Friday, September 11

Hello All!!

Hope all is going well out there. I thought I would try to take a quick moment while the house is still quiet and get my post up this morning.

Here are some pictures of Brenna before school this morning in one of her new birthday outfits - I love her in red!! She did a pretty good job being cheesy this morning! I wasn't too motivated while she was in school today - just baked the cookie dough from yesterday and worked on a craft project for a friend here. (sorry Justice, no good walk today - maybe later. The air is cool here today, but still feels stuffy to me - how can that be???)

Brenna is loving helping me in the kitchen - she was a very good helper with the cookie dough yesterday (although I think we had way too much sugar all afternoon after that, lol). We will have to make non-sugary things next week when we are in the mood to be in the kitchen!

Well, I better get things around to go pick up Brenna - she has done great with being dropped off for school this week :-) (although she is looking forward to the weekend and spending time with daddy - he has had some late days from work this week :-(

Take Care!

Thursday, September 10

Hello All!!!

Hope all is well out there! Things have been busy here the last few days! I had German class yesterday morning. It is amazing how fast my days are going so far without Brenna here in the morning (I hate how long the cleaning days take - I just get back home and do laundry and vacuum and then I go back to pick up Brenna). It is so great to see her excited when I pick her up - what a reward there, lol!!! She loves playing on the playground at school and I love the conversation we have on our walk home (o.k. - the conversation only goes until the ice cream shop and then someone is too busy to talk to me, lol). Brenna spends a lot of time going up and down the slides at school (she has so much fun - it is great when I get there and she doesn't see me right away and I get to just watch her play with the other kids) - it is also funny that she isn't as much of a swing person, but both days this week that they played outside I heard about her not getting to play on the swings!!

With so much playing and walking to and from school - it wasn't too surprising that Brenna napped yesterday afternoon :-) I worked on my quilt squares while things were quiet - I'm up to 18 now (only 12 more to do!) Brenna is very excited about having new things made for her - too bad for her that I am not so quick with these projects!! I couldn't believe on our walk to school today when I asked her what her favorite thing to do with mommy is - cleaning the potty! No wonder she was so upset with me this week, lol!! Guess helping mommy is a real winner for her - maybe I should set her loose on the rest of the house work, lol!!

I can't believe I am not back into my regular blogging routine yet - I totally forgot to put up my sister's birthday on Sunday!! (I have went back and corrected my Monday blog to mention it, but how did we forget this??). So sending out extra hugs and love to you Renee for your birthday. I thought you might get a kick out of seeing our whole group on the blog from an old picture of long ago!

Well, gotta get busy with the rest of my chores! Take Care!

Tuesday, September 8

Hello All!!!

Hope all is going well out there. I had an exhausting day today, lol! Brenna did great at Kindergarten today - no tears today ;-) She stayed for 3 hours so I came back home and got busy on housework (yuck, yuck, yuck!!!). It is amazing how long it takes me to sweep and do laundry on a "daily" basis! I almost got all the needed cleaning done - but luckily I still had sinks to clean and dusting to do when Brenna got back home (why is this lucky you might ask - well, Brenna was very upset that I didn't "need" her assistance on cleaning the potty - go figure that is one of her favorite cleaning tasks with me!). Since we had no tears today, we stopped and got ice cream on our way home (nice day + walk by ice cream stand = expanding waist line, lol). Brenna has discovered that she prefers whatever ice cream cone I buy for myself - hmmm - maybe I should just buy the same one for both of us (Brenna had a very yummy snicker bar ice cream today).

Brenna helped me make Peanut butter and chocolate chip loaf bread today (a lot like a pound cake consistency). Good thing that Dustin likes it - I don't have to worry about it sticking around too long.

Well, I need to get busy with washing my dishes and studying (hah - the procrastinator thinks - there must be something better to do than that).

Take Care!

Monday, September 7

This slide was really fun in our town - they have very cool kid playgrounds here in Germany!

Hello All!!!

Hope all is well out there. We had a very nice weather day here today (although our only outings ended up being back and forth to Kindergarten and taking out the dog).

Anyway, we enjoyed a nice relaxing weekend with some other American friends this weekend. On Friday we went out to dinner at one of our favorite small town Biergartens (yum - leftovers for lunch today, lol). Brenna really enjoyed seeing our friends baby, Kora, and playing with some of the other German kids in the toy area. Brenna was much more interested in playing than eating at all! It was rainy all evening on Friday (of course it poured as Dustin went out to put the car seat in the car and when I headed out the door, lol) - but it has given me more chances to wear my stylish (and bright rain coat)! On Saturday - we needed to make it to France for some items at Cora so we planned lunch downtown with our friends again (which we both ended up being late for - thanks to Noah for standing in the rain to meet all us late people, lol!). It was very rainy - but my bright rain coat made it easy for us to find each other. Anyway - I feel like Joy wrote about our day much better - so I'm going to go ahead and put a link to her blog for today and you can see a picture of Dustin's lunch and Brenna in her Ohio State jersey (can you tell that Dustin dressed her, lol)! http://sjgardner.blogspot.com/2009/09/weekend-with-locals.html

We were very excited that Brenna actually did use the potty on our way out of town. We kept trying to bribe her and it finally paid off right before the car parking garage :-) I'm sure it will take quite a few more positive experiences to make up for the auto flush toilets in the US though - bummer!!

On Sunday, we had a quiet day and I worked on a few more quilt squares (although I really needed to clean and work on my German studying, but such is the life of a good procrastinator!). Dustin took Brenna on a run and I was able to take Justice for a nice long walk too! Late in the afternoon, we all went into town and Brenna was able to take Dustin down the "massive" slide above - I still think that slide is awesome. I was kind of bummed that Brenna only went down it once and with Dustin (giving me no excuse to ride down myself :-(, lol)

I tried to take some video, but forgot that with my camera you can't take video with the camera sideways (unless you want video that is sideways, lol)!

Well, I did have my first German class in a while - it is so hard to get back to conversing again! Hopefully, I won't quit working on it with only a month of classes remaining (at least ones paid for by my husband's company).

Happy belated birthday to my sister - I love ya girl! You are the best - can't wait until we are back together again :-)

Well, gotta go! Take Care!

Friday, September 4 - Photo Memories and New Family pics

Above - our Christmas card pic from last year - October in Germany 2008.

Brenna gotcha day 2009 above.

I had to include a few of our old family pics here - I can't believe how quickly our Brenna is growing and changing. Above was our 1st gotcha day (picture by Kiddie Kandid). Our first family pictures after Brenna came home below by Brandy J photography (located in Van Wert if anyone loves them like I do).

Below - Our newest family pictures :-) Sorry my pictures aren't in order here (I was going to try to go in age order, but I messed that up!)

My Mom and Dad below - I think they look great!!

All my siblings with my parents :-) I have to say we are a good looking group!

With everyone :-) Our group is getting so big!

Hello All!!

Hope all is well out there. Brenna made it through her first week of Kindergarten this week :-) She went for 2 hours each day (which didn't give me alot of time to walk home and walk back to get her, lol - it is about a 15 - 20 minute walk at a good pace). We had rainy weather for our walk yesterday, but only cloudy skies this morning. It rained all afternoon, but we did get a lucky weather break to take the dog out. Brenna had her first bathroom accident at school yesterday and walked home in someone else's pants :-( It was even in her new school slippers - bummer! We also had our first night time accident in over two months - bummer, bummer (at least the sheets already needed to be washed, lol).

Our family had a big group picture done while we were back in the US. This was part of the Christmas gift we gave our parents. I think the two photographers did a really good job working with all the kids in getting some good shots. Hopefully, you all enjoy these pictures today. The photographer is located in Celina and has really reasonable rates if anyone is interested in them - here is their website :-) http://www.picturesque-photography.net/index2.php I almost have my pictures all picked out to order - hopefully, I will get that done soon (and if we get our Christmas picture cards from there this year, one less thing I need to think about at the holidays :-) I also have to include some of our other family pictures here - hasn't Brenna just grown too fast!

Well, that is it for today - we are off to dinner with some other American friends this evening :-)

Take Care!

Thursday, September 3

Hello All!!!

Hope all is well out there. Things have been very busy here with Brenna going to kindergarten each day (amazing for only 2 hours right now how much time that consumes in a day with walking to and from kindergarten!). Yesterday, Brenna had Kindergarten for her 2 hours in the morning and then we came home for lunch, a "tea party", nap time, some dog walking, and then playing at the very cool playground in town. I must say that some German towns (and zoos) have the biggest and coolest playgrounds that I have seen for kids. The playground we went to yesterday had the coolest slide I have been on in a long, long time (Brenna wasn't sure about how to climb up the "steps", so we went up together about 3 times) - I will have to get pictures of the slide and maybe some video - it was a blast. Brenna had fun playing with the sand and on the smaller slide by herself. We went with our friends Annika and Emma - Brenna is really warming up to people - she hugged Annika when she left and held hands with Emma as we were walking (Emma is 11 months old).

Today when Brenna went to kindergarten I worked on getting our thank you cards out (I hope everyone likes them when they get them) - it was amazing how long it has taken to get these sorted out the way that I wanted them. I was able to work on one of my new projects when Brenna was napping today - I am actually working on a quilt for Brenna (I never thought that I would be quilting - but here it is)! I got 3 blocks done (and one practice one) out of the 30 that will be needed - I think it will go pretty fast when I can work on it. I thought I would give you all a sneak peak at the blocks that I did complete today! Tomorrow I will have to spend some time studying my German - class on Monday probably won't go to well after all my time off. It was raining for our walk to and from Kindergarten today - I think my raincoat and boots were one of the best purchases I made over here, lol!

I also wanted to post a picture of the beautiful bag my sister made for me today - she did a great job on it! Renee - you will have to make something for yourself from that pattern soon - I hope to get started on your bag soon, but I am obviously easily distracted on my projects right now, lol!

Well, that is it for today!

Take Care!

Tuesday, September 1

Hello All!!

Hope all is well out there. I am trying to fill my 2 hour time this morning while Brenna is at her first day of Kindergarten (not enough time to really get going on any one thing - so I just thought I would spend some time sitting on my butt at the computer, lol). She will be going for around 4 hours after she is comfortable going there - but we will start off with some shorter time blocks :-)

So, I thought you might enjoy some pictures from yesterday and today (this morning) - doesn't she look so grown up with her backpack and pigtails - I can't believe how much she has changed!

Well, take care!