Happy Halloween

Hope everyone had a fun and same Halloween. We did!
I took Ezra out Thursday night to a little Halloween party. It wasn't that great, but the best part was that Ezra got his face painted. That's a new thing for him because before now, he wouldn't have sat still long enough or wanted a stranger to be messing with his face. But he did great and had a pumpkin on his cheek to show for it. I forgot to take a picture. :(


Jonas was an Ewok.

Ezra was Darth Vader.

On Friday night, Mike's squadron hosted a trunk or treat. These are pictures from trick or treating from trunk to trunk.

On Saturday, I took the kids out to a trail in the woods in an attempt to take some pictures of the beautiful foliage. Of course, the pictures do not do the vibrant colors of the leaves justice. It was cloudy, and the woods made the pictures even darker. The camera couldn't decide if it wanted to use the flash or not, so I wasn't really too happy with the way the pictures turned out, but maybe you can get some idea. If nothing else, the boys really had a fun time running around on the trails, climbing on fallen trees, and playing in the leaves that would fall with the slightest breath of wind. (Mike was working on a paper for school.)







We carved our pumpkin on Halloween and to my disappointment, the boys weren't really as into it as I thought they would be. I guess it was a little too foreign to them. Jonas ventured his hand into the pumpkin a couple of times, but I don't think he was crazy about the cold, wet, sliminess. They did however, enjoy the pumpkin once it had a face and a candle inside. We took these pictures right before we left to trick or treat at the on-base housing. Jonas had a blast. He was practically running from house to house. He couldn't say "trick or treat", but he was putting his basket up. Because he's only been walking for a few months and still kind of waddles, he REALLY looked like an Ewok and got lots of compliments on his cuteness.




We finally had Jonas dedicated this past Sunday. Here is a picture of some of our church family praying for us to raise Jonas with the Lord's guidance.
These two are during the words that Pastor Darryl spoke.














This one where we are facing away from the camera is of Mike and I answering the questions as to whether we will commit to be godly parents. We will (or do the best we can. :)

Mike and Jonas before church. What handsome boys!















I took this video the other day when the boys were watching a video that had the song "The Wheels on the Bus Go 'Round and 'Round" and they were kind of singing and doing the motions. I would have deleted the video, because they weren't singing nearly as emphatically as they usually do, but the funny part is when Jonas accidentally hit Ezra in the eye as he's doing a motion. Aw, man. I thought I was successful in editing the video to right after the part where Ezra gets hit. Apparently I wasn't. The rest of the video is really nothing. I don't know why I continued to record. But feel free to watch it if you're interested in seeing what Jonas looks like as he eats popcorn on the couch.


I took this video as we were trick or treating. I wanted to get Ezra saying, "Trick or treat". He was doing such a good job. But instead he ended up saying, "Happy Halloween" and it was still pretty cute.

Not a whole lot to report. Last week, we were all (minus Ezra) kinda sick. Mike's the only one who ever had a fever, but we all felt pretty bad for a couple of days. We're all better now though, and somehow we escaped without Ezra getting it--miracle of miracles since Jonas steals his drinks ALL the time. Food too. Mike calls him a food/drink bully (whichever the case may be at that particular moment). You would never know it to look at him though. He's still in the lower percentiles for weight.

Everything is going fine with the pregnancy. Feeling great. No complaints. I don't have an appointment for the ultrasound yet, but we should be finding out the gender around the beginning of December. I haven't felt any movement yet, but I'm expecting it any time.

Mike is working hard on his classes. He narrowly escaped a 6 month deployment, but having a baby on the way kept him home (and also his having already paid for a cruise we would have had to cancel).

Explanation about the picture: After what was supposed to be nap time (Ezra never went to sleep), I let him out of his room. He came prancing out with nothing but dress shoes on and said, "Good morning!" I was completely shocked. I think he knew he was doing something funny and a little inappropriate by the look on his face. What a stinker!

Ezra's speech improves every day. He has a re-evaluation in December, but his speech therapist seems to think he will not qualify for the "special" pre-school. Which is a good thing! She's pleased with his progress every time she comes. She's always impressed by him in some way. Most recently, she commented on how tolerant he was of Jonas. What a good brother!

Jonas continues to crack us up. He has such a contagious laugh and idolizes his big brother. Ezra doesn't lead him astray too often (yet...). His skin is doing really great. He still gets a perscription moisturizer twice a day and steroid ointment on trouble spots now and then, but most of the time, he looks pretty good.


This video isn't terribly interesting, but we thought it was funny. It's so fun to watch them play. Ezra had this little plastic ladder (off a toy fire truck), and Jonas was kind of chasing him around. Ezra would throw it, and then they would both scramble for it. As always, most of the really funny stuff happened before I got the camera. As you can tell by the end of the video, Jonas is pretty worn out from chasing Ezra around and just lays on the floor. Then he becomes distracted by the camera...


I suppose the next blog will consist of photos/videos from Halloween. Ezra's going to be Darth Vader and Jonas an Ewok. They don't have a clue who they're dressing up as, but we think it's cute! :) Have a good one and be safe!

Trier

So my Mom says, "It's been a while since you posted a blog..." Which means, "Do a blog soon!" Therefore, I had to make Mike take us somewhere so I would have something blog worthy to post.:)

These are just a couple of pics around the house. I got my hair cut, and yes, added some bangs. It's quite a change--we're slowly getting used to it. Mike and Jonas were listening to some tunes.

Trier is a town just an hour or so up the road. Many people go there as one of their first outings in Germany, but for whatever reason we just went this past weekend after being here for a year.

This pretty park was right outside the garage where we parked. There was a fun playground for the kids, but we didn't want to spend 30 min at the park right when we first got there. Thankfully, we navigated by the playing children without any tantrums. We did have to stop at a pond where the ducks were though.











Trier is on the Mosul river. So we walked along the river a bit. We saw some fish. They looked pretty big.



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There were several big cathdrals. Although we only went in one of them.





This was the main square in the shopping area.



There were a couple of ruins. This was a castle I think.






One of the main ruins is the Porta Nigra. We drove by it, but we didn't get to see it when we were walking around town.

Oh, and I don't think I've mentioned it on here, but I'm pretty sure all of my readers (all 5 of you) know that we are expecting another baby on April 25th. I'm 12 weeks pregnant right now. Everything's been great so far. I usually have easy pregnancies. I can say "usually" since this is the 3rd one in 3 years. :) We are excited.

Pumpkin Fest

If you are looking at this blog, you may also want to check out the 2 below this one (Jonas' first haircut and Sept. pics). I posted all of them today!




Today we headed about 45 min down the road to the Hitscherhof Farm Festival. They had arts and crafts, local food and wine, a corn maze/labyrinth, hay castle, pumkins, and pumpkin food specialties. It was fun. The boys are getting old enough to really enjoy stuff like that and had a blast. Ezra's favorite part was the hay castle. I think Jonas really enjoyed the pumpkins. My fave was the pumpkin cheesecake, and Mike liked the giant pumpkin.














Ezra is always less than thrilled to have his picture taken. You can see how strongly he feels about this subject in our family picture on top of the giant pumpkin. Ezra is concerned primarily with running and climbing. Especially when there are giant pumpkins to scale.




Atop the giant pumpkin.




Jonas in the pumpkins and Ezra in the hay.





Ezra in the pumpkins and Jonas in the hay.












This video shows Jonas demonstrating his walking abilities around the pumpkins.


Ezra sliding down the hay.


Jonas sliding down the hay.


Ezra doing a belly flop into the hay.

Jonas' first haircut

Jonas was not a huge fan of his first haircut. We thought the first one would be easy because he wouldn't know what to expect, but the second the clippers started buzzing, his bottom lip went up and he let loose with the tears.




He looks like such a big boy now. Since he's walking and bulked up a little, he and Ezra look so much closer in age.

September pics

Ezra contemplating a flower/weed.


Jonas in the back yard.

Ezra in his jammies. He likes to stand on his head in the computer chair. He also recently learned how to do a somersault on the floor.


Trying out Daddy's boots.

This video was taken several weeks ago but I wasn't able to upload it. This was about the time he was walking about 50% of the time. Now he's pretty much a full time walker.