Merry Christmas!

Robert on his new bounce and spin zebra. Still trying to figure it out.


We bought these foam number sets to make a mat for him to play on. The numbers pop out. He loves the number 3.

This is my Christmas present from Dave. They are hand painted, and signed by the artist. She is either Eastern European or Russian by the sound of her accent.

Twas the night before Christmas.

Standing alone. I finally got a picture of him standing by himself which is his latest thing. Too bad he closed his eyes for it.

We had a wonderful Christmas here. Just the 3 of us! I still miss family and home and friends, but we opened presents and had fun playing with them. Daddy got a new PS3 so he was really excited. I got those Buschka Dolls, and Robert of course made out like a bandit. I hope all of you also had a wonderful Christmas.

December Pictures

Success he captured the pop tart!


Working REALLY hard to pick up the Smore's pop tart.

More Love to the Christmas tree. Yes he IS standing by himself. He's supporting his foot with the present but STILL.

I love this picture. It cracks me up whenever I see it.

Still so proud when he pulls himself up on furniture


So it's been an eventful past few weeks for us.

Thanksgiving was wonderful I gained a new way so make Turkey. Our friend that was visiting gave me some marinading and basting tips that made the turkey super juicy...so anyone that wants to come visit for Thanksgiving next year there will be fabulous turkey!

Robert had his 18 month check up last week. His pediatrician sent us back to a neurologist for a follow up on his condition. Which was routine, but Dave and I hear neurologist and our heart sinks. It took us 45 minutes to get to Olga Hospital in downtown Stuttgart. Somehow we got registered and found the neurologist. He warned us his English wasn't great. Yarg! They ended up taking blood to test for anything that may be genetic or more serious. They couldn't get enough blood out of the vein in his arm so he took it from a vein in his head. The doctor gave me a bonnbonn (candy) for being such a good sport while they did that. He emailed us that night to say that everything is fine. So we're sticking with Benign Hypotonia. However if after another 6 months he doesn't improve then he's going to do a muscle biopsy. I'm not horribly worried because he's made so much progress in the last 2 months, but keep Robert in your prayers just in case. We also thanks to the wonder of google FINALLY found the EDIS Program here in Stuttgart. Early Development Intervention. It's on base and they evaluate the child and set up a plan. Their goal is to have them ready for kindergarten. The woman is coming tomorrow to evaluate Robert and get a plan in place. We're excited about that. So that's our recent excitement and why I haven't been so diligent about blogging. I love reading everyone's blogs and seeing how everyone is doing.

Sick Baby Blues!

I have 4 Stuffed animals tucked in the corners of the crib so he doesn't bang his head. He had to have pried that animal out of the corner to get it. So apparently he has a favorite stuffed animal.

So anyway I'm at my worst as a mother when my child is sick. I just want to go to sleep and wake up and have him be better. It KILLS me to see him be sick. I wish I could be sick for him! Dave brought a cold home from work and both of them have runny noses and coughing all over the place. When Robert is sick he's SUPER grumpy and nothing makes him happy. Nothing nothing nothing. I don't know how mom's do it when they have 3 or 4 kids. I struggle with one. =(. Sorry this isn't that positive! I'd love to hear how you other mom's deal with it.

Feel free to giggle!

Since we've been in Germany I've been obsessed about making sure Robert has plenty of winter clothes: coats, gloves, hats. I'm still missing the boots and the snowsuit, but with a blanket in the stroller I don't have to worry about him freezing when we go outside. So in all that guess who I forgot about....ME! I have NO snowboots, NO gloves, and apprently after frantically searching through boxes and crates today NO winter coat. The snow started on Friday and it's supposed to snow every day at least until Wednesday. So today I was out brushing snow off the car (I left it out of the garage overnight ie I clean the snow off ;) ) in my Old Navy sweatshirt, in my tennis shoes, and no gloves. Two years in California has melted my brain! ARGH!

Cruiiiisin on a Sunday and Monday afternoon....

So that didn't take long....Dave and I noticed yesterday that our son has started cruising. Finally! We're very excited.


Also now he's pulling himself up on walls too. No holds barred for this guy!

Pay no attention to ANTM on the screen heheh

Tag?

Hmm so I see I've been tagged by Rebecca. I'm new to this whole thing so bear with me.

Here are the rules: 1. Link the person who tagged you.
2. Mention the rules on your blog.
3. Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours.
4. Tag 6 other bloggers by linking them

So quirks hmmm....
1) This one I always come back to and that is I hate when someone pulls out in front of you and THEN goes slow. I do not mind if someone is impatient and needs to pull out and get going, but if they are that impatient then they better put the pedal to the metal!!!
2) Gross things make me gag. Most people would say well yes, but I do not mean the sight of gross things. Just the discussion of things like spitting or snot can get me gagging. My husband thinks this is funny. Sometimes he will talk about gross stuff just to get me going.
3) Children running around like little heathens in public places while their parents act like they don't see/hear them. Oh yes I know what goes around comes around, and I know back in the day my brothers and I were the fab 5 troublemakers. (well fab 4 Bill was always a good boy). However that doesn't change the fact that in a mall or at the grocery store if you brought your children you should be concious of the fact that they are screaming, playing tag, or knocking things off the shelves. This stems from my banking days when I had to tell a couple who was doing a loan closing "Look your 3 year old is WALKING OUT OF THE BANK". Don't read this wrong I have a huge tolerance for children and what they are capable of it's the parents not even TRYING and just ignoring the kids that gets me going.
4) I sware I'm not trying to copy Rebecca, but this is one of mine too and I also just got yipped at by my loving husband for this flaw. I watch movies/shows over and over and over. Scrubs, Charmed, and Friends are just a few of the many. Right now I"m watching season 6 of Friends over again.
5) I don't like it when people mess with my plans. I have a bit of OCD, and I plan things out ahead of time. I run through it in my head and plan out every possible scenario and prepare for said scenarios. If someone were to screw this up I get insanely upset!
6) Ok and this last one I picked up in California because we had cable. I must have a pop up program guide for the cable. We stayed in a hotel for a week during our move and I couldn't get to the program guide and it bugged the heck out of me. (Plus my mom wanted to watch Star Trek Voyager....who watches that?) Yes I am a modern woman and I must have that guide/info feature on the remote or I can't handle it.

Ok so for my first one of these. I'm not tagging others. My reasons are two-fold. 1) I have no idea who all is reading this. It may just be Rebecca, Laura and Grandma. and 2) I don't know how to "link" people. Still new to the blog jargon.

PS - I'd like to give a shout out to Uncle Lorin for his win! =) Tell him congratulations for me. I was crazily googling the day after election day until I found the article saying he won. I know there was no competition but Congrats to him anyway =)

It's Been a Great Weekend

Yes we really are in Germany. Robert and I outside the Convention Center for the Horse Expo (they had other animals too)


Ive been told there's not enough pictures with Robert and I together so I had Kirsten (my friend) shoot a few.



The horse came down to say hello to Robert!

Robert pulling himself up to standing for the first time ever. If you look in the background you can see Dave still clapping for him. I snapped this as soon as he got up. You also can see the proud look on his face.

The Differences Between Germany and the USA

Street Lamps! Plus view from the hill where we live.


Roundabouts. We live near Calw (pronounced Calv)

So yes. I will type off my Presidential elections woes and try and explain the differences between here and the US. By the way didn't Joe live here for a couple of years too? Alright so I haven't gotten out much so I'm sure I will learn more as I go but here are some of the basics in no particular order.
1) Germans are VERY conscious of the environment. They recycle everything. There are 4 different dispensers for disposal of waste. Paper, compost, glass, and one other. We take our trash to base. It saves us money!
2) There's no pizza hut or papa johns. That's right we're savings about 80 bucks a week because we can't order pizza.
3) You have to pay a Euro to use a shopping cart. You get it back when you return the cart. Not a bad idea. It would make more people return their carts!
4) There is a designated quiet time. It's from 10pm to 7am (I think) then there are a couple hours in the afternoon because(5)! Germans eat lunch together every day and ALL DAY Sunday. If you mow your lawn you are getting a ticket!
6) There are no free refill at restaurants.
7) No air conditioning. Seriously not in the hotel not in the homes. On that same note the furnace shuts off for several hours in the night while you are sleeping this is to help conserve energy. Everything is about conserving energy. The refridgerator and freezer have alarms that go off if you leave the door open too.
8) They do have roundabouts here. They are nice.
9) The driving rules are common sense based. Basically that's what applies if there is an accident is "Did you use common sense?"
10) Along the driving rules on the autobahn (freeways) You can get a ticket for running out of gas. Also if you need a tow truck it can only go as far as the next exit. No slow tow trucks on the autobahn yay!
11) No closets. The reason Ikea has all the creative storage items they have is because over here they are necesary. We we very fortunate to have to uhm bureaus? Two big storage things that we use as closets. I can't believe everything I had taking up 4 closets in California fits into 1 bureau.
12) Everyone walks and bikes everywhere. I almost hit a biker a week ago. They are considered legal road traffic. Argh!
13) Everyone has metal shades on their windows. You lower them at night and open them in the day time. We aren't sure if they are for security, privacy, or extra insulation to keep the place warm at night.
Alright that's all I can think of off the top of my head. Hopefully that answered some of Grandma's questions. Feel free to post specific questions and I'll try and answer them. Plus I'll edit this post as I think of more.

Happy Halloween!

This is Robert on Halloween. No costume this year but he doesn't seem to care.


On the 30th we had our first snow. This is the view out my door. I'm standing in my door. That's how close the other houses are to us.

So it turns out they DO Trick or Treat in Germany even though we read that they don't; although we're mildly suspicious. We had 3 kids. The first kid rang the buzzer. We ignored it. Rang it again. Dave got up before he had the door open the kid was knocking on the door. What a punk! (it was a girl) We ended up handing out individually wrapped muffins we had in our treat jar. Anyway when Dave handed the first kid a muffin the child replied with: Thank You........that's not German! Then 2 more kids came because our outside light is on a timer and the first kid turned it on. We had just enough blueberry muffins. So next year we'll be more prepared.

Where did he get all that hair? or They grow up so fast

This is Robert looking so handsome this morning. (16 months old)


This is Robert back in February at 8 months old.

I figured if I was going to have the blog I needed to post occasionally so people will have things to look at =)

This morning Robert was looking quite handsome so I had to get some pictures of him. I was flipping through my old albums last night and found that other picture of him with no hair. I don't remember when it came in but it's here. Haha.

Not much else to say. Fall is in full swing here. Still no snow. Over here we change time a week before they do in the states. It's kind of offsetting. Already it's pitch black at 5:30pm! By December I think it's going to be dark at 3pm!

Our first Post

Robert enjoying a King's Hawaiian Roll
My family.

Our beautiful house

Well here I go. I'm pretty dilligent on MSN spaces and MYSpace, but I'll get this thing figured out. Right now we live in a small town called Althengstett, Germany. My husband works at Patch Barracks in Stuttgart-Vaihingen. Oh yeah he's in the Navy. We live about 30-35 minutes from work/base, but it's totally worth it for our house.

Our son is 16 months old. He's an absolute joy to us. He's still not walking yet because he has some muscle tone issues. He gets to be in physical therapy. The interesting thing about military medicine in this area is we get referred out to the Germans for anything above basic treatment. So tricare (our insurance company) had to scour the countryside for pediatric physical therapists. The tricare liason had a list and called me with a couple of places. She then went through the task of calling them to find out if they spoke English and if they would take us. The first place she called spoke NO English, but she referred her to a small place right here in town. Yes we were very blessed to have a place 4 blocks from here. It takes me 10 minutes to walk there. They have a therapist that speaks English.

So that's about all that's exciting here. I'm learning to deal with going from big city life to tiny village life. I haven't had McDonald's since we've been here. We're savings about $100/week not being able to order pizza!