Here she is on her first day with her teacher.For some reason they moved Anne up to CTR a year early. We need to find out why. I need to get a picture of her with her teacher.
Jesus Wants Me For a Sun-BEAM!
Alicia is now officially a Sunbeam in church now. She has waited for this all year. She kept reminding me that "after Christmas I am going in Sunbeams".
Here she is on her first day with her teacher.
For some reason they moved Anne up to CTR a year early. We need to find out why. I need to get a picture of her with her teacher.
Here she is on her first day with her teacher.For some reason they moved Anne up to CTR a year early. We need to find out why. I need to get a picture of her with her teacher.
Only A Couple More to Go
A Bitter/Sweet thing happens around this time each year. My birthday! I get 1 year closer to the dreaded age of 30. Despite this, I always am so excited for my birthday. It is my day to do what I want, and I sooo need it. Jared and the family always make it a special time.
Jared and the girls started the day off with breakfast for me. Complete with chocolate, gifts and a smiley-face...just for me. We had homemade egg mcmuffins and hot chocolate. It was yummy, yummy. 
Jared even got me some beautiful roses. The ones with red tips were like the the ones in my wedding bouquet. But that is a whole other story. 
Because Ray is in the hospital (more details later) and Beate goes to visit him everyday we have postponed my other birthday celebrations. I want to go to the Temple with Jared and make a day of it and also have a get-together with our friends...without kids. I want fondue for my birthday dinner with the family. We decided to wait on that until Ray is home again and make it a double celebration.
Jared even got me some beautiful roses. The ones with red tips were like the the ones in my wedding bouquet. But that is a whole other story. I love jewelry, but it doesn't have to be expense...just pretty. This was from Jared and the girls. Ray and Beate's gift was a contribution to "Hammy". He is our piggy-bank for our trip to America in March.
Because Ray is in the hospital (more details later) and Beate goes to visit him everyday we have postponed my other birthday celebrations. I want to go to the Temple with Jared and make a day of it and also have a get-together with our friends...without kids. I want fondue for my birthday dinner with the family. We decided to wait on that until Ray is home again and make it a double celebration.I spent the afternoon with my friend, Sara. We did a little shopping and had lunch at a wonderful mexican restaraunt. We decided that we needed to do things like this more often. And we want to take our husbands to the restaraunt too. Just thinking about it is making me hungry.
Once I was home and Beate was back from visting Ray, Jared and I ordered some take-out and locked ourselves in our room for the evening. We rented "The Sorcorer's Apprentice" and really enjoyed it.
Jared's other gift for arrived yesterday. He bought me the 7th and final season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Our collection of that is now complete...so onto the next series. We are trying to collect as many series that we like as possible, so we and our kids don't need to watch tv and all the junk that goes comes along with the stuff we like. Anyone have any suggestions?
Anyway, it was a great birthday and loved not feeling obligated to do things. That is the best gift for me. I will post things on the rest of the celebrations when they happen.
Hyrum's Blessing
On the last Sunday in December we did Hyrum's baby blessing in the church. We wanted to do it while Richy was still here. Alot of our friends were gone with family for the holidays, but we still managed to fill the circle.
Here are all the men who participated in the blessing. Most of these men either watched Jared grow up or grew up with him.
We didn't do anything after, because of the weather, sickness and so many people being gone. But we did get family pictures.
If you look closely at my hand you can see me holding my glasses. That tells you a bit about how absent-minded I am at times right now...I didn't remember to put them where they couldn't be seen.
Here are all the men who participated in the blessing. Most of these men either watched Jared grow up or grew up with him.We didn't do anything after, because of the weather, sickness and so many people being gone. But we did get family pictures.
If you look closely at my hand you can see me holding my glasses. That tells you a bit about how absent-minded I am at times right now...I didn't remember to put them where they couldn't be seen.Christmas Celebrations
I don't have many pictures of Christmas Eve. We let the girls open a couple of presents, then sent them to bed, to wait for Santa to come. Then the adults opened our gifts.
We had Beate's brother, Oli, over again this year and it was so much fun. This is him leaving that evening with his stash. Jared got me a new camera and we got a huge piggy bank to put all our pretty pennies in towards our trip to Utah in March.
The annual Christmas picture on the stairs.
Uncle Richy was there with us too, thanks so some wonderful miracles. He took the girls around so they could get presents for all of us. They picked out the funnest gifts. Alicia picked out these fun tins for Gma and Gpa. Gma got a Disney princess one and Gpa got a Winnie the Pooh one. Anne picked out a fairness and manners book for her dad. Go figure!
Jared had to get his girls some Christmas pjs. Aren't they cute.
This is how Anne thinks you play a saxephone (?).
Uncle Oli gave the kids the cutest stuffed animals and gave us adult wonderful treats...yummy, yummy truffles.
Richy gave Hyrum this adorable elf outfit and he was soooo cute in it.
We had Beate's brother, Oli, over again this year and it was so much fun. This is him leaving that evening with his stash. Jared got me a new camera and we got a huge piggy bank to put all our pretty pennies in towards our trip to Utah in March.
The annual Christmas picture on the stairs.
Uncle Richy was there with us too, thanks so some wonderful miracles. He took the girls around so they could get presents for all of us. They picked out the funnest gifts. Alicia picked out these fun tins for Gma and Gpa. Gma got a Disney princess one and Gpa got a Winnie the Pooh one. Anne picked out a fairness and manners book for her dad. Go figure!
Jared had to get his girls some Christmas pjs. Aren't they cute.
This is how Anne thinks you play a saxephone (?).
Uncle Oli gave the kids the cutest stuffed animals and gave us adult wonderful treats...yummy, yummy truffles.
Richy gave Hyrum this adorable elf outfit and he was soooo cute in it.
Clarification
Natalie asked for more details about my last post. Here is what I copied from wikipedia about it.
In Germany, Nikolaus is usually celebrated on a small scale. Many children put a boot called Nikolaus-Stiefel (Nikolaus boot) outside the front door on the night of 5 December. St. Nicholas fills the boot with gifts and sweets overnight, and at the same time checks up on the children to see if they were good, polite and helpful the last year. If they were not, they will have a tree branch (Rute) in their boots instead. Sometimes a disguised Nikolaus also visits the children at school or in their homes and asks them if they have been good (sometimes ostensibly checking his golden book for their record), handing out presents on a per-behavior basis. This has become more lenient in recent decades.
In Germany, Nikolaus is usually celebrated on a small scale. Many children put a boot called Nikolaus-Stiefel (Nikolaus boot) outside the front door on the night of 5 December. St. Nicholas fills the boot with gifts and sweets overnight, and at the same time checks up on the children to see if they were good, polite and helpful the last year. If they were not, they will have a tree branch (Rute) in their boots instead. Sometimes a disguised Nikolaus also visits the children at school or in their homes and asks them if they have been good (sometimes ostensibly checking his golden book for their record), handing out presents on a per-behavior basis. This has become more lenient in recent decades.
St. Nikolaus Tag 2010
It's that time if year again for St. Nikolaus to make his visit.
The chocolates are my favorite chocolates in the world. It is soooo good.
The chocolates are my favorite chocolates in the world. It is soooo good.For Amy
Amy asked for more details on Hyrum's birth, so I am obliging you. Here is what Jared wrote to the families in an email the night he was born. It is abit long and may contain alittle too much info at times, but read it if you want to.
When we went to the doctor on tuesday morning, he informed us, that Kristin had dilated to a 2 and he was quite sure that the baby would come within the next week. This was not really the kind of news that Kristin and I had hoped for but it wasn’t exactly bad news either! So we just went home again hoping that it wouldn't be too much longer.
Throughout the entire day, we both felt that the time for the birth was getting closer and hoped that it wasn't just our impatience and desperation that caused these kind of feelings. Just to be sure and properly prepared, Kristin took a nap to gather all possible strength. After putting the girls to bed, we finally had a chance to lay down and to really talk to each other about the feelings. At that point, Jared leaned over and simply said: "Kristin, we are going to have this baby tonight! He had long enough!!" Several suggestions, like taking a walk or walking up and down the stairs were given by Jared but Kristin didn't seem to really like any of those - surprise! ;)
At about 9:30 pm, Kristin started having little contractions every once in a while. In the following hour, these little contractions became a little more intense but still didn't seem to justify any action yet. After having 3 very different experiences with the previous deliveries, we were not sure what to expect and when to belief that the time has really come!! Therefore it was decided by Jared to have Kristin take a bath to find out if these contractions would get more intense and more regular. At about 11:30 pm Kristin got in the bath and after 45 minutes, the contractions became much more intense and also more regular. She now had a contraction about every 6-7 minutes but was still hesitant because the intensity still didn't seem strong enough. After waiting another 35 minutes, the contractions were now coming every 3-4 minutes. Kristin was still not sure if they should head for the hospital, at which point Jared got up and said that we are definitely going - Now!
We got mom out of bed and told her that we were off to the hospital. Kristin went downstairs to get her favorite shirt and checked on Anne and Alicia a last time. Then proceeded to the phone to call her mother and tell her about the news. Jared in the meanwhile took a very short shower, got dressed and changed Katie's diaper before running downstairs and getting him and Kristin in the car. It was now 12:50 am and the contractions kept coming every 3-5 minutes. The trip to the hospital, which would usually take about 25-35 minutes (depending on traffic), took a total of 20 minutes including parking the car and walking into the hospital - new personal best! :)
When we got to there at about 1:10 am, a wonderful midwife named Sandra (she was the same one that showed us everything when we went to the hospital a couple days before to check it out) checked Kristin and told us that Kristin had now dilated to a 3-4 and it looked like the baby would come fairly soon. She set up a CTG, got us all registered and checked Kristin regularly. She was really nice and spoke good english which made it so much easier for Kristin to ask for anything she needed and to feel understood. Another 3 hours went by while we were walking up and down the hallways of the birthing area and Kristin laying down to try and relax her body. During that time, another lady was giving birth to her son and the midwife was pretty busy. Therefore we spent some time being alone and we used the chance for Jared to give Kristin a blessing. The blessing stated that everything will go according to the lords plan and that we did everything we could to be prepared. Now Kristin had to just trust in the lord and not worry too much about the time or how things would happen.
When the other birth was finished, we asked the midwife about the epidural. She said that she will prepare the blood samples while she set up the IV and would let us know as soon as this is ready so that Kristin could have it if she wanted it. At about 4:00 am, Kristin's contractions got really intense she asked the midwife again about the epidural. The midwife said that the blood was still not back but she could give Kristin some pain killers to reduce the intensity of the contractions. This helped a little but very soon, Kristin felt that the head of the baby was coming down very low and after our experience with Alicia, we asked the midwife to check Kristin's progress again. It was now about 4:30 am and Kristin had dilated to a 6. At this point, the midwife suggested to break Kristin's water with a little hook to help speed up the process. After this was done, she said that we would have a little more time and she would check on the blood work about the epidural so that we could start the procedure right away.
At about 4:55 am, Kristin started to get that wild look in her eyes at which point Jared got the midwife to check Kristin again. She had now dilated to a 9 and the midwife called the doctor and started to get the room ready expecting it to take just little bit longer. All of the sudden, Kristin said that she needs to push! The midwife told us that Kristin needed to switch from her bed to the birthing bed and tried to convince her to fight against the desire to push. When Kristin got over to the birthing bed, she could not hold it back any longer. She had to push. It took a total of 8 minutes and Kristin had to push maybe 6-8 times when the baby was already out. Our little Hyrum was born. When the doctor walked in, the baby had already come out.
The doctor and the midwife were completely amazed at how fast it all went. They checked Kristin and the baby and everything was just fine. Kristin had ripped just a little during the birth and the doctor had to do 2 stitches. Other than that, everything just went beautifully. The doctor repeated several times, that it was unbelievable how fast the little boy came. We were able to spend the next 2 hours resting, talking and holding our newest sweet little addition to our family. We took the chance to say a prayer of thanks to our Heavenly Father since everything had gone so wonderfully and we felt extremely blessed. After that, our little boy was measured, checked, bathed and fed before the nurses came to take us to Kristin's room. After getting the room ready, Kristin got to eat some breakfast and Jared got to take Hyrum to the changing room in order to get his instructions from the nurses on how to change and dress a baby. When they found out that it was our 4th child however, the nurse left and got two students who were studying to become nurses to just watch and learn. It was fun.
After all that, it was time to get some rest. Jared went home and Kristin tried to get some sleep. It was a very special experience and looking back, the hand of the Lord could be seen in every detail as He guided us through this miracle of life.
When we went to the doctor on tuesday morning, he informed us, that Kristin had dilated to a 2 and he was quite sure that the baby would come within the next week. This was not really the kind of news that Kristin and I had hoped for but it wasn’t exactly bad news either! So we just went home again hoping that it wouldn't be too much longer.
Throughout the entire day, we both felt that the time for the birth was getting closer and hoped that it wasn't just our impatience and desperation that caused these kind of feelings. Just to be sure and properly prepared, Kristin took a nap to gather all possible strength. After putting the girls to bed, we finally had a chance to lay down and to really talk to each other about the feelings. At that point, Jared leaned over and simply said: "Kristin, we are going to have this baby tonight! He had long enough!!" Several suggestions, like taking a walk or walking up and down the stairs were given by Jared but Kristin didn't seem to really like any of those - surprise! ;)
At about 9:30 pm, Kristin started having little contractions every once in a while. In the following hour, these little contractions became a little more intense but still didn't seem to justify any action yet. After having 3 very different experiences with the previous deliveries, we were not sure what to expect and when to belief that the time has really come!! Therefore it was decided by Jared to have Kristin take a bath to find out if these contractions would get more intense and more regular. At about 11:30 pm Kristin got in the bath and after 45 minutes, the contractions became much more intense and also more regular. She now had a contraction about every 6-7 minutes but was still hesitant because the intensity still didn't seem strong enough. After waiting another 35 minutes, the contractions were now coming every 3-4 minutes. Kristin was still not sure if they should head for the hospital, at which point Jared got up and said that we are definitely going - Now!
We got mom out of bed and told her that we were off to the hospital. Kristin went downstairs to get her favorite shirt and checked on Anne and Alicia a last time. Then proceeded to the phone to call her mother and tell her about the news. Jared in the meanwhile took a very short shower, got dressed and changed Katie's diaper before running downstairs and getting him and Kristin in the car. It was now 12:50 am and the contractions kept coming every 3-5 minutes. The trip to the hospital, which would usually take about 25-35 minutes (depending on traffic), took a total of 20 minutes including parking the car and walking into the hospital - new personal best! :)
When we got to there at about 1:10 am, a wonderful midwife named Sandra (she was the same one that showed us everything when we went to the hospital a couple days before to check it out) checked Kristin and told us that Kristin had now dilated to a 3-4 and it looked like the baby would come fairly soon. She set up a CTG, got us all registered and checked Kristin regularly. She was really nice and spoke good english which made it so much easier for Kristin to ask for anything she needed and to feel understood. Another 3 hours went by while we were walking up and down the hallways of the birthing area and Kristin laying down to try and relax her body. During that time, another lady was giving birth to her son and the midwife was pretty busy. Therefore we spent some time being alone and we used the chance for Jared to give Kristin a blessing. The blessing stated that everything will go according to the lords plan and that we did everything we could to be prepared. Now Kristin had to just trust in the lord and not worry too much about the time or how things would happen.
When the other birth was finished, we asked the midwife about the epidural. She said that she will prepare the blood samples while she set up the IV and would let us know as soon as this is ready so that Kristin could have it if she wanted it. At about 4:00 am, Kristin's contractions got really intense she asked the midwife again about the epidural. The midwife said that the blood was still not back but she could give Kristin some pain killers to reduce the intensity of the contractions. This helped a little but very soon, Kristin felt that the head of the baby was coming down very low and after our experience with Alicia, we asked the midwife to check Kristin's progress again. It was now about 4:30 am and Kristin had dilated to a 6. At this point, the midwife suggested to break Kristin's water with a little hook to help speed up the process. After this was done, she said that we would have a little more time and she would check on the blood work about the epidural so that we could start the procedure right away.
At about 4:55 am, Kristin started to get that wild look in her eyes at which point Jared got the midwife to check Kristin again. She had now dilated to a 9 and the midwife called the doctor and started to get the room ready expecting it to take just little bit longer. All of the sudden, Kristin said that she needs to push! The midwife told us that Kristin needed to switch from her bed to the birthing bed and tried to convince her to fight against the desire to push. When Kristin got over to the birthing bed, she could not hold it back any longer. She had to push. It took a total of 8 minutes and Kristin had to push maybe 6-8 times when the baby was already out. Our little Hyrum was born. When the doctor walked in, the baby had already come out.
The doctor and the midwife were completely amazed at how fast it all went. They checked Kristin and the baby and everything was just fine. Kristin had ripped just a little during the birth and the doctor had to do 2 stitches. Other than that, everything just went beautifully. The doctor repeated several times, that it was unbelievable how fast the little boy came. We were able to spend the next 2 hours resting, talking and holding our newest sweet little addition to our family. We took the chance to say a prayer of thanks to our Heavenly Father since everything had gone so wonderfully and we felt extremely blessed. After that, our little boy was measured, checked, bathed and fed before the nurses came to take us to Kristin's room. After getting the room ready, Kristin got to eat some breakfast and Jared got to take Hyrum to the changing room in order to get his instructions from the nurses on how to change and dress a baby. When they found out that it was our 4th child however, the nurse left and got two students who were studying to become nurses to just watch and learn. It was fun.
After all that, it was time to get some rest. Jared went home and Kristin tried to get some sleep. It was a very special experience and looking back, the hand of the Lord could be seen in every detail as He guided us through this miracle of life.
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