2011 - A Year in Pictures

January

"It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves."

(Sir Edmund Hillary)

Definitely true for Finn!

February

A 4-week-stay at the Baltic Sea to help cure Finn's asthma.

March

Ina comes to stay with us.

April

Celebrating Easter with Grandma and Grandpa!

May

Three people in this family share a love of horses and riding. The fourth starts saving for those ponies he will some day have to buy.

June

Our beautiful Lily of the West Bavaria.



July

What would I do without you?!

August

Summer fun at the Baltic.

September

Enjoying life in Europe. Castles, pedestrian zones, brunch at the street cafés, people watching.

Oktober

Schloss Fuschl castle in the Austrian Alps, two kids, two sisters, a spa and a lot of relaxing.

November

Our newest addition steals our hearts in the blink of an eye.

December

All good things are wild and free! Like Finn, Sophia, and Indigo at this awesome Christmas party.

Wow, Christmas!!!

Joy to the World, and look who is here from Canada

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And if you are just patient for a while longer, that Christmas letter will be coming in your e-mail. Neil is working on it as we speak. Great posture there, by the way, darling. :)

That is about all I have time for right now. As soon as things slow down around here I will post more. Ha ha.

MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS, FRIENDS!

Love

Claudia, Neil, Kristine, Finn, Lily and The World Greatest Baby.

Seriously, she is.

Finn has a loose tooth and Lily likes to move it

Not much has been going on over here, and I didn't really take a lot of pictures either, as you can see from the selection below. Two weeks in we (Baby and me, but mostly me) still have not been able to shake this nasty cold, but hopefully soon!
The big news around here is that Finn has his first (somewhat) loose tooth, one of his bottom incisors. The way he keeps wiggling it I am sure it won't be hanging on for very much longer. I was wondering when this would happen as most of his agemates have some of their adult teeth (or at least missing baby teeth) already. Another milestone, and I admit it makes me a little sad. On the other hand I know we are very blessed to have happy, healthy, growing children!

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Here are Finn and Daddy watching something on youtube, the baby hanging out just being cute, and Lily making her "put that stupid camera away" face.

 Bedtime!

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And here, for your enjoyment, today on THE LILY SHOW: "Bear with his tail in the air", "Porcupine Pete", and "I like to move it"!

 

How can this year be almost over?

At least, that is what it feels like to me.

They have put the Christmas decorations all over downtown! Noooo!

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I like to do photobooks of the kids to give to the family every year for Christmas, and I haven't even started on them this year. It is a lot of work to choose, sort and edit the pictures, not to speak of making the actual book itself, and then of course it takes some time for the printing and shipping. All this to say, if you are the usual recipient of said book, it might be a bit late this year. :)

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We are keeping busy over here. Neil is gone for 2 or 3 days most weeks (usually he is in Italy meeting with some of his suppliers), I am spending my mornings with the baby and the afternoons with all three kids. I try to get my shopping and housekeeping done with just the baby in tow, but we have quite a few other things to do as well. I am taking her to physiotherapy one morning a week and need to do exercises and stretches with her at home every day, another morning I am taking her to meet with her birth mother and father (which involves quite some driving on my part), then I am still getting treatment for my shoulder injury (although as of this week I am taking a break from manual therapy and getting it taped up and am "just" doing my exercises at the gym three times a week - at least in theory), and then of course between the five of us we have all kinds of other appointments that I try not to forget. Which reminds me that I wanted to schedule flu shots for all of us.

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Finn and Lily are helping me a lot with the baby, sometimes by holding and feeding her, and often by keeping themselves busy with crafts and games so I can tend to her needs.



Lily the awesome big sister!

Cuddle time on the couch at night

We all came down with a nasty cold, including the baby. :-(

She is handling those breathing treatments like a champ though and often sleeps through them. Hopefully she will start sleeping better at night again once she is feeling a bit better.

She has changed a lot since she came to be with us more than 3 weeks ago. Growing, gaining weight (a good pound already!), being more alert and interested in her surroundings.

And I think she enjoys having siblings as much as we enjoy having her here.

In other news, is a birthday garden party in November a good idea? But of course! All a matter of keeping warm inside (hello Glühwein) and out (hello smoky fire).

Cheers, Neil! (See him?)

All the entertainment Finn and Lily needed was the fire - the whole time we were there.

And this of course is not Glühwein, but children's punch. Just for the record.

I, on the other hand, might have had a mug of the good stuff, or two.

(Baby slept through all of the fun.)

Marshmallows!

Keep warm, wherever you are!

Ours to love, but not to keep

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Almost two weeks into having our little baby with us, these are some of the things I have heard:

"I couldn't do it - I couldn't give them back!"

(It's not easy, but this is not about me.)

"Don't hang your heart on this baby too much!"

 (Too late. And she is welcome to take a piece of my heart with her.)

"She is so sweet! Why don't you just keep her?"

(Because even if she does go into long term foster care, this is not what we do. There are quite a few families waiting for a long term foster child in our area, but very few who do emergency foster care. She will definitely not stay.)

"Aren't you going to cry when you have to give her up?"

(Definitely.)

"Wow, congratulations! I didn't even know you were pregnant - you look great!"

(Well, thanks!) P.S. My favourite ☺

So why did we become a foster family? I mean, apart from the fact that we love doing this and find it enriches our lives in so many ways?

Because these children need someone who can. Who can love them unreservedly and unconditionally (and as imperfect as we are - we do try). Who can love them today like tomorrow won't mean good-bye. Because these children are wonderfully and beautifully made and because God loves each of them as if He only had that one child to love. Because we believe that every loving touch, every loving word does make a difference, even if the child will never consciously remember it.

Because, to us, this is as much about the biological parents as it is about the children. With all the "professional distance" that necessarily comes with our task, we do believe that the parents deserve to not be judged yet again, but be shown and told that there is a God of Love, a God of the Broken, who wants to give them a future and a hope, and who can make all things new - if only they let Him.

Because we want our own children to see that we act on our faith, not just talk about it.

We do this not because WE are so great, but because our God is so great.

And each day I have a foster child with me adds to my treasure. I will not look at the days I did not get, but instead will live each day to its fullest and be present in the moment. After all, there is no guarantee for any of us that a tomorrow follows our today.

"Am I to concern myself with an allotment of days I never had and was never promised? Must I check off each day of my life as if I am subtracting from this imaginary hoard? No, on the contrary, I will add each day of my life to my treasure of days lived. And with each day, my treasure will grow, not diminish." ~ Robert Brault

Is giving the children back hard? Do we cry? Of course. But you know what? Sometimes no one has cried over and missed these children before. They deserve it that someone does.

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Catch-up post #2

Neil, Finn and Lily went to the store to buy a new lightbulb for Neil's car, our lunch (corn quiche - Neil's favourite) is in the oven, Baby is swinging and snoozing in the battery-operated swing (I SO wish we had had that thing when Finn was little!), and I'm enjoying another coffee from my super duper coffee maker, the best purchase we (okay, I) made in the last months. It's like having our own coffee shop at home now! With two different kinds of beans (right now I'm using regular caffè crema beans and espresso beans) it makes all our favourite specialities as strong (or not strong, for the non-Europeans amongst us, ha ha) and as hot as we like it. We had it for only a few days when my loving husband said to me, "Wow! You're like, a new person!", which I didn't know whether to laugh or cry about really. It's kind of sad when coffee has that kind of power over you, no? But I sure do love that machine. It frothes milk like there's no tomorrow (which puts a milk froth junkie like me in heaven!), and the sound of the coffee grinder is music to my ears. Plus with the baby now, there is nothing like a double espresso to get me going after a night of little sleep. But enough of the coffee talk.

What else happened in October? Well, we all had the stomach flu, for one thing. Exciting, I know. Like dominos, we all came down with it. Neil and Finn were the least affected, Lily and myself were hit a bit harder. Here is Lily passed out after 5 hours or so of projectile vomiting, mostly, but not always, in her dish. Fun times.

Sleeping beauty

And as soon as Lily had risen from her sick bed couch Blue decided to find out what was so great about that particular spot.

And one memorable weekend I was laid up at home in bed with strict orders to not talk, laugh, eat or move my face much otherwise. Why? Because I had finally gotten rid of a small but deep (and sometimes still painful) scar in the groove between my lower lip and my chin. It stemmed from a dog attacking me when I was a teenager and it had never healed nicely. So my dermatologist decided he could do a little cosmetic surgery to get rid of it and I must say I am impressed with the result! The area is still a bit sore but you could never tell I had a lumpy scar there. The doctor removed the stitches after only 2 days so that they wouldn't leave tiny scars behind, and I had to be extra careful not to open the incision up again. Let's just say I lived off of fruit smoothies and protein shakes through a straw, tried hard not to laugh even though my evil family did their best to make me, and wished we did indeed own a TV. As it was I spent a lot of time in my bedroom with my laptop, and since the internet connection is not good up there I made sure all was well on the Ponderosa by watching a whole season of Bonanza. And let me tell you, those actors knew how to sit on a horse, but they sure weren't horsemen. Well, yes, your horse will shake his head like mad if you are this harsh on his mouth. If you really feel you need to hang on to the reins for dear life at all times why don't you use a snaffle instead of a bit with shanks the length of your forearm? Good grief. (Note to self: instead of yet another kiddie DVD indulge in purchasing a good movie every now and then.)

Last not least, in true fall season spirit, we found a little visitor in our yard. Hedgie the hedgehog got more than he bargained for when he decided to look for a quiet place to hibernate  in our neighbourhood. Whenever he showed his cute little snout around the premises he was promptly picked up, fed and taken on a sightseeing tour on that plastic chair with wheels that Neil built for the kids. While Lily saw to the feeding Finn went to work with his wheelbarrow to make the leaf pile under the hedge a little bigger and softer. I haven't seen Hedgie around in a few days, and I am not sure he actually decided to stay, although the hard boiled egg and the cat food were definitely a hit with him.

Well, guess what, this did take me longer to write than I thought. Because as soon as I had typed out the  sentence about a baby snoozing in the swing she woke up (of course). Then everybody came back from the store, had lunch (which the kids declared ruined because Mama forgot to cut the pepper crust off the ham before she put it in), and now Finn, Lily and Daddy are over at the school for soccer practice. Because my lunch consisted of feeding the baby a bottle I just had my own piece of quiche. Well, let's just say next time I'll cut the pepper crust off the ham before I put it in. Nothing that a latte or cappuccino for dessert can't fix though. By the way, have I mentioned my new coffee maker? It's awesome. Seriously.

Catch-up post #1

Here is what we've been up to since September. Now that it is weekend and Neil is home I actually have some time to blog! :-)

Finn and Lily are still their usual cute selves, and Blue is often getting more attention than he wants. His alter egos include Black Panther Doing Tricks at the Circus, WonderCat Coloring Pictures with Crayons, BabyCat Being Carried Around in a Sling, and Leave-Me-Alone-Or-I-Will-Scratch-You (his favourite).

The end of September was like a late summer here, so we enjoyed those warm sunny days outside. The kids played in the sprinkler, we BBQed, rode our bikes - all the fun things we knew would soon be a thing of the past.

The new school year started mid-September, and so did Finn's and Lily's soccer careers - following in the footsteps of their daddy and Auntie Kristine. They go to practice once a week, and so far they are really enjoying it. (Lily is hiding behind Florian in this first picture.)

There were usually quite a few spectators spectating at soccer practice, cheering on the players with enthusiastic "baaaaah"s. Sadly, now that it is November, the spectators have moved inside their big barn for the winter and as of today soccer practice will be held indoors. I must be getting old because I would really really like to live on Majorca or the Canary Islands where spring is eternal.

 

And I will end this post with the old nursery rhyme I am sure most of you know:

What are little boys made of?

What are little boys made of?

Frogs and snails And puppy-dogs' tails,

That's what little boys are made of.

What are little girls made of?

What are little girls made of?

Sugar and spice And everything nice,

That's what little girls are made of.

Very stereotypical and not always true, but I want to add that this little boy is also made of scraped up noses and pockets full of treasure (which definitely includes snails!), and this little girl is still the cutest thing on two feet if you ask me. Especially when she crawls into her bed in the middle of the day and takes a much-needed nap all of her own accord.

Stay tuned for more pictures! Baby is waking up, gotta go.