Sesame Place

Aunty Charity & Cameron


I've been needing to blog about this forever! A couple days before we skipped country back in June we went to Sesame Place for two days. The first day was kind of a bust. It was HOT, the lines were long, and W managed to bang into some kid and get a black eye. Fabulous. Fortunately, my dear sister Charity met us for the 2nd day. It was AWESOME. The weather was about 15 degrees cooler, the crowds were 1/2 what they had been the day before, and we had one adult per kid. It was really an awesome day. The Parade was definitely the highlight. Since the crowds were so sparse we were right up at the front lines and got to meet all the sesame street gang.

William showing off his new shiner on the carousel. *A ridiculous note about the carousel: we were happy because everyone could go on this ride but as we were walking to go onto it the prick... I mean attendant, at the gate wouldn't let ANDREW on because he wasn't wearing shoes. Are you kidding me??? The kid wasn't even 4 months old! Be forewarned. Have your newborns in shoes if you go to sesame place.

Cameron was beside himself on this ride. He LOVED it.

Checking out the parade!

What can I say? Rosita adored my little baby. She has good taste!

And... so does The Count!

At the hotel we went swimming. Well, Andrew was more of an observer. I can't believe how much he's grown since this picture was taken!

Cameron must have been a fish in a life. He's giddy and fearless in the pool, which terrifies me and Nathaniel. Hey- maybe he'll be the next michael phelps?!

Who would have thought that mr. bruiser would be so cautious. It seems to be the theme that he is careful when his own well-being is at stake, just not so careful with others. ;) He stuck to the stairs the whole time and didn't even like to be carried into deeper water.

The site where William acquired his black eye. Must be the summer for them because Cameron just got one this week too. Boys!

Little love of mine. There were pictures of me... but they had me in swimwear. Not good. Not good at all.

"aminals"

We've had a couple animal outings. We went first several weeks ago to the Frankfurt Zoo and then last weekend we went to the little zoo in the park behind our house. It was great! We bought a 1/2 year pass for the entire family for 15 Euro. Can't get better than that.

Frankfurt zoo: Cameron checking out his growth potential.

Cameron was fearless in this petting area. William was much more cautious, while C was practically ready to hop on and ride one. It is funny because last weekend at the zoo near us the goats were behind a fence, but would eat food off your hand through it. Cameron was terrified and William was the daring one. Go figure.

I had never seen one of these things before!

Cute little monkey family. If there were two more baby monkeys, it'd be us!

Holy Hippo. These things could eat a VW Bug. They're huge!


--park behind our house--

Feeding the ducks, fish, and resident turtle of the little pond at the park. Here actually, the boys are picking up rocks. I wouldn't let them throw them in the water, because I take issue with tricking the ducks into swimming over to us. The weird animal lover in me.

--our little resident zoo-

The shaggiest, homeliest looking donkey I've ever seen. Belongs in Santa Cruz!

Feeding the goats.

Home Sweet Home

We moved into our home a week ago. We got the internet yesterday, and have been making the most of it! We're still waiting for the majority of our things to get here, but you'd be surprised how we've managed to make our little amount of stuff fill a 4-bedroom house. We are very happy with our home. There is plenty of parking for our 2 cars (parking in Europe is always an issue to consider), it's close (enough) to N's work, and it is a quick 10-min walk to an awesome park complete with a petting zoo and a pond with ducks. We're doing great, same as ever, though with a little less sleep than we were getting before we packed out of Maryland. The only noticeable differences are: --William roaming around 1/2 or completely naked. Potty training. Neither William nor I are fans of the process, but it must be done. -- Cameron with any number of new bruises or scrapes on his face and nose thanks to our tile floor. Yesterday I believe it was a WWF move by William that helped to give C a goose egg. -- Andrew suddenly looks like... ME. Woah. Didn't see that one coming. It's somehow very satisfying to have at least one of my children actually look like they belong to their mother. :) He turned 5-months-old a few days ago, and he's still our Angel baby, the joy of our lives.

W sitting in our kitchen window watching our 'loaner furniture' being delivered.

Our Haus, is a very, very, very fine Haus.
Front door is to the left behind W, and the Kitchen is on the Right. It looks small, but it actually has a lot more cabinet space than my kitchen back home. It's a very typical Germany house, no carpet and open-back stairs. They terrified Cameron for almost the first whole week.

Holy cow.. we had a CRAZY heat wave out here. We were doing everything we could to stay cool in a country that doesn't do a/c. Popsicle, cold coke, lots of trips to the pool, and a couple of romps through the sprinklers. We even took a couple 'day trips' under the guise of seeing cool sights, but really, it was just so we could sit in the cool car for several hours.

The view out of our back door. The post that's just right of the center of the picture is not a light, it's actually holding a huge nest. That's the Petting Zoo.

When in Europe, do as the Europeans do.
At home, I'm not about to waste a swim diaper on playing in the sprinklers for 15 minutes. They can go naked. At the pool though, they're always covered. It does shock me how old the kids are at public pools in the buck. I'd say kids up to 6 or so. What the heck, just put a swim suit on that kid! *Can you see my boys tan lines? They definitely have their daddy's skin! lucky them.

Popsicle lips.

Yeah, I don't know what he's doing here. He's just a funny kid!

Our Happy baby. I love him so much.

alive and well

We've just been connected to the internet! Hoozah! There are many blog posts to come. For now, enjoy the beautiful pictures of my little monkeys and my angel baby, Andrew (5 mos old, yesterday!).

William & Cameron trying out the slide at the awesome playground behind our home.

middle child

Dear Cameron,

You and I need to start over today.

On our way back up to our hotel room after dropping off Daddy at work you refused to get off the elevator. My arms were full carrying Andrew. William darted off onto our top floor and you ... just sat there. I tried to get you, but the doors shut carrying us down to the basement to pick up the next customer. I was ticked, to say the least, and worrying about William up on our floor. As we finally made our way up towards our floor again I could hear him saying "mommy! mommy!" He was fine. I was mad. I picked you up by your upper arm and thrust you out onto the hall floor, left you there and went to open our door 10 feet away. When I looked back at you your sweet face showed me that you knew mommy was very mad at you, but you had absolutely no idea why. You were just so, so tired and wanted to be held, I'm sure. I'm sorry, baby.

Later mommy was busy nursing Andrew AND trying to help William get onto the potty. You came into the bathroom with your cup, probably to ask for more strawberries (your favorite food). You dropped your cup. It shattered. So did mommy's patience. I thrust you out of the bathroom, angry and hoping that none of us would find a shard in our foot. I know you didn't mean to. I know mommy was an idiot to give you a glass cup (SOON we'll have all our little-ones friendly dishes!). I'm so sorry, my sweet baby.

You've been so tired lately (we all have). Your life has been completely inconsistent for these past 7 weeks. You went from sleeping in your crib every night to sleeping in a different place every few days... the floor, closets, new big hotel beds, fold out couches. Really, even with your now-standard 5am wake up call-out to mom and dad, you've done amazing. It's tough being almost 2. I'm proud of you. Life will stabalize soon. You'll have your own bed again. Your mommy will stabilize soon too.

I promise to put down whatever I'm doing next time you bring me a book and demand me to "read it!" I will get you as many strawberries as you want (and change the resulting diapers). I hope to always have a bottle for you when you say "ba-ba, mommy!" I hope I never forget how adorable you are when we're at the pool (by far your favorite activity) and you float/crawl around and look up at me every 30 seconds and say, "I'm mimming, mommy!" And I commit to take more pictures-- of your beautiful eyes, of you dancing up on your toes, of you with your precious ba-ba and blanket, and of you 'mimming'.

You are my joy. I'll be more patient. I love you.

Love, Mommy

(Dear readers-- sorry if there are spelling errors. I depend heavily on spell-check, but it only wants to work in German right now. Not. Helpful.)