We were invited to our friend Rose's 3rd birthday brunch on Saturday. Jonas wasn't quite sure what to think of his hat.
Ezra was decidedly not thrilled with his hat.

Back yard boo-boo.

Jonas has had some really throaty laughs in the last few days. It's been cracking us up. These videos do not do it justice of course. I try to be as sneaky as possible, but they always seem to know when I've got the camera out.

Mike and I took advantage of Parent's Night Out at a local church. We had talked about what we would do, but neither of us had any wonderful ideas. I didn't want us to waste time deciding after we dropped them off, so I took it upon myself to make reservations. Mike was totally annoyed that I was taking pictures. Can you tell? :)
A friend recommended a German steakhouse about 25 min north of where we live. It was fabulous!
I'm not super huge on steak, but I appreciate a good one. Since meat is one of the only things that is completely safe on the new "diet", I've been eating a lot more of it lately. This is the one I ordered. It comes covered in carmelized onions, mushrooms, and cheese (except no cheese for Erin--boo!). Served with a mountain of french fries of course. Mike got his plain (surprise, surprise) with some garlic butter on it.
This was outside the restaurant.
It was really nice to be out together...alone. But we did end up picking the kids up early. Baby steps... Hopefully, we can do this more often and I will get more comfortable leaving the boys.
Sorry the video is so short. Ezra wasn't really cooperating. He knew I was filming, so he just wanted to push Jonas really quick and then run back over to me to watch himself in the video.

Today was the best day in Germany so far! At least as far as the weather goes. We spent most of the day outside.

Hurray for the internet being back to normal (after almost 3 weeks)! I have several videos and lot of pics to upload. The videos are a couple of weeks old, but the pics are from today and yesterday. Yesterday was Jonas 9 month birthday. He weighs 20 lbs.

Today, Ezra is 2 yrs and 1 month.

Ezra and his cheesey smile.>

We learned last Friday that Ezra has fluid in his ears again, and will need undergo surgery to put tubes in. Ezra had fluid in his ears (we know for sure) from about 13-16 months, but has possibly had fluid more often or for longer periods of time than we realize. He never shows an pain or tugging at his ears and his balance is fine, so we never know when he's having the problem. At his 2 yr check up, we found out that his speech is a little delayed. He says lots of words, but many of them don't sound anything like they should. They will also test his hearing when he's under anesthesia to see if there's any actual hearing loss. Please pray that the anesthesia and surgery goes well, and that his hearing is fine. His surgery is scheduled for the 25th.

This one is really dark. I was trying to take it with his name behind him, but the window made the lighting difficult. The letters are a little crooked right now...>

The first video was when was playing with Jonas. They have a bus that sings a song and lights up. He was loving it and laughing a lot, but I think he was mad that I stopped playing with him to go get the camera, because he was not nearly as amused once I started filming. I added it though, because toward the end when I turn the camera on Ezra, he smiles and squints in anticipation of the flash (even though it was the video and not the camera) and I thought that was really funny.

The second video is mostly for the grandparen'ts benefit. It's Ezra opening the ferry that Nana and Grandpa sent him for his birthday. He finally says "thank you" although, it doesn't sound anything like it should. Then he says "Nana". He also does the smile and squint thing at the end. Too funny.

I love, love, love this picture. Jonas was standing up and I had the camera out taking pics of him, and Ezra came over and looked at the camera with me. Then I told Ezra to go give Jonas a hug and I would take a picture of him. So he did! Love it!

This one is sweet too. I guess it would be too much to ask that both of them would look at the camera...

I would be remiss if I did not do an update on our recent doctor appointments. Our internet has been painfully slow for the past 2 weeks, so you will not be seeing any videos today. They take quite a while to upload when the internet is normal, so it would take years if I attempted to do any right now. Although, I do have several waiting to be uploaded.

It's been a while, so the first couple of pics are from our last snow--which was substantial. Three days this week, the sun was shining and it got up into the low 50s. Boy, was that nice! The pic of Jonas (at the very bottom) was when we were outside enjoying the sunshine. (8 1/2 mos) Now it's back to rain/sleet and upper 30s. Boo.

On one sunny day, I just could not justify staying in like we do every other day, so I decided to hike to the next town over in search of a playground I'd been told about. We never found it, but it took about 2 hours to get there and back. The towns here seem to be connected both by roads and by trails through the forests and fields. This picture was taken in a hilly field.

And now for the medical updates. Last week, Jonas went to the allergist. He tested positive for allergies to milk, eggs, and peanuts. The picture above is just a couple of minutes into the 15 minute test. There were 7 "scratches". The very large one in the middle is the positive histimine (the test to know if his skin would react properly). To the left of that one is the soy (which you can't see since there was no reacation) and then egg. Under the egg was milk (which got bigger as time passed) and under that was peanut. To the right of peanut (back toward the middle of his back) was the neg. histamine (which didn't react) and above that was wheat (which reacted just slightly. He was a big boy and didn't even cry during the scratches like the nurse warned me he might. Poor guy--he's so used to being uncomfortable that a tiny needle scratching his skin was no big thing. :(Since I'm still breastfeeding those things are off limits for me too. We are praying that he will grow out of these allergies, but for now, it's a big adjustment for our family. Even though Mike and Ezra don't have to participate, they pretty much are anyway because 1) It's torture to have stuff in the house that I can't eat, and 2) It's silly to have to cook two different meals for everyone. The Dr. said that the allergies may or may not be the cause of Jonas' eczema, but we might see some improvement in 3-4 weeks. Here's hoping!

Today, we saw the dermatologist. He gave us another kind of moisturizer to use 3-4 times a day like the other one, some more Desonide (the steroid cream), some oral antihistamine for his itching, and suggested that we give Jonas a bleach bath 3-4 times a week. This obviously was the cause of some concern for me. The Dr. tried to convince me that half a bath tub filled with water and 1/2 cup of bleach was perfectly safe, but I had doubts. I researched it a further when I got home, and most sources said that it was about the same (chemically speaking) as the chlorine in pool water (and perfectly safe). I would much rather take him to the pool than give him a "bleach bath" though. It sounds like some sort of Nazi torture technique to me. Yikes!

Can you tell his hair has gotten lighter? Oh, and he says Da-Da all the time. Mike is so proud.

So that's the update. Hopefully our internet will be back up to full capacity soon and I can put some videos on here.