Big News!!

Believe it or not, we are moving again. I definitely have mixed feelings about this development. I love Germany, and am sad to leave. I feel like we haven't seen very much -- I wanted to travel much more than we have been able to. And I have made some dear friends who I will miss very much.

This move has been looming over our heads for over a year now. At first, its possibilty was my excuse for not settling into my house and becoming something of a hermit. I didn't want to hang pictures, unpack boxes, buy curtains, make friends, etc., if I was going to have to leave everyone and everything behind in a matter of months. I wasn't very happy.

When it began to look like we might get to stay I started to settle in. I made friends. They have been such a blessing to me. I haven't shared a lot of what I have been going through on this blog recently, but I have been having a hard time. Whenever Morgan is gone (which is more often than not) something big happens. Just this week I have been flat on my back for days because I injured my back. My friends, when they found out, have been helping with my kids, bringing me meals, making sure my kids make it to and from the bus stop safely, etc. Other friends have helped me through medical scares (I recently had a CAT scan while Morgan was out of town. I am fine, but it was scary, and I am so grateful for my friends who were there for me).

But on the other side of the coin, this move will definitely be an adventure. If you thought Europe was exotic, just wait for the posts from our new home.

It wouldn't be as much fun to just come out and tell you where we are moving, so I am going to give you a short quiz. If you happen to know where we are going (because I told you about it), you are disqualified from the game. :) Okay, here goes:

(A) Morgan is fluent in its two official languages.

(B) This hat is named for one of its most ancient cities:

(C) This movie took place in one of its most well-known cities:

Good luck!

Willkommen

Welcome to our German "castle." Houses in Germany are constructed from cinder blocks, and I imagine them standing in ruins in a few hundred years much like the castle ruins we love to wander around. They are very sturdy, but somewhat cold and damp. And those blinds on the outside of the windows are called roladen. I love them. They can black out a room at high noon, making naptime much easier for little ones. They also come in handy in the summer when it doesn't get dark here until 10 pm.

Come on in . . .Like many single family homes in this area, our house was built as three separate apartments. There is plumbing and electric on each floor to accomodate a kitchen, but only on the main level do we have actual appliances and counters. As you enter our house, you have the choice of going upstairs or downstairs. Let's start up on the main level, shall we?I show you this picture reluctantly, because it was taken quite a while ago, and doesn't look so cluttered now. This is our conservatory. I'm not kidding. That is what the landlords called it, and so we like to call it that in a snooty-sounding voice. Usually we just refer to it as our library. We have two desks for the kids to do homework, our piano, and bookshelves in this room. We also keep our guitars and other musical instruments in here. There is a sliding glass door (that is what the kids' pictures are hanging on in this picture). From this area, if you turn left you enter the main living area, walking directly into our kitchen:Most German houses don't have kitchens like this. They are usually separate from the living area. But we have a more open floorplan. Everything is black and gold and shiny -- not what I would choose if I were decorating, but I can't complain. It is a nice big kitchen with lots of space. Except for in the oven. German ovens are notoriously small. I can't fit most of my pans in it, and roasting a turkey is out of the question. German refrigerators are also very small, and ours doesn't even have a freezer. The base gives us American appliances, so we have a refrigerator in our basement as well. But the part of my kitchen I love the most is behind that slightly opened sliding door:

The butler's pantry! (I know, I know . . . conservatory, butler's pantry . . . don't worry, we haven't forgotten our humble roots. But we can probably host a pretty fun "Clue" themed murder mystery party). Seriously, though, I love this pantry. It doesn't have a lot of shelving for food storage, but I love having the extra counter space. I don't like keeping small appliances on my counters, and usually keep them in cabinets and take them out when needed. But in this house I have them out on a counter and ready for use, but I don't have to see them.

From the kitchen, if you turn around, this is what you will see:

Turn slightly to the left:

Keep walking past the fireplace and you enter our dining room:
The armoire to the left is my computer desk. I love it, because all of the wires, bills, electronics, office supplies, etc. are hidden by the lovely mahogany doors.

Also on this floor are the master bedroom (which is rarely picture-worthy), Liam's room, and two bathrooms. Here is our tub:

Come with me, back out into the stairwell, and up to the top floor. I am not going to show you all of the rooms upstairs because we have recently rearranged some rooms, and they don't look the same now. But to give you an idea of what the upstairs is like, here are a few pictures:

This is the upstairs living room. We use it as our toy room. It is a great space, and I love having a room just for toys. To the left of this room is the "kitchen" for the upstairs, but we use it as our craft room. And just off of the craft room is our laundry room. Through the arched doorway is a hallway where Braden's and Lydia's rooms are, along with a bathroom. Braden's room:This floor also has a guest room with its own bathroom.

The basement is finished, but we don't use it very often. It is a small apartment with a living room, bathroom, kitchen area, storage room, and bedroom. We have used this space for many things. When this picture was taken, I had it set up as an indoor playground for the winter with a slide and ball pit. I have since moved those toys up to the toy room. We completely emptied this space so it could be used as the Jedi Training Academy for Braden's birthday. It was so nice having a separate party room. Right now, it is set up as my photo studio with my backdrops and a tripod.

All in all, we are very happy here. It is fun to have space to spread out. We know that we won't always have such a big house, so we are trying not to fill this one up.

I hope you enjoyed your tour. It was fun to be able to share with you a little bit of what our life in Germany is like.

Grayson at Seven MonthsHere is our sweet little man. Everyone always remarks on how happy he is. He brings us all so much joy. This month he started eating rice cereal. As is our tradition, Daddy got to feed him his first solid food. So far, he likes it. But nothing can take the place of nursing, which he still does on demand, day and night.

He loves his exersaucer, and has just started jumping in it like a little maniac! He looks so cute, and he can actually slide it across the floor when he gets going.

People frequently tell me how much he looks like me. Recently we were at a fun indoor children's play place for Lydia's soccer party, and someone commented on how strong my genes are because my kids all look just like me. Not 15 minutes later, a friend from Scouts that we ran into there remarked that Grayson looks just like Morgan. I guess they are all a really good mix of both of us. Or else we are starting to look alike as so many couples eventually do.

I am so grateful for this sweet little guy.

Long Time No Post

Life has been so crazy lately! Morgan has been gone so much, and when he is not here I go into "survival mode" which unfortunately can't always include blogging. As much as I love keeping up with my family and friends through their blogs, I normally read them while nursing the baby. Which makes it difficult to comment or write my own posts. But Morgan is home (in the kitchen making homemade cranberry sauce with Braden and Lydia), Liam is napping, and Grayson has a full tummy and is happily playing in his exersaucer. It seems that the planets are in alignment, and I actually have both hands to myself to post! So I am going to post several pictures and try to catch you all up on our lives.

Halloween

This year we decided to do a family theme for our costumes. I have been wanting to become a better seamstress, and was hoping to make some of the costumes. Unfortunately, the only theme we could all agree on was Star Wars, and I am just not that ambitious yet. Morgan was going to grow his beard out and be Obi Wan Kenobi and I was going to be Princess Leia. Something you may not know about me is my strong desire to dress up as Princess Leia. It all started in 1979, when my kindergarten class was preparing to put on a Star Wars themed play for our parents, and I was cast as Princess Leia (probably because I was the only one with long enough hair to do the side buns). I was thrilled. But to my disappointment, a sting which I still feel some 29 years later, my class was naughty, and was punished by not being allowed to do our play.

So this year, was going to be my year. Then we found out that Morgan would be gone for our church party, and I decided to be a Halloween Scrooge and not dress up. Bah Humbug! But Lydia made a beautiful Leia. Her costume actually came with a wig, but she was scared of it, so I did the buns with her own hair. I didn't realize Lydia was so afraid of wigs. I knew that Braden has a face paint phobia, but I didn't know about Lydia's fear of fake hair. My childhood would have been a nightmare for them. I was constantly dressing up with my mom and grandma's old wigs, make-up, etc.

Here is Liam (aka C3PO) trick-or-treating. He was so cute, and actually said "trick or treat" and "thank you" at most houses. He was thrilled with his haul. Braden was Commander Cody, and Grayson was the cutest little R2D2 ever. On Halloween night we met our friends on base for trick or treating, then came back to our house for "Halloweenies" (hot dogs), apple cider, baked beans, veggies, chips and dip. We (well the kids) watched Charlie Brown. I also made "Ghost toast" -- ghost shaped pieces of white bread with cream cheese. Instead of just giving the ghosts eyes with the craisins, I put them all over so they would be Charlie Brown ghosts. Thank goodness we didn't get any rocks in our buckets (although they may have the same effect on their teeth as all of the candy we have been consuming).
Cooking Fun
The kids had a day off from school a couple of weeks ago, so we had fun making a special lunch together. We had seen these snacks in a magazine recently, and they were anxious to try it out. Hummus is one of our favorite snacks. We always make our own with canned chick peas, garlic, olive oil and tahini. I had these flower pots from a "dirt" dessert that I made a while ago. Lydia ran out to our herb garden (which sounds much more impressive than it really is) and harvested a handful of parsley. I let them poke holes into baby carrots with toothpicks, and insert the parsley into the ends of the carrots. We then put the carrots into the "soil". It was really fun and tasty.I have a few more posts in the works for this week, so come back! I am planning a virtual "tour" of our house here in Germany. I also need to warn you that we will be going private soon. I will invite as many of my readers as I have addresses for. If for some reason you don't get an invitation, please let me know at melodiehanners@msn.com. I may not have your correct address.

I have hesitated about going private for quite a while now. I don't want to make it difficult for any of you to access our blog. I have also enjoyed finding old friends through their blogs, and being found, as well. I love the internet for this reason. But Morgan would prefer that we make our blog private. I hope you will all still visit us here in cyberspace after the change. As incentive, I am going to announce some big news (no, I'm not pregnant) after the change, so please come back!