking castle but it didn't really turn out. So, do me a favor: google Castles Along the Rhine River so you can get a feel for what we saw today, and a sense of intense jealousy that I get to live in this awesome country!!


Then we were off to Rheinstein Castle.
But first, you're probably asking, hey Angela, since you went on an All German tour of the castle, and have been taking German lessons for the past two months, did you understand anything?
Well,
NO!! And I am mad about it!! I understood three words: schlafzimmer (bedroom), essen (eat) and Sie (you). Pathetic!! I want a refund for my German lessons!
Ok, back to the next castle. This one was really cool because you could just walk around it on your own, no tour required. After bothering the lady who sells the tickets and souvenirs because one of my children touched a sword in the shop (guess which one, no...not Colton... YUP! JAXON! Again! Making mischief!) we were off to explore the castle and its grounds. Very cool. This is the stuff boys live for! My boys were in heaven climbing around, exploring, looking at different things and pretending to be princes and knights hundreds of years ago. And, of course, Ella was ready to assume the role of princess of the castle.
Here are some pictures of us storming the castle:












Yes, I went back inside the souvenir shop on the way out, spoke in German to the lady and bought my kids some cool things that probably require consent forms and waiting periods if purchased in the US. But Jaxon was so happy and Colton was ecstatic, and every one but Mason was all smiles on the way home. (Mason wanted to shoot Colton's cross bow, uh, sorry, no). And Jaxon, my way too cool and laid back preteen said he had a great day and LOVED exploring the castles. Yup folks, memories are being made. Family ties are getting tighter. And hopefully no ER visits are in the near future because of the weapons I bought my sons this afternoon.

Life Goes On

So, last night I got a knock on the door. There were two Russian guys standing on my doorstep, attempting to speak English to me. Since I speche Deutsch ein bisschen, I was able to figure out what they wanted: my house. They asked if it was for sale and if I had the landlord's number. Yes to both of those. I was so nice and friendly to these two guys (brothers in law) who may be the reason for me getting kicked out of my house in the near future. If they buy the place, we have to move. I liked them, but don't think I'd like to live WITH them, so a new house would be in the cards for us. I asked them in, told them they could look around, and then started calling realtors. This is a stinky time of the year to move. If they buy the house and want to move in, I have 30 days to find a new place. Not really too much of a problem as long as I use a realtor. The only yucky part about that is the realtor's fee: one month's rent. If the house sells and we have to move, the Army takes care of the move. If I move on my own because I don't want to keep showing the house or like the fact that I may have only 30 days to vacate, I pay for all moving expenses. Yuck. So, I will start looking around and if I find THE perfect house, I'm outta here!! Floor heating and a bigger kitchen definitely are calling to me on certain days. We'll see. I'm not worried about it really, there are a lot of good things about this house, but it's not perfect, and I would love to be closer to Christy. So, maybe this is for the best. On to other topics.....
Jaxon has been joining us for breakfast these past few days and it has been so nice. Usually he just eats a Cliff bar downstairs as he gets ready and we don't have a Jaxon sighting til we are loading up in the car to say a prayer and go to the bus stop. He found something growing on one of his bars, and that was all it took to forsake them and head upstairs for some good old fashioned cereal. But I'm happy to have him around for a few more minutes every morning, so yesterday I made cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and this morning he wanted bacon and hard boiled eggs. No problem. Here are all four kids eating breakfast together:

After getting the kids on the bus, Mason watched a movie while I got ready. We had some friends over for German class, then we read stories. Mason LOVES to read stories, especially at the table while he is eating. No meal is complete unless a book is being read to him at some point. So, today as he was eating chicken nuggets and I was reading The Way I Feel, he showed me who every picture in the book is in our family. The last page has a picture with five cooky animated kids, and today he told me that I was the African American girl with frizzy hair. Cool. I need a tan. Jaxon got the best part: he got to be the little Asian girl with crossed eyes. Here's Mason pointing out the pictures in the book and telling me who each picture represents in our family:

The best was yesterday when we were reading Lunch Bunnies. Ok, only Sean will get this, or someone who has read the book. Guess who Mason said Jaxon was in that story? Jaxon got the part of Gloria, the mean ol' lunch lady. I laughed pretty hard about that. After reading stories, we were pleasantly rewarded with a visit from the garbage man. Here's Mason watching the German sanitation department at their finest:

You probably can't tell what Mason is wearing from the picture, but he spent the whole day in jammies. I tried to explain to him that his pants were actually jammies and he might want to wear some real pants so he could run around with his friends when they came for German class, but these aren't just any jammie pants. They are BATMAN jammie pants, so in his mind, they are worth their weight in gold, or at least Sour Patch Kids. They are a size 7, so a tad long, so he wore them around his feet all day, and was as happy as could be. Don't you wish you could just stay in your jammies all day and get away with it? Heck, even be considered cool? After the garbage man, we picked up the kids from the bus stop. Here is one of my favorite sights in Germany:
I know the picture is far away, but remember I only have my phone camera now so I couldn't zoom in to get a closer picture, and I didn't want to scare the old lady by going right up and taking a picture of her, causing a potential heart attack in the sweet little old thing. This is a picture of an old lady, dressed nicely, sweeping her front walkway. Everyone is so neat and clean here. I love it. Most 80 year olds in America are sitting in front of day time soaps, and here is a little Oma cleaning her front yard. Maybe if she has some extra time I can see if she is willing to walk the few blocks over to MY front yard.....nah.....


Piano lessons were up next, thanks to daylight savings we now drive home in the dark. Yuck. But not without a quick stop through the golden arches drive thru for some McFlurries and sundaes:

And here are my favorite two goofballs as we get ready to start the bedtime process:

Tomorrow I get to sit still for 2 hours with a book while I get my hair done (hee hee) then off to Christy's for Indian cuisine for dinner. She told me she loves Indian food and should have been named Punjab. I thought that was funny. Then I told her I love sweets so I should have been named high fructose corn syrup. Oh well, maybe I can change my name later...

Terrible Tuesdays

I just realized that the past two Tuesdays have been bad news for us. Last Tuesday, I scratched the front bumper of the car pulling out of my driveway. Stupid mistake, I was hurrying to pick the kids up from the bus and didn't see how close the front bumper was to the cinderblock planters. Not a horrible scratch, but enough to make me feel bad. Since we already had a gash taken out of the underside of the bumper, I decided to let the perfectionist in me take over and look into getting it repaired. I love getting things accomplished (see previous post) so I called the body shop the next morning and brought the car in that afternoon for an estimate. Not too bad, actually less than I was planning, so the part is being ordered, and we are waiting for a date to bring the car back to the shop. Now, onto this Tuesday. I had to take Colton to the doctor's. He has a bump on his arm that has been getting redder, harder, and more painful over the past two days. So I took him into the doctor's, she squeezed it and make it pop pus ALL OVER her (YUCK!!), gave him some antibiotics, and we were on our way. In the afternoon, Colton wanted to show me something on the computer, so he started to carry it over to me. He didn't realize our camera was plugged into the camera. It dropped. On the floor. The tile floor. oops. Yup, the camera body cracked. It kinda takes pictures still, but not well. Shoot. The poor kid felt horrible and went into his room to cry. I told him its just a 'thing', not important, no one was hurt, and things could be a whole lot worse. So, these past two Tuesdays have cost me some serious money. I think I am going bubble wrap us next Tuesday, lock the doors, and stay inside all day, away from anything worth any money. I am trying to stay positive, thinking that we have enough money so it's not the end of the world, possessions aren't important and don't matter, and as long as the kids are healthy and safe, we are doing fine. So, I guess this is just to let ya'll know that I hope no one's expecting great Christmas presents from us this year, since these past two weeks have been a bit expensive.


This is all that matters: these four guys, healthy and happy!

Checklists

I LOVE LOVE LOVE finishing things and checking off my imaginary boxes to show that I've completed my various tasks. Here was my checklist for today:
Wake up at 4:15 am (thank you daylight savings): CHECK
Work out with Tony and do 135 push ups (on my toes, folks, that's not counting the ones one my knees): CHECK
Make lunches: CHECK
Wake kids up that aren't already awake (thanks to daylight savings): CHECK
Make breakfast: CHECK
Drive kids to bus stop: CHECK
Do laundry: CHECK
Get ready: CHECK
Order advent calendars on line for boys: CHECK (Half way done with my Christmas shopping folks, how are you doing on that?)
Go to Amy's house and check out her putzfrau: CHECK
Hire putzfrau to start cleaning my house next week: CHECK
Do happy dance that putzfrau starts next week: DOUBLE CHECK
Go to post office, mail letters, and send Sean a package of clothes for Afghanis: CHECK
Pick up lunch for Colton: CHECK
Eat lunch with Colton: CHECK
Go food shopping: CHECK
Buy way too much stuff that I don't need because Mason is with me: CHECK
See my visiting teachee in the commissary and check in with her: CHECK
Put all the groceries away: CHECK
Clean up Mason after he goes to the bathroom: Ewww, CHECK
Take care of recycling: CHECK
Read Mason stories: CHECK
Clean Mason AGAIN after he goes to the bathroom since he obviously has too much fiber in his diet: CHECK
Pick kids up from bus stop: CHECK
Help with homework: CHECK
Peel numerous clementines for Mason since he absolutely loves them and won't stop eating them: CHECK
Make doctor's appointment for Colton due to his big bug bite/bump/red thingy on his arm that won't go away: CHECK
Make dinner: CHECK
Have FHE: CHECK
Stop numerous fights: CHECK
Clean up dinner: CHECK
Vacuum floor since more rice ended up there than in kids' mouths: CHECK
Read scriptures: CHECK
Put away laundry: CHECK
Make second dinner since kids are hungry again: CHECK
Read stories: CHECK
Brush kids' teeth: CHECK
Sing songs: CHECK
Tell kids goodnight: CHECK
Read my own scriptures: CHECK
Study German: CHECK
Tell Ella to get back in bed: CHECK
Fall into bed ready for a repeat tomorrow: CHECK

Here's some fun pictures from today:
Mason, helping me bring in the groceries: (only carrying the bag with the candy canes in it though)



Mason dressing up as 'Sarah' (no idea who Sarah is, but that's who he pretends he is when he plays with Ella)



Colton, all smiles, even though he had a killer headache and his arm was hurting him: