our year 2011

Wow another year is about to be history . And I am glad to say it was a great one. I try to find one picture for each month but it was just too hard to choose. So here you have it; our year 2011 in LOTS of pictures. May you all be blessed with lots of love, health and a happy way of seeing and living life. I am looking forward to fill this little spot of mine with lots of all that in this coming year! Happy new year, sweet people!!!

Januar

Beautiful morning sun behind our house

My sweet peas waiting in carpool line, can't believe how much they have grown

Upside down trampoline fun

The green is returning

Februar

Lucien turned 2!

learned some new tricks,oh that boy!

and said goodbye to his nunu

I enjoy taking fun pics with my phone

Maerz

We got a new camera, that takes wonderful pics, yay

we cut her beautiful hair !

worked a lot in the garden

went so see some Tiger baseball

April

we helped raise awareness for organ donation at Alexis' Angel Sale

Stella turned 5

I got my herb garden going

Easter egg hunt

We enjoyed watching the British Royal Wedding in the early hours of the day

Mai

Last day of preschool

Back home in Germany

enjoying time with the family

Best friends!

Enjoying german chocolate and yummy Broetchen



Celebrating our 7th wedding anniversary

Back in Louisiana

Sweet moments at the Bayou

Juni

Ricky got his own toy, a boat and he is enjoying every minute of it

Trip to Global Wildlife

Lots of Softball

Jennifer and Jake's wedding

Stella caught her first fish all by herself

Juli

Lucien went to the movies for the very first time, Cars 2 was the movie

First Softball season for No 7 Stella and coach Ricky is completed

Trip to the beach

our bike track is coming along

August

Stella learned how to swim

Stella started school

Enjoying the Aquarium in New Orleans

Our new family member Rosie

September

Sweet friends came to visit!

Stella learned to ride her bike without training wheels

The satsuma harvest was outstanding this year!

Lots of creativiy

Oktober


Lots of Halloween fun

good times with the Gaubert's

November

The hunting season has started!!!

Dezember



Merry Christmas!!!
Wow that was really a lot and I finished this post just 25 minutes before this year is over. I hope you enjoyed looking back just as much as I did. Let's together look forward to more adventures in 2012!

Ready for Christmas?!

My holiday list is shrinking and about to come to an end!!!! I am having fun! Stella had her Christmas party at school today and it was a lot of fun. Lucien came and my parents did as well; did I mention they flew in last Monday to spend the holidays with us?! YAY. It was their first time to see Stella as big school girl and were quite impressed with what is going on in my little girlies life! They had brought some cute mugs from the Christmas market in Speyer, Germany. They were perfect teacher gifts filled with yummy chocolate and
I did this fun addition to it.

Turned out pretty good
I think her teachers really liked their present,too.

Stella with friends and her teacher Miss Rosenfeld

Kindergarten girls cookie party
We have been to quite a view Christmas parties in the past week and tomorrow will be the last party before is actually Christmas. whew it is time to slow down a bit
This is what we are enjoying lately:
We are

• listening to/watching a lot of Christmas music( Do they know it's Christmas time by Band aid seems to be the favorite this year)and thanks to youtube, we can listen to it over and over again.......

• trying to keep up with our little elf, yesterday he jumped into a gift bag after the piles and piles of presents appeared under our tree

Elfie in action a couple days ago in the pantry

• We love to watch holiday movies
• Have playdates with great friends

• create and enjoy delicious Christmas treats

Brownies topped with strawberry, covered with icing and mini M&Ms

Christmas popcorn

yummy snowman pancakes

equals happy kids

our Christmas train came out cute but it was not as easy as we thought it would be!

eating A LOT of chocolate, yes we are truly enjoying our german Adventskalender!!!!!

• play in front of our tree

Cars2 meets Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus

• read our books out of the basket, which are coming to an end and showing all the towels I had used as a cushion for our 24 books
  

• do little projects

Stellas version of Elfie

Speaking of projects, it was my goal this year to make some of my gifts myself, and this is what I came up with: I found a cool blog with a nice tutorial about how to make this: It was so much fun to do and so satisfying to get it done by hand.( Cathy, close your eyes right here to not spoil the surprise for your girlies)


I am still working on a bigger project for Stella, which will hopefully be finished by Christmas! I will tell you about this one soon....
Hmmmm, what else: Rick took both kids hunting and in the swamp; they had a blast, especially because they had Rosie with them and she was being such a good dog( well maybe except for the fact that she got carsick two times)Poor puppy or should I say poor Ricky!

• we are truly enjoying the pleasant temperature and go outside as much as we can. Except for the leftover mosquitos, Louisiana is great in December. Today we were outside almost all afternoon long, no jackets necessary !!!!It is so much fun watching the little crazies on their racetrack.

That's all for now, those last days of December will be filled with lots of family fun and off the computer time. That is the reason, why I am already wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, enjoy, recharge and laugh a lot. I hope to be back sometime before the new year arrives.....

Naptime

My sick lil man fell asleep on me which forced me to nap, too. Thank you sweet baby, you knew Mama needed that

Mami is for.......

Die Weihnachtszeit steht ins Haus. Dank Cookie Party und Geburtstag ist in unserem Haus noch Brachland was Weihnachtsdeko anbelangt. Aber da mir Stella mit Auszug gedroht hat, wenn sich das nicht diese Woche aendert, sind mitlerweile alle Weihnachtsboxen vom Speicher ins Wohnzimmer umgezogen, die Little People Spiel Krippe ist aufgebaut und wird regelmaesig von Luciens Cars zum Tanken besucht und auch sonst tut sich einiges...
Eigentlich waere heute abend Greys Anatomy Night gewesen, aber auch die hatten Mitleid mit Stella und Lucien und entschieden kurzerhand, dass Mama wichtige Weihnachtsdinge zu erledigen hat.
Also anstelle von virtuellem Kaffee, gibt es heute ne gute Tasse englischen Tee und dann geht es auch schon ans Werk.
Stella hatte Hausaufgaben ein Weihnachtsornament mit uns als Familie zu Basteln. HMMMM natuerlich muessen wir unserem kreativen Ruf alle Ehre machen, aber es hat mich doch ganz schoen Muehe gekostet um eine Idee zu finden, die dann auch von meinem Girlie abgesegnet wurde. Wir enschieden uns fuer einen Stern/Schneeflocke aus Q-tips( Ja richtig, die Ohrstaebchen). Man nehme 18 Q-tips und lege sie zu einem Stern aus, klebe die Enden mit Fluessigkleber zusammen und bestreue diesen mit losem Glitzer.

Ueber Nacht trocknen lassen und weitergestalten wie es einem beliebt. Wir haben in jedes Segment ein Bild von unseren 6 Familienmitgliedern( inklusive Hunde) gehaengt. Bin mal gespannt, was sie sagt, wenn sie von der Schule kommt.
Unsere Weihnachtselfe ist zurueck! Stella und Lucien haben einen Weihnachtsbriefkasten mit direktem Draht zum Nikolaus. Da werden Wunschlisten losgeschickt, aber auch die 2 bekommen ab und an auch mal Post zurueck.

Gestern hiess es: The ELF is BACK!!!! Und schon ging die Suche los. Ein absolut grosser Spass, die beiden vollkommen aufgeregt am Suchen zu sehen. Gestern war die Elfe noch ein wenig schuechtern zwischen Benjaminiblaettern zu finden, doch heute morgen war der kleine Kerl auf wundersame Weise ins Bad entwischt und hat 'Sauerei' mit Stellas Zahnbuerste gemacht.

Derzeit schlaeft der Schlingel den Schlaf der Gerechten auf unserer Timeout Bank( Gut fuer LULU, sonst waere er da heute schon das ein oder andere mal gelandet). Da wollen wir ihn natuerlich nicht stoeren. Mal sehen was die Elfe die naechsten Wocchen noch so auf Lager hat ( Ich sage ja, ich bin busy)
Das Haus ist absolut still !!! Alle am Schlafen ausser mir.
Es gibt doch nichts Schoeneres als die gute alte Snailmail. Email, text... alles schoen und gut, aber wer freut sich denn nicht ueber was Schoenes im Briefkasten???

Also los gehts 40+ Weihnachtskarten wollen auf die Reise....

Geschafft. Viele von euch duerfen sich bald schon auf Post von uns freuen.

Noch zum Schluss eine guenstige Idee fuer die Kleinen fuer die Weihnachtszeit:
Ich habe 24 Buecher (viele alte, manche neue, viele von Flohmaerkten) huebsch eingepackt( was so ein wenig schoenes Papier an Freude hervorrufen kann( zumindest bei mir!)); in einen schoenen Korb gelegt und neben den Kamin gestellt.

Jeden Tag duerfen sich die Zwerge gemeinschaftlich ein Geschenk aussuchen, das dann aufgepackt wird und vorgelesen wird.

Heute war es ein altes Buch, aber die Freude ueber ein neues haette nicht groesser sein koennen. Und wir reden hier von einer absoluten Zeitersparnis im Abendritual, denn das allabendlich Buchaussuchen, kann manchmal ziemlich lange dauern...
Auch wenn es hier noch nicht von oben bis unten weihnachtlich dekoriert ist, die schoene, gemuetliche Stimmung, die ich mit Weihnachten verbinde, hat mit Sicherheit schon Einzug in der White Road gehalten