Foooood! And a quick update.

I have been on a cooking bender for the past couple weeks...not sure why, but I'm happy (as are the girls and Jeff).  

Haven't had much time to write (busy cleaning up after wreaking the kitchen about five times a day and watching a progressively more energetic baby), but wanted to post a quick update and some photos.

The girls are super excited about the latest addition to our backyard:

Can you blame them?  

Ri is getting much more complex with her vocabulary and expressions...makes for very adorable sayings...must remember to share them.  Like today, I changed out most of their summer wear with fall/winter wear, and she heard from Tay that "Mommy took out all the dresses!" So Ri comes running upstairs and says, "All the dresses gone she say!" And immediately looks into her closet where she finds warmer dresses hanging there and she turns to me with a big grin on her face and goes, "No, they not. They still there.  Silly Unni."  

She's a feisty one, this one...

The girls' bedroom is finally coming along:

I think I'll still rearrange it a few times to get it the way I want it, but this is how it's set up at the moment.

Reagan is really starting to sit up on her own well now.  She still topples over some, but at least she isn't sniffing her toes the whole time like she used to when I'd sit her up. 

(Look at those adorably chubby legs!!!)

She is also very very vocal...she's got a lot to say and demands to be entertained frequently:

She's always on the move, too.

We went out to dinner last night, and here's a photo as we waited for our food.  Tay has some bad bites on her chin that we think may have gotten infected from scratching, so we are going to see the doc tomorrow.  Ri has taking to licking people when going in for a kiss...didn't mean to catch it on camera, but there it is anyway...

Ok...now for the food:

Of course...had to end the food photos on bacon... :)

Anyhow, it is late, so good night till next time!

Birthday Weekend Trip to Edelweiß Resort

What a long and lovely weekend it has been!  For my birthday, Jeff took us on a surprise vacation to Edelweiß Resort and Lodge!  

The view from in front of our hotel:

The mountains surrounding this area are so beautiful and simply breathtaking...photos just can't capture the majesty.

We spent the weekend exploring  Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and were able to get in some mini-golf, a photo shoot, a gorge hike and two carriage rides! 

Here are some photos from our adventures!

The Olympic ski jump from the 1936 Olympics!  This was the starting point of our hike to Partnachklamm (Gorge).

The empty hand of this statue used to hold a famous Nazi symbol, the swastika. We were told that Garmisch and Partenkirchen used to be two separate towns, but in order to win the Olympic bid, they had to be combined, and by the eloquent persuasion of Hitler, the two mayors agreed to join into the hyphenated town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen.  

Here was where we got the tickets into the Gorge...

...and the entrance to the Gorge.

They used to use this gorge to send giant logs down from the top of the mountain, but many times the logs would get jammed up so many lumberjacks lost their lives being sent down to loosen the jams...there was a memorial set up for the lost lives at the beginning of the gorge (I just failed to take a photo). 

At our turnaround, there was a nice area for the girls to dip their toes...icy glacial water...very clear and beautifully aquamarine water.

And the baby and I did the hike, too...here's the sweaty proof.  

It all took about three and a half hours...even with wee-legs walking most of the way...in her fast-paced, dawdling manner.

As for the photo shoot, we need to wait for the actual photos, but here are some sneak peeks from our own cameras:

Some other random shots from the weekend:

The girls enjoyed the carriage ride and meeting the horses.

Ballroom dancing?

Venturing around town.

Playground fun!

She crawled into this thing...and I just watched...bad mommy.

Sweet napping Alpine baby.

All in all, it was a wonderfully relaxing, fun-filled birthday weekend!  

Happy birthday to me!  :)

Random thoughts at bedtime...

There have been many thoughts running through my mind as sleep evades me...

Just some quick thoughts before I sleep:

*As I adjust to life as a stay-at-home mom, I find it to be much more difficult than working, and many times less "rewarding" in the normal sense, but to see my girls develop and grow in this rich new environment will be worth it in the long run.  I must get myself adjusted to this new lifestyle...new routine (I must create a routine first!) and figure out how to be a full-time mother to these girls.

*I find that when I lack rest, my patience grows very short and little things can trigger me to be very angry, and I hear myself turning into a "yeller."  I shout with the intent to cause fear to force obedience...not what I should be doing as a mother of three beautiful, free-spirited ladies.  When I do this, I feel so terrible after that I give myself a timeout (with the baby) and let the older two watch television.  Ugh...not an ideal scenario, but I find that when I do get about five minutes to just lie next to the baby (see her smile and coo) and relax a bit, I can recollect my thoughts, calm down, then apologize to the girls for yelling.  Then, we are able to continue the day on a better note.  I think once the girls start kindergarten in September and we get into a good routine (and I make it a priority to get my rest), this "yeller" in me will disappear.

*Prayer has been a priority to me lately.  One of my resolutions this year was to incorporate a consistent prayer life into our family.  I have been fortunate to have had success with prayers before meals and prayers at bedtime with the common, easy prayers for the girls to learn.  Now that we are beyond half the year, I have added a couple elements to our bedtime prayers.  After we pray the common prayer "Now I lay me down to sleep...", Tay and I each say "God bless _____" and "Thank you God for _____" to help us remember others each night as well.  Just last week, we added one more piece to our nightly prayers:  "Forgive me God for _____"  I let Tay pray this one silently if she doesn't feel ready to say something out loud, but it has added a new depth to our evenings and I look forward to her maturing in her prayer life as she prepares for First Communion in the next few years.

Enough for tonight...I leave you with a beautiful little smile:

Gute Nacht!

Kohlrabi...

Have you ever cooked a kohlrabi?  It looks like this when the greens are still attached:  

I cut mine off, but I hear you can cook them up, too.  Anyhow, I just wanted to try one because they seem to be a common vegetable around here...so I looked up possible cooking methods and decided to add it to my beef soup.  It looks and smells like a turnip or radish when it's raw, but once it was cooked into the soup, it had a texture much like a less dense potato with a milder flavor than turnip.  Quite tasty and even the kids ate it up!  Don't know the nutritional value, but fun to try new foods!

The weather here is quite erratic, it seems.  Yesterday, it went up into the 90s mid-afternoon, and suddenly we had a huge thunder storm and somewhat "torrential" rains, and the temp dropped to a cool 68 degrees Fahrenheit by 7pm, which made it absolutely wonderful to sit outside in the back yard while the kids played.  

 In other news, we heard that Milka chocolates were the best, so I picked up a few to try, and I can agree that it is quite a delicious chocolate and they have such a variety!  The girls liked Oreo cookies and cream best...I really do like the hazelnut chocolates... :)

The girls have been helping out with getting the garden ready...probably for next spring...we are awaiting contact from a local landscaper who will give us a little guidance on our ideas for the backyard garden to see if what we want to do will work.  It's still fun for them, though...just digging around and collecting rocks.

Also. As we have continued to unpack, the girls can't help but play with things as we come across them in the boxes...like this Santa costume! 

...and this darling hat.

In baby news, Little Bit is just happy as a clam playing "catch the feet" at night...which delays everyone's bedtime by a bit...but how do you stop a cutie from learning and enjoying her newfound skill?  

Continuing the baby update, we have started introducing solids...a little earlier than I had planned, but she was showing signs of readiness, so we went with it and she is doing very well.  Here, she is enjoying mashed banana from her Unni.  

I'll end today's entry with a photo from early this morning...it was our first foggy morning here in Germany.  It reminded me of one of my favorite poems by Carl Sandburg, Fog.  

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

Driving home today from the store, I felt this sense of comfort and calm coming over me because it actually felt like I was driving into MY neighborhood to MY home...for the first time.  It took me just shy of a month to feel this way...what a wonderful feeling.  I can finally really start calling Germany "home."