Photos of the day: Playing with our food

Way to go, Micah!

At the beginning of the school year Micah set two goals for himself:  placing in the Fun Run race and winning the spelling bee.  I'm not sure if I posted this last year, but as a 3rd grader he tied for 3rd place out of 36 kids.  He made it 24 rounds and lost to 2 fifth graders.  This year he wanted to do better.

So he placed in the Fun run and then we moved right before the spelling bee.  We were really excited to learn that our new school in Germany was holding their school spelling bee the week after we got here...

Guess who won?!

He will be competing in the European regional spelling bee in March.  We are so proud of him!

playing catch-up: saying "bye"

 Before we moved to Germany, we took a trip to Tennessee to visit grandparents and great grandparents.  Above is a pic of the boys with my dad.

 This is my grandma and the kids.

 The kids with my other grandma (my Dad's mom).

 Liv and a couple of her cousins, Hannah and Addy.

The picture below is of a group of kids that we started playing soccer with every Saturday.  Most of them are from the ward.  Our boys are crazy about soccer and so Dudi was a good dad and invited a bunch of the boy's friends to come play soccer with them.  It ended up turning into a weekly thing that all the kids looked forward to it.  We really miss these guys!

I had to add a picture of Asher's soccer team from this past season.  Asher really was awesome, and I'd say that even if he wasn't mine!

Rotten luck

Tonight our YW are having a spaghetti dinner and dessert auction to raise money for girls camp.  Free babysitting-sweet! 
At 6:15 everyone is putting shoes and coats on.  Jude is in his car seat, the kids are fed, we are ready to go to the 6:30 dinner.  Then Asher says, "mom, I don't feel good. My head hurts, my stomach hurts, and I'm really cold." I feel his head-fever.  Poor kid.  Figures.

Plan B. 
Digiorno pizza for dinner, movie with the kids and the mississippi mud brownies (recipe from Our best bites blog) I made for the auction for dessert. 

Just like that our free babysitting night is gone.

there's something wrong when...

Bagger (as he brings my groceries to the car): I'm sure glad it's finally warming up.

me: I know, the last few days have been terrible.

UM...Okay, today got up to 28 degrees. Warmer?! What are we thinking? I guess it's all relative. We've been having 2(yes, TWO) degree weather-so it was much warmer.

The whole conversation was just wrong.

Baby...it's COLD outside! (An informative post)

So I've been putting off posting because I'm having issues loading my pics.  As soon as I figure it out, I'll be flooding this thing with a backlog of posts! In the meantime...it. is. freezing.  This past week introduced me to German winters!  HIGHS in the low 20's and when I get in the car to take the kids to school in the morning it has been 12 degrees! Um, all I can say is we are not in Augusta anymore!  There have been over 200 people that have died because of this cold front that has hit Europe.  The wind is the worst part of it.  And yet, one of my kids STILL tries to sneak out without a coat and gloves and complains when I make him come get them!

One day he will be thanking me that he still has 10 fingers and toes.

We had a family from Augusta come over for dinner last night.  Their son went to school with Micah and they just moved over.  They are still in a hotel-I can feel their pain!  

We finally started hanging some pics this weekend.  The top  3 floors are officially BOX FREE!  The downstairs is another story, but it is finally starting to feel like home.  I'll post some pics soon.

On another note, Dudi got a church calling.  He is in the YM presidency.  He always is good with the youth, the funny part is he is also the scoutmaster! HA!  If you know Dudi, you know he is NOT a scouter.  It will definitely be a learning time for him, he'll do good...if he can keep a positive attitude! I on the other hand am currently calling-less...  I will try not complain:)  Jude is a full-time job at church.

So there you have all the info that doesn't require a photo (in case you were wondering there is info that DOES require photos).   We also have an exciting trip coming up at the end of this month that I will fill you in on later!

Whirlwind

 The last two weeks have been a whirlwind.  Not only did we celebrate Christmas and New Year's, but we made our big move to Germany!  This post will play catch up on the last few weeks so it is a long one!!!! Lots and lots of pictures.  This top pic is the view from our hotel on the Rhine river.  It is beautiful and has cruise ships and cargo ships going down in constantly.  There were quite a few cargo ship with coal going down the river before Christmas, I told the kids that they were headed to the North Pole for those last minute "naughty" kids! 

 Room Service.  This is how we have been dining a LOT.  It's too  much trouble to take the kids to resturaunts.  We are like a freak show.  People are constantlly looking at us like we are crazy.  People here either don't have this many kids, or don't take them out ever!  As of late we have been sick of the room service and have ventured out more.  There is only so much schnitzel, steak, stroganoff, and burgers we can take!  We've never eaten this much beef!

 We were excited to be able to come before Christmas so we could make it to the Christmas markets.  They were a lot of fun.  It is so festive!

 Dudi has been loving the Brats!

 The ward has been great.  We've met a lof of great families and went to one of the markets with them.  It's nice to have the church wherever you go!  We do miss our awesome ward in Georgia though!

 Yes, we are the Americans eating ice cream in the German winter!

 Downtown Mainz.

 Great toy store in Mainz.

 Christmas eve visit to Heidleberg castle.

 Such a pretty view.  The kids were loving it!

 We bleed Fanta.  They don't really do water much, so we have Fanta for almost every meal!

 We spent Christmas Eve with some friends from Georgia.  They have been living in Heidleberg, so it was fun to get to visit with them!

 Sorry, these pictures are out of order.  This is how Jude spent most of the first week.  He had the hardest time adjust to the time difference.  He was a great little guy on the plane and slept almost the whole time, much to everyone's delight.  As we waited in line to board the plane to Frankfurt he started going crazy and was inconsolable.  I know everyone was sweating it hoping they weren't next to us.  Turns out he was just tired and fell asleep on the plane.  I even had someone compliment me on how well the kids were on the flight-whew!


Christmas morning pics.

 Micah and Liv found these awesome colored pencils made out of sticks at the Christmas market.  Perfect for our little artist.

 The boys found this cute little yodeling bear for Liv.

 The one and only green Barcelona jersey.  Santa worked overtime to find this impossible jersey!!!!

 our little guy is getting SOO big! 

Micah and his "Ronaldo" cleats.

It has been a crazy couple of weeks, but we are getting use to everything slowly.  Dudi and I both passed our horrific International driver's test, I drove on the autoban (once), and I even ordered room service when Dudi was at work ( we were missing a few things and had a few extra things I didn't order, but hey, I made an attempt).  The boys start school tomorrow, so it will be nice for them to start a routine.  We are all VERY anxious to get into our house.  We are a little stir crazy from being in an apartment for a month and then a hotel the last two weeks.  We will move into our house as soon as our house hold goods arrive.  Our van did arrive the day after we got here, it's so nice to have it and looks so cute with its German plates!
We hope you all had a fabulous holiday.  We love you all!