MIA

Things have been quiet around the blog this past week cause we've been having fun with my Dad here. He leaves tomorrow, so I'll try to post pictures after that. Until then, here's a little Kevin gem:

Kevin usually comes in our bed as soon as he wakes up. This morning, he came in and I turned over to snuggle him. I kissed his cheek and said, "You're so cute." Then he said, "Yep. I really am." (Except it sounded like, "Yep, I wewy am.") I just love that boy. :)

Moving home advice, Part I: Organization

Since we're moving home SEVEN WEEKS from yesterday, I've been thinking a lot (in my spare time, of course) about it. Specifically, how to get my house super organized. I'm not an organized person by nature, so I have to think about things a lot to come up with a good system.

Since we have the unique opportunity of moving back into the exact same house, (who does that??) we already know some things we liked and didn't like. But, we still need lots of ideas. What is the best thing you have in your house to keep it organized? If you moved back into your same house, what would you change?

In my kitchen, I ordered some Tupperware storage last January when it was all 40% off (I shipped it to my mom who has been storing it at her house. Thanks, Mom!) so my pantry will be organized. Any other advice for kitchen storage? The OCD in me is in love with Penzey's spices because oh-my-gosh you can get all matching glass jars so all your spices will be in the same jar. OH my. I love that. Is that bad? Anybody used Penzye's before? (Besides, you, Laura!) :)

Anybody love their toy storage?

I know lots of my readers have major organized houses, so I'm counting on you guys to leave lots of comments to help in my quest for The Most Organized Home on the Block. :)

Kiddos

Yesterday when I went to pick up Dallin from school, he met me at the door of his classroom with the news that something horrible happened, but that he would tell me in the car. Once we were in the car, he proceeded to tell me this story:

During German class, I had to go to pee, so I went to the bathroom. After I went pee, I tried to unlock the door, but it wouldn't open. (said as dramatic as possible) I pulled and pulled and unlocked it, but it wouldn't even open. I banged on the door and yelled for someone to help me, but no one heard. Then I took the cleaner thing that you clean the toilet with (AHHH! SICK SICK SICK) and hit the door with it, and it hit my head, but-don't-worry-mom, it didn't hurt. (Whew, if only that's what I was worrying about) So I decided to say a prayer. I didn't want to get stuck in there forever. After that, the door still wouldn't open, but I got on the toilet and tried to jump over the door. I didn't make it the first time. Or the second time. Or the third time, I think. I think it was the fifth time that I jumped to the door handle and then I climbed over the door and jumped off. Then I washed my hands and went back to class. (I was practically crying from trying not to laugh) I think Heavenly Father didn't bless me to open the door, but he helped me be able to jump REALLY high.

I asked him what happened after that and he said that he told the teacher, and that she went there with him to try to fix it, but they had to call the maintenance man to fix it. I asked what she thought, and he said she thought it was funny.

So, I didn't have to worry about crack heads in the bathroom, but instead my son climbing out of the freaking bathroom stall!! OH my. Do you think it's safe to bleach his head??

Moving on to Kevin's update.....

Kevin's decided that he's going to marry me. I asked him why and he told me that it was because I married Daddy. I guess that was a pretty good decision on my part according to him (I happen to agree). I've also been practicing buckling his own seat belt with him, and today he actually did it for the first time solo. He was so proud of himself! We called Daddy right then to tell him. It was really cute. :) He also told me today that he wished he grew in Daddy's tummy because he was mad that I didn't have ice cream for him today. If only...

Ethan's still going to sleep in the big boy bed, but I move him into the crib after he falls asleep because I don't have a baby gate on his door. If I'm feeling adventurous, I let him do naps in the bed, too, but it takes twice as long to get him down if I do. This morning he was watching Charlotte's Web and he starting "singing" during the songs. It was so cute! He also said his first prayer tonight at dinner, which consisted of: "Heavenly Father.... amen." We were very proud of him! :)

I don't have any new pictures, but here's a scrap page I made of Kevin, which I think is totally him. I love that boy. :)

I almost never scrap pages of me and Devin, so I've tried to make an effort to take more pictures of us. So here's one (of only two) layouts I have of us.

It's Fall!

We're finally enjoying some fall weather. We had sort of skipped the long sleeve & hoodie weather. It pretty much went from "summer" to winter jacket weather. Now it's warmed up a bit these last 2 days, so we haven't had to wear winter jackets, only sweaters. After we picked up Dallin from school today, we played at the park for a while and I tried to take some fall pictures of the kids. I can't even tell you how difficult it is for me to take pictures of all three boys at the same time, so I only got one where 2/3 of the boys are looking. :) We had fun at the park and then we fed the ducks (or quack-quacks, as Ethan calls them) our leftover pretzels.

We realized today that in exactly 8 weeks from today, we are going to be flying home! I'm not looking forward to the long flight with the kiddos, but it will be so fun to be home again. Hopefully we don't have squatters selling drugs out of our house.

Allright, here's the start of the photo session. Ethan doesn't look too happy about the camera being whipped out. Not a good sign.

Oh, I think I see a smile coming! Yeah!

Oh, OK, I see. Great. I can see where this is going.

My goal was just to get one of each boy and hopefully one of them together. Dallin was a very willing (and cute) victim. Good boy. I'll remember that in my will. (just kidding.)

I just melt over those half-moon shaped eyes.

Ethan's pretty ticked off about sitting, but at least he's doing it without screaming and crying.

Kevin has a major problem looking at me. His face will be completely facing me, but his little eyeballs will ALWAYS be looking at the side, dang it all! So this is the only one of him REALLY looking at me. I'll always tell him, "look at me!" He always says, "I am!" Well, yes, but not technically. He also told me that he saw that there's a belly button in my camera (I guess the shutter looks like a belly button. ) :)
OK, now for the torture. All three boys. It was pretty good, except Kevin's not technically looking at me. I wish I were better with Photoshop. Oh well.
This is after feeding the ducks. I guess Ethan's done with pictures. :)

Interesting waste of time

I saw this website (www.wordle.net) that makes little word clouds of your blog. I tried it this morning and I think they're so cute! The sizes of the words are proportionate to how many times they appear on your blog. I'm a little surprised how big "just" is. Weird. And bed? Do I talk about beds too much?? I really love it, though, and I'm trying to figure out if there is anything I would do with it.....

Big Boy

Ethan is transitioning himself to sleeping in a regular bed! There is no drama, no tears, no tantrums. The last three nights, when we took him upstairs for bedtime, he pointed to the bed instead of his crib, so I laid him there, thinking he would be up in 2 minutes. He never made a peep (the last 3 nights anyway...) and he went to sleep perfectly! Last night I went to check on him, and imagine my horror when I went to find a sweet sleeping baby, and instead, I found this:


AKK!! Where'd my baby go? I went to the other side of the bed, and I found this:

He apparently rolled off the bed but he didn't wake up. Thankfully the beds are just toddler beds, so they're pretty low to the ground.

Devin & I are excited that this has been an easy transition for him!

October 1

Last Wednesday I took my camera around with me pretty much all day and took pictures of all the stuff we did for our "Week in the Life..." Our week sorta turned into a day (really 2/3 of a day) cause it was too hard to remember to take a picture of everything. So, here's our day last Wednesday:

I woke up around 7:20, when I should have been up earlier.
I threw on some clothes and went downstairs to find Devin and the boys. Devin wakes up about 6 or 6:30. We got the kid's breakfasts ready. Devin's wondering what in the heck I'm doing with the camera. You're doing what all day??

Dallin has oatmeal EVERY single morning for breakfast. Kevin usually has "cereal-with-milk-on-it" and Ethan has whatever he decides that morning. This morning it's oatmeal. He likes to watch a movie during breakfast, so he's yelling at me to PUSH PLAY.
After the boys start eating, I make lunches/snacks. Dallin eats the cafeteria food for lunch, but they take a snack with them for recesses. Kevin's school has them bring a "breakfast," but it's more like a small American lunch: sandwiches, fruit, or veggies. I make Kevin a half PB sandwich and a whole apple cut up every single day. Dallin has either a half PB or meat sandwich and then a fruit. Sometimes it's apples or maybe bananas or raisins. Today it's PB & apples for both.
Everyone has these little boxes that they put the lunch in, so there's no need for ziploc bags (I found out the hard way.... the kindergarten teachers had to scold me for that last year...). We have a few different boxes, but today both boys are getting these "Kung Fu Panda" boxes, which we just barely got from my "Tupperware friend." They're holograms, so the boys think they're pretty hot stuff. I put Kevin's box into his little biti pirate backpack and Dallin's into his big boy Transformers backpack.
We're supposed to leave by 8:10, but we're running late, so I try to get the kids out of the door as fast as possible. (with 3 kids, that's not very fast) We go outside to see this
Our trashcans blew over in the wind. THANK GOODNESS they were empty. I would have been a little miffed about cleaning up 2 weeks worth of freaking left over food from my bio container (brown one). Wednesdays are trash day. They come every week, but they rotate what they take. One week they'll take the restumuell (the black container-- all the "rest" of the garbage that doesn't get recycled) and bio (food waste), then the next week they'll only take the yellow sacks (plastic and foil). This week we actually didn't fill up our restmuell, which is really surprising. We're feeling proud of ourselves.

We all pack in the van, I buckle Ethan in on my side, then go around to the other side and buckle in Kevin. Dallin sits in the middle and he does his own seat belt, thankfully. I think it's high time Kevin learned how too, but he has absolutely no desire to practice. It's about a 10-15 minute drive to Dallin's school, and they're being loud and crazy. I snapped this pic of Kevin at a stoplight, I promise.

The leaves are changing a lot here, so I took like 20 pics of this road (I like the trees on this road) while I was driving, and this was the only one that sort of worked out. I think this is the widest road in Neu-Ulm.

We're listening to my fav radio station here, SWR3. The song on here is German, but they play mostly English songs.

We get to Dallin's school, walk him in, he puts on his "house shoes" (no one wears their outside shoes in places where children play) and gets out his communication folder for his teacher and his water bottle (all the kids have a water bottle at their desk). We say goodbye, then we go to Kevin's kindergarten. Ethan has a current obsession with doors. He MUST open and close every door he goes through, and the gate at the kindergarten is no exception. Also, I have to make him the same lunch as the brothers, also in a little box. He gets pretty ticked if he doesn't have one.
We take Kevin in, he gets his houseshoes on, then he kisses us at the window (both of us... Ethan gets kisses too) and we leave.

I let Ethan watch Little Einsteins for a bit on the laptop. I just adore how he sits on his legs and his fat little toes peek out from behind. Every woman should experience this in her lifetime.
After that, he has a little snack. He's starting to break down, but I can't let him take a nap because we have to pick up Kevin at noon.

We pick up Kevin, then I just take Ethan straight up to his room and he's very happy to have a nap. I put him in his bed awake and he may cry for 10 seconds, but he puts himself right to sleep. Sweet boy.

I go downstairs and start making lunch for me and Kevin. We're just having leftover Chinese take-out from the day before. He loves the noodles, so I get him a bowl. He patiently waits while I micro it. I wonder what he's thinking. :)
I like having this little time with him when it's just him and me. I want to take a picture of him eating, but he's being silly and won't let me. He hid under the table, so I just held my camera there and snapped a picture. It actually turned out OK, and I think he's so cute. :)

I decide to try to tackle cleaning the kitchen, so I first take out all the bio. There are special bags you put them in (biodegradeable), but they're expensive, so we try to fill up the bag all the way. Sometimes when I'm cleaning, I just put all the food into a bowl or something, then at the end I just put it all in the bio, so I don't have to keep touching that nasty container. Yuck. This is one area of my life in Germany I won't miss at all.

I let Kevin play on the computer for a little while while I'm doing dishes.
After a 2-hour nap, Ethie wakes up. He's the only one of our kids that is obsessed with shoes. He really loves to wear my shoes and he tries them on a lot! He came into the kitchen with my black shoes on while I was cleaning.
I wanted to quickly vaccuum, so Ethan sat on the couch and read some books. He can't just have one on his lap. We have someone coming over from the moving company to assess our stuff and see if we're under our weight allowance. He speaks great English, so that makes me very happy. He just kept saying "pretty good" as a filler word, so that was funny.
Our washing machine broke for the second time, so the repair man is coming out again to fix it, hopefully for good this time. Apparently there was something wrong with the door lock, which was breaking the electrical system. Weird. So they ordered the new part. Devin came home to work from home in the afternoon because the guy showed up at 2:30 and I have to leave at 3:10 to get Dallin. It's always nice to have Devin home. I leave Kevin with Devin cause he can entertain himself, and Ethan and I go get Dallin. He had a great day at school, so I'm happy. Ethan has to be able to get out of the van by himself. He has to get out on the opposite side of where his carseat is, too. Then, he has to push the button to close the door. These are very important tasks to him. If they don't happen, his world is liable to come crashing down.
But, today we have time for his little "routine" so he's a happy boy. :) He really did have shoes on when we started our journey to get Dallin. He loves to wear his rain boots, but then he kicks them off when we're driving.

Well, that's where I stopped taking pictures. :) It gets a little hectic in the evenings. We fix dinner, read Dallin's book he brought home from school, eat dinner, get ready for bed, then try to have the kids in bed by 8. So, there's my typical day. :)

What we've been up to

I've been bad about updating this blog with our activities lately, so here's a quick run-down on what we've been up to lately.

Last weekend, my friend Sandra asked me if I would go to the circus with her. I was a little confused cause she didn't want to take the kids (it started at 8pm), but I thought I would try it out. Devin was so kind to put the kids to bed that night (then played World or Warcraft and got his special horse thingie) so I could go out with Sandra and her sister. This was my first circus, so I'm not sure what kinds of things were specific to circuses or European circuses, but it was interesting to say the least. I was really impressed by some of the physical things these guys were able to do, but I was a bit turned off with how sexual it was. I was really glad I didn't take my boys with me! The chicks were wearing thongs, if that tells you anything. Thankfully there weren't many girls in it, but that was just weird. The people flying around on the bars and swings were really amazing. I wish I had 1/21 of their upper body strength! Anyway, it was interesting, but I don't think I'll be rushing back to a circus any time soon.

Last weekend, we went to the Medieval Market here in our neighborhood. This was one of the first things we did last year when we first got here. It was fun and the kids liked watching the little shows. There was a sword fight between two knights that Kevin was absolutely mesmerized with. Are you noticing his boots in the picture? Ya, my kids are all insisting on wearing their rain boots EVERYWHERE lately, and I'm not sure why.

He was telling me that when he grows up to be a teenager, he can fight those guys and beat them. Pretty tough trash talk, I think.

We enjoyed the meat sticks again this year, and Kevin got just as messy as last year. :) I love this picture of Kevin's eyes. I wanted to paint my kitchen in Tucson the color of Kevin's eyes, but unfortunately they don't color match human eyes, so I had to guess. It's pretty close, which makes me happy. :)

These next pictures are for my father-in-law. When they came to visit 6 weeks ago, our bridge outside our house was just being torn up. We thought he would enjoy these pictures of them putting the big huge cement slabs down for the foundation for the new bridge. It's been interesting to see them working on it. Except for today. They put signs up everywhere telling us we couldn't park on the entire length of our street between 12-5:00 today, and then they weren't even there working on it! Hello! I guess the weirdness of construction workers is an international phenomenon.


Ethan & Daddy enjoyed watching the big huge cranes. I really just love the fact that Ethan's holding his sword in this picture. I love being a boy's mama. :) (although I must admit I was scrapping some girl pages today and I was having a lot of fun with the pink papers, flower, lace, etc. etc. etc. ) :)

It's been weird to have Ethan be 2 years old and us not have another baby. With Dallin and Kevin, I always had a 2-yr old and a newborn, so I'm still trying to get used to this. With the older brothers, they were sleeping in a big bed by around 2 years old because the new baby needed the crib. With Ethan, no one's kicking him out of his bed, and he's not trying to climb out, so I'm just keeping him there as long as I can. Well, now he's the only one of our boys that has shown a strong interest in sleeping in a big boy bed. Lately, he always points to any other bed when we're taking him to his crib to sleep and he says, "bed, bed!" Last night, Devin let him lay in Dallin's bed. Dallin went up there and sang him songs and rubbed his earlobes (Dallin has a thing for babies and earlobes, I don't know why...) until he went to sleep! :) SO CUTE! Ethan actually slept there for a few hours and even managed to turn 180 degrees in the bed and not even fall out! :) I moved him when I went to bed cause Dallin was stealing my side of the bed, but I think we may let Ethan be in a big bed when we go to Tucson. I can't believe my babies are growing up!!

Apparently We're Moving

We bought our plane tickets today to fly home! It really doesn't seem real that we'll be in our old house in two months! We'll fly home on Dec 3. I'm a little nervous (mostly about what has to happen leading up to that date), but Devin just says, "If nervous means happy like you can't stop smiling, then I feel nervous too." :) Silly boy. I am really happy, although this is literally the view from my front door, and I really will miss that.