Home from Germany

My kids are little rockstars, truly they are. The trip there went smoothly, we made our Atlanta flight and our Frankfurt flight with no problems. Mom and Melissa got upgraded to First Class and I had to sit with my little ones in Coach, which was fine for the first half of the trip because there was an extra seat for Colin, but then a paying passenger decided he wanted a different seat, so Lily was forced back into the carseat and Colin on my lap. I made sure to point Colin at the guy whenever he cried loudly. Since it was a night flight, eventually both kids passed out and all was well. Lily was actually super easy, she is a professional. I think Colin was great, all things considered, his poor front teeth were starting to come out on the way there and I could tell it was hurting him (as of today, one of them has officially erupted and the 2nd top tooth will emerge any day)

We spent lots of time just relaxing and spending time with family. I managed to take lots of walks with the kids and really work on my photography stuff, since the weather was so beautiful

I didn't end up getting the kids baptized on this trip, so maybe next time. Both kids loved the ornate churches we visited.

Lily loved "baby Tim" -- my cousin's little boy. Check out the little blondies


While visiting baby Tim and his parents, a relative of theirs showed me how she spins raw wool and then sent me home with some homemade and natural dyed wool dryer balls (she dyes them herself with plant dyes). As a knitter, I was in heaven, hearing about how she gets the wool from local shearers, hand mixes it to the perfect softeness, cleans it, spins it and dyes in and then makes beautiful things. She even scented my dryer balls with orange essential oil. My laundry is gonna smell so yummy!

Lily has been so excited to meet my cousin's daugher, Melina. They are one year apart (Melina is a year younger, although just as tall) and have talked on the webcam a few times. Lily was in love and immediately took Melina's hand and dragged the poor child everywhere. We took the kids to a petting zoo and they had a blast

I just had to include this sunset picture. It was taken from a really high hilltop a few towns over

This wrap saved my life. I had only brought my Yamo carrier with me, because we flew standby and I had to pack light. Luckily, my cousin's wife was a fellow babywearer and loaned me this for our stay. Colin was so overtired and overstimulated and undoubtedly in pain from the teeth, so he spent many a nap time wrapped up with me.

We also drove to Pottenstein to visit a cave known as Teufels Hoehle. Lily was so brave, she loved climbing all the steep steps in the dark and looking at all the stalagmites and stalagtites (I can't ever remember which one is which, but whatever).

Colin liked it too! It was scary, walking in flip flops in there, because the cave floor was wet and there were a lot of steps. I was convinced I was gonna bust my butt, but luckily, we made it out just fine

Colin picked up a new trick -- waving! What you can't see in this pic is an entire room of family waving at him and him kind of shaking his little hand and then looking positively overwhelmed when we all cheered back at him for waving.

Lily helped stack Oma's firewood for the coming winter

The trip home was excrutiatingly long, but again, the kids did beautifully. We woke up at 4 AM in Germany and drove 2 hours to Frankfurt airport, sat around for 2 hours until flight time, at which time we boarded (mom in first class, me alone in coach again, but this time we had the row to ourselves, woohoo!), 10 hour flight (Colin only slept a bit, but Lily slept for several hours), and then we landed in Atlanta. The next 2 flights from Atlanta to Charlotte were looking bad, so we rented a car and drove 4 hours home. Correction -- my mother rented and drove, I entertained a screaming Colin (he screamed from Atlanta to Greenville) in the backseat and then mercifully, passed out at the same time as my kids while my very-tired mother drove us home.

Coming home was great, Devin gets major props for the housework he did. He cleaned the refrigerator, microwave, redid the living room, fixed my dumb bed, and purged a bunch of crap we no longer need. My hero!

We are jetlagged, but doing okay. Lily is always a trooper, but Colin is more delicate. He has been doing a lot of screaming, but I'm hoping that catching him up on sleep will alleviate some of that.

Lily started her first day of German school today. We found a local program that runs from 9:15 to 11:45 on Tuesday mornings that is like German preschool. She had a blast and is, in fact, napping right now on the couch, so you know it was a good day.

Colin has gotten better at sitting by himself for long periods of time and just this morning figured out that if he was sitting and close enough to something tall, he can pull himself up to a stand. Note to self: do not leave Colin in the crib sitting up anymore.

I am too tired to post any more pics, but here is a link to the ones on my facebook and I will be posting some of the more photography-ish ones on my photography blog: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=108078&id=577406724&l=007c95accb