FINALLY!

Spring is here - it's been a long winter! We are enjoying the sunshine and warm weather. Time to ride our bikes, play in the sandbox and head to the playground. Finn and Lily love looking at all the little flowers in the yards and soon the trees will be green too. About time!

Time for a new car

Due to popular demand here are a few pics of our new car. It's a VW Touran, a so-called "compact van" not available in North America. I admit it wasn't love at first sight for me (I'm not a fan of boxy cars), although Neil liked it all along. It's actually smaller than our old Toyota, but it seats more people. And it does drive very nicely, plus it has a lot more bells and whistles than our old car like heated leather seats and a GPS navigation system. No more fighting over who can't read the map correctly! :)

As we are getting older :) we went for automatic this time - no more shifting gears.

Three full seats in the second row now; it was near impossible to fit another person between the kids' car seats in the Toyota. The trunk holds two more additional seats that you just pull up.

So now that we can fit 7 people in one car you have to get yourselves over here, Canadian friends and family!

"The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men...

... Gang aft agley." - as Robert Burns would say.
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Oma and Opa were supposed to stay with us for two days, leave their car here and fly to Rome for a week, then come back and stay another few days. Well, a VERY sore tooth/root/infection in Oma's mouth nixed those plans. They stayed for a few days, Oma with a very swollen face and making about 4 trips to the dentist, and then drove home again for further treatment. Finn and Lily loved having them here and were very sad when they left. Hopefully the can go to Rome another time.

And to add a little more drama yet Lily decided to put a little plastic flower head (from her Playmobil) up her nose Tuesday night. She came to me and said, "Mama, I have something in my nose!" I said, "What? A booger?" "NO - a flower!" Oh no.

To make a long story short, it took 5 hours and a total of seven people to get the little flower out. It was pretty big for her little nose and a good inch (3 cm) in. The first two hours I spent at a pediatrician's office with her, and they tried 3 times, the last one with a sedative, before they gave up. Lily was a hysterical, screaming, fighting mess. The "sedatives" made her VERY tipsy (she couldn't walk anymore), but as soon as they put her on the table again she was fighting for her life and just miserable. The doctor was afraid he would seriously injure her and thought she would probably have to be put under and be admitted to the hospital for the removal.

So we went home again, picked up Neil who meanwhile had come home and went to the ER at the children's hospital. Luckily Oma and Opa could stay home with Finn, what a big help! At the hospital the doctor had more experience with getting objects out of kids' noses and ears, and she had tools that would do less damage in case Lily moved. So with one final effort, 4 of us holding her and only a minor nose bleed the flower came out.

We were so relieved. As we were leaving Lily said good-bye to the doctor and told her very seriously: "You know, you don't want to put flowers up your nose!". Let's hope she learned a lesson. I sure did - all the little flowers are bagged up and put away.

King (and Queen) of the Castle

Finn's most prized possession is probably the small playmobil take-along castle he got for Christmas. He's asked me numerous times if for his next birthday or Christmas he could wish for the REALLY big knight's castle he can't stop admiring in his playmobil catalog. And I've told him numerous times that I think it is too expensive (about 170EUR/240$).
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So fast forward to last Sunday. A kiddie flea market was being held at the school opposite our house, so while Lily napped and the boys played I went over to have a look. I spotted a big cardboard box with grey plastic pieces under one of the tables and asked the seller what it was. She said it was a playmobil knight's castle that her neighbor had given her and she had never tried to build. She didn't know how old it was and whether it was complete. I asked what she wanted for the box, she said ten, I gave her eight and it was a deal! So I went home and while Neil and Finn washed all the pieces in the bathtub I googled some pictures of older versions of Playmobil castles and sure enough I could recognize some of the pieces we had. So we spent the rest of the afternoon building the castle according to those pictures, and it was actually a lot of fun. Turns out it is almost complete with only some minor pieces missing! Finn and Lily love the castle and play with it a lot every day. Best eight Euros I've spent in a long time.

Modest looks different

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Our cats are too funny. It seems the only way they know to relax is in this pose. At first I thought they did this because our heated floors felt so good on their backs. Since they also hang out like this on the rug, couch and in their beds (and in one instance, on top of each other!) my theory now is they do this because they are boys. Or at least they think they still are, ha ha.

The ABC song

Although Lily still has trouble making certain sounds she has mastered the ABC song - kind of. :)

(Please ignore the scratches in her face, she just will not stop picking at them.)