Isaac's Baptism

We had a small Mass along with his baptism which was so nice! Isaac was an angel, no crying at all! He made a face after the water was poured on him, but that was it. The girls started getting restless and kissing and hugging each other in the middle. Then they knocked each other over right in front of Fr. Ron. It was not ideal behavior, but overall they were not too bad. The pictures turned out fantastic, I think. We had a decent crowd too, especially since the details were still being worked out at the last minute. We had tried to arrange the baptism at a German Cathedral, but it didn't work out because of all the regulations they have here.

We had a reception at our house afterward. I made a Tres Leches Cake, Mexican tortilla roll ups, Reuben Dip, a cheese tray and a veggie tray too. Everything was gone at the end, except a little cake and a few veggies. The dip and cake were the most popular! Isaac napped at the beginning of the reception and then joined the festivities.

The results are in...

Everyone loved the new pie crust I tried on the apple pies. Plus, using half Granny Smith and half Pink Ladies was a success too!

My old pie crust was just shortening, flour, salt, and water. But this one had some cake flour, vinegar, and baking soda too, plus it used butter instead of shortening. Go to the link and try it out at Christmas!

Isaac

Here's an assortment of Isaac pics that I missed. The first is of Isaac and his friend, Lucy. They had a blast looking at eat other while the adults finished their meal. Lucy is almost 8 months, by the way, and at least 2 lbs lighter than our Tank!

The next one is Isaac in his shirt that Chris and Elizabeth gave him. The girls both have their own too. I need to get a picture with all of them together before Isaac outgrows it.

























Then here's a couple of tummy time, which Isaac seems to enjoy more than the girls ever did!

Isaac was baptized this morning, but the camera is with Brian right now. I'll get the pictures and synopsis up soon!

"Ich bin vier!"

"I am four!"

We are so blessed to have this sweetheart in our family! Thank you, God for another year with Hannah! She is such a good helper for her mom, always quick with a "Yes, Ma'am" when I ask for some help. She certainly loves her little sister and is protective of her little brother too. She is becoming quite the little artist and enjoys practicing her letters in her wipe off book. She is so proud when she finishes the whole alphabet! She is definitely a Daddy's Girl like the shirt says too! We couldn't love her more if we tried! Happy birthday to our Hannah Claire!

Check out the difference from last year...

Hannah on her 3rd birthday!

Hannah on her 4th birthday!

I meant to post this on her actual birthday, but I forgot!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I love love love to cook for Thanksgiving dinner! This year we are a small group with just our little family and Hannah's ( and soon to be Isaac's) godfather visiting from the states. I love all traditional elements in a Thanksgiving meal, but when I have such a small group and I am the only one cooking for the most part and I have three little ones, I have to pick some favorites.

This year's menu:

Fried Turkey (Brian's in charge of that)
Green bean Casserole (a childhood favorite of mine)
Bread Stuffing (from a recipe I got years ago from Martha Stewart)
Baked and Stuffed Sweet Potatoes ( a new twist on an old favorite)
Homemade American Apple Pie (a taste of home, I tried a new crust this year, so I'll let you know how it turns out)

No pumpkin pie this year due to lack of time and mouths, but I will dearly miss it! Since we are frying the turkey, I won't have any juices with which to make gravy, so I bought some Boston Market gravy. ( I hate to have to do that!) I love to make cranberry sauce also, but had to sacrifice that as well for the canned version. See, I have to also bake cupcakes for Hannah's school celebration of her birthday and then throw together a milk cake and some finger foods for Isaac's baptism this weekend. So, I better get back in the kitchen. :)

Have a happy Thanksgiving! Tell me what Thanksgiving dish you can't live without in the Comments!

Pre-game Pep Rally

I had way too much fun making this when I probably should have been making pie crust for tomorrow, but I think I have enough time to do all my cooking on Thanksgiving Day this year! I won't be watching the big game since it's not on until 1am here, but my hubby will be!

Make your own Glitter Graphics

Quiz time!

You Are Chess

You are brilliant and shrewd. You can often predict what people will do in the future. You thrive in complex situations. You deal with contradictions well. You can have many streams of though going on at your mind at once. You keep track of things well. You are very patient. You have lots of endurance, even when your energy dwindles

What Board Game Are You?

I can accept being labeled brilliant, but I don't know about this next one...I am anything, but a rebel. I am a rule follower to the end. :) Plus, I don't really like the part about being as tall as an Italian man. :)

What Your Height Says About You

You are powerful, brilliant, and a bit of a rebel. You are an idealist, and you will work hard for a better world. It's hard for other people to keep up with you - both mentally and physically. And you're so independent, you actually prefer to go it alone. You are about as tall as the average Italian man.

What Does Your Height Say About You?

Random

Isaac was a fist sucker from Day 1 in the hospital! Look at those chubby arms!


Sometimes he gets all five fingers in there!

The kids got a special treat after baths last night! They watched Alice and Wonderland in our bed. We have a VCR in our room but we rarely use it. I got this video at the library. It's the Hallmark version with real people instead of cartoons. I loved it when I was little. Isaac watched for only few minutes since it was his bed time. I let the girls stay up a little later since Daddy was out, but they still didn't get to finish it. Save the rest for another night I guess.

By the way, it's still snowing! Here's a pretty view of our village!

I am going to see a movie tonight with a friend! Can't wait!

Rugby Boys

Here's some pictures of the boys in Rugby shirts! Hannah sneaked into this one.

Hannah's brains are working...

And she thinks we can all see them work! While I was cooking for our married couples Teams of Our Lady group, she comes up to me.

Hannah: Mom, you don't have to work so hard. Look. (I look and she blinks one time.) See my brains are working so you don't have to work so hard, Mom!

Okay...I think this comes from The Patchwork Girl from Oz where the glass cat always talks about her pink brains and how you can see them work...because she's made of glass! I think that's the part Hannah isn't picturing quite right. It's funny what they imagine in their little heads when hearing books read without pictures to guide their thoughts.

Here's her new lunch box she got at her party!

Hannah's Pajama Party

I LOVE themed birthday parties for kids! I love the challenge and getting my creative and artistic juices flowing. The theme here is a sleepover/pajama party (without the actual sleepover-we're so not ready for that yet!) The inspiration came from Hannah only wanting to wear her pajamas all the time and she has a book about a sleepover that got her thinking. Here are all my favorite details and pictures of the party! Watch out Martha Stewart!

The Invitation

The Favors
Each bag includes a toothbrush, a homemade chocolate covered pretzel stick, chap stick, press on tattoos, and a pizza straw. Everything you need for a sleepover except mini flashlights that I couldn't find over here. I wanted to do pillow case decorating too, but I had trouble finding the supplies for that here too.

The Cake
Counting Sheep! Marshmallows, toothpicks, whipped cream, and black icing made up the sheep. They are held up by bamboo skewers while "jumping" over a chocolate covered pretzel fence. The cake is chocolate underneath a whipped cream icing to look like a cloud. I have been planning this out for months and developing new ideas to make it all hold together well. Hannah helped me make it, and was thrilled about it! She was a little disappointed though that the sheep were not actually jumping over the fence. When we finished she asked, "How do we make them jump now , Mom?" Oops! Sorry Hannah, but even moms have limitations! :)

Hannah's a much better candle blower this year!

Opening Gifts
There were only 5 other kids that came and 3 of them were from the same family. It was a great size, especially so there wasn't an overwhelming amount of gifts. It was perfect!
Everyone wore their pajamas of course, even me!

The Games
These seemed to be the highlight of the party! I came up with two games, one of which Hannah specifically requested. It was a treasure hunt like in her sleep over book. I took pictures of different places in the house, like the Easel, the shower, Genna's bed, etc. then printed them out and glued them to some nice paper folded them up and placed them in those spots. I gave them the first "clue." Then they went and found what was in the picture, finding another "clue" there, and so on. At the end were all their treat bags! It was a hit!
The next game I thought of kind of last minute. I had been trying to find a way to bring popcorn into the party without it being solely for eating since we had pizza (another sleepover necessity) since it is a popular sleepover item. So I put masking tape on the floor and had everyone get a piece of popcorn (many were eaten before i could explain the game,) and they all lined up on the floor. The game was a "race" to blow your popcorn piece across the taped finish line. They did this many times, but Genna and her 2 year old friend were not able to do it. Genna was still sitting at the beginning when the game was over. I told her to blow it and she said, "I can't do it, Mom." She was blowing straight down on top of it. :)

There was some vacuuming to be done after the party, as you can imagine.

Here, Genna gave up and just started eating her piece instead of playing. :) Munch strikes again! She spent most of the party eating, actually!
I love the bottoms in this picture too!

I would say the party was a success! The best part, besides the joy it brought my little 4 year old, was that it wasn't very time consuming for me. I was able to be creative and yet not sacrifice time with the family or get stressed out about getting it all done! Genna's already decided she wants a princess tea party for her birthday! I am already brainstorming!

The Chubster!

Here's our angel! He's in the midst of sleep training and doing better for his naps than at night, but it's only been 2 days. Pray for him to learn fast!

I am a bloggin fool today! I am ahead of schedule with Hannah's birthday party tomorrow. I am so excited about the cake and the favors! I'll post it all after the party tomorrow! I've also got a funny story about Hannah, but nap time is over. So I'll post it later!

Our first snow this winter!

It started snowing last night and this morning we had a little accumulation. The girls were so happy to see some snow again on the ground.

Best friends in the snow!

There's our little "Munch" (as her daddy calls her) eating again!

My Little Mermaid and Ballerina

This is what Genna likes to do while Hannah's at Kindergarten...

Dress up!

And creative ballet dancing! She just put the tutu on and came and asked me to put on some soft dancing music. I love this video!

I think this girl's manorisms and inflections in her voice make her irresistably cute!

More Paris Pictures

We got an apartment for the 2 nights for cheaper than the hotels. This is it...with Isaac, of course!

The Eiffel Tower in the evening.

Brian and Isaac from inside the pyramid in the Louvre.

The Musee Rodin was mostly outside with a little mansion in the middle where Rodin himself (with many of his famous friend artists as well) lived. The mansion was converted into a museum of his works as well as the works that he owned at his death, like Van Gogh, Renior, and Monet originals. Here is a shot of the mansion from the garden exhibit.

Notre Dame

Paris, France

We just got back from Paris on Wednesday. Actually, it was just Brian, Isaac, and me. We left the girls with some friends of ours. They have four kids and so they had a houseful with the girls added in the mix. How sweet of them to do that for us! It was such a blessing to have some quiet time with Brian before his long trip (that is coming up way too fast!) It was hard to leave them, but it helped that the girls were fine with it. They had a great time!

Brian and I hit up the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Louvre and the Rodin Museum. We are exhausted though because of all the walking! Isaac lived in the Snugli front pack since we didn't bring the stroller. We wanted to travel as light as possible. Brian wore him the whole time except when I had to nurse or when we were at restaurants. Bless his heart! It isn't easy to carry a baby weighing in at almost 19lbs all day long.

Isaac got a lot of attention from the French ladies in the Snugli! Hard to believe with those cheeks, huh?

The Rodin Museum or Musee Rodin was my favorite. I have always wanted to go there! Auguste Rodin is my favorite sculptor. His best known works are The Thinker, The Kiss, and The Gates of Hell. We spent the better part of a whole day in this relatively small museum.

The Musee du Louvre was great too. We saw the Mona Lisa and the Vesus de Milo as well as many other lesser known Greek statues. Plus, they had a small Picasso exhibit there as well. Here's a picture of me outside the Louvre.

The food was better than I thought outside of the restaurants. By this I mean, in the restaurants, I had trouble finding anything I liked because I am rather picky when it comes to meat. I'll eat anything else, but meat needs to be cooked a certain way and not be from strange parts of the body. I saw way too many feet, tongues, and other weird pieces of meat, not to mention the rare kinds of animals that they eat, like duck, goose, snails, and horse. So, I didn't eat much at the reataurants besides Fondue and French Onion Soup. The Creperies and Backeries though, I loved. The bagettes were so soft and warm. The croisants were excellent, as were the quiches. The Creperie down the street from the Musee Rodin was the best! There wer over 20 different kinds of sweet and salty crepes combos to choose from. My meal crepe had lettuce, black olives, and goat cheese in it. Brian's had sausage, mustard, swiss cheese, and potatoes. We split ours so we could try two, and they were both excellent! The dessert crepes were wonderful with Nutella, pears, ice cream and whipped cream on them. I wish I could have tried many more of them.


We did not go up the Eiffel Tower for several reasons. One, we were exhausted (it was a long long walk from everything else.) Two, we were starving! Three, I am a chicken. My two least favorite things are heights and elevators, so the combination did not leave me dying to go up there. However, if I ever go back, I think I will try it...maybe. Of course, I say this as I sit here safely at my computer, not looking up at the huge tower.

Notre Dame was impressive as well! We were so lucky because we arrived just in time for daily Mass on the last day and had plenty of time before our train left to attend. So, I've now attended Mass in Belgium, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Italy, and France too. (We were in Switzerland and England in the middle of the week with no oppurtunity to go to Mass.)

I am having trouble getting the rest of the pictures loaded on the computer, but I will post some more when I figure out the problem!

A big fish!

Brian went fishing last weekend and caught a big one, 20 inches and 2 kg (~4lbs)! Way to go!

All day, Hannah talked about her daddy bringing her a fish to eat. :) He cooked it up that night on the grill. Hannah liked it, but Genna didn't. Go figure! She'll eat toilet paper, but not fish.


Hannah has a sticker on her head in case you were wondering what that was. :)