I say'd that

I know there are so many more things I'm forgetting right now, but at least I've written down a few...

Over the Spring/Summer 2016:

One of Carter's first "sentences" or combination of words:

"Mommy!  Carcar toot.  Smell. (sniff, sniff).  Peeyew!"

Maddie:

"Mommy, some day, God will give us a baby and put it in your belly.  Then it will grow and grow and grow and then it will come out of your MOUTH!!!!!!"

"When I get big, like maybe 10 years old, I can have a boyfriend.  Then I can get married."

"Can I go to the doctor with you when the baby is ready to come out? ...Now tell me about the magic trick that the doctor does to get the baby out of your belly."

"Whoa, you're going fast, Mommy.  Is this the high road?"  (while we were driving somewhere...she meant high way haha)

Over the Fall/Winter 2016-17:

Maddie:

"Carter!!!! Get out!!!! Give me privacy!!!" (Maddie while sitting on the toilet)
"Honey, he is just curious.  You don't need to get so upset." -me
"What does 'curious' mean?" - Maddie
"It means you want to know about things, how things work, why they work a certain way.  You have been very curious lately about what certain words mean." -me
"Oh. I'm curious, too.  I'm curious about how machines work." -Maddie

"I love you all the way to the earth!!!!!"

"Mommy, did you know that some people have fat bellies?  But we don't tell them that."

"Mommy, when I go to heaven, will it be lonely?  Only your Nanny and God will be there."

"But I don't want to go to beeeeeeed" (every.single.night.)

"Well, Mommy.  I beleeb God.  When I turn 100,000 and I'm old, I will go to earth."  (she always gets earth and heaven mixed up)

Carter:

As he hugs and kisses my belly, "The baby loves me."  (he does/says this often these days)

"There's ONLY ONE."  (he says this ALL the time while pointing to my belly...probably because Maddie keeps saying she wants two to come out)

Lastly, here's a story I need to write down.  Lately, they've been so good about playing together.  Of course, they fight over sharing or who got it first or who goes first.  But in general, they play throughout the day for up to an hour sometimes just on their own with minimal interaction from me.  For some reason, this happens mainly on regular days when it's just me at home with them.  Over the weekend, they rarely play together without getting fussy or asking us to play with them.  It's like they know there are two adults at home and at least one should be free to play.  Anyways.  They ran upstairs laughing and wanting to play doctor.  I heard them run to our room then scurry back to Carter's room and shut Carter's door.  First red flag.  Then it got quiet.  Second red flag.  I was in the middle of something-probably putting my feet up while eating bon bons and watching Oprah (aka washing another dirty dish or emptying the dishwasher or taking out trash or who knows what), so I waited maybe 5 minutes until I finished.  Then I tip toed upstairs and put my ear to Carter's door.  It sounded like they were playing really well together.  I opened the door and inhaled what felt like the first breath you take inside a eucalyptus steam room.  They had a container of Vicks vapor rub almost emptied (which was almost full five minutes prior) and all their 100 stuffed animals laying on the floor.  "What are you doing?" I said in my most calm but about to explode motherly voice.  "We're playing doctor, mommy!" she said, "YEAH!" said Carter.  Then I look behind Carter's rocking chair and see that Maddie's bag of make up was open (little girl make up but it's actual real make up...which is kept in our bathroom in a high cabinet).  Once we clean up the stuffed animals off the floor, I see that there's different bright shades of eye shadow in the rug around the room.  Not only did the animals have Vick's all over their faces, but Maddie and Carter had a good dose of it on their arms, necks, cheeks, and hands.  After sternly asking them to clean up, then washing them up, I spent at least an hour scrubbing the rug with different cleaners to get out the hot pink and blue mixture of eye shadow and Vick's and lip gloss.  Funny now, not funny in the moment.  Little stinkers.

How to have an easy princess birthday party

First, ask grandparents to come visit for a couple weeks.

Second, have it outside.

Third, add lots of pink, balloons, princess skirts, snacks, and a birthday cake.  Don't forget the "put your own tattoos on" station and the piñata.  An added bonus: have the husband blow bubbles on the lawn.  Let all the kids leave just before they come down from their sugar high.

Here are a bunch of pictures from our little four year old's princess birthday party.  She dressed as Belle, her favorite Disney princess (even though she has not seen the movie and to my surprise, since her favorite colors do not usually include yellow).

Madison turns 4!

Our little girl got a little bigger.  She turned FOUR this September.  I just can't believe how fast she is growing.  She is our firecracker.  She is still as courageous as ever, but cautious and smart now.  She is strong, never stopping, energetic, and seeks adventure.  She has said it to me before (who knows where she got this), "I do what I want."  With that, as you can imagine, we pray for patience and deal with discipline on a daily basis with this sweet girl.  I think one of my biggest prayers is to teach her well without crushing her God-given spirit.  She is unpredictable and a little all over the board with her emotions at some points.  I attribute that mostly to her age, trying to learn how to regulate her emotions and learn how to control them.  Despite what you'd expect from a girl with her personality, she is very shy.  It has been so fun to watch her grow since having started preschool.  I didn't see her speak to her teachers for the first 3 weeks.  Now, she has good friends and always has a buddy while at school.  I believe she's a natural, quiet leader.  There have been a couple times when she's asked me, "Why do they want to do what I'm doing?" At the same time, in many situations, she is quick to follow others (like if someone at the park isn't wearing a coat or shoes, she quickly throws hers off...or if her class mate is drawing the bear holding lollipops, she draws that too).

Easter 2016

Easter last year in Bulach, Switzerland.  Last year, all we did for Easter was dress up, take forced photos of the kids on our patio, and go to church in the morning.

Easter this year in Portland, Oregon.  This year, I managed to string up some balloons, fill their Easter baskets, we went to church, and we even had an egg hunt later in the day when the weather cooperated.  The "egg hunt" at our house was more just hiding eggs over and over again in the same places and the kids squealing every time they found them.  I'm sure it won't be like that for long, especially since the eggs were empty after the first finding.

We also drove a few minutes to Wilsonville for a public Easter egg hunt on Saturday.  It was our first time doing one of those.  Lots of chaos with tons of kids and candy, but the kids had a great time, with the exception of Carter meeting the Easter bunny.  He still remembers it.

Maddie turns 3 years old!

Our baby girl turned THREE on September 15th, 2015.  This was our first official birthday party.  I had big plans and it went as fine as it could go with a bunch of toddlers over at our apartment while we were living in Bulach.

On her actual birthday, we gave her a new pedal bike, unisex color of course because the guy at the store convinced us, but we added the pink Barbie basket knowing that she'd asking about pink and purple.  She'd been asking for a pedal bike just like her friend, Eyra (in the picture below with the white hair bow).

We had decorate your own cupcake (but only enough for the kids because of course, I dropped a dozen cupcakes on the floor right before the party while pulling them out of our tiny Swiss oven.  We had party favor bags with candy and cool straws, some decorations, and we grilled kebabs outside.  The weather was cool but fine.  Something I'll never forget: the beef that I bought for the kebabs was stew meat.  I blame it on not being able to read the German in the meat section.  At least we had chicken, too!

Maddie was so excited about her birthday party.  She was just old enough to really get it.  It was so special.

Lots of dear friends that we miss.

Maddie at three years old:

She loves books and stories.  She can "read" all of Go Dog Go.  She is much better in the carseat.  But she still doesn't like to be held down to something for very long.  It's better in the stroller, too, but still a struggle to sit for the entirety of a 30 minute walk or run.  She is super active.  We went on a 4 mile hike the other day, straight up a mountain for 2 miles, then back down.  She ran/jogged (literally) for the first 1.5 miles up hill.  Then she had me carry her because she wore herself out.  She loves McDonalds.  She loves spending time with her friends.  I'm thinking she's an extrovert.  But the funny thing is, she acts shy at first, slowly coming to life when around her peers.  She lights up when she finds a buddy or a friend to share joy with.  She is fully potty trained (as of late March 2015) and she's never had an accident at night.  She loves riding her balance bike, but is especially excited about having a pedal bike.  She still loves climbing and basically anything that is physically challenging like a balance beam, swinging on a swing while standing up, or going across the high rope at our favorite park in Bulach.  She and Carter are playing more and more together as he grows up.  She is a great eater as long as she is distracted (think TV show).  She will eat anything you give her if she has something to watch.  If she's just sitting at the table with no show on, I can't get her to sit still long enough to take more than a couple bites.  She'll eventually finish, just much slower.  Very rarely will she come to me saying, "I'm hungry" because she's just too busy for that.  She absolutely loves arts and crafts.  We paint, color, draw, glue, and cut nearly every day.  She also loves to bake with me, especially the part when I let her lick or eat any uncooked dough.  She is great about staying in her bed when we put her down at night now.  She hardly ever gets out of bed but she does play with her flashlight and sing songs until she passes out.  She sleeps all night.  She still doesn't have much of an opinion when it comes to clothes.  Every now and then, she'll insist on wearing a dress or fancy shoes, but most days, she wears whatever I put on her.  She loves being outside hiking, exploring, and finding treasures like leaves or rocks.  She's really starting to play pretend a lot more which I love to see.  Lately she likes to "take trips to China" in her laundry basket "boat" with her Dora backpack all packed with "necessary" items.  She loves the shows "Wishenpoof" and "Creative Galaxy" on Amazon.  Her favorite colors are "pink and purple all day" and if asked who her best friends are, she'd say Eyra, Tyler, and Dean.  She really loves trampolines so I think there may be one in our future.

Waldspielgruppe (Forest-play-group)

Wald=forest
Spiel=play
Gruppe=group

I think I miss waldspielgruppe more than Maddie does.  I don't want to forget any detail.  What an amazing experience it was and I hope to keep these memories close.  I've even toyed with the idea of somehow creating something similar here.  Maybe when I have more time on my hands.

Here are a few pictures of what we did every Thursday morning, 9-11:30am, in the tiny town of Egetswil ("Egg-ets-veel").

All the parents parked at this intersection of gravel farm road at the top of a little village on a hill of farm land.  Once everyone arrived, we stood in a circle, held hands, and sang a welcoming song.  Then the parents left and the kids followed their teacher with all their backpacks piled in a wagon that she pulled.  They walked all the way up to those woods.  Maybe it's about 1/4 mile or a little more?  Not sure.

Almost there.  You can see our white car.  They walked by themselves in all their gear, in the snow, rain, and sun.

Just inside the trees, they had set up "camp" with tree stumps for chairs and a tarp draped and hung like a tent.  They even had a place to hang their backpacks and a fort that they built with sticks.

They played.  They built a fire almost every week unless it was a warmer day.  When they build a fire, they all collect sticks, they even have little hand saws to "help" cut wood.  They had a snack, usually sausage or soup on the fire, apples, carrots, and juice or water.

While up there, they do a variety of things.  The boys usually gather with some trucks on a big dirt pile.  The girls play in the fort.  The teacher may read to them about different trees/leaves/bugs native to the area and they will go on a treasure hunt looking for some.  Then they will come back together, laying all their findings out and trying to identify them.  She may read them a book.  They may try to make different instruments from things they find in the forest.  She brings some different noise makers that they play with.  They sing songs.  They run around and jump on the stumps, dig in the dirt, go to the bathroom behind a tree, and just run around together.

While one teacher cleans up and organizes, the other reads to the kids.

Running back down the path to greet parents was always exciting.

About halfway down to the cars, there's a fork in the road and they always stop to get everyone caught up, sing a song, then continue.

The best part: kids can get as dirty as they want and do all the things we typically say "no" to which is amazing.

Once all the parents and children were together, we held hands again singing a song, thanking the forest and singing goodbye to everyone.

This is what childhood should be like...building forts, being outside, exploring, given responsibilities like helping to gather wood for the fire, at just 3-4 years old.  It's a great mixture of fun, freedom, and responsibility in a group setting.  Maybe I need to start a waldspielgruppe here.