Springtime Happenings

I just love this picture.  Waiting to leave for church.  She just LOVES church, can't you tell?  :)

Thank Heaven spring is here!  

Although, don't be fooled, spring in Germany can be quite cold.  Today it was in the forties.  But the sun was out so we'll take what we can get!  It's been wet and rainy and WINDY this past week.  The worst kind of weather when you can't even play outside. But, one afternoon the conditions were just right for flying kites... sun and wind and James down for a nap :)  Ben got these cheap kites like a year ago from a gas station.  I usually roll my eyes when he makes such purchases because I know he's never going to get to it, even though he has the best intentions.  Recently, though, Caroline has been begging me to fly a kite (since sadly, Dad is rarely around), and I've been putting her off.  Last week when we came in from running errands, she asked yet again, and I had no more excuses.  Sure, why not?  I said. No time like the present.  So I finally pulled them out of his closet.  

I've never actually flown a kite.  So, after doing a quick "wikihow" search we gave it a whirl.  The first go-around it got stuck in a tree.  The second attempt C got tangled up in the string.  But soon we got the hang of it and it was really fun… even though the girls couldn't do much because it's actually kind of tricky.  They took turns being the "launcher" and then I got Em to start timing how long we kept it in the air.  Our longest was exactly one minute.  So now we have to beat that record next time around. 

 Other noteworthy events, C and J and I went to an easter egg hunt hosted by the USO on Panzer Kaserne.  It's a good 30 minute drive for us, and because we got stuck in horrible rain and construction, we arrived ten minutes late.  As we rushed into the USO building, C burst into tears to see that the hunt was all over… and I was fuming, ready to "choke somebody out" as Ben would say.  What kind of family event lasts only five minutes and gives no leeway to people who have to drive a good distance?  I found an employee and vented my frustration… C was howling and I was on the verge of tears myself.  I know, it sounds crazy over a stupid egg hunt.  Happily, they did some rearranging and put together another hunt for the stragglers (us and two other families). All was happy in C's little world.

 And this sequence of pics of J on the easter bunny's lap is hilarious… it's the shy, "I really don't want to be here but am doing my best to not have a total meltdown" look.  He does it whenever he's put in an unfamiliar/scary situation.  It melts my heart every time.  

Emily lost her front tooth this week!  She came home from school with it basically hanging by a thread from her mouth, with a little blood around the periphery of her gums (sorry to be graphic).  It was DEFINITELY ready to meet its demise.  But she was in TEARS, fearful of me pulling it out.  I gave it a gentle tug and out it came.  There's nothing cuter in the world than a little girl losing her tooth. 

 Except maybe her letters to the tooth fairy:

Today, Easter Sunday, was really nice. The sunshine poured into our bedroom windows this morning, blinding me a bit as I attempted to sleep in… but it also sweetly made me think of the resplendent morning of the first resurrection. 

Today felt odd because we didn't have church on account of General Conference… and since it is not broadcast until 6:00 pm here, we had the day wide open.

We went to the park this morning and saw some of our favorite friends… the Beckers who were having an egg hunt with their cute kiddos. C manages to crash every party. 

And this gang of girls, coming back from the community church services here on base:

  We invited a couple families from the ward, the Baums, and the Rogers over for Sunday lunch.  Mmmm.. it was delicious!  Then we met up with our LDS neighbors, the Gillmans and the Sotos for an epic egg hunt… with over 200 eggs and 17 kids!  The men hid eggs at the nearby park, which was great terrain for an egg hunt with all the trees and the playground.   It's nice to be with friends and neighbors who help alleviate some of the homesickness that always seems to befall me on holidays.  

Miles is going after the camouflaged egg at the end… can you see it?

Caroline's Birthday!

Aaaah, I can't believe it's been over a month since I've written…. life has been BUSY, and yet, I don't feel like anything exciting has been happening.  We've kind of been hunkering down the past couple months.  You know your weekends aren't very exciting when your kids have dubbed Saturday "Star Wars Day" because that's the day they get to watch Star Wars with Dad.  It's their latest fetish and you can only imagine how onboard Ben is with the whole thing. But now with warmer weather and longer days ahead, I will be shooing us out of the house...so things should be more interesting around here!!!  The most exciting thing on the horizon is my mother is coming in a few weeks and we will be taking a road trip to Tuscany!  Can't wait!

So, tonight I write about Caroline's birthday. 

 I am quite sure that never in the history of the world has another little girl looked forward with as much anticipation to her birthday as Caroline has…

she's pretty much been counting down the days since December 26.

And I can't tell you how RELIEVED I am it's over! 

We did a little family celebration last Sunday here at the house.  

She insisted on "wall-to-wall decorations" (she read that term in a Berenstain Bear's book and has not forgotten it).  So, Em and I spent an hour decorating while C very impatiently waited in her bedroom.

"Mom!  I'm ready for my partyyyy!"

"Mom!!  I'm ready to come ouuuuut!!!"

Unfortunately, this is the best picture I have of our decorating job… 

Thinking of a wish:

Blowing out the candle on her cookies… because why would you have a cake?

Her favorite gift is her "Brave" bow and arrow set.  She's hilarious with it.  I'll be sitting at the kitchen table and all of a sudden an arrow will come sailing into the room from nowhere.

The other night Ben hit into the chair as he was clearing the table so Caroline decided it was time the chair learned its lesson.  Here she is shooting it at point blank range.

A few days later we hosted a Frozen themed friend birthday party.  Oh my.  I don't know if we'll ever do a party on this scale again.  She invited SIXTEEN kids, and ALL of them came, plus their siblings since it was a school day which meant no dads were around.  I didn't mean for it to be this supersonic.  The problem is that this base has a lot of four year olds, and Miss Personality over here is friends with all of them… the guest list just couldn't be trimmed back…   So, we just went for the gold… go big or go home, right?

We held it at the Community Center, which has a great set up. 

The "ice blocks" are missing.  They were supposed to be blue jello cubes.  Except they were green because I couldn't find blue.  And they were not cubes, they were blobs.  So, I just gave up. 

My artistic friend made the labels, aren't they cute?

Diego was a tad off… 

They built snowmen out of marshmallows, pretzels, mini chocolate chips, and toothpicks.  The kid on the right here is pretty proud of his mutant creation

The moms jumped in and helped make everything run smoothly

James just kind of roamed the party, trying to fly under the radar

We played this elimination game similar to musical chairs, where they all danced around to Frozen music and then jumped on a plate… in theory it would work well with maybe 8-10 kids.  We had 24 playing, so it was kinda crazy.  I was just happy we had beautiful weather.  It's not often we have nice weather on March 16!

The piñata of course was the biggest hit (no pun intended, hehe). 

All 25 kids just lined up single file to take a whack at it. 

Then the stampede for the candy

Cake and ice cream:

And that's how it's done!

As we were sweeping up the last of the cake crumbs Emily asked if she could go home and start making her bday invitations.  

Shoot me now.