22nd- 30 November (Tuesday) Elee's bday, car accident, Thanksgiving!

~Last week Nov 22nd (Sunday in the middle of the night): terrible migraine. Puked. Took Imitrex TWICE....finally kicked to let me sleep. Richie took Monday off of work to take kids to school.

~ Nov 23rd: Skipped my Deutsch class on Tuesday.

~Nov 24th Wednesday: Elee's 6th birthday!!! First day of SNOW for the year. And It stayed! Richie and I wrapped his presents with newspaper the night before.
~ Richie got in a car accident on the way home from work and the grocery store. He was rear ended on the autobahn. He was okay! Thank you Jesus! When he came home Elee opened his presents. He got a big plush shark and shark puzzle from us. He LOVED the huge shark. It's as tall as him! He also opened A HUGE box of legos from Aunt Susie. A card with money from gma Rox, a card with money from great gma marion, and a card w/ money from gma margaret. he felt very special!!

~Nov 25th (thanksgiving): So much to be thankful for! We went to the chowhall on base for thanksgiving meal. Lots of food! AND dessert! The best thing....no dishes! It was great! The funniest thing was that Elee ate Lobster Tail and a whole HUGE Orange Glazed Cornish Hen leg. We sat near a tv where they were playing cartoons. It was a very relaxing meal. :)Talked with Richie's family on the phone and also my Papa Don. I sure miss him.

~Nov 26th (Friday): Richie took this day off and we cleaned the house! Got ready for Elee's birthday party!

~Nov 27th: Elee's birthday party was from 12-3pm. It was great! We ordered pizza and had it delivered. I made some other food to go with it. His shark cake turned out GREAT! I drew on parchment the outline of the cake pan and then drew the shark on the paper to use as my template. I used candy corn as the shark teeth.

There were about 20 kids that came and he had a fun time running around the house with his friends.







~Nov 28th: Helped lead worship at church this morning. I love being able to do this. Thankful for Richie for watching the kids during this time. He's the best!
Skyped with Carrie Hurst for the first time! YAY! It was so cool that she got to see all the kids! Skyped with Lolly and Chad and boys and also Clinton and the boys.

~Nov 30th (Tuesday): The roads were bad today. More snow! I drove to Walluf (about 20 minutes...today it took 40 minutes) for my 'Mama lernt Deutsch kurs'. Not many ladies were in the class today.
~Richie got a new rental car today. The one they gave him yesterday was super small and didn't have winter tires. We have snow here and that wasn't going to work living where it's hilly. So he got a nice BMW rental for two weeks.

19 November (Friday)

Today was a good day. I had a bad headache last night and had to take Imitrex but today was good! No headache!

When I was changing Pace's diaper this afternoon, Luna said, "ooh chocolate"! Well, it sure wouldn't taste like chocolate!

The boys broke the floor lamp upstairs. Elee was 'sitting' on the edge of the couch and somehow Josiah 'accidently' pushed him and Elee fell into it. I was glad Elee wasn't hurt but I sure got after them. I didn't have to too bad though because they were trying to be my little helpers and saying 'yes ma'am' without any prompting. Hahaha.

Luna has gone poopoo in the potty twice this week. She wanted to wear big girl Dora panties so I put those on her. At nap time I put a diaper under her panties and when she came out after nap she had the diaper off AND the panties back on. She needs to use the toilet ALL the time if she can manage that! So while I was cleaning up the hundreds of pieces of glass from the lamp (on the third floor), Luna pee'd all over the kitchen floor on the 1st floor. So I raced down to clean that up. Gave her a bath, mopped it up. When back up to finish the lamp mess and then got dinner ready right after that. It was a long day.

I also managed to post three things on German ebay. Not sure if they'll sell but I'm hoping.

Richie comes tomorrow! Halleluiah!

November 15 (Montag)

I had my last Volksschula Deutschkurs tonight. I learned a lot there! Hopefully I can continue in February! The same teacher will teach a course then at the same school. It's a nice drive for me, only 20 minutes.

Richie leaves for the States tomorrow morning early. I'm not looking forward to it one bit. But I know he needs to go. I have not been complaining to him this time and just trying to accept it.

November 12-14 (Friday-Sunday), 2010

Richie took Friday off of work. Josiah had a doctor's appointment in the morning so I took him. the appointment was for a physical for soccer. Richie made his first batch of beer here while we were gone. He had a difficult time with the two little ones but he managed to do it. Josiah's doctor appointment was long but went well. The doctor noticed that Josiah's legs are different lengths (about 1/2" to and inch). No other doctor has noticed this before. I thought it odd that he was staring at Josiah at such length. He recommened that we see an Orthopedic doctor and referred us to someone in the city. Josiah was really worried about this because the doctor mentioned scoliosis and him getting an 's' in the back if it goes untreated. I reasuured Josiah that it's so good that he found it now! He seemed to be okay with that. I hope everything will be alright.

I was home for about an hour to eat lunch and feed Pace and then went to the commissary with my friend Nelle. We got some things for our Thanksgiving dinner for church. There's gonna be some good eats there! Right after that I went and got gas and picked up Josie. She watches the kids for us sometimes and is so good with them. They love her and Luna likes saying, "my Josie". It's so cute. We got home about six and then Richie and I went on a date about 7:30. We were so tired form our long day that we just wanted to sleep (hehe). I ended up getting a migraine so I took some imitrex and that helped.

Saturday I really took it easy. I ate well in the morning. We went to a friends house that we hadn't seen since last summmer. Si and Shane and their two kids. I knew them back when I was in the military in Texas. She had a room next to mine! We ran into them last summer and stayed connected. What a small world. So we hung out with them for a short while and then Richie went to Beer World where they have a large selection of beers.

We had some friends over tonight for dinner. The boys have wanted a play date with Asher from church so him and Alica and Tom came over. It was a good time!

Sunday I woke up and did Yoga with Richie. I drank lots of water and stayed hydrated! Richie went jogging. It was a beautiful day out today!!!! We went to a birthday party for a daughter of Richie's friends from work. I'm so glad I didn't get another headache this weekend. I just took it easy and took baths had Richie rub my neck and shoulders and I think that helped.

11 November 2010 (Thursday) JOSIAH ASKED JESUS IN HIS HEART!

The best thing that happened today.....Josiah asked Jesus to come into his heart and be his Savior! He was asking Richie questions in the car on the way home from a cancelled soccer practice. He asked where people go when they die. And Richie and Josiah talked back and forth and josiah said that when he died he wanted to go to heaven and be with Jesus. So when they got home we prayed with him. It was so cool.

The past several weeks Richie has been reading the book of Samuel at bed time to the boys. They love the history/stories of that book. They just finished the part about David playing the harp for King Saul when Saul would get sad. They wanted Richie to keep reading....it's so cool for them to have that special time at night!

Richie had today off of work today because of Veteran's Day. We copied all my files from my CPU to an external hard drive. I've been wanting to do that for months.

I walked Josiah to the bus stop this morning. It was really nice. Got to hold my 7 year olds hand and he didn't care. These moments for me are priceless. We got to the bus stop at 7:40. A girl in Josiah's class at the bus stop told me in Deutsch, "Josiah viel mache in die Schule". Something like that which means Josiah does a lot at school. Then she said Josiah is gut in die Schule. (Josiah is good at school). That was really neat to hear from one of his classmates.

Richie took Elee to the bus stop at 8:20. So he got to have some time with Elee.

Yesterday Richie went to parent/teacher conferences for Josiah. Frau Arlt (his teacher), said that Josiah is doing great. He got an A- on a test. His first grade ever. She says that he's really good at math and that he even helps the other kids. He speaks good Deutsch but only in one sentences. So she said that he just needs more playdates. We are so proud of him!

Elee is making more progress at school and is gradually making friends. Yay. I've been taking him to his kindergarten two days a week now and communicate with his teachers and I think that is helping. Just being a presence there.

November 7th (Sunday)

We went to church this morning. We just finished up Chapter 5 of Ephesians. It was really good. We went out to lunch afterwards at a new Mexican restaurant and the food was surprisingly pretty good! We met our friends Michelle and Marcel there. It was great!

We had a chill night. After our weekend last weekend I'm trying to keep our weekends simple. Only one plan/outting a day. I had a string of migraines from last saturday until really today. I had two days with no headache but this weekend I had to take 800mg of Ibuprophin too. At least it's not as bad as the imitrex. I took that 3 times this past week. Hopefully I'll feel great in the morning!! I hope so!

I weighed myself today and I'm 130 pounds! I've lost 5 pounds in the past month. Probably from less snacking. But it's hard for me to tell. Once the winter is over I'll be ready to start jogging again. Finally, after 4 kids and 7 years of asking and then not asking anymore, Richie said he would buy me a jogging stroller. He was so sweet to look at strollers today online. He was checking out reviews from Runner's World and is going to get me the best one. Yay!

November 6th (Saturday)

Today was a chill day. We just hung out around the house. Richie went running. We had a large lunch. We cooked steak on the grill. We also took naps which was so nice. We had a worship/prayer night at church that I got to lead worship for. There were a lot more people there than I expected. Some of the youth were there that don't usually come Sunday morning so I got to meet them. Richie stayed home with the kids. It's so cool that he supports me with leading worship and watches the kids while I do that.

November 5th (Friday) Celebrating St. Martin's Day

Today Josiah came home and said he got his first grade. An A-!!! It's so cool that he's doing great in his class. We have teacher/parent conferences this coming week. It'll be neat to talk with the teacher. However only one of us (Richie) will go. I will stay home with the other kids.

In Germany they have a St. Martins Day. A saint who gave to the poor. We had a St. Martins Day walk in our village tonight. The kids make lanterns and they walk through the neighborhood and sing songs. One of the kids in the town rides on a horse and wears a long robe. All the lanterns were lit and it was so cool. Afterwards there was a bonfire and Gluwine (german mulled wine) and brots. It was a lot of fun. Josiah and Elee had fun getting chased by all the girls. They are outnumbered here in our village.

Oktober 31, 2010 (Sunday)

We went to church and then about 4pm we went to our friends Sabrines and Stephen's house. The live in our village. They made Roqulette which many German's do for special occasions like New Years or Christmas. It's a table top stove that you use to heat up your own dish of meats, veggies and cheese. It was pretty cool! Afterwards, we took the kids 'Susus oder Saurus' ~'sweet and sour'ing'. Trick or Treating here in Germany is fairly new and just started the past few years. We went to about 11 house and the kids got more candy from our neighborhood than from base. It was nice to go to the houses in our neighborhood. Next year we will do that instead of going on base.

Josiah ended up wearing the M&M because we forgot his present costume. The kids had a great time going through their candy when they got home!

October 30th, 2010 Trick or Treating!

We went trick or treating on base with our friends Josie and Bernice. The kids had a great time. They didn't get much candy. Most of the houses were all out by the time we got there. Their were a lot of kids trick or treating.

After that we went to our friends Nelle and PJ's for a Harvest Party. It took Richie an hour to find parking after dropping us all off.

Josiah was a present that we made ourselves. Elee was Spiderman and Luna was a princess. I was an M&M and Richie even made a Nacho Libre appearance at our friends party. We didn't buy costumes this year but next year we will.

We got home about 10pm and the kids were out! So much candy and so tired!