Easter

Nathaniel picked out these outfits for the boys. Impressive, right? They're so cute! This picture was taken at a ward potluck at the park behind our house. It was so much fun!
Easter was a pretty low-key day for us. We realized W had a fever (and later a pretty nasty stomach bug) about an hour after he woke up. He spent the next 12 hours sleeping on the couch. N took Cameron to church and I stayed home with sick boy and a napping Andrew. It was a pretty peaceful way to spend my last day being 29!

Easter Eggs!

Our friend Andrea invited the boys and I over to color Easter eggs! I'm so glad she did because I might not have had the motivation to do it myself. ;)

Andrew testing out how non-toxic the dyes really are...

Andrea and little Andrew

I LOVE how rich the colors are!

Park

Last week the weather was SO beautiful! To shake up our evenings I'd put the boys in their pjs and head out for a walk or to the little park right by our house (the one without sand!). I LOVE Spring!

My William had a rough couple days at school last week. One day he thought he was saving his friend from some rough kids (they were really just playing a game) and then four boys rounded and turned on him. Lots of shaking of his shoulders. Poor W was pretty shaken up. I kept him home for a day to recoup and the next day when he went back he got whacked in the face by something/someone (not related to the first indecent... just a toddler mishap on the playground). He had a decent shiner that is finally fading now. Ahh, my little bruiser. Hopefully these experiences will help you to maybe be a bit more gentle with others yourself!

Cameron-- always in motion!

This baby is the CUTEST thing you'll ever see. Love him. Especially when he's strapped into something. The kid is also the busiest thing you'll ever see!

Happy Birthday, Felicity!

How can you not love this woman??

Happy 30th, my dear Felicity! I'm looking forward to the next 30 with you!

--Love, Nathaniel

Barrelli's Circus

So..... Did I say we weren't going to go to another circus for a while?? What I meant was that we weren't going to go to another Dog & Pony type circus (minus the dogs) for a while. Ahem. Right. So. A sweet friend told me that "the biggest circus in Europe" was in town and having a family day with discounted tickets. She made it so easy for me (buying advance tickets, holding a place in line to assure ringside seats) that I couldn't say no! Even with Nathaniel unable to join us, it was too tempting to pass up. I can't deny it. I love a circus!

As usual, my favorite were the acrobat women up in the air on a trapeze or these awesome long straps of fabric. This woman twisted and flipped up and down them. It was amazing. Even though this was my favorite-- a close second were the fire dancers:

He even ran the torches up and down his arms and feet and extinguished the torches in his mouth! Yikes.
Has anyone else read InkHeart? As soon as I saw this guy I immediately thought of Dustfinger.

Limbo with fire anyone? They went all the way down to the bottom level.

Do you see how close those people are to the ring?? That's I could have reached out and touched any number of animals. I even had to close my eyes as the horses galloped around because of the dust they kicked up. A little bit terrifying and a lot amazing. This would never fly in the States... too much liability. That's why I love it here! Another difference from home: not a single heckler or PITA audience member either. Lovely!

When this trainer walked in the ring one tiger went right up to him and pinned him next to the wall rubbing against his legs...The tigers were like kittens with this guy.

Super weird position to see a horse in!

This circus was night and day different from the other one. There was a live band, a little sub-plot going on to distract from transitions between acts, many grown professionals, and only one child performer- a little girl (the owners 5 year old granddaughter). It all was very wity and entertaining (even though I didn't understand a spoken word, still funny!). More pictures for the intrigued are here.

The Big Top

A couple weekends ago we saw signs for a local circus. It's so funny-- at home they have two HUGE circuses that make the national rounds, but here there are a lot of little mom n' pop type circuses that just travel around from town to town in their trailers. It was a fun experience! A special thanks to grandma Julie who played with baby Andrew at home so the big boys could have our full attention.

I think the whole tent was about 1/2 the size of a basketball court. We felt bad-- there was a small turnout. Probably fewer than 20 people. Even though it was small, a LOT of work went into this thing!

Strong. Chin.
The whole show was performed either by this guy^ (who we assume is the dad) or by one of the four kids. The mom was at the mic introducing acts and saying "voila!" EVERY time they did a stunt.

The boys were pretty engaged by the show-- until W saw those stupid light-up toys at the concession stand behind us. Half of the circus he was asking us for one. Poor kid. The girl working the stand finally just put them away! haha.

Brave kid!

Both boys did flips over ponies and then a horse. I love this kid's expression!

Intermission time visiting the animals.

Same brave kid!

This act was my favorite.
It was fun, but we're not in a rush to go back to the circus anytime soon... I live with enough monkeys as it is to have my fill of wild animals every day. ;)

Nuremberg

When my mom and Annie were in town we celebrated N's birthday by taking a day trip to Nuremberg. Not your typical "happy birthday" kind of place to go, given it's history, but hey- we just take day trips as they're available.


I know. We're adorable.

William wanted to get in on the action and came up to give me several kisses. :)

This is the Nuremberg court house. After WWII Russia, France, England and the US joined forces at this courthouse to bring to trial the 22 (I think) top Nazi leaders.

Courtroom 106, where the trial took place.

I love this.

A break from the heavy stuff-- we visited the town castle. It's beautiful! We didn't go on the tour because it was only offered in German and our kids aren't really the quiet/listening kind. We did take William up the tower while my mom stayed down with the younger sleeping brothers.

I can't help it-- I always want to bust out "Little town, such a quiet village...." when I look at a scene like this, even though it's far from a tiny or quiet town.

Grandma Elizabeth at the Zeppelin Stadium. This stadium was hitler's rally-point of sorts. It's largely still in tact. There is quite a bit of footage available of the rallies that took place here.

After the war.
See that little door above? My little boys are dancing in front of it in the next picture:

Even though I know they won't really have memories of these places, I'm so grateful that we have this opportunity to be here and to be able visit these pieces of history that so drastically shaped our world.

My sweet little Cameron on 'Hitler's platform'. As the guy at the museum said, "You can stand exactly where that bastard stood". True and true. It was surreal.

A gift from Cameron.

1, 2, 3...

For three weeks each year, my boys ages run right in a row. This year I made them shirts to wear for the occasion. The day before William's 4th birthday Annie and I took hundreds of pictures of them trying to get a decent one-- and we didn't get any. haha! They're still fun, though. My mom had the kids enchanted, so in the few they're actually looking in the same direction or smiling/laughing, they're looking at Grandma Elizabeth.

I love these silly monkey boys. The pictures of C and W they're doing the actions to a song. Oh well!

Next time I guess I'll just give the camera to my mom...

Sick

Now that the sun shines here again, I'm HOPING that the cold of winter will take all the germs that have been invading my house with it. Cameron had a severe ear infection, then as he was recovering from that Andrew got RSV. Just as Andrew was finally on the mend William woke up... unable to keep anything down. Kinda sad, but he's so sweet when he's sick. He camped out on the couch for about 8 hours then snapped out of it. Just a quick bug, I guess... thankfully.

I love this picture Annie took. It looks like Andrew has a huge bun on top of his head. haha!

Playing outside first thing in the morning. I LOVE spring!

I won't have many more pictures like this... baby boy is up and walking these days.

Sick boy in his favored sick spot.
The tree that you can see out the window behind him had the most beautiful blossoms: