Talented Man

The other day when we were at church one of our friends came up to Steve and said, "You are a very talented man." She was referring to the hymns he had just played on the organ for Sacrament Meeting, since our regular pianist was out of town. Steve has never had piano lessons, but decided he wanted to learn how to play one day, and now he is playing the organ in Sacrament Meeting. This particular friend has also been to our house a couple of times when Steve has made dinner and she is always very impressed with his cooking. He is an EXCELLENT cook, but most of you already know that. ")

Anyway Julie (the friend) got me to thinking about Steve's many talents, and she is so right. He is a very talented person. I have always kind of just taken it for granted. Besides the things she mentioned he can also speak 3 languages fluently. The most difficult of which he uses everyday. He is an amazing father, and way surpasses any expectations I ever had of him. He is a kind and loving husband which is not something I always deserve. He just spent the last 2 months filling in for our Primary Chorister who was out sick from an operation, and taught the kids the new songs perfectly.

He is great with the BBQ. This is our first outdoor BBQ meal this season, and it was awesome.


And his newest hobby is wood and metal work. He has turned part of our basement in to his shop and has done some pretty cool things.

This is the forge he made to melt the metal so he could hammer it.

This is the first frame he made. Which is not meant to go in the same room as the one I blogged about the other day.

And this is a dumpster type thing that he made for our recyclable trash because the cats kept coming over and ripping open the bags.
Oh, and did I mention.... he can fix anything! He has fixed 95% of things I ask him to.

I couldn't ask for a better example to our growing BOY population.

True meaning of Easter

To not forget the true meaning of Easter, we had a wonderful day at church where we discussed the Atonement and Resurrection of Christ. Both Primary and Sacrament Meeting had a great spirit to them that I feel made both Steve and I and the boys really think about Christ.

In Primary I did a fun Sharing Time that I also did with my boys last year. Last year we were in Garmisch Germany (down south) for Easter and since their were no English Wards in the area, we didn't go to church, but I brought this lesson to help explain "Easter" to the boys. I liked it so well that I used it again.

You take 12 plastic eggs (the kind that you can open) and fill them with symbols that represent different parts of the Easter story.

1. Palm Branch -Matthew 21:1-11
Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. The people waved palm branches.

2. Bread -Matthew 26:26, 17-19
While they were eating Jesus took a piece of bread,
gave a prayer of thanks, broke it, and gave it to His disciples.
"Take and eat it," He said, "This is My body."

3. Picture of praying hands or I did a piece of paper that said "Picture on the board" and it was the Picture of Christ in Gethsemane

4. 3 Dimes -Matthew 26: 14-15 27:3
Then one of the twelve disciples, named Judas Iscariot, went to
the chief priests and asked, "What will you give me if I betray
Jesus to you?" They counted out thirty silver coins and gave
them to him.

5. Thorns, like on a rose stem -Matthew 27:29-31
Then they made a crown out of thorny branches and placed it on
His head, and put a stick on His right hand; then they knelt
before Him and made fun of Him.

6. A small cross (I glued two small sticks together) -John 19: 17-18a
He went out, carrying His cross, and came to "The Place of the
Skull," as it is called. (In Hebrew it is called "Galgotha.") There
they crucified Him. Matthew 27:31 and Luke 23:33 and Luke 23:40-41

7.Nails -John 20:25-29

8.Cotton ball with vinegar poured on it. -Matthew 27:34
They gave Jesus vinegar mixed with gall on a sponge to drink.

9. Gauze or White Cloth - Luke 23:53 and Matthew 27:57-60
After Jesus died, His friends wrapped Him up with cloth and lay Him in a special cave, a tomb.

10. Stone or a rock –Matthew 27:62-65 and Matthew 28:66
The ones who had killed him put a large rock over the mouth of the tomb, the cave to make sure no one could get Jesus out.

11. Cinnamon sticks (burial spices) –Mark 16:1
Three women brought special spices to anoint Jesus body.

12.Empty! –Luke 24:3,6 and Matthew 28:2-6
Three days later, the huge rock was moved and Jesus was gone from the tomb. An angel said He was alive again! This day is what we celebrate on Easter Sunday.

Then the Primary children came up one at a time and got to open an egg and we discussed what it represented. At the end of this I spent some time on the Resurrection and joy of that and what it means because I didn't want it to be too sad for them. It really turned out well and the kids seemed to be absorbing what they were learning.
So I know this comes a day late, but at least it is recorded now so you can use it next year or even if you don't I know where to come if I want to use it again. :)

(I was missing some by the time we came home from church)


PS- Just for Sarah-
The Allred Easter breakfast was this:
Take 3 hard boiled eggs, crack them and put them in a bowl. Squish them up with a fork. Put some salt, pepper and a dollop of butter in the bowl. Put it in the microwave for 30 seconds, then stir and eat. It is quite good for how easy it is to make.

Easter

We had a wonderful Easter! We started by coloring some eggs yesterday for the Easter Bunny to hide.

Then, since church is not until noon, we were able to do a fun Easter egg hunt and of course candy eating marathon this morning. I realized as the boys where eating their candy that the Easter Bunny must have been on a major chocolate kick when buying the candy. Everything in their baskets was plain chocolate. There were no jelly beans, marshmallows or even chocolate with peanut butter. It was all just solid plain chocolate. It made for quit a boring Easter basket. Oops! Oh well, I will remember that for the years to come. :)
This is the boys getting "instructions" from Dad on the Easter egg hunt. He let them each get one at a time, and hummed a fun jingle while the boys were looking.

The boys got Easter mugs in their baskets, so we had hot chocolate for breakfast, and of course the usual Allred Easter breakfast of smashed up eggs with butter and salt in the microwave.
Then for dinner I made cheese fondue and we had a great time dipping our sticks in the pot and getting drops of cheese all over everything. It was a wonderful Easter!
I hope you all enjoyed your Easter Holiday. I will post a little about my sharing time on the Resurrection tomorrow.

Conference Weekend

I too love Conference Weekend! It seems to be such a relaxing weekend, and I always learn so much. Not to mention there is no lesson to prepare for or fights during Sacrament Meeting. I wouldn't trade going to church for anything, but every once in a while, it is nice to have church on the computer with the kids downstairs watching Charlotte's web.

Since Conference comes on pretty late here, we can get a little stir crazy on Sunday, with no shopping, or bike riding or church to go to. So, this year we decided to go see something we haven't seen yet in Germany. Of course we chose a castle. The Frankenstein Castle is only about 20 minutes from our house, but we had not been there yet, so that is what we decided on. We took a picnic lunch and when Steve got home from Priesthood at 1:00pm we headed out. It was castle ruins like a lot of the castles here are, but it was still fun to see. It was a gorgeous day, and it was nice to be outside. The Germans must have agreed, because there where soooo many people on the bike trails and parks and at the castle and everywhere else that we past.


Looking at the holes in the floor of a watch tower. It only showed the next floor down.
The view from the top.

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.