Christmas!

Christmas has come and gone, and I'm sad that it is gone. I don't want to take down the tree and all the decorations, but I know that I need to do it this coming week. We had fun time and kept it simple, but definitely missed being with our families! We invited the missionaries (Elder Tilgner and Elder Zern) over for Christmas Eve dinner and a short program after. Elder Tilgner is from northern Germany and brought his small trumpet. He's very musical, so it was nice to have him there. Kedric was just taken by the trumpet. He was absolutely in awe and loved it! We sang "Christmas is upon us" of course. Kedric was the Santa, Reilyn the dolly, and the Elders were the elves. After the program, we were just talking with the Elders and didn't realize what the kids were doing. Suddenly we heard some toy making noise and the kids just laughing with excitement. They had opened up one of Kedric's presents and playing with it. It was too cute!

We had my parents on the web cam on Christmas morning and Kedric was only interested in the laptop (with the web cam) the camera, and the camcorder! He didn't really know that he could open presents because we've been telling him not to all month! He did love the beef stick that was in his stocking, so he was running around all morning chewing on a beef stick! Reilyn loved Christmas! She was so patient and came and woke us up before she sneaked a peak in the living room. She was trying to figure out which pile was hers, and shouted with glee when she saw her name on one of the presents! We did get a White Christmas, but it wasn't snow, it was a build up of 4 days of frost, but it was still so beautiful! Here's a little slide show of some of the pictures...

December Pictures

December has been a fun and eventful month so far, Christmas isn't even here yet! We've enjoyed it so far and are so excited for this next week!

These pictures are from our Ward Christmas Party. Reilyn sang with the Primary children. They were so cute!

Kedric and his buddy, Jack, were standing next to the stage wishing to be up there with all the "Big" kids!

These are Reilyn's best friends from church, Grace and Sam. Sam calls Reilyn his girlfriend, and actually asked her to marry him last week (in addition to another proposal from a boy in her preschool class)-- She told them both, "I don't think I want to marry you!" Let's just hope she keeps that up!

This was the Santa at the party. When he came out one of the German boys yelled, "Hey, Das ist Bruder Wenzel!" Then all the kids knew who he was!

Silly Kids!

Kedric is quite the climber, and he thinks he can do everything that Reilyn does. The other day I caught him in the bathroom sink. He had placed a box on top of the step ladder, so he could reach high enough to climb on to the counter! Am I in for it or what? Then as I was loading the dishwashing and went to put the soap in, I noticed that Kedric already tried to do this with his crackers! I'm so glad he wants to help!

Reilyn still loves all her babies...

I love that my kids are such good friends! Every morning, they love to sit on the couch and watch cartoons together.

Kedric is my little bookworm! When I'm processing my pictures and working on the computer, sometimes he gets really quiet, and I get nervous that he's making a huge mess...and come to find out, he's just sitting in Reilyn's room looking through books. The other picture shows his nasty lip he bit through a couple weeks ago. It's healing fine now--thank goodness! (If you click on it, you can see the picture a little bit bigger.)

Congratulations James!

James graduated from Warrior Leadership Course on December 12th. It was a month long course, and we missed him every day that he was gone! We went over for his graduation and did a little bit of Christmas shopping while we were on the BIG base over here in Germany! The graduation was cool, and I wish I would've brought my camera in to capture it, but I didn't--sorry! He looks so thrilled in this picture!

This was the Santa at James' work Christmas Party. Kedic was still scared of him-but I think I would be too if I was him. We don't get any real looking Santa's over here, they all look pretty fake! That's sometime we can look forward to when we're back in the states!

Reilyn's School Christmas concert...

We got to go on the "Nikolaus Wagen" with James' work group. It was cute, they had it all decorated and had juice and cookies at each seat.

Oh Christmas Tree!

This week we decorated the tree and put up our Christmas decorations! Our place seems so much more cozy and festive with all the fun decor! Reilyn and Kedric had lots of fun helping put the ornaments up. Kedric has been trying to eat them several times, but has figured out that they don't taste very good. Here's some fun pictures...

Reilyn and Kedric are such good friends, they're always giving each other hugs and kisses.

And the TREE!


A couple days ago, Reilyn was laying on the ground, saying, "Mom, Mom, look...did I make a 'K'?" It was so cute how she had her body all straight, and her arm up to make the K. She is really starting to understand how letters all work together to make words, and has been sounding out words constantly and trying to find words that "sound the same." I can't believe how quick she's growing up!!

Tonight, we went to see the Bee Movie. It was a cute one, and definitely has that Seinfeld humor. But I don't think I've ever written about the experience of going to the movies here on the Army base. First of all, we knew about half the people in the theater because our base is so small now, and it just feels like a small town where you know everyone! But before the movie starts, the Star Spangled Banner plays with a slide show of pictures of the American Flag, soldiers, and American life. It is absolutely silent in the theater, and it is so neat to see all the soldiers, with their families, stand and pay so much respect to that flag that represents the freedom they fight and work for everyday. Many of these soldiers have been deployed hold a high reverence for the flag that is hard to describe. You can feel it in the room. Everyday as the large American (and German) flag is raised and lowered, music is played and everyone on base stops and stands with their bodies toward the flag. Even if you're driving, you stop your car and get out. It is a pretty amazing thing to see the respect that is given especially by those who work for what the flag represents. I just thought I would write about that, because before being on a Military post, I have never seen such respect. It's pretty cool.

Halloween

Halloween was fun for the kids. We went "trunk" or treating on base. It took us about 20 minutes and Reilyn filled up 2 bags! Everyone was just putting handfuls of candy in her bags. There were probably only about 25 cars, and she got a ton of candy! But it was nice because we didn't have to endure the cold too long! Kedric was a lion, and he just had fun watching all the kids who were dressed up. Reilyn was Violet from the Incredibles. (We thought she looked more like Dash with her short blonde hair.) Then we came home and had Chili and cornbread-- thanks for the fun tradition mom! This year, the chili turned out MUCH better than last year's!

GUILTY!!

This is Kedric's favorite thing to do! He gets all quiet and then when I check to see what he's doing, sure enough, he's gotten into my wallet. This was the first time he found the cash though, probably, because I usually don't have any!

Here's some cute pictures I captured of Kedric earlier this week.

Our Trip to Italy

It has been a crazy month for us! We traveled to Italy at the begining of the month, and had a blast (you'll read about it in the following paragraphs). The week we got back, I was busy with the School Portraits. The next week we had quite the scare with Kedric getting pretty sick with ITP (Idoipathic Thrombocytic Purpura). His platelet count dropped dangerously low and had to spend a week in the hospital. He's doing a lot better now, back to the Kedric we know-- always wanting to eat and getting into everything! We just have to have blood work done every week for a while. Thank you all for your prayers! We know they helped not only him, but us too. This past week, I've been a lot more busy than I wanted to be with Sports pictures, and School retakes-- I'm glad it's behind me now!

Well, after all that, finally, I've put together a slide show of our adventures in Italy. But pictures don't even do justice. To view the pictures follow this link: www.designedphotography.com/ItalySlideShow

We traveled to Venice, Pisa, Florence, Rome, the Vatican City, and the Cinque Tierre. We LOVED Venice. It is such a unique and picturesque city, and want to go back for sure! We had fun in St Marco's Square with all the pigeons! Reilyn was scared to death of them-- but it'll be a memory for her. It was awesome to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It's leaning a lot more than you think when you just look at the pictures. We had fun making pictures of us holding the tower up! Reilyn was so funny-- she was really worried that it was going to fall on us! In the slideshow, you'll see the pictures of her face when she first saw the tower.

We drove down to Italy and the drive in Northern Italy is so beautiful. You don't want to drive too fast because it's just stunning with the majestic mountains, and beautiful vineyards in the hills with castles peeking through each turn. We also loved driving through Tuscany. I kept looking for turnouts to stop and take pictures, but never saw any-- so I'm sorry I didn't capture any of that beauty. But I did get some pictures of the pine trees that don't have any branches except at the top. I loved those trees!

We were able to see the statue of David in Florence-- again Majestic. No pictures of that allowed, but you all know what it looks like. Very impressive. I think James enjoyed Rome more than I did. It was neat to see the Colliseum and all the big ruins, and of course the Vatican City, and the amazing artwork in the Sistine Chapel. It was just hard to have the kids with us, plus I had some nasty blisters on my feet! Plus the city itself was just so busy, and hot and dirty. They drive like mad people and don't really stay in lanes (you'll see a picture of this). James says you're not a real man until you've driven a Scooter in Rome! I think all the smoke and polution has affected their judgement. Most of Italy is like that. A good place to visit, maybe not so much to live.

We loved the Cinque Tierre, 5 little villages right on the Mediterranean. We didn't have the chance to hike around them too much, and will definitely return someday. It was so fun to see the fishing villages and enjoy the tempting smells of fresh foccacia bread.

Well, I hope you enjoy the pictures. There are several, so you may get bored. But I did set the show to Italian Classical music by Josh Groban. We listened to his CD's while we were driving to set the mood. Enjoy!!

The Past Week

Reilyn started preschool on Monday. She goes everyday, so it's almost like she's going to Kindergarten. She loves it! She comes home so happy and loves to tell me all about her day.

This is a picture of her on her first day of school. She wanted to wear a tank top and a skirt, but it has been so cold here lately, so we settled on this outfit....

This is Reilyn on the second day of school because I didn't bring my camera with us to her school on the first day.

This will be the last year that this school will be used since the base will close in June.

Reilyn's teacher, Ms LeBough

Kedric doesn't know what to do anymore now that his buddy is gone all day. He's been really clingy with me, and a little mad at Reilyn when she gets home. Hopefully he'll start getting used to her being gone. This is him watching Baby Einstein.

All tuckered out in the high chair.

We took these pictures today after church. Kedric got so messy and had food all over. He looked so funny with his hair sticking out, I had to capture it.

He looks like Harry from Dumb and Dumber in this one. James says he's "Jerry's kid."

Reilyn wanted me to take a picture of her too.

August Pictures of Reilyn and Kedric

Our trip to the States

I'm not sure why these pictures turned out all pixelated on the slide-show, but you get the idea. We had so much fun spending time with our families. We miss everyone already! There are several pictures on this slide show, so if you get bored watching it we won't be mad. :) Enjoy! Thanks Marta for the idea of the slideshow!

May Pictures

Spring time in Germany is absolutely beautiful. It's so amazing to drive through the country and see the beautiful colors. There are "fields of gold" intertwining with the greens making it look like a big quilt. Here's a glimpse of the beauty.

James was able to get eye surgery at the beginning of the month, so we've been back and forth to Landstuhl quite a few times this month. This is a picture of James the last night he had to wear glasses. (yes, he is giving them the finger)

We went to see Toby Keith in concert on Friday. He came to one of the US Airfields over here. This is his 5th tour for the troops. It was really warm, but we had a good time.

Kedric thinks he is so cool when he has Daddy's sunglasses on.

Cute Kiddos!

We went the a park last week that had some huge slides. I don't know if you can see how tall this one was in the picture. But we had a lot of fun! It took me a couple minutes to go down one of them that went straight down! Reilyn was really brave and went down a couple by herself.

Yesterday, the base had the "Kinder Olympics." Heres of few pictures of Reilyn doing some of the events.

We made Reilyn's hair really curly for church today. She looked so cute. It was a little frizzy-- but I had to take some pictures of her.

And then there is cute little "Chubby Cheeks." That's what Reilyn calls him. His first tooth finally came in this week and he's been feeling it with his whole fist. I love this first picture where he is flaring his nortrils! In the last picture, you can kinda see his little tooth. It's a little white spec. :)