We're practicing...

Sitting! :) 

And my kiddos hanging out together. Awww...

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Strawberry Patch!

Brian had off work yesterday so we thought it would be fun to take Luke to the strawberry patch after school. The patch is in Velburg, just down the road from our favorite German restaurant so at 3:45pm, we headed out to pick strawberries and afterwards we hit up the Winklerbrau for dinner. Luke loved picking strawberries! He kept telling me, "Mommy! We don't pick the green ones, only the red ones. Green ones aren't ripe and taste de-gusting" (He must have tried one. lol) While Hannah napped in her car seat, Brian, Luke and I enjoyed picking a kilo of berries and then it started to monsoon on us so we made a mad dash to the car. The torrential rain only lasted about 10 minutes and we enjoyed a nice sunshiny dinner at the Winklerbrau, where I had wild boar with juniper cream sauce, spaetzel, and pear with cranberries, Brian had the jagerschnitzel with brat-kartofflen (fried potatoes), and Luke had a paar (pair) of wurst with spaetzel. Jealous? Maybe you need to visit us!

Goings Ons

We have chairs!!  Okay, we've always had chairs but for the past year we have been hunting for new kitchen chairs to go with our big ole kitchen table.  Everything has either been too antique (therefore rickety) or too fru-fru (therefore expensive). And then today, we stumbled upon 4 chairs that were simple and reminded us of the chairs in the local restaurants. Brian asked how much the chairs were and she responded 8 Euro - wow! 8 Euro a chair is great! But we wanted to keep looking around to see what else was out there - we weren't quite sure if the chairs were tall enough for our table and they would need a little work.  We had a great time walking around and then it started pouring on us, which Luke loved. We went back to the chair lady and told her we wanted the chairs.  She helped us gather up all 4 chairs and Brian handed her a 50 Euro bill and she went to get change for us. She returned and handed Brian 42 Euros back! I guess we need German lessons because she had been telling us that ALL 4 chairs were 8 Euros! So Brian and I looked at each other and didn't know whether we should give her more money because she gave us such a great deal or RUN LIKE THE WIND before she realized that we would have paid more, a LOT more.  (If you are wondering, we speed-walked to the car, lol)

Luke standing in the rain, he LOVED it!

And the aftermath, totally soaked. Good thing I had a dry shirt for him because he does not like sitting in wet clothes. 

It turns out the chairs were from a BrauHaus in Munich! They are stamped on the bottom. We worked on sanding and staining the chairs this afternoon.  2 are complete, 2 more to go. What do you think? We do pretty good work, huh?   

Before and After

Next to the table. Pretty close match, huh?

Tonight while I was on the phone, I heard Luke say "This is a music book. Let's read it! You have to push the buttons...." So I went to peek and Hannah was happily sitting in her Bumbo and Luke was sitting in front of her, showing her his book. He pressed a button and started singing "Be kind to your web footed friends....."  It was adorable. Hannah just adores Luke and her face lights up when he walks into the room. Most of the time he is oblivious to her watching him but when he notices her, he lights up too and says "Hi baby girl!" He is going to have so much fun when she starts to sit and play more, I don't think he realizes that she will eventually be his little playmate.  

Luke is doing fantastic in 5 day a week preschool.  He knows the days of the week now too. He also knows his birthday (November 27th 2005!) . He is very, very talkative and very funny. The other day I was upstairs and I hear him yelling for me "Mom! Hey mom! LIZZIE!!!! LIZZIE!!! Where are you??" Oh my gosh, I about died laughing.  When I came down he looked at me and exclaims "Oh, there you are! I was looking for you. I want some cheese."  lol, too cute. 

Oh, and one of my good friends is an amazing painter and we bartered a little trade awhile ago. I would make her a fantastic canvas tote bag and a couple zipper pouches to match it and she would paint a chair that I found while "junking" in the neighborhood.  I just got the completed chair yesterday and I couldn't be more pleased. Isn't it gorgeous? She painted it to match a wooden box that I purchased at the Hexenager Christmas market last year. And it matches perfectly!

Updates!

Again, it's busy around here! But I managed to make some time to post a quick update.  Let's see - Brian is in rotation right now so he is working long hours and flying nights. He gets in a 3am or so. Hannah got her passport so now we are clear to travel outside of Germany! Yay! I think we'll end up taking 1 big hurrah trip, 1 smaller trip and some road trips before we officially leave Germany. We'll probably be leaving around November or December of this year and no, we do not know where we are going next. Brian is finishing up all his grad school applications and once we decide where to go, we'll let you know!  Luke just got into 5 day a week preschool and starts on Monday.  He's pretty excited and it will give me a little more free time as well. The only bummer, that I have to pick him up right as Hannah will be wanting to go down for a nap.  Hannah has officially made herself a routine over the last few days - go to bed at 8:30pm, wake up at 4:30am for a feeding (which totally STINKS!, for mom at least) but then she sleeps in until 9am. Then she takes a 2 hour nap starting at 11:30am. And then another nap about an hour to an hour and a half  around 4pm.  Luke knows his birthday and it is cute to hear him say that his birthday is November 27th 2005!!  Oh, and Brian got a new car!  It is pretty cute and very fun to drive!  It's name? Hot Chocolate!  lol

Pics of the kids, and the car. Enjoy!