Random April pictures - enjoy!

Houdini - ha, that guy is LAME compared to me!

So after a day of carrying around this ridiculous thing that they wrapped around my arm I decided enough was enough. It is quite useful as a club, but honestly, I can just pick up a toy if I want to clout Finn over the head! Mama got all panicky when I said "ouch, arm" and took me to the doctor right away. The doctor said that probably the swelling went down and that's why I got it off.



So the friendly nurse put a new cast on my arm. I picked green this time, but then they put yellow tape over top so it wouldn't scratch me. At least it matches my favourite butterfly shirt now. (And if people think I can't wriggle out of this one too, they don't know me very well yet. He he.)

Lily and the cast

Life certainly never gets boring with two wild kids around. Lily managed to break her wrist (the radius below her wrist to be exact) at playschool 8 days ago. I did notice a small bruise and swelling when I picked her up and she complained that it hurt, but only if you touched her arm or tried to pull her up by her hands. None of her teachers had seen her fall or heard her complain, so we are not sure how it happened. A week later she still said "ouch" when we tried to hold her hand, so I scheduled an appointment to have her x-rayed. Sure enough, it's broken. She did use that hand to play and pick up things, so I honestly didn't think it could be a fracture, and such an obvious one too (very clear on the x-rays). It's her right hand and she's a leftie, so I think she'll manage fine with the cast, but it will take some getting used to on her part. And NO sandbox or water play. It will come off in 3 weeks and hopefully that will be the end of that story. It will be just in time for our Canada trip too!

Back from the doctor's office today:

"Off, mama, off!"

An hour after we got home she suddenly started burning up with a high fever. We don't know what's up with that, she's asleep as we speak, but not soundly. We gave her something to bring down the fever and she's sweating up a storm, hopefully she'll be all better in the morning.

feverish

On a more cheerful note: Neil took Finn to the hospital in Munich today for his 3-monthly checkup with the lung specialist. They did a pulmonary function test and Finn gave his all blowing into the tube and blew out 5 candles on the screen. It's a good result and he was so proud when he told me. When he is over this cold he has right now we can go down to one dose of cortison per day plus his singulair. They prescribed some eyedrops and we will schedule another allergy test. We've been giving him allergy medicine because he seems to suffer from allergies quite badly this spring. Last year he tested negative for everything, so we'll see if that has changed.

Easter Sunday pictures - part 2!

After breakfast and egg hunt we went to church. The service conveniently started an hour later this morning, at 10:45am. Finn and Lily were so exhausted (or bored?) by then that they had to take a demonstrative snooze during Sunday school. (Yes, we have "those" kids.)

Afterwards we took a walk to our favourite bakery/coffee shop.

Lily insisted on bringing this little basket from the play kitchen at church. You just never know what other treasures you may find today!

At the bakery we had a hard time picking just 5 or 6 pieces of cake!



Finn finally got bored and decided to wait outside. Lily the copycat of course had to do the same. :-)



The rest of the day we spent relaxing, roller skating (Ulli decided to learn how to skate and is making great progress!), hanging out in the garden and having a BBQ at night. Good Friday and Easter Monday are holidays in Germany, so we are enjoying a nice long weekend as a family, with Ulli being here as a special treat.

We hope your Easter holidays were as good as ours!

Easter Sunday pictures - part 1!

We enjoyed a beautiful, sunny Easter Sunday here; it was awesome! After a nice Easter breakfast we all went out in the yard to help Finn and Lily look for hidden treasures. And they found plenty, thanks to a big Easter parcel from Oma and Opa. Here are some (okay, many:-) pictures of our egg hunt:

Good Friday reminds us of what man is capable of doing.

Easter Sunday reminds us of what God is capable of doing.




Karfreitag zeigt uns, wozu der Mensch fähig ist.
Ostern zeigt uns, wozu Gott fähig ist.

Peter Schäfer

Wishing you a happy Easter!
Frohe Ostern!

Race day

Last Saturday I ran my first race - the 7.8 km "Frühjahrswaldlauf" (spring forest run) in Neuburg. I wasn't sure if I would be able to run at all, but it went well! Due to too much running I had injured my foot about 2 weeks before the race and had to take anti-inflammatory drugs and a break from running for about 10 days. The day before the race I saw my doctor again and he prescribed orthopedic inserts for my shoes. They will be ready next week, so hopefully I can run pain-free soon!

I finished the race in Neuburg in 38:29 min. I placed 26th out of 72 women age 20 and up, and 4th in my age group. I must admit I didn't really like the course, we ran 3 laps through a park and about half of the trails were coarse gravel that I found uncomfortable to run on, plus there were 2 steep hills. That made it hard for me to "find my groove" and get into a good rhythm. So I'm not sure I will run that particular race again, but it was a fun experience. And I had my own little cheerleaders along!

Getting ready:

Come on Lily, let's stretch!

That's the way to do it!

Can we run, too, Mama?




Exhausted!




Here's the start of the race:

And here's team T cheering me on:

Finish line: