i miss commercials...

steve and i were on youtube bumming around waiting for our pumpkin seeds to finish baking when we came upon those citi bank commercials! HA! i totally forgot about these and seriously peed my pants watching them again!!! this one is my favorite for sure:

over here in germany, we dont get to see cool commercials between shows. instead, we are enlightened with military themed ones which are pretty painful to watch. the actors are hilarious and steve and i like to add their crazy lines to our everyday conversations. for example, if i do something that bugs him, he will say, "there's only one way to deal with you!" and i might respond with a little, "plasma tv with surround sound!" yes, thats not a correct response i know, but we are random and like to throw each other off every now and then. if you live here, you understand what i mean about these commercials!

to give you guys a little taste of my pain...

this chick BUGS me! your hair is nasty and there is no way you weigh 115 pounds!

brynn did awesome today at her recital and i will post pictures tomorrow. unfortunately im an idiot and couldnt figure out how to work my friends video camera (thanks again celeste! i really am slow...) so i wasnt able to get any video of her. she was terrified to go up there but luckily a girl in our ward was helping (thanks brittany r!) her class get on stage and so once brynn saw her face, she was fine. it was super cute!

crappy day...literally

a friend of mine recently posted a picture of her one year old girl on her blog, sitting in her car seat COVERED in her own poo. i died laughing when i first saw this but then cringed at the thought of how fun that must have been to clean up. i am not a fan of changing poopy diapers, especially when the "contents" leak out everywhere and youre fighting your toddler to lay still and not try to grab at herself! i think its time to start potty training...

anyways, brynn was scheduled to have her dance pictures taken today at 2:45-3:00 on spangdahlem at the youth center where her class is normally held. as always, i was running late from our house and was in a hurry to get brynn out the door so we could speed down the autobahn and get to spangdahlem in time. as i was walking out the front door, brynn stayed glued up againist the living room wall, (this is where she stands when she's doing her business) in deep thought, refusing to follow me outside. i waited there for a few seconds then demanded that she follow me out as i was already stressed about the time. she reluctantly walked with me out to the car and i made up my mind to just change her when we got there as it would take too long to take off her coat, boots, shirt, pants, leotard, tights and try and change her in our narrow back seat. she seemed fine while i drove, singing along to the wiggles songs i had in our cd player and pointing to things as saying what they were when we zoomed past them. when we finally arrived, i pulled her out of her car seat and carried her up the stairs holding her close as having her walk would have added a few minutes and we were barely on time. well, when i set her down on the ground, my hand brushed againist my hoodie and i felt that it was damp. without thinking, i smelled my hand and about GAGGED as it was poo water!!! ahhhh! i was so mad!!! so i pulled her into the bathroom and as i walked behind her and noticed that her jeans, shirt and coat were also wet so i knew the damage underneath would be awful. the photographer was waiting for me, so this added to the stress of trying to clean up this mess and not miss my spot. so, i layed her on the plastic changing table in the bathroom, and slowly pulled off her boots, jeans and then stopped...poo was EVERYWHERE! oozing out thru her tights and leotard and all over my hands! i yelled, mad at myself for not changing her at home as i could have probably avoided this situation. so, i took everything off and realized that we were basically screwed as the outfit she was going to wear, was obviously not going to work. i was so frustrated, so i started tearing up (lame i know...) and just decided to go home...but i knew that we werent going to get the opportunity again for her pictures, so i got the idea to wash her leotard in the sink, ring it out, and see if that would work. it looked ok (aside from the fact that it reaked!) and i was feeling like a redneck. so i cleaned brynn's back, neck, arms, legs and stomach with all the wipes i had on me (thank godness i had just replenished the stash this morning) and fixed her hair. i put the cold, wet leotard on her, smashed her bare feet into her tap shoes, and walked out. i told the photographer of our situation and explained to her that i completely understood if she didnt want brynn's smellness to ruin her cute set up. she had no problem with it (although i think that was because she didnt smell her or me yet) and told me that she could take a few pictures with our 3 minutes that were left. brynn wasnt feeling so good and didnt cooperate at all. she didnt want to pose the way the lady wanted her to do and cried when i was more like 3 feet away...so yeah, im not expecting them to look great in anyway as brynn refused to smile and obviously looked sick. bad day...i shouldnt have left the house.

lets hope that her sickness goes away by thursday as thats her recital and i dont want her to miss it! grrrr....

got a poo story? share!

lazy sundays

ahhh...nothing wraps up a week like lounging on the couch watching wife swap on afn while scarfing down brynn's halloween candy! hahahahaha jk! but seriously, has anyone watched that show before? could they pick any more completely different families to swap with? dude...tonights was nasty as this gross biker chick swapped houses with a retired army colonel lady and it was pretty painful to watch. steve and i laughed our butts off at how insanely different they were! you couldnt pay me enough to do something like that on tv...well, maybe...but it would have to be a lot!

this week is going to be crazy as there are so many things going on at the same time so i hope i can come out alive. brynn has her first recital on thursday and her class is dancing to "hot potato" and "shake your sillies out" by the wiggles and we've been praticing with her daily. she LOVES to sing the songs but isnt too excited with the dance moves. so it will be interesting to see how it turns out. she is pretty hilarious with tap shoes on! if she had her way, she would wear them all the time. too bad her instructor is moving at the end of the month and her class wont be continued as they dont have a teacher yet. im thinking of putting her in gymnastics when dance is over to give her something to do and to help get rid of all that energy!

tomorrow a friend of mine (annie) is taking pictures of brynn and im really looking forward to that! i hope that it doesnt rain while we're outside as thats been the normal weather around here...wait, thats how it always is in germany! so we'll see how it turns out. brynn has been better about smiling on command (or more like demand) and hams it up when she knows we're watching her. so i hope her true self shines for annie as i want to capture her funny personality and crazy spirit! she is definately one of a kind.

also, mango has her follow up appointment at the vet on tuesday and i have yet to get a urine sample from her! not that im trying...so it will be interesting to see what they will do with her. the doctor told me to keep her in her kennel for two hours before her appointment so that when we arrive, he can try and push againist her bladder to make her "go" for him. im like, "whatever dude...good luck with that one!". mango is a "whore" (as steve nicely calls her) and i seriously doubt that will work. but she has been taking her medicine for us pretty well (errr...steve corners her in the bathroom window sill and gives her no choice as he pins her down and shoves the syringe into her mouth) and seems to be doing great so the medicine is definately working. we love our cat! hahahaha....

here are some pictures of brynn from the week:
yeah...she loves the "layered look". aunt heidi gave this hooded princess towel to brynn as a gift and she insisted on wearing it the whole night. and nothing completes an outfit without your very own lantern! hahahaha
brynn loves strollers so i went and got this cheapy one for her on friday at rofo while running errands around town looking for halloween decorations. she thinks its for her to sit on so any day now it will collapse as shes got a lot of junk in her trunk.

this gate (which is always opened normally) leads to the left side of our yard and brynn loves to play with it. she has this new obession of making sure all the doors in our house (or whever we are at) are closed. i HATE it as she slams them hard and im just waiting for something to break. isnt her coat cute? i love this littel pink toggle pea coat on her!

i love halloween

i cant write much as steve is watching "final destination" on tv and i can hear everything that is happening. i HATE scary movies as i can't stop thinking about them after they are over and freak myself out for weeks after! just not worth it...i hate feeling dark inside so i dont even go there anymore. i hate seeing people scared and in pain as it eats me up inside. i think the last scary movie i saw was "the ring" in the theatre's in logan back in 2004 and that was just not cool. if you knew what our house looked like, you too would have understood why i wasnt able to sleep soundly for weeks and had to have steve in the room with me! it didnt help that he played on my emotions and about gave me a few heart attacks by jumping out at me and grabbing my legs as i was going up the stairs....ok, just thinking about those times are freaking me out so i will change the subject...

our ward had their halloween party last night and it turned out great! the primary presidency was in charge of making the primary room into a spook alley so i was a little worried. you cant find too many scary halloween decorations (or any decorations for that matter as halloween is an american holiday and not too many germans celebrate it) out here and the stuff i have is more cutetsy then scary that wasnt going to work. luckily, i work with one amazingly talented girl (angie e.) who always has the best ideas for parties and decorations so we were able to pull something together. its amazing what those fake spider webs can do to a room! we covered the windows with dark paper and brought the pumpkins that steve and i carved earlier in the week to make it spooky (but not too scary as we had little kids coming too). angie also thought of doing a "mad scientist's lab" in the other half, as we closed the dividers to make the room into two, and that went well. she brought in a peeled orange for the heart, spaghetti for the brains, tomato sauce for the blood, nasty sausage for the intestines, a glove filled with water and frozen for a hand, and peeled grapes for eye balls. she was able to gross the kids out and even scared some littlier kids to death! it turned out well for not being able to go to a michaels or target for props! celeste and i were in charge of the other half and played the monster mash in the dark and had the kids dance and follow our instructions for crazy poses. im not that creative on the spot, so i recruited steve to help me out as he is real funny with the kids and gets them going with his craziness! it was funny...after that, we had trunk or treating in the parking lot and had a good turn out. brynn was so tired and she refused to take a nap earlier in the day, so i ended up dragging her around to get her candy. she looked super cute in her pirate costume! but wasnt too thrilled with the head sash and hat so we had to chuck that after the first 20 minutes of arriving...steve and i also dressed up but the pictures i took with my camera didnt turn out too good (it was dark and my flash wasnt working too well) but we are going to two more costume parties next week so i will take more later. steve wore eyeliner for the first time and i think he is addicted! jk...but he did look hot in a weird jack sparrow kind of way! hahahaha

i love halloween and dressing up! its really cute to see all the costumes that people wear and passing out candy. obviously im not too cool with the scary part, but i still have a good time.

oh, we had a lot of people ask about how we carved our pumpkins so i thought i'd pass around the info. www.zombiepumpkins.com is an awesome site (but you have to pay a small fee as the creator donates money to a charity) to get great patterns and tips on how to carve your pumpkins. it also has patterns for carving watermelons for parties in the summer that are patriotic and look awesome. i highly recommend this site for great looking pumpkins!

our favorite furniture store in kaiserslautern (european country living) has their anniversary sale going on so we headed to rammstein today to look at some chairs. we bought a nice table and bench there in the summer but waited on buying some chairs as they are pretty pricey. im glad we waited on getting the chairs as we saved a lot by buying them today! plus the dollar is getting a little stronger here so the exchange rate was better. they are delivering our stuff in the beginning of november so im going to need some help kayla on how to feng shui up my house!

well, i better get going and distract myself from this freaky movie i hear in the other room...i still havent finished "the host" by stephenie meyer so i think i'll dive into that.

oh and to my germany friends; dont forget to set your clocks back an hour tonight! im really looking forward to that extra hour of sleep...did i mention that i love to sleep? hahahaha

ps. why are those little candy bars called "fun size"s? whats so fun about that!?!

mo money, mo problems

we'll, i WISH we had more money after today! grrrr...today was not so fun for the wallet!

over the weekend, i noticed that our cat mango had been using the litter box rather frequently but when i would check it after she got out, there would be nothing in there. so for a few more days i watched her and also noticed that she was drinking more water but not peeing that much. so i tried to get her on base with the vet but they were booked until mid november (its hard to get ANY appointments on base!!! i hate it!) so i called off base to a clinic in bitburg that we took her too when we first moved here. luckily they were able to get me in the next day (today). well, mango HATES her kennel as im sure it brings back awful memories of the trip from the states to here (15+ hours alone in a kennel on a cold plane) so she was pretty pissed at me the whole time while she was in it. brynn was so cute on the drive there as she tried singing to mango to help ease the tension but of corse that didnt help! mango isnt too "friendly" with brynn so when she hears her voice, she meows her nasty meow and swats at her! so yeah, the 15 minute drive to the vet was pretty exciting!

the vet needed to get mango's temperature so of corse, the ole rectal thermometer was used! poor cat! her eyes bulged out so far that i thought they would pop out! so, they think mango has a bladder infection so i have to give her these antibotic drops for a week and collect a urine sample somehow. i dont know how thats going to work as she uses a littler box (thankfully, she never has accidents) and i dont plan on following her around when she goes in there! so if any of you guys have any ideas, let me know! so yeah, 69 euro later ($91) we were free to go.

before we took mango to the vet, i was on base this morning as brynn has dance class every tuesday. on the way to base while on the autobahn, my car was shaking and acting funny so of corse i was concerned. we had JUST had crap fixed on it back in august so i was mad that it was acting funny again. so i met up with steve and we drove to the hobby lobby shop on base and i went inside to see if they could take a look at it. luckily, they had a spot open in the afternoon so i took steves car home and told them to call steve when they figured out what was wrong. well, as soon as i got back home, steve called me and said, "youre never going to believe what they found". so i asked and he said that those stupid weasel marten thingys ate up our spark plug wires AGAIN! UGH! this happened to us last year too! we heard about these nasty rodents getting into the hoods of peoples cars and chewing on their wires (to stay warm and to keep their teeth sharp i guess?) when we first arrived but didnt think it happened too often. well, we are living proof that it DOES happen so make sure you spray your engines in the winter with rodent spray! i wish we had a garage or something as this wouldnt even be an issue...so yes, to get new spark plug wires (which were JUST replaced in august!!!) + labor is going to cost us $150. well, its pretty crappy timing as i was about to buy tickets to florence/rome for us for thanksgiving but steve is making me hold off on that...grrrr! so it looks like we are going to be spending yet another thanksgiving in the farm area's of bitburg! hooray! grrrrr....nothing like seeing a bunch of nasty cows to make your holiday seasons special.

on monday, my friend emily and i hit up the costume shop in wittlich to get some last minute things for our halloween costumes. our family is going as pirates so i found a wig for myself and a "chest wig" for steve as his pirate shirt is open in the front and he isnt hairy (thank goodness! chest hair is nasty!) enough to play the part! it should be fun!

oh, and sorry for not posting pictures yet of my new hair cut. i didnt pull my camera out on saturday night when steve and i went to a party for his work so give me a few days.

hope everyone is doing well!

we are moving to...

ugh! ive been meaning to get on here sooner to blog but my nights have been so crazy (thats the best time for me to blog...its hard to when brynn's awake as she beats on the keyboard and gets PISSED when i tell her no).

first of all, we found out last night where our next assignment will be. i was in shock at first as tampa (mac dill afb) seemed to be where we were headed but that fell thru at the last minute. so i will get right to it...we are moving to elmendorf afb in anchorage alaska in the end of march. it was orginally on our "dream sheet" (a list of afb's where you'd like to live that us military members are constantly updating in hopes that when a move is coming up, we can go there if there is a position available) but we were told that that was out of the question this round so we didnt consider it a possibility. in all honesty, i was bummed at first as i was really looking forward to moving somewhere warm (for once!) and the idea of wearing flip flops year round sounded nice! so yeah...i doubt i'll be wearing flip flops in alaska! darn! i have to go boot shopping then! hahahaha! i love german boots...

of corse steve is excited as he is OBSESSED with fly fishing and molesting animals...err i mean hunting so he can do his thang there. i still need a little time to accept the whole alaska thing (i'll be ok...im just in shock still). i know we will love it once we get there as i have heard great things about the base and area.

brynn's favorite teacher gabby from school had her last day today so that was sad. brynn doesnt understand that she wont be back on monday so we'll have to see how that will play out. she seriously LOVES this girl and talks about her all the time on the way to school. shes great with the kids and is so incredibly patient! i wish i had those qualities!

i got my hair chopped this afternoon and am still getting used to it. its a lot shorter then i wanted so i have to play with it a little to find a style that i feel comfortable with. its too short to go completely back in a pony tail so bobby pins will most likely become my best friends! ahhhh...im really wishing that i didnt go this short!!! i'll post pictures tomorrow as steve and i are going out to a work thingy and i plan on taking pictures.

my friend marlise, from our ward, asked if i could help out her sister in law's brach tonight in belgium with an intro to scrapbooking class. the ladies in the branch want to start mini enrichment groups and were interested in a scrapbooking one but had no idea what it is. so i thought it would be a good idea to have them make some simple cards to become a little familiar. this was hard to explain as everyone spoke french (a language that i CANNOT stand! sorry! its not pretty!!!) so marlise and the sister missionaries helped me out by translating. most of the ladies were pretty nice but a few older ones were bugged that i didnt have any stamps in french so they refused to use my english ones...sorry! it was good to see/hear a branch in our church in a different language. their building was much nicer then ours and they had a gym! i was jealous...

here are the cards we made:

(this card may look familiar to some of you guys!!! i use this template a lot for my thank you cards as its one of my favorites. totally my style)


hope everyone is doing well! its going to be weird to go from seeing wild boars crossing the street to moose!

you know youre living a pretty boring life when...

you consider it a great day because you found $1.50 off coupons for diapers and got grape juice stains off your toddlers shirt! blah...how exciting is that huh?! hahahahaha! i need to find me some more things to do!
but on a more exciting note (well, for me at least), steve was nice and dyed my hair for me thursday night while watching america's next top model. it's more of a darker blonde/lighter brown and im still getting used to it. ive never dyed my own hair (well except for that sun in crap that you spray on and lay in the sun...holy hair damage!) so i was very nervous! now i have to just get it trimmed up and i'll be looking less frumpy.

yearbook yourself

my friend sonja told me about this site where you can upload a picture of yourself onto old school yearbook pictures of people(http://www.yearbookyourself.com/). steve and i checked it out last night and about died from laughing so hard! it was so hilarious! we hadnt laughed that hard in months!!! check out our results and let us know which one is your favorite. steve looks the best as the picture we uploaded from our computer of him shows his nasty stash so he looks extra "cool"....hahahahaha! mine look a little funny (and obviously fake) as my face is pale and the rest of the pictures are dark.

this one is scary of me because it looks like a picture of my mom back in highschool! no joke!

weird...

man, germans do things soooo differently then we do! i went to a radiology clinic in bitburg this morning to get an mri done of my knee and whoa, pretty interesting experience. first of all, the waiting room has like 15 chairs so most people are stuck standing againist the walls for so long!!! they tend to schedule a ton of people at the same time so even though your appointment may be for 9am, you most likely wont get seen by someone till 9:30 or later. i guess it works that way here? my hip was killing me this morning so i was bummed to not sit down as of corse all the 15 chairs were taken. i had to wait for a long time before i was even seen, so when they finally called my name, i nearly jumped as i was excited to finally be able to sit down and change position. this lady pulled me into a small room off the skinny hallway and told me to undress completely from my waist down and wait in this changing room (more like a dressing room at a department store with a curtain for modesty) until she called me out. i thought it was weird as the room she pulled me into showed the mri machine and there was an old dude basically naked laying in there. ive seen mri machine thingy's before but they are normally in a separate room away from where everyone can see. i thought that was really unprofessional. i didnt see a gown or robe anywhere, so i stayed in my g's until she called my name as im not cool with being naked! EVER! hahahaa...so yeah, she called my name (most germans say it "pederseen" instead of peterson) as she threw the curtain open causing me to sort of scream! hahaha! i scared her too with my response, it was embarassing! i then asked her if there was a robe or something i could put on, as she's looking me up and down and wondering why im wearing white biker shorts as she told me to be completely undressed, and she gave me a weird look. i was not about to walk out naked while other people are sitting in changing rooms right next to me probably peeking out! and im sure she's never seen g's before so she probably thinks im a weirdo. call me a prude or whatever, but thats so unprofessional to not have something to wear!!! so her and this other lady found a blanket for me to use so i wrapped it around myself and walked into the machine room and they loaded me on this ramp...they probably thought i was a rude american but sorry, im not cool with strutting around!!! grrr...why dont they have gowns or something!?!! they dont even have gowns at the hospitals here either! i was so red in the face from being so embarassed so when it was all done, i wandered around kaufland (german grocery store) to get my mind off what had just happened.

so yeah, weird experience and i have to go back to get an mri of my hip next so next time i'll bring my own robe or something! weird huh? you had to be there, or not as that would have been awkward, to fully understand my story. people in germany, or all of europe, are not too modest and dont really care about getting stark naked. i on the otherhand am never going to be that comfortable with that!

way to start a week! hahahaha!

trier

"women be shoppin' "

yesterday, two of my very good friends (shelly and emily) and i hit up trier to get away from our kids and do some shopping. i was looking forward to the new indoor mall that i heard about but was disappointed to see that there was no H&M kids there!!! i had heard that there would be one there. ugh...yeah, i was sad about that but found another childrens store that was ok. i found brynn some awesome tights for the winter and cute shirts that were pretty cheap...well for the euro that is.

when we walked into the mall, we heard all this music and people crowded around the middle looking down at something. of corse we had to find out what was going on too and discovered that there was a little fashion show going on. it was pretty funny as these people incorporated dancing in it too which was hilarious! i took a video, but because there were a lot of people smashed up againist us, its not a very good one. but i have to post it to show you the dance moves! hahahaha! it was funny...we were the only ones laughing while all the other people around us were serious. yeah, way to be obnoxious americans! the models were older and the guys were balding!!! we had to get closer to discover that...and dude, why do german guys wear such tight jeans?! its NOT cool. i know the skinny jeans are in style right now, which i think are nasty, but guys shouldnt be sporting them too. no one wants to see that...no one!

when you go to trier, you HAVE to eat ice cream at one of the many eis cafe's. it was freezing cold outside but that didnt stop us from getting ice cream! and of corse i was poorly dressed and frooze my butt off walking around, but it was worth it. i took a picture of the pretty banana split that i ordered, but i didnt bring our nice camera so the picture turned out awful. this one turned out pretty good of us though...(although i look exhausted! shopping makes me really tired for some reason)

when i got home, i walked emily out to her car and our stupid cat escaped from the house. it was dark by this time, so steve and i had to find a flashlight and get her before she killed herself. shes spoiled rotten and has no idea how cats live outside of comfy warm homes and since we have two big mean dogs next door, i was afraid that she wandered into their area. luckily we found her in the huge fields next to our place frolicking in the tall grass matted with nasty muddy paws. she was proud of herself for sneaking out...when we got her back inside, i discovered that she had thrown up all over the bathroom so i was up for a while washing everything. nice huh? ugh...hair balls are not cool. its a good thing i like her or i would have thrown her back outside.

tomorrow i have an mri on my knee so i hope that goes well. i dont like confined small spaces so i hope i dont freak out. i injured my knee back in july at a tae bo class that billy blanks taught here on base, and since then its moved up to my hip. my knee feels ok now, but my doctor wants to rule it out before looking into the hip. it sucks for me because im still in pain and cant sleep on my right side because any pressure on it kills! so yeah, ive been taking ib profen constantly to help with the pain. im hoping its nothing too serious...

*ok...its taking far too long to load the video at this time and im sick of waiting! i will try again later.

october already?

crazy that its already october! where did the summer go?! i was looking forward to summer all year long then it comes and goes just like that...i like fall but im missing the sun! it isnt even that warm here in germany in the summer but i miss seeing the sun! ugh...im really hoping that we do get to move to tampa here in the upcoming spring as the idea of wearing flip flops all year round is very appealing! and it would be nice to live by a warm beach!

its been a good week! last night our ward had a relief society enrichment program that was awesome and i definitely left feeling uplifted. i needed that as ive been slacking on so many things spiritually and this was something that made me recommit to a lot of things. valerie g did an AWESOME job putting everything together and the food was unbelievable. i havent had a bread bowl since we lived in logan 2 1/2 years ago so seeing that those were part of the dinner made me happy. a few ladies in the ward shared personal stories/experiences about visiting teaching that really touched me. ive been slacking on seeing my sisters and last night i made the decision to see them each month no matter what! im really not that busy to not see them so im going to really try to be better about it.

steve had work off today (it was a training day for the base) and he was pretty excited about that. since the USAF had their "tax season" recently, steve has been working crazy hours and also was working on the weekends. so it was nice to have him home to hang out and see brynn's school for the first time. we dropped her off this morning, hit a local german bakery, then worked out at the gym as nothing was opened (it was a german holiday...doesnt it seem like they have a friggin holiday every week?!). steve is still sore from the aerobics class i made him go to wednesday night with jessica (a personal trainer that i work out with) so he wasnt too happy about hanging out at the gym all morning! hahaha! it was funny seeing him "fall" out of his car wednesday night after he had attended her class. he said he hadnt worked out that hard since ROTC at USU so he is still pretty sore.

tomorrow im going to trier with shelly and emily to do some shopping! i guess they just built an indoor mall (and for those of you who are in the states, you have no idea how awesome this is for us in germany!) and im excited to check that out and not freeze my butt off when i go to trier. trier has lots of little shops and department stores, but they are all outside so having an indoor area to shop is pretty sweet. im addicted to H&M (awesome store thats trendy and not as expensive as other stores in europe) and hear that the indoor mall has a children's H&M so of corse i have to check it out. when we were in spain this past spring, we hung out at a mall for a few hours and they had an children's H&M but i didnt get to spend a lot of time in there. shopping with steve is like getting your teeth pulled, no fun. so im excited that i get to take my time and look at things without having him breathe down my neck! lol!

we got a package from steve's parents the other day and loved it! i love seeing a package slip in my box! it seriously makes me day to get something in the mail. we received those cinnamon gummi bears (which are like gold to us americans stationed out here! you cant buy them anywhere in europe), a few books for brynn, some ribbon for my scrapbooking stash, and awesome awesome earrings. thanks guys for thinking of us!

here are some pictures from the week

yes our cat is wearing a diaper. if you have met mango, you would know that from time to time she needs to be "humbled" up a little. this was steves doing...imagine that? hahaha! he cut a hole in the back of the diaper so he could put her tail thru and she hopped sideways down the stairs while we all laughed! poor cat...cheap entertainment

brynn covering my couch with the stickers grandma sent! she was very proud of herself.

the library has story time once a week and afterwards they provide a craft for the kids to do. its national hispanic heritage month so the kids made their own paper bag pinata's and broke open a big pinata all together. brynn had a blast and was happy to score some dora fruit snacks. since brynn is always bringing home crafts from school, i plan to take pictures of each thing as i wont be able to hold onto all her artwork. (dont worry! i wont post all of her things on here!)

brynn with her buddy the elephant. i just love her hair!

when steve hunts out here, these are the seats that he sits in. they are called hochsitz (high seats) and are found all over. they remind me of tree houses! brynn and steve went for a walk after church on sunday and did a little exploring in our town/fields.