Christmas Pictures

For the last couple of years at the christmas treelighting ceremony at the WAAF, our favorite Santa aka "Emily's Husband" endures hours of taking pictures with crying children, screaming parents and frantic grandparents cheering their offspring on to smile for Santa...
Since neither of us can pass up an opportunity to dive right into that AND it is his last year here in our community since Emily, the Art Director of the Römer Art Center, has decided to retire in spring, we got these pictures taken. My favorite is another picture though that has nothing to do with our family but makes me laugh out loud everytime I look at it! I´m only posting the link since it is public but I don´t want to put the picture of other people's children on our blog without permission. Here is the link though, if you need a classic Santa moment, this is it!:
www.armygermany.com/santa

AAAH! Forgot the Thanksgiving pictures, too! lol

OK, how bad is this? I forgot to post the Thanksgiving pictures.. lol...
Well, long story short, we went to the Messhall in Dexheim with a friend of ours, Georgina.

I won´t comment on the amount of food my boys stuffed themselves with - see for yourself! lol


Every year they have a contest between all the cooks for different cakes and displays - quite gorgeous. They also had a table for the soldier that can´t be there with them because he was killed in Iraq a few years ago. It´s nice they never forget.

Hearts Quilt.. Progress - finally!

Yup, it´s starting to come together.. and I think it´s the biggest project I ever tackled! Sometimes I wonder why I thought I´d have enough time to make this Quilt... Life is really hectic (isn´t it always?) and while I´m working endless overtime and we´re trying to get everything ready for Christmas there seems to be very little time to sit down and sew for more than 10 minutes at a time - that just does not cut it..
But, the top is almost done, the basting is next and then I can start quilting. Maybe I´ll take it on vacation with me? Yeah right, like I´ll have much time there! But I´ll try...
This is what it looks like right now, after this post I´ll go back downstairs to sew some more and hopefully finish it this weekend.

Have you ever wondered.....

how a broken ceran stove top looks like?
here you go:
and yes, it costs alot of money to replace it.. perfect timing 2 weeks before christmas, huh? lol

....where the 3 year old hides when he does not want you to know he took the Nintendo DS?
right here, wedged between the couch and the wall:
.....what a 19 year old looks like when he has to pick up all the easter candy that he accidentally spilled all over the kitchen floor?
so wonder no more.. ha ha

Christmas Tree Lighting

yeah yeah, I´m a couple of days late.. or maybe 2 weeks? Well, simple explanation: we have an Alex.. lol
Those rare creatures usually hog the computer all evening when I would have time to download pictures and do my computer stuff. Even now that he works from 9:00 - 18:00 during the week I haven´t had the time. So here are the missing pictures from this year's Tree Lighting Ceremony at the WAAF. The 1st Graders were the ones that were allowed to pull the rope with Santa to turn on the lights and Isa was the first one in line.. lol.. duh?


So proud - Isa's first letter to Santa - I love how well my 1st Grader writes already :-)


Isa's letter to Santa
Lilly and Isa - great friends since german Kindergarten

Santa's Post Office
munching on popcorn and cookies.. :-)
Making canes out of beeds - can he see through those bangs? lol
several attempts to take a family picture failed - partially because Juju wanted to rearrange the presents under the tree and hand them out to people he thought needed them.. lol

another failed attempt.. ha ha.. but we had fun - so who really cares?


THIS is the only way to roast marshmellows Army style.. lol

MAGC Wiesbaden

Did we have fun? Yes, we did!!!!! lol..
It was great to see everyone up in the Golfcourse Clubhouse on Sunday, Nov 4 and after eating and talking we - of course - went caching :-)

The Audimaniac Tribe, the Hzoi Tribe and us - later joined by the Nasenbär55 Tribe..
Christian and Kelly (hzoi) had really done great work in the weekends before the meet and placed some nice and original caches. He actually did some more work while we were caching - he first gave Juju a ride and later on Isa.. lazy kids.. ha ha
The whole gang had fun and since there were so many of us, we were able to make the trail stroller-friendly.. well, not friendly but doable.. lol..
Kim, our part time dog, had a great time as well, especially when all the kids figured out how nice she is and kept petting her.
Now, if you think that because there were so many of us, we had no problems finding the caches - you´re dead wrong.. ha ha.. but eventually - under the eyes of the cache owners - we found them and made it back to the Golfclub about 15 minutes after darkness fell upon us like bad family.. brr.. darkness brought coldness with him so it was good we were headed home. I don´t think Juju was awake by the time we hit the street - he just collapsed in his car seat :-D

Halloween - I forgot to post the pics :-)

On Halloween we just dashed home from our dayjobs, got the kids changed and rushed up to Dexheim to trick or treat a bit.. the last years we had either done this around here or had huge parties.. grin grin. not this year - but it was fun! Alex scared the living daylights out of some little and some big people and one of his treats was a beer.. lol.. we ended up at the gym there where the local chapel had a small "hallelujah" alternative event to halloween and that was fun as well :-)

Creativ Welt Wiesbaden 07

Good thing Thursday was a holiday in our Bundesland :-) It´s not in Hessen, the next one over the river.. he he.. so the first day of the Creativ Welt in Wiesbaden was not as crowded as it would have been it they had a holiday, too!!!
Alex was home so he had Juju and I took off with Isa really early to do a long list of things.. first off, buying snow tires.. we´ll need them for our winter vacation!
Next, have breakfast together :-)
Then go to Creativ Welt.
Afterwards go to cemeteries to visit my grandparents and other relatives to light candles since it was all saints.
And last, we had to drive to Alzey (if you ever read about Siegried the Dragon Slayer you probably heard of Alzey, a quaint little town about 20 miles from Oppenheim) to visit my colleague Gabi to see if the bunnies liked Isa...
At Creativ Welt, first I dropped Isa off at the free child care (yippeh!) for about 2 hours and ventured on my own - awesome! Didn´t get the book I wanted but didn´t buy fabric, either! Kudooos to me! lool..
Didn´t get the walking foot I wanted either.. but at least I know where to get it now :-)
I did buy a circle cutter, a new cutting board, really beautiful oriental glass beads for Isa and a Marble track called Cugolino pop for Juju though - I had so much fun playing with all the different blocks that I had to get a small starter set for him - well, christmas is around the corner so I went to the basement in the christmas gift box :-)


When I picked up Isa, she tried herself at wood cutting - with my help she cut out a 2-piece star that she painted later and that turned out really nicely - now she wants to do more sawing.. he he.. watch out Opi, here comes work for ya!

Then after enjoying the quilt expo they had, I got Isa and went to play with some games some more, bought a really nice dice game for her, bought some awesome markers and some blopens (finally caved in.. lol) which are for christmas as well! She also found some paper punches and
christmas card decoration stuff that she wanted so pretty much all the shopping went to the kids but I had such a great time looking around - priceless! Here are the pictures of the quilts - the theme was "suitcases from around the world" and had some really awesome quilts with Geysers, Volcanoes, hot-and-cold themes and tons of other things.. I didn´t take pictures of all, just of a couple..
Then there were quilts that incorporated a patch made by children in a village in Afghanistan - those quilts were made by children here... wow!! They were all so gorgeous!!!

And then I saw some that at first glance reminded me of Kristin´s work but.. yeah, her´s are more beautiful :-) I really liked them though!