Horse Camp 2009

Ella and Hannah attended a week long riding camp last week. They had a blast and loved loved loved the horses. Mucke, Landlady, Altmeister, Goldy were the names I heard about all week long. Their favorite seems to be Mucke, because all the pics we have are with Mucke. There was even a mommy horse with her 2 month old foal. Cute!

Ella kissing Mucke

Hannah getting off after her little riding show.

Hannah's circus/lost teeth

Here's my Hannah with a big hole in her mouth. Since this pic, she's lost even more teeth. I think she has 5 teeth missing right now, all right in front on the top and bottom. Makes eating corn on the cob very interesting! I think she looks absolutely adorable but she hates it! Think she looks like a freak-luckily for her, a couple are already growing in quickly. Ella is also still losing teeth-just lost one in Cuxhafen while vacationing with Oma and Opa. I'll have to wait a few days to see her new smile.

The following is a video of Hannah's circus performance. She was a penguin, in case you're wondering. This was a project they worked on all school year. Hannah really loved walking on the tightrope, doing tricks in the trapeze and walking on these big balls which are in this video.

Sarah is 3!

Sarah turned 3 in June. Here are the better late than never details! We had a fun party at the tennis club with all her friends. Yummy cake and cupcakes and fun times were had by all.

Marina, Sarah, and Louisa

Trying to blow out the candles before the wind does it for her!

Sarah riding her big girl bike!

Sarah decided she was a big strong girl and ready to ride her big girl bike with no training wheels. It worked! You've gotta love the german bikes with no pedals that teach kids to balance. They make bike riding soooo easy. As you know from the last post, Sarah just turned 3 and I consider it a pretty big feat. She is super proud of herself and so are we. Ella and Hannah are gone this whole week at the North Sea with oma and opa, so they are in for a big surprise when they return! Go Sarah Marie!

Trip to the Castle-Burg Stahleck

Last weekend, we had a fun adventure to a medieval castle on the Rhein River in a little village called Bacharach. Our family spent two nights in this castle turned youth hostel and had so much fun. Above is the entrance to the castle. Below is a view of the Rhein from the courtyard. This is also the view from our room. Dreamy!

Above Sarah's bed was a little window once used by lookouts/guards. How cool!

Note how high we are. We had to walk down and back up this very steep hill every time we went into town! What a workout, but it turns out we have a couple of mountain goats for kids-they were great and had so much fun!

We even found some real mountain goats!

Bacharach is such a picturesque village, full of buildings from the 1300's.

And a beautiful old chapel. The colors of the stained glass was sooo lovely and still so vibrant.

We took a car ferry across the Rhein to get home. A fun end to a cool weekend!

37

It's that time of year for me. Birthday time! And it was absolutely lovely! Lennart gave me the best gift ever-he and all three girls went to his parents for the weekend and I had peace and quiet! At least until Saturday night, when my friends came over for a cocktail/spa pre-birthday party. It was great-and I have the pretty nails to prove it! Unfortunately, the huge batch of frozen cosmos and frozen margaritas are most likely the main reason I forgot to take any pictures. Oh well, fun was had by all and when my actual birthday rolled around on Sunday, Lennart and the girls came back to celebrate. It was a GREAT weekend!

Lovely Valentine Surprise

Take yourself back a few weeks, it's Valentine's morning. The girls actually let us sleep in. They were fabulously quiet-Lennart and I rolled out of bed around 9 and mosied upstairs to see the neat surprise awaiting us. Ella had set the table in all red, even pulled out a table cloth and the chargers. Even lit candles (which we have sufficiently lectured she may not do it again) on the table and in the chandelier. What a bunch of sweeties!

Ella is 8!!!

Ella awoke this morning to her 8 pink flowers for 8 great years, per her grandmother's request. She was also serenaded Happy Birthday with some yummy cinnamon rolls. She was so excited about her birthday, she could barley go to bed last night. We had to make 4 pans of brownies so that she could feed not just her class, but the entire lunch room (3 classes!).That said, Ella made 2 pans all by herself and Hannah helped considerably with one which left me to make one after they went to bed, man are they getting old! BTW, if you are wondering what the pink round thing is in the picture, it's a trash can. Ella desperately wanted a children's trash can for her room. And in boxes. What a goofy,huh? She wants to organize her desk better, so Hannah gave her inboxes that she can paint and decorate and then use to store her papers. All in all, I think it was a nice day for her, and for me, well, it seems like forever ago when I had just had my first baby. I never could have imagined just how much joy she would bring me. What a gift. Crazy!

Hannah Montana wannabe

You know 2 year old Sarah has two big sisters when in addition to the normal Twinkle Twinkle and If You're Happy and You Know It in her children's song repetoire are Hannah Montana, CampRock, and High School Musical songs. She can sing a mean Best of Both Worlds by Hannah Montana and tonight she blessed us with her newest song from Camp Rock. What a ham, although she actually does this all the time, even when noone is looking because she really just loves singing and dancing. Such a goof!

Skypegirl

I have discovered skype! A friend told me to try it quite a while ago, but I take a bit before I actually try something new. Love it! Granted, my computer is in my kitchen and that's pretty much where I always am so it's super easy for me to use. Get it and add me as your contact and we can call or video call all we want and the quality is better than messenger. That is assuming you would like talking to me...you could get it and call someone else I suppose! It's free. Doesn't get better than that. Give it a try!

Pooped

I think this little one had a bit too much fun partying on New Year's Eve. The next day, she couldn't even stay awake for her favorite t.v. show with Papa.

Happy New Year!

Hope you all had a good 2008! We rang in our New Year with friends at our house. We ate raclette (a very yummy cheese dish eaten with potatoes, loveingly coined the artery scraper meal by a friend) and even the kids stayed up this year. While we ate our raclette, the kids watched Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3D--at least halfway, until Sarah got too scared and we switched to Blue's Clues!

At the stroke of midnight, we let off our fireworks. Germans do love their fireworks on New Years. It always amazed me that a country with so many rules and regulations is actually far more lenient about personally used fireworks than the US. I used to be way too scared to actually use fireworks myself but 11 years over here and now I buy rocket after rocket to start our new year right. This was the first year the kids managed to stay awake and 2 of them quickly regretted it when the fireworks began. With everyone outside setting off their own fireworks and us directly in front of our terrace doors, it is quite loud. Hannah doesn't even like the sound of a balloon popping, so you can imagine her feelings last night. She stayed inside on the couch and covered her head with our quilt till we came back in and closed the door. Sarah screamed and shook everytime a new rocket exploded. Next year, they can go to bed like normally. Ella, however, got right in the middle of everything and really enjoyed the thrill.

After we chased all the bad spirits away with our rockets, we came back in and finished our game that we adults had started earlier. The kids crashed within minutes.

After a few hours of sleep, it's New Year's Day- time to clean up and wish everyone a happy and peaceful 2009!