Decorating help

So, with half of my family coming this Spring/Summer, Steve and I have decided that maybe we should hang some pictures on the wall since we collect them every time we travel. We have decorated very little in the 6.5 years we have been married, so this is a big step for us. It is frustrating too, because I don't have a clue what I am doing. :)

Anyway, we need some advice. We have a picture that we got while we were in Italy, and Steve has made a frame for it (his new hobby). He is finished with the frame, but neither of us are happy with the color, because it matches the wall exactly. It will be easy to change colors since he just has to paint it, but we don't know what color to paint it.


I haven't cleaned the glass yet from Steve working with it, but the corner picture will give you a closer look at the picture and the color of the frame next to the wall. Please share your decorating talent with us!

Boys, Boys, Boys

Oh Yeah, and add one more boy to that list!

We went to the Dr. today to find out what our next child is going to be and he seems pretty confident that we will be having another boy!! I feel pretty confident that Steve and I are not capable of making a girl. I think we are making Papa Hughes wishes come true though. He was the only boy in a family of six kids, and then he had only one boy in a family of four kids. So, if it weren't for our great ability to produce boys, the Hughes name could have been lost. Now, we are almost guaranteeing at least another generation of Hughes.

So, how am I feeling you ask? Well, I will not lie, I am disappointed, and it makes me wonder why Heavenly Father does not want to send me a baby girl. But....I am not heart broken. I am really excited to have another baby, and I feel pretty confident that I am good at the boy thing. So, there goes hoping, and life goes on. We will love him just as much as our other crazy kids. Steve is thrilled. He does great with boys, and he likes to stick with things he is good at. Plus, he grew up with 3 sisters, so maybe this is all for him. Who knows?

Anyway, here are some pictures of breakfast this morning. I bought matching shirts for Steve and Steven because Steven loves to match his Dad. And this gives you an idea of what I am surrounded by, and it is going to increase by one now.



PS- I am feeling like unless there is a clear sign to me that I should have another, I am thinking this little boy will be our last baby. :)

No more babies (for now)

I was all ready to post a great St. patrick's day blog, but we went to the pub a little late, and there were tons of people there watching a rugby match. Since we were looking for a place to eat and not a place to watch rugby we ended up not spending our holiday at the Irish pub. Oh well.

In other news. It is a big thing to me to realize I do not have any babies right now. I guess the next one will come just in the nick of time. Jacob has been doing Great with his new underwear. He has had no pee accidents since I trained him. He was having issues with the other, but he has figured that one out now too. My only complaint at this point is his timing. He only needs my help in the bathroom when he is going poop, and he only seems to do that just as I lay down to go to sleep. Every day without fail, I will have him go potty, then put him down for a nap. Then I will get on the computer for 5, 10, 15 minutes waiting for him to come out and say he has to go to the bathroom. He never does, so I eventually go upstairs and try to get a short nap. Every day, within 5 minutes of me laying down, it is all of a sudden the right time for him to go poop. OOHH it is driving me crazy. To make matters worse my room is on the third floor and his is on the second. But he is successful in the training, so I guess I shouldn't complain.

Also, if you will remember the blog I put up a while ago with Jacob sleeping with 4 different binkis. Well, letting him be in charge of the binki's whereabouts has proved to be pretty unfortunate for him. Within a week or two of potty training him, we were putting him to bed, and we could not find any binki's anywhere. We looked for a while and then just gave up and told him it was lost (which it was). For a couple of nights afterwards, he asked for his binki as he was going to bed, and I still had not found one, and I wasn't about to go buy a new one, so sadly for him, his binki is now history. There has been no fighting or crying for it like there was with the other two. Just acceptance of the fact that he lost it. So, now new undies and no binki. The baby is officially gone.

I am adding a picture of Jacob's green underwear for two reasons. 1. I would still like to give some credit to this Holiday of Green wearing and pinching. 2. Laura gets such a kick out of the feminine looking German underwear. So, I thought she would like to see Jacob's booty in some.

Our Little Nathan

Just a couple of thoughts on our little 4 year old.

Nathan has definitely been my most challenging child. It is just because he is not passive or easy going. He lets you know what he wants and when he wants it. I remember he was quite a crier when he was a baby. The war in Iraq started about a week after he was born and made Steve work 12 hour days. So, I was home with the two boys in the evening. My darling Steven whom I loved to read stories to and sing songs to when I put him to bed, and my screaming baby boy Nathan. I finally decided that is too bad for Nathan if he wants to cry, I am going to read stories and sing. So, I would put him in his swing and let him cry for the 20 minutes it took me to get Steven ready for bed.

As Nathan has grown he still lets you know without a question what he is happy with and what he doesn't like. Because of his strong personality he is the child that many people enjoy the most. I have learned to love it as well. He has helped us come up with some new ways of discipling though. It is because of Nathans extremely loud screaming when playing or yelling or singing or anything for that matter that we started the hot sauce punishment. If he can't control his volume after being asked about 10 times, then he gets a little Tabasco on his tongue. It works quite well for any of you with the same sort of issues. :)

As far as his lovely qualities, he has many of them. He makes friends very easily because he will be friends with anyone. Even when they can't understand a word he is saying. He will often come up to me with a puppy dog look on his face and a sweet soft voice and say, "I love you Mom" and then give me a hug. Come to find out he has done that to his Nursery leaders too. He loves to do puzzles and is just starting to enjoy computer games, and watching Steven on the X-box. He has also coined some great phrases.
Like.... "I burted" for I burped which was made to sound like farted.
or everytime I tell him he needs to take a nap he says, "Is it for a lawn, lawn, lawn time?" Since he doesn't say his g's correctly yet, that is how he says long.
On occasion he decides that he hates things, that he really shouldn't. Currently he Hates primary, and asks the whole time when he can go. It can be very distracting, especially when I am trying to do Sharing Time and can't whisper to him to be quite. At Christmas time he decided that he Hated the camera right about the time Scott Buchanan was taking a video of him. He screamed at Scott and ran in to a bedroom and slammed the door. Luckily, Scott thought it was hilarious and proceeded to show the video to anyone that would watch.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture. We love our Nathan boy and are enjoying watching him grow.

The Buchanans are coming!

So after lots of talk....Alicia, Scott and Brielle are coming to Germany for a visit! We are thrilled to have them come to our home, and see this beautiful country (and many other countires for that matter.) We had no visitors from the states last year, but some of the family is making up for it this year. We should have visitors in May, June, and September. We are also trying to talk Nana and Papa Hughes into coming at the beginning of December. Fran would love the Christmas markets. We will see.

With the Buchanans we plan on going to Holland for a night or two to see the Tulips, and taking a drive along the Rhine River. I also think they are going to really appreciate German food, so we will be eating our little hearts out. We are just so excited because it means seeing family, and another vacation for us. YAHOO!

Nathan's Geburtstag

As most of you know, our little Nathan turned 4 today and hopefully he has had a wonderful birthday (Geburtstag auf Deutsch) .

We started his celebration yesterday, by taking the boys to the Circus. We had a great time, and I am glad we went. My only problem was....we went to the 8:00 show because adults got in free to that one, so we just paid for the kids. But we didn't leave until after 10:30pm and the boys were begging us to go home.


Today, we spent lunch at another little girls birthday party at a place kind of like Chuck E Cheese. Then for dinner we had our neighbors (Noelle and Katja) and our friends the McNalley's over for dinner, cake, and presents. Nathan seemed to have a great weekend.



Nathan's door decorated for when he woke up in the morning.

M. Russell Ballard

On Sunday it was announced at church that M. Russell Ballard would be coming to Germany to speak to the Americans that are living here. He was going to come to the Nurenburg area, which is about 2 hours away from us. Some of the ladies in the Branch really wanted to go, so I decided I would go too. I left Steve with the boys, and myself and 4 other ladies drove down to see an Apostle.

Right when I saw him, he did not look familiar at all. I thought he should have, but he didn't. We were early, so he was going around shaking peoples hands and when he shook my hand, he said "How are you all doing today." I smiled and said, "Great, Thank you. Your voice sounds so familiar." He chuckled at that and kept walking. It just struck me when I heard him talk that although I didn't recognize his face, I definitely knew that voice. Kind of a cheesy thing to say, but I am sure people have said cheesier.

Anyway. His talk was fantastic, and I am so happy I went. He speaks on a much more personal level when he is speaking to a small group of 200 compared to when he is speaking in General Conference. It was wonderful to hear him.

His message was about how many people can be converted in their minds that the church is true, but it is not until we are converted in our hearts and souls that we are truly converted. And when that happens we can be like a Big Oak Tree who will be beat by the storm but because of it's deep roots we will not fall down with all the beating. Even when all the smaller trees around us have fallen. It was a great message and was just really nice to hear him speak and hear a little more about his life.

About a week ago, he was in Kuwait to talk to the soldiers there, and wanted to come through German to speak to the people stationed here. So, after he was done talking, he asked if all the soldiers that were there in uniform would come up to be in a picture with him that he was going to take back to the First Presidency.

It was an awesome experience!

About a year ago, L. Tom Perry came to our little Branch to speak to our congregation as well. I remember thinking he was really tall. So, I guess Germany is the place to come if you want to see one of the 12 Apostles. :)

Potty Trained!

Yup, that is right Jacob is potty trained. According to Chrissy Roecker, he could have been potty trained a long time ago (and I agree with her) but I was too lazy to do it. I actually prefer to wait until they are closer to 3. They can do more by themselves, they seem to pick it up quicker, and there just seems to be less mess involved. It was one year ago this month that Nathan was potty trained.

So, anyway here is the story of Jacob. We went to Walmart the other day to do some shopping while the boys were at school. He was walking behind me at a dawdling pace when all of a sudden he says, "STOP! I need to pee." Then he stands still for a couple seconds with an odd look on his face, and then says, "K, I am done." And keeps on walking like there was nothing out of the ordinary about that.

Well, you better believe we went straight to the underwear isle to get some new undies for him to start wearing. He was pretty easy too. With both Nathan and Jacob I just put them in underwear and tell them to tell me when they need to go potty. Well, of course they pee in their underwear the first couple of times, but it is never too big of a mess. Just coming out of diapers, they pee often, so it is never very much. After they have wet in 3 pairs of underwear, I say OK let's put a diaper back on and we will try again tomorrow, and I will wash all of your underwear. Then, I do the same thing the next day. And with both of my boys they have got it down before they get three pairs of underwear wet the next day. Jacob even went to church in underwear today, and did great.

Steven was a different story of course. I think he only had one accident, and he was not quite 2 and a half when he was potty trained.

Valentines Day-A little late :)

So, I know this is late, but at least we are still in the right month. Does that count for anything?

We had a wonderful Valentines Day. We had heart muffins for breakfast, and opened a little Valentine package that came from Mom and Dad the day or two before. Mom put some new Chocolate Valentine hearts in the package that I had never tasted before and they were Wonderful. Too bad Jacob ate most of mine later on in the day. Thanks Mom and Dad for thinking of us. We love you.



In the evening, Steve and I fed the kids at the normal time, then put them to bed. After they were gone, we sat down to eat together and then watch a movie. Steve made chicken alfredo, homemade garlic breadsticks, and cheesecake for dessert. I made the salad, and set the table. Steve is such a wonderful husband, and I am so grateful that he is with me. The longer we are married the more great qualities I see in him. I Love Him! :)


P.S.- the beautiful flowers came from Steve too.

Fasching a.k.a. Mardi Gras

Today is Fasching! which is the same thing as Mardi Gras in New Orleans. It is also Fat Tuesday I have been told. Which all means very little to me, except now that the kids are in German school they get to PARTY! They got to dress up as whatever they wanted on Monday, and then for today they had a theme for dress up. It was Wild West. So, they could be cowboys or Indians. The boys had a great time dressing up, and these kindergartens really know how to party.

These are the "before" pictures of the boys and our neighbor Ronya (Noelle's daughter from the last blog).



And these are the after pictures. I love the comparison. Nathan was crying when I went to pick them up because his teacher wouldn't give him juice. They only had water for them to drink, and the Germans drink bubble water, which is horrible, so he was thirsty. Poor guy. Steven has his treasure from the party (Nathan's hat full of candy). And the difference in Ronya just cracks me up.



Here are pictures of all the things they had for the kids to play with. The boy on the horse is not anyone you know. :)

They had a great time.

Fun Saturday

OK, so I will post my Valentine pictures eventually, but I wanted to blog about our Saturday activities first. The only sad thing about this is, I put my camera in the car so that I could post pictures with this blog, but we ended up taking the other car. HaHa!

So, on Saturday our neighbors invited us to go to the Christening of their 4 month old son. I thought it was so nice of them to think of us, and was excited to go. We went to their church and watched the ceremony, and it was very interesting. And although it was not a ceremony that I believe needed to be done, I think it is nice for all children to have some kind of ceremony that involves God. The poor baby cried almost the whole 45 minutes, and the Mom was quite frustrated. There was a lot of singing (in German) and some candle lighting, and then some blessing type of things. During one part of the ceremony they gave 5 of the children that were there, a candle to hold, including Steven and Nathan. Then, they just let the kids hold them until the kid eventually did something wrong and the candles got blown out one by one. There has to be many times that the preachers robe or someones hair has caught on fire. We were all standing by the little tub where the baby was getting christened in very close proximity with all these young children swinging their candles around. No disasters for us though.

So, that was very nice, and it was good for me to experience. Then after leaving the church they invited us out to dinner with them. Our neighbors consist of a German women, and an Irish man, and their three children. They are fluent in German and English, and both of their parents were here as well. The German parents speaking very little English, and the Irish parents speaking NO German.

Our neighbors own an Irish Pub in Frankfurt which is where they chose to go to dinner. They have told us to eat there so many times, but we never have, so we decided now would be a good time to see their Pub. The food was very good, and the kids had a great time acting like wild animals. Then when we were done eating, we stayed a little while longer to listen to our neighbor (Noelle) sing some Irish folksongs, and boy are we glad we did. It was so cool to hear him sing these songs, and I thought about the Buchanans although I am sure the Scottish are a bit different. His friend that was playing with him started out playing a mandolin, and after a couple of songs switched to the banjo. Noelle was playing the guitar. I personally liked the sound of the banjo the best. The boys who had been pretty rowdy, just sat and listened to the music, and really enjoyed it. I was also sitting next to Noelle's Mom whom I had been talking to for a while, and I got to hear her sing along to the music with her Irish accent, and on one of the songs she started clapping her hands to the music. It was so neat to be there.

Then when Noelle was done with a few of his songs, they convinced his Dad to go up and sing a song. He had an older, richer voice, and I just loved to listen to him. He was singing a song called "Streets of London" by Ralph McTell. Much to Steve and I's surprise not only did all of the Irish people there join in with the song, but the Germans also seemed to know all the words of this song. Both Steve and I had never heard it before. It was great. We just loved being a part of this cultural experience. I was very sad not to have my camera there!

Valentines Day Muffins

I just got done making the dough for some Fabulous Chocolate Banana Bread. I have made this recipe before, and it is great. I have a heart shaped muffin tin, and I am planning on getting up before the boys tomorrow morning, and making them heart shaped muffins for breakfast fresh out of the oven. And since I am ahead of most of you in time, I figured I would share the recipe in case anyone was looking for something fun to do. Here it is:

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup margarine, softened
• 2 cups white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 6 bananas, mashed
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• a pinch of salt
  
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 cup lite sour cream
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease two 9x5 inch loaf pans.
2. In a large bowl, cream together margarine, sugar and eggs. Stir in bananas and vanilla. Sift in flour, baking soda and cocoa; mix well. Blend in sour cream and chocolate chips. Pour batter into prepared pans.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into center of a loaf comes out clean.

This recipe came from allrecipes.com (of course), so in case any of you like to look at the reviews like I do, here is the link. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chocolate-banana-bread/detail.aspx


And since I have already done a blog with no pictures this week, I will share some lovely pictures of Jacob's binky collection. He collects them as he seems them laying around the house and then says he wants "all the binkies" when he is going to bed.

Rain, Rain

We got our new camera in the mail from Mom a couple of weeks ago, and are LOVING it. I was afraid I wouldn't like it because it was big, but it is the same size as my other camera so that is what I am use to, and it is so light. We really love it. So thank you Mom and Dad for the Christmas gift.

It has been raining here so much lately. This is usually when we get our snow, but it has rarely gone below freezing this winter, so we are getting rain instead. It has been the weirdest winter here. The typical highs have been in the mid 40's which is quite high.

So, of course the boys have found a way to enjoy the rain. This is in a lot next to our house that has a perfect puddle.
We were bored enough that I didn't even make Steven get out of the puddle when his whole boot was getting covered.




The outfit that Steven is wearing is what the German kids put on every time they leave their houses in the winter. It is a snow bib, boots, coat, hat and gloves. It seemed so weird for me at first, but once they are old enough to put it all on themselves it is quite nice. They stay plenty warm and when they play outside they keep their clothes completely clean. Nathan hasn't warmed up to the idea of adorning himself in all of that gear whenever he leaves the house. It is a good thing this winter has been warm or the teachers would have my head. They do ask them to wear rain gear when it is wet, but warmer. Which would consist of rain bibs, coat, boots, hat. Germans don' t like to be cold. :) They are great.

Jacob's understanding

So, Jacob and I went to the store this morning, and in the checkout line he keep asking me for candy after candy after candy. I kept saying No, especially since he was already holding a snack in his hands. I finally told him if he asks me again, I am going to put him in the buggy where he can't reach the candy. Well, of course it came to that, and once he was in the buggy he was being totally rude and acting like a brat because he didn't want to be there. I told him to stop or I am going to put him down for a nap when we get home.

So, then we are in the car and here is the conversation:

Jacob: Am I going to bed?
Me: If you keep acting Rude you are.
Jacob: I'm not Rude (pause, then breaks in to song)
Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer
Has a very shiny nose
And if you ever saw it,
you would even say it glows.


Apparently he thought I was saying he is Rudolph. haha

Speaking of having a baby

Speaking of having a baby Dad, I went to the Doctor today. After Alicia wrote and said that she heard her babies heartbeat, and she is due at least a month after me, I decided it was time for me to go see a Doctor. So Jacob and I dropped the boys off at school this morning and then went. He is a wonderful man, and I am confident now that having my baby in Germany is going to be just fine. Although there are going to be some differences.
Disclaimer:
K, if you don't want to hear the details this is where you stop. :)

So, at the Doctors office, after the initial exam, he said he was going to give me an ultrasound. I guess he would rather see the baby then just hear it. So he asks me to walk from one room to another with only my shirt on. It wasn't past where anyone else could see me, but it was still a little strange for me to be walking around like that with the Dr. and the nurse in the room. OK, so then I lay on the bed for the ultrasound, and of course I pull my shirt up past my stomach so he could start. Well, I guess at least on early ultrasounds the camera goes inside of you rather than on your stomach. Wow! That was a surprise. After the initial shock, I got to look at the screen and see the baby and it was so cool. I could see the head and the body and the arms moving. He said the baby is big so either it is going to be a big baby (9 lbs is big and that was the size of all my boys) or I am a week off on my due date. I think the former is probably more correct.






So, all in all it was a good experience that left Jacob a little confused, but me a little excited. The Dr. will be great, and I am now totally convinced that there is a baby inside of me, even if all my usual signs of pregnancy have not reared their ugly head yet. Who knows, maybe my attitude will never become mean and nasty during this pregnancy. Steve certainly would be thrilled. :)

ZUMA!!

K, so I just have to share my joy! I did a blog on Zuma a while back, and I have been faithfully trying to beat the game everyday since that blog. Jen Olsen beat the game about a month ago, which just made my desire to win even stronger. I was getting so, so, so close, but I just couldn't do it, UNTIL TONIGHT! What a great feeling to be triumphant. :)

Just thought I would share.

PS- Steve is still work diligently on beating the game. He hates that I beat it first, but HEY he won both games of Settlers that we played tonight, so oh well. :)

Triberg

So, I don't know what has happened to me, but I have turned in to a traveler I guess. We had been home for about a week from a long vacation to California and Steve and I were just getting the urge to go on a trip. So, of course we did. :) We have stayed in this same hotel in Triberg at least 4 times since we have been here, and we love going to this area for some reason. So last Thursday we left for a two day vacation, and took some friends of ours with us.

The first day we went to see the waterfall which was something we have done with both mine and Steve's parents. It was lightly raining all day that day, but it has been so warm here in Germany, that is wasn't too cold to be out getting wet.


The water was pretty dirty


In the evening we played a couple of games of Settlers which as you know is one of our favorite things to do, and the next morning we had a wonderful German breakfast of rolls, cold cuts, and cheese. That is one of my favorite things about this hotel, I just have good memories of their breakfast. :)

Then we checked out of the hotel, but we wanted to see one more thing before we headed home. Well, they had a brochure in their visitor info building that listed many different things to do in the area. There was one that talked about climbing on rocks and that it would be heaven for children. So... of course that is the one we decided to find. Little did I know that something that was advertised in a brochure would be SOOO hard to find. We asked 3 different people for directions, and had to turn around a couple of different times to find this place. I couldn't believe how hard it was to find. BUT, boy are we glad we did. We got out of the car and started on this little trail in the mountains, and it was absolutely gorgeous. The boys were thrilled because we were walking through the "black forest" which is what this whole area of Germany is called. We eventually did find some rocks, but they were right at the edge of a cliff, and I can't imagine anyone that would let their kids climb on them. It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen though. So, it all worked out just wonderfully. And now a week later, I am ready to go see something else.

This was a clearing at the beginning of the hike. Steve couldn't resist, and broke into song with "The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music."






This is the rock at the end of the hike, it was at the top of the mountain and had quite a view as you can imagine.