Marriage and Motherhood: Weekly Update, Hello October!

As I say every week, this week has been jam packed with activities. Our adventure outside the house this week was a trip to the Weltenburg Abbey because the girls had a day off of school on the 3rd of October for the celebration of the German Day of Unity, which is a national holiday to "mark the anniversary of the nation's unification. It remembers when the Federal Republic of Germany and the Democratic Republic of Germany united to create one single, federal Germany on October 3, 1990." ("Day of German Unity in Germany," timeanddate.com)

On with the photo show!

This week started off with some strange "building" that went on in the living room.

When I finally got brave enough to ask what was going on (after I finished the breakfast dishes), they told me that they were in a space ship going to the North Pole...hm...I may need to acquire a globe and show them that they don't need a space ship to go there, but anyway...

Ri likes to "sleep" in the ship and Tay likes to "put Ri to sleep" whenever they are playing any imagination game...guess why?

Also, remember the bird seed ornaments we put out last week? We got lots of birds! We got to do quite a bit of bird watching this week. These pretty little birds were the first to show up to eat and they brought many of their friends. Very skittish at first, but got a little braver (and trusting) as the week went on. Can you spot him?

We did some picnic-ing in the living room with our pretend food. Even Rea got in on the action.

"Someone" got a hold of some old lipstick I had...and tried it on...

We did a lot of singing of "Happy Birthday" for practice because we have two big birthdays this month...one of her favorite things to do is to make a cake and sing for you.

And we had a strange little visitor stuck on the outside of our window. It was determined by Facebook friends that it was a katydid. (Thanks for your assistance so I wouldn't have to sift through Google images of bugs.)

We also did a bit of cuddling, as we always do each morning...but here, Rea isn't so sure what to think of this barrage of hugs and kisses and cuddles...

Here's a little more friendly-looking one, but it still looks like she's trying to get away.

Love these girls so much...what a pleasure it is to have this time filled with cuddles!

This week's adventure took us to the Weltenburg Abbey in Kelheim. It was only about a 20 minute drive for us, even with a bit of construction work going on on the road. The navigator took us to this little gravel parking lot that was by the river...we parked and I told the girls to stay in the car while I figured out how we were to get across the water to the peninsula where the Abbey was located.

Ah ha! A ferry! It was a tiny ferry manned by a gentleman who looked to be in his 50s, and so we walked down to the ferry to find out if he could take us across. He told us to hop on, then he used a long pole to push us to another ramp where TWO CARS got on the ferry with us! It's TINY! I had a moment of panic as I held the girls as close to the side as I could just in case one of the drivers of the car could not park properly, but after that, it was smooth sailing.

Before the vehicles got on, I got a good little snapshot of the girls sitting on the ferry.

Tay was particularly proud of herself because she got to pay for the tickets across and back with her chore money. (Three whole Euros!) Here she is, posing with her ticket she received from the ferryman.

Once we got across to the other side, we strolled around to the Abbey, where we got a chance to go inside and look around. The girls are standing on the steps in this picture...

Here is just inside the doors...Tay has started posing with the peace sign in many pictures...I'm not sure why she has suddenly started doing this again...

The ceiling was beautiful. (I really aught to carry around a better camera than my phone, but I just can't when I'm hauling three kids around...)

Along the wall...

We picked up a few souvenirs, ate lunch (where Ri proceeded to break a drink cup), and moved on back to the ferry to take us home. From here, we could have taken a "cruise" down the Danube, a 20-40 minute ride, depending on the current. I think after that short adventuring, the kids wouldn't enjoy the double-decker ship ride as much. I did ask Tay, though, if she wanted to go on the big ship, and she said we should go home instead. I was in complete agreement. Next time we go, we'll take the ride, I suppose.

When we got home, Jeff had brought back a nice carving pumpkin, so the girls and he carved a super-eerie pumpkin!

And Jeff decided he would scare the rest of our neighbors with our lovely entrance way.

The girls did some baby-wearing around the house with their "scarves"...

We walked to school a lot this week because it just seemed like the right thing to do. Ri is here walking and carrying her own lunch bag, even though I offered to carry it for her. Her face of determination is just...darling.

We also did a headband fashion show...I'm not sure why this gal almost always wears her headbands on the back of her head...

Now, the little one is very much into yelling these days...she has discovered her voice and that she can make it really loud if she wants to. She gets quite a kick out of doing it in short bursts and surprising herself...

She has also gotten very good at getting into the crawling position, but all she does there is rock back and forth a bit and then collapsing again. I think I'll have a crawler pretty soon...ack!

This is her normal high chair position. No matter how many times I put her foot down and through the leg hole, she will pull it out and keep it up in this ridiculous position while I'm trying to feed her! Hm...

One night this week, she did NOT want to go to sleep. She would just lie there in the dark babbling and making it "rain" spit on her face...so I just brought her downstairs so I could get the rest of my cleaning done before bed, and she decided then that it would be a good idea to lie down quietly on the floor...but still not sleep. After about 30 minutes of this, I took her back upstairs and she finally went to sleep.

I love this cute little face. She's going to be one opinionated little fireball.

What did you just put on my head? (Remember, the headband fashion show?)

"Hahahaha...that looks so goofy on you, Mama!"

And...this worries me more than the beginning of crawling...the fact that she is a little over-eager to pull-up...she's only done it once and hasn't tried again, but she stood there for a long time...long enough for me to snap a photo with my phone...she's growing so fast!

Our foggy drive to church this Sunday morning.

A lovely temperature, although gloomy-looking...good for an adventure out around our neighborhood visiting different playground structures. This one is a little high...and scary for me to see the girls up there...but they enjoyed it!

More of our stroll...

Another playground.

And...just randomly, we saw this incredibly HUMONGOUS SUNFLOWER! Unbelievable...

And the last activity we did this week was re-introduce the Montessori activities since I FINALLY got around to fixing up their "study" room. Pictures to come next week (hopefully) once it's completed.