Signs and Pumpkins

I thought you all would like to see the pictures of us making Uncle Robby's sign.  I drew the letters and Anne and Alicia cut them out.

 Katie just did some random cutting.  That is what Bahnka used to make her likeness on the sign.

 Do you notice the backwards "L" that Bahnka mistakenly made?

The FHE after Robby came home he and Bahnka carved pumpkins with the kids.

 Anne and Alicia were a bit hesitant about the innards of the pumpkin, but Katie just dived right in.

 I call this one Frieda, notice the earrings (that was the girls' idea).  Jared thinks it should be a boy pirate, but I think pirates only have 1 earring.

And this is Günther.  He is bit confused about whether boys should wear eyeliner or not.

More Congratulations!!!!

My baby sister, Melly, is getting married.  I still call her my baby even though she is all grown up. 

Have a wonderful day on Saturday!!!!  Chris we are happy to have you in the family.

He's Home!!!

Uncle Robby came home from his mission on Saturday.  The girls have been so excited.  Of course, we all have.  He was supposed to make him home on Friday, but he missed his connecting flight in New York, so he got a day in New York City.  Lucky guy!!!

 We had the oh-so-healthy McDonald's cheeseburger for lunch.  That is Anne holding the sign. We had lots of friends there too.  This kid is so loved.

 Alicia told her daddy what the sign was supposed to say, so that is what it says. We made if for FHE.  The girls drew pictures for us to put on there.  Bahnka did a little head of Katie from some of her scraps.  Anne and Alicia cut out the letters.  Bahnka was in charge of putting the glue on the letters.  If you look close you can see that he flubbed on a couple.  It gave us all a good laugh.  People at the airport kept stopping to look at the sign.  They all loved it and some even noticed the wrong letters.

 Uncle Richy got to watch it all from skype on Jared's iphone.

Robby got to meet Hyrum for the first time.  Katie was a little hesitant about it, but she is quickly warming up to him.  We are excited to have Robby home. Life is going to get even more interesting and fun.

Sweet Things

 He recognizes the camera now.  This is his new smile.  He scrunches up his face and it is so cute.

 We had lunch after churhc with some friends.  There was a dog there.  Katie being the animal lover that she is, she was soooooo excited.  She followed that dog everywhere and couldn't get enough of it. The dog was so patient with her.  Katie had no hesitation about petting it. In this picture she is shaking her finger at the doggy telling it "no no" about something.

We celebrated both Gma and Bahnka's birthdays.  They were simple quite celebrations, but we have a great time no matter what we are doing.

More History

This may be boring to some, but fascinating to me, so skip this is you get bored.

Jared and I had some meetings for church one evening but Jared also had a meeting for work earlier.  So we went in early together.  We hadn't had lunch yet, so Jared dropped me off at the Burger King next to where is meeting was. I got something to eat and sat there and read.  I got to read for 2 hours without chaos, children needing something and in peace. It was heavenly!!!!!  After his meeting we left and did some winter shopping for the kids and just loved the time together, then headed to our meetings.  It was simple but wonderful and so refreshing.

Anyway, I thought you all might find this Burger King interesting.  I bet all you in America have never seen a Burger like this before.  It is in a building that Hitler had built as part of the rally grounds I have mentioned earlier.  Those black things are massive doors.  I need to read the plaque to find out what this building was intended for.

 I have passed this building so many times, but had never noticed that you can still see where the Nazi emblem was on the building.  I love how history is so tangible here.  All this things I have learned about my whole life I am seeing first hand and I am talking to people who experienced them personally.  What an experience.

Unbelievable

1 broken washer, 2 adults, 6 kids  and 7 baskets of laundry.  And one more week before it is fixed.

German Unification Day

Last Monday as we all know was October 3rd.  In Germany this is a national holiday celebrating the unification of East and West Germany over 20 years ago.  We had a fun day with our friends.

The original idea was to go to the zoo.  But when we got there the lines were huge at the entrance and we used our common sense and decided to do something else.  There is an awesome park close to our home that I have been dying to take the kids too.  It is right by a pond and every weekend there is a flea market across the pond.  There are benches everywhere and the play equipement is so fun.  So we went there.

 Katie was deteremined to get up there.  I didn't know if she would make it but she did.

 And came back down again.

 This is the view from the park.  It is bad quality because it is from Jared's iphone and it is zoomed.  On the hill you can see a mideval fortress.

His daddy did that. He is so mature.  But his grandpa tried to lay him down in the sand and cover all of him but his head.  Luckily, my boy wouldn't put up with that.  We spent several hours at that park and had a lot of fun.  It was really relaxing too.