fröhliche Weihnachten

We had a wonderful Christmas and hope you had one too! Lots of love from Nathaniel, Felicity & William.

Last minute Christmas Eve shopping (he stands up every opportunity he gets!)

We had Christmas dinner with our friends the Hughes. After a Hughes family tradition dinner of KFC, we had a Christmas program. We were privileged to play the part of Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus (note my mom laughing in the back left).

William in the manger

The three wise (super) men: Nathan, Steven, and Jacob

Grandma and William sporting his new outfit from Aunt Tabby.
This picture doesn't quite capture how amazing and enchanting the hoar frost display was these past few days. It was so amazing and made the Christmas atmosphere at our HO-TEL even better.

Christmas morning 5 a.m. You can see the sleepiness in William's face. I would love to say that it was the excitement of Santa's arrival that had my bouncing bundle of joy up at that hour, but no, it was his first tooth.Trying out a new Christmas gift
Opening presents with Daddy

Oh dear me... what have we here. It seems that my little destroyer has found the toilet paper. What are new toys when there is a fresh roll of Toilettenpapier?

Do you cuckoo?

Yesterday was our anniversary! Three years has flown by, but also somehow seems like 30 years. It just feels like we've always been together. I love it!
To celebrate, Nathaniel surprised me and took William and I down to the Black Forest! The town is known for their clocks and is home to the largest cuckoo clock and also the tallest waterfall. We didn't make any clock purchases though. Most of the clocks start around 300 euro ($450USD) and frankly- we just don't like them that much.

William and Nathaniel outside the shop of 1000 clocks.
Dinner at the restaurant. William is so good in a highchair now!

We asked for a "kinderbed" and this is what we got, an enormous rocking cradle. I started laughing! Can anyone say accident waiting to happen? It would have been great about 3 months ago though!
The little monster trying to eat the camera.
This was as high as we could hike. They had the rest closed off because of the ice.

Silly boys!!

Battle of the Bulge

Last Saturday Nathaniel and I joined our friends, the Steffens, on a trip to Bastogne, Belgium to participate in a walk commemorating the Battle of the Bulge. Having a history of pathetic history teachers- I had no clue what this was until Friday night before the event. It was an amazing event with WWII cars, attire, and decked out soldiers everywhere. I walked with Lisa, her son Colin and William on a shorter version of the walk and the rest of the men walked the 12 mile length. The countryside was so beautiful and it was so sad to imagine the scene that took place there.

Nathaniel with some enthusiastic participants. The man on the left said his foot had been bothering him, so he'd be riding his 1944 bike on the trip instead!

Nathaniel and Matthew in the foxhole.

Me (showing them how it's done) and Nathaniel. The foxhole was really decked out! There was ammunition, 1940's soda bottles, maps, radios, military gear...

I cannot even express to you how FREEZING COLD it was that day. William was a trouper for about 2/3 of the trip and I ended out having to carry him the rest of the way. Poor little lamb (though, this is a bear hat!).

Nice Christmas decorations- grenades and bullets!

innocent§

oooooh deqr: I think thqt so,eone hqs plqyed zith this keyboqrd qnd reqrrqnged the settings1 I zonder zho the culprit could be::::

My littlest cousin

Friends,
This is my newest cousin. He was born by emergency c-section on December 13th weighing 350 grams and measuring 9 1/2 inches long to my Uncle Richard and Aunt Amy. He was born at only 24 weeks. Please include him and his parents in your prayers.

Bye, Bye, Binkie....

Yes, friends. William has given up his pacifier. Maybe it had to do with being sick this weekend or just feeling like a big boy, but he's made it known that he is through with it. It's great for the long run, but made short run "get the baby to stop crying" episodes a bit more difficult. Our little baby is growing up so fast!
Yesterday William climbed his first stair. It was so funny to watch him try to figure it out! Last night he slept for 6 1/2 hours in a row! He hasn't slept longer than 5 hours in a row since we've been here. We both woke up very happy.

His adorable binkie strap will have to go on a toy now. That's his favorite part of that one anyway.
When William hears that wardrobe door open- he's on his way. What could be greater than chewing on dad's sandals?!
Last night Nathaniel was in charge of bath time...

Weekend Maddness

Last week William started getting sick on Thursday. This is how he looked a good portion of Thursday through Sunday:

That said- William and I barely got any sleep Thursday or Friday night, but we did our best. On Saturday we did our errands in the morning and then decided to go check out a town that a friend told us we must see, Rudesheim. I plugged "Rudesheim" into the GPS, couldn't find any of the street names that matched up with what I saw on the map I had of the down town, so I just picked to go to the city center. Thirty minutes later we were plugging through this po-dunk town wondering "Where is the Rhein?""Why would she send us HERE?" Again, turning my attention to the GPS- I plugged in Rudesheim again and started looking around. Ah hah. There are, of course, TWO Rudesheims within 1/2 hour of each other. I don't know why I wasn't on the lookout for that sooner. There are 3 Greisheims, 2 Rudesheims and I don't even know all the other duplicates. WHY do that?! I just don't get Germany, I guess! So- GPS says 25 minutes to the desired Rudesheim so we decided to go. Diligently following Dan, our GPS voice, we end up headed onto a FERRY. Confused by this (are we simple? or were we just caught off guard?) we turned back and drove into the main town following signs to a tourist office...which was closed at 3pm on a Saturday (again- I don't get Germany). So- putting our faith back in Dan- we headed onto the ferry. I love love love boats and somehow it was a huge thrill to sit in our car on a one! We got out for a quick photo opp. Nathaniel was trying to get in us with a church that is on the hill behind us:

Finally reaching our destination- we found the Christmas market. There were people everywhere! We mostly just window shopped...except at the crepe stand where we had ham & cheese crepes for dinner and then strawberry jam/nutella crepes for dessert. :) This market was the biggest that I've been to yet. They even had a little pony rides for kids!

We even managed to meet St. Nicholas. William was very intrigued by him.

At one stand we saw a man lighting off these balloon things. They looked really amazing in the sky after they went up. Unfortunately- moments after I stopped recording this one the entire thing went up in flames and the guy who had lit it had to run to find where it was going to land. oops!

'Tis the season

If you've heard about winter in Europe, then you've heard about the Christmas Markets. Apparently world famous and fabulously festive, they're supposed to be the highlight of the cold months here. I think that the hype doesn't quite live up to the real thing, but they're still fun to go to. So far I have visited a smaller one in a near by city and last night my friend Teresa and I left the kids at home (except her youngest who still fits in the bjorn) and checked out the Frankfurt market. I was surprised at how many people were there on a weekday night- but mostly they were packed around the food stations drinking their "spiced" (read: spiked) cider. The little shops were neat- but unfortunately they all started closing soon after we got there. Oh well! I think that this sort of thing will be more fun and magical in a few years when I can live vicariously through William as he looks at the building size Christmas tree and carousel with awe and wonder. In the mean time- I grabbed a Christmas ornament for William and a nutella crepe (YUM) and had a wonderful evening out with a great friend.

Oh Tannenbaum, Oh Tannenbaum....

The stockings were hung by the curtains with care.....

William does this funny thing where he squishes up his nose and breathes in and out of it really fast. He's so funny! Nathaniel managed to capture that special face on camera.
Oh, such handsome boys!

This morning W managed to get stuck under the exersaucer. He'll always smile for the camera though! What a poser.... wonder where he gets it....

(Nathaniel in his modeling glory days)

By George, I think he's got it!

Not the greatest footage- but it'll do!

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving Nathaniel, William and I made the 4 hour drive over into Belgium to celebrate with our friends David and Rita. They were marvelous hosts and spoiled us with delicious meals and tours around their part of the country. I gave William a taste of turkey (Gerber brand) and he hated it. He might have preferred what we were eating, maybe next year. One of the places that David & Rita took us was to Ghent. It was very charming and beautiful. And COLD- though I guess I can't blame the city for that. It was so strange because the part of the country where David and Rita live speaks French. In Ghent they speak only Flemish! I felt even more at a loss for communication than I do here in Germany. We had a fabulous time and were very sad to leave vacation life behind.

The cathedral in Ghent. The inside was amazing with detailed art and sculptures everywhere.

This castle was soo neat! I'm not sure what's up with the spider-web thing though. In this castle they offer a tour of the dungeons and torture devices which, of course, was very intriguing! Unfortunately, William had just (finally) fallen asleep in his stroller and as you can imagine dungeons aren't especially stroller friendly.

William made friends with this Belgium Cow. I think this is the closest I've ever been to a cow!

Nathaniel thought this alley looked cool so he had me pose...

Nathaniel said "Oh see- they did have McDonalds in the 14th century."

Just us two goofballs.

Weekend Update

We had a pretty good weekend. Friday afternoon to Saturday afternoon we watched our friends the Hughes' three boys while their parents went out to celebrate Teresa's birthday. It was quite the dynamic change to suddenly have William be the youngest of 4 kids! They boys were a lot of fun- with only a small handful of to-be-expected fights or breakdowns.
On Saturday morning we hit a milestone! William crawled after Ginger, the Hughes' cat! It wasn't graceful, but it was effective. I'm not sure that Ginger appreciated this new threat. She started to bat at him and then ran away when he moved even closer and grabbed her tail. What a big boy we have!
On Saturday night Nathaniel and I attended a Marine Birthday Ball. It was fun to get all dolled up. My friend Lisa and her daughter, Sarah did my hair and makeup. Sarah babysat William and I think that went okay. It was nice to get out and meet some people that Nathaniel works with, but in true Nathaniel and Felicity fashion we bailed out on the dancing segment that started around 930 to go home to bed. We like to dance, we just like sleep more... especially when we know our jumping bundle of joy will be awake and singing at 6am.
Sunday.....Sunday's are always a bit of a challenge. Church starts at 9 and William is well ready for a nap by then. This is usually somewhat of a battle with me missing all or most of Sacrament meeting or Sunday School (Julia, your talents would be a welcome relief-today too, W fought his nap for 45 minutes!!). This Sunday I brought along a babyhawk carrier that a friend had lent me. William made it through all of Sacrament meeting with only a brief breather out in the hall with Daddy. Before Sunday school I took William to the "mother's lounge" (aka materials center with ikea chairs) and strapped him in the babyhawk, put a blanket over his head and... he was asleep within a minute!!! I cannot even tell you how happy I was. Babyhawk will become a new Sunday staple for us. It helped in more ways than one because at his 20lbs+ size, he really gets too heavy for me to hold for his whole nap (and he's also nearing the weight limit on the Bjorn)! So... all in all, Sunday was a success. I got to actually participate in and enjoy all 3 meetings. Fabulous. Yesterday W was grumpy all day, but regardless it was nice to enjoy the day to just all be together on N's day off.

Among other things William loves these days, he especially loves to jump.

All dressed up!

William's new found mobility seems to be disturbing naptime!!!! Driving me nuts!

Can you just feel Nathaniel's enthusiasm here? I suspect this is why William wasn't feeling well yesterday! And- he waited until he could hit his favorite barf target to let loose. (I can laugh, because it isn't me!)

Watch Out

Not long after we moved here, we went out watch shopping. I'd been having a hard time finding one that looked good with my wedding ring. Finally, I found a watch I loved! I asked the clerk if it was waterproof. She said it was. Nathaniel pointed out then that I probably shouldn't wear the watch swimming anyway. I wasn't worried about swimming. I was anticipating about this: