For my Uncle Otto

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Hi Onkelchen, Finn here! Mama said you want me to come over with my scissors because you need a haircut too! I'm not sure exactly when my plane leaves, so here are some more pictures to show you what good work I do. Now that Lily's new cut has had a few days to settle it looks even better! And Mama says once the hair that I cut really REALLY short will grow some even more of it will stick up. I can't wait!

Sadly, when we leave the house, Mama puts one of these headbands on Lily that cover most of my creation. I wish she would let ME wear them outside too! Don't you think they look great on me? Papa doesn't think so though. He asked Mama why instead of taking me outside to play in the snow she lets me dress up like a girl.

Girl, ha! I'm Samurai Finn!

Bye for now!

P.S. I do think this cut would look great on Auntie Christmas too.

Over and Out!

Finn did really well today. We got to the hospital at 7, surgery started at 8 and he was awake again by 9:30am. He didn't have as much trouble waking up as last time and got something to drink a lot sooner. They also gave him some pain killers, but overall he was feeling pretty good. The incision on his elbow is a bit bigger than they thought it would be because they couldn't find the end of the pin right away, but the one on his wrist is supposedly quite small. We left the hospital at around 1:30pm and will go back tomorrow morning for a check-up. The stitches will come out in 10-12 days and then all of this will finally be over.
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When I saw the pins I was surprised how thin they were; on the x-rays they look at least half as thick as Finn's bones. Of course on the screen the images are amplified, so that makes me realize how thin his little bones still are. Here's to hoping these were the last broken bones in our house!

Tomorrow (Wednesday, Jan 27)

Finn will have surgery tomorrow morning at 8am (well, at least it's scheduled for 8) to remove the metal pins from his arm. Say a prayer that all will go well! If he recovers quickly he will be
able to come home the same day. We went in for x-rays today and his bones have healed nicely. So hopefully this time tomorrow a few scars on his arm will be all that is left of the big fall!

What happens when...

... it's too quiet upstairs and you go check two minutes too late.

It was morning, I was downstairs, the kids were still upstairs in their PJs, playing nicely with their Playmobil - or so I thought. Lily's hair wasn't done yet so Finn climbed on a chair in the bathroom, got the nail scissors and got to work - "so her hair wouldn't be in her face". I checked on them (too quiet is NEVER a good sign, right?) and was speechless. There was SO much hair on the floor. Finn did a thorough job, cutting really close to the scalp on the top and taking good chunks off the back too. When I combed her hair more and more came out. I could have cried, and in fact, I did. I took her to the hairdresser, but there wasn't much she could do. She cut off a good 3 inches (8cm) from the back, but her pony tail is still really uneven. We'll keep trimming it as the hair grows back in. The hairdresser said it will take 2-3 years for the top hair to grow as long as they were. Lily had really long hair, when it was wet it was almost all the way down her back already. I loved braiding it - the other day I French braided it in a crown around her head - I wish I had taken a picture, it looked so cute.

No more of that for a long time. I'll be happy if at least I won't be able to see her scalp anymore in a couple of months.

On the other hand - it's just hair, right? It'll grow back - eventually.

The things they say

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I feel like I need to write some of this down before I forget. Lily and Finn say the cutest/funniest things sometimes.

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For instance, Finn and I had this conversation in the car the other day.
Finn: "Mama, why did God make Justin a boy?"
Me: "Well, so he could be your best friend and play with you."
Finn: "But I don't want him to be my friend, I want him to be my wife!"
Oh dear. :)
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And this is Finn's version of the Lord's Prayer (in German):
"... Denn Dein ist das Reich und die Kraft und die Herrlichkeit und die Süßigkeit, in Ewigkeit, Amen." ("For Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory and the Candy, forever and ever. Amen.")
This boy obviously knows who is in charge of all the good things. :)


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Then, as I was tucking him in the other night out of the blue he says:
"Mama, did you know there are spiders who marry a man to make babies and when the babies are there they EAT THE MAN ALL UP!?" It turned out there is a book about spiders at preschool and Finn often asks the teacher to read it to him. Apparently the Black Widow made a lasting impression as he told me: "I never want to get married because I don't want to have any children! If a girl ever says she likes me I will run away and COME STRAIGHT HOME TO YOU, MAMA!"
Actually, that sounded pretty good to me, but I tried to tell him that usually women don't eat their guys after they have babies. He didn't seem too convinced though.
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And Lily of course is just cuteness all around. I love listening to her talking to her animals and toys while she is playing. She is still hard to understand sometimes, but it's getting better. One thing she hates is the sun in her eyes when we're driving. She gets all upset when she asks me to turn it off and I have to tell her I can't. So I handed her her sun glasses the other day and she put them on and sighed, "Aaah, NOW I turned it off."
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What I've been trying to teach her is to say "my" instead of "mine". She ALWAYS uses "mine" ("Mine head hurts."; "That's mine toy!" etc). Doesn't help that in German "my" is "mein", pronounced "mine". So we're having conversations like this:


Lily: "Mama, hold mine hand."
Me: (holding her hand) "Lily, you have to say 'my' hand, not 'mine'."
Lily: "Mine hand."
Me: "No! My hand!"
Lily: "Yes, mine hand."
Me: "NO Lily, it's HOLD MY HAND!"
Lily: "Okay, mama, I hold YOUR hand!"

I rest my case. :)

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And here are some pictures of a perfect weekend morning (at least if you ask Finn and Lily).

A mid-morning snack of popcorn

... while watching a movie on the laptop still in their PJs.

Then go outside to shovel some snow with daddy

and build a snow fort in the yard


followed by their favourite craft: "Bügelperlen" - those little plastic beads that you iron to make them stick together.

Winter Wonderland

We're back from our winter vacation. We had so much fun, the place and weather were just perfect. The first thing Finn said to the owner of the hotel was: "I've got a winter wonderland too, from Playmobil!".
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We stayed at the Lindenhof in Oberlöchlers/Rettenbach (http://www.lindenhof.com/). We rented an apartment so we could prepare some of our meals, but we also ate at the restaurant there. Besides playing in the snow the kids enjoyed the playground, playroom, animals, TV room/library and the food! Oberlöchlers is a lovely little place with about 10 houses/farms where the road ends and the forest begins. The family who owns the hotel made us feel very welcome, they love children and even gave Neil a book from their library that he didn't manage to finish while we were there.

The sledding hill right behind the hotel was a big hit, at least going down. Making Finn and Lily walk back up only worked about half of the time. Neil got some good workouts. :) We tried about all the different sleds, bobsleds and inner tubes they had there. The good old wood sleds are still our favourites. Finn had an amazing ride with one of the plastic bobs that you can supposedly steer with a little steering wheel, he went criss cross all over the hill and managed to hit the little ski jump that somebody had built. It was only 2 feet wide so what are the odds of that!? He went airborne and came down hard, first him, then the sled. Luckily he only had a couple bruises.

The playground was great, too. Imagine, sand box toys work just as well with snow as they do with sand.

Neil and the kids built a snow fort on a snowy day which later got decorated with icicles and sported a tunnel for crawling inside and steps and a slide for coming out. I took some pictures from our balcony while preparing lunch. Lily, by the way, loved all the "Christmas trees" she could see from our window.

The horses and cows belong to the farm next door.

Exploring in the forest:

The forest there is beautiful, hilly, and, judging by the tracks, teeming with wildlife. There were rabbit tracks ALL OVER, lots of deer tracks, foxes too. On one of our walks we found a big piece of what looked like deer hide with the bloody skin still on, all frozen of course. I wanted to take it home, but Neil wouldn't let me. :) We met a hunter once and talked to him a bit and of course bragged about Grandpa who is also a hunter :). Finn was impressed by the rifle.

Oberlöchlers

On our last day we went for a sleigh ride. It was cold, but fun! The sleigh had both wheels and skids, and the driver used both depending on the surface, although sometimes he didn't get the system to work quite right. Still, the horses had no problem pulling a screeching sled over a snow free road with salt on top.

Lily kept shouting "Giddy up!" at the horses, which actually made them perk up a bit. Finn, just to be different, kept telling them "whoa!", but those Haflingers obviously didn't speak cowboy.

After about 40min the trotting horses and constant bling bling bling of the bells put Lily right to sleep, and it wasn't even lunch time yet!

Lily getting ready to go home. Lenny packed? - Check! Lily on board and buckled up? - Check!

One thing we couldn't try out was the outdoor swimming pool at the hotel. So - we'll have to go back in the summer!

Happy New Year!

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We had a really nice New Year's Eve celebration at our friends' house. We got home at 4am - can't remember the last time we stayed out that long. The kids had a lot of fun and enjoyed the fire works and drinking "champagne" to ring in the new year.

We hope 2010 will bring you all much happiness, health and love!