In fair Verona, where we lay our scene...

I really had no idea what to expect with Verona. It wasn't on my list of places we needed to go before we leave Europe, and the only thing I could remember of it was it was the place where Romeo and Juliette was set. After a couple of days in Verona, I must say I loved it. It is a charming little city and very family friendly.

We got there Wednesday afternoon and unfortunately missed the lunch hour by the time we settled into our hotel. We made due with some delicious pizza. Then went on a walking tour of this fair little city.

There is just something about small town Italy that is so amazing. Verona felt a lot like Venice without the water. It was filled with beautiful falling down buildings and friendly locals. It made Todd and I both want to buy a place and retire.

 We had just a few hours before dark and bedtime for the kids so we got out to get oriented with the city. The goal was to just get ready for our busy day the next day. It was absolutely lovely.

It was a perfect day. The evening was a little cool, but the weather was absolutely beautiful.

 James thought it would be fun to get a better look of the river. Thankfully Todd had a good hold on him.

We ended up finding the Duomo and stepped in for a quick look. It was beautiful. And it made me fall in love with my camera all over again. If you could have seen how dark this old church was you would be amazed at how well the pictures turned out. I don't think another compact camera could have done any better.

Unfortunately my camera battery died while I was busy enjoying my camera. Fortunately we were on our way back and the only thing I missed was a stop for ice cream.

What to do....

 Christmas was a little weird this year. We planned on going to visit some friends in the UK, but when we found out what we thought our schedule was going to be (Hailee in school until the 22nd and Todd needing to be back to work on the 27th) we decided that the trip probably wouldn't work out. We rescheduled our UK trip to August.

Then a few days before Christmas we found out that Todd would in fact have the week between Christmas and New Years off. We again looked at going to the UK, but with the last minute decision, it still didn't work out.

Getting ready for Christmas was crazy, we were all very busy until Christmas Eve when things calmed down. It was nice to relax for a few days, but when we woke up Tuesday morning I had had enough time relaxing and wanted to get out and do something. So I started looking for hotels....and by lunch time we had a hotel and train tickets to Verona, Italy for a great deal. We left the next morning.

It was quite possibly a first for our family. We've never done anything quite like it. We're used to last minute planning, but the day before was a little much, even for us. Tuesday was spend getting ready for our trip and we didn't even start packing until after the kids went to bed. When we booked our tickets we scheduled what we thought was the 9:00 am train, but just as we were going to bed Todd double checked the tickets and realized they put us on the 7:00 am train. Thankfully Todd checked the tickets before going to bed and we were able to set and earlier alarm and get everything done. We downloaded our guide book and went off to bed.

The next morning we were up bright and early and caught our train. We love taking the train. The train to Verona was absolutely beautiful. My sister Emily sent us the first 4 seasons of Psych on DVD so we enjoyed catching up on Psych and watching the views out of our train window. Not a bad way to travel at all.

Overall I think it was one of our more successful trips. stay tuned for pictures of our quick trip to Verona.

Christmas 2011

 We had a nice quiet Christmas this year. We were excited to have the missionaries and Ruth over for Christmas dinner. I let each kid pick out something special for Christmas dinner. James chose "punkin pie" (As you can see in the pie on the right he decided he wanted to eat it before dinner. He tried grabbing it before dinner.) The only thing Hailee wanted was "Christmas Jell-O". When I went to find Jell-O in Germany I was surprised to find they only had three flavors. Luckily for Hailee the flavor were Lime, Lemon, and Raspberry. Close enough to Christmas colors, although our Raspberry was more of a purple-pink color. It wasn't true Christmas colors, but Hailee was pleased.  Todd's pick was Ham. I did find ham at the store, but it wasn't the cheating ham you can buy from Costco. I actually had to figure out how to cook it. All in all dinner turned out really nice. 

 Unfortunately once our company arrived I didn't get one picture.  I was busy getting everything ready to eat. After dinner we read the Christmas story and watch the First Presidency Christmas devotional. It was a lovely evening. Then it was time to put the kids to bed. I think Hailee fell asleep in record time.

 In the morning the kids slept in until almost 8:00. It was heavenly. My favorite quote of the morning was when they were coming down the stairs. Since James is the youngest he got to come down first. At the top of the stairs just as he could start seeing the tree he stopped and said "Oooohh! Look at that!" To which poor Hailee was dying, "James I can't see anything, you need to go down more." Thankfully she survived her brother's slow decent and Christmas morning was a success. The kids were so sweet with each other. All Hailee wanted was a sled, and when James woke up he decided that all he wanted was Hailee's sled.

 Hailee was pretty sweet about it and let him play. The one sadness of Christmas morning is that the snow is completely melted, so it will probably be a little bit before we can enjoy the new sleds. But I'm fairly confident that once we have snow the sleds will get plenty of use.

I love when Christmas falls around Sunday. It makes it even more special. We had a lovely church program on Sunday and then had a nice relaxing afternoon. I'm so thankful for my little family.

Frohe Weihnachten

Wir wünschen Ihnen ein frohes Weihnachten

Die Cunningham Familie

The Eve of Christmas Eve

 One of our favorite Christmas traditions is celebrating the Eve of Christmas Eve, and this year it was even more fun because we got to pick up Todd from work and come home to Celebrate the real start of our Christmas vacation. Todd and I have tried to combine some of our families traditions and also make some of our own. For this tradition we took his tradition of making breakfast for dinner and my tradition of sleeping under the Christmas tree. The kids loved it. We are breakfast for dinner, got new Christmas pajamas,  watched "Elf", had a fire in the fireplace, and slept under the Christmas tree. The kids loved it. Todd and I unfortunately missed our air mattress. But overall it was a fun day.

 My one request of the evening was to have a fire in our fire place. The men of the family were kind enough to grant my request, and thankfully James learned enough of fire safety to not start the house on fire or get burned. All in all it was a huge success.

We tried a new pancake recipe that was so fun. It might be a new tradition to add to the night. They were Gingerbread pancakes, but James called them "Pumpkin pie cakes."

Gingerbread Pancakes

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 tsp salt

1 egg
3/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons molasses
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 tsp vanilla

Pancake Toppings
Maple pancake syrup
Apple pie filling, warmed
Whip Cream
Butter

Directions
In a large bowl, combine the first six ingredients. Combine the egg, milk, molasses and oil; mix well and stir into dry ingredients just until moistened.
Pour batter by 1/4 cupfuls onto a greased hot griddle; turn when bubbles form on top. Cook until the second side is golden brown.

Weihnachtsbaum or Tannenbaum

The kids and I had a really fun time picking up our tree.  It's not quite as pretty as an Oregon tree, but we were excited to get our authentic Weihnachtsbaum or Tannenbaum. I'm not sure which one we got, but I know they both are used for Christmas trees, so I suppose it doesn't really matter.  The kids had a great time walking around the lot and picking out the perfect tree. Then they loved watching the man "bag" it up so we can get it home.

It was the first time that I was grateful for a "big" car. It fit right it and we were able to get it home really easily. Next up...Christmas :).

For the record...

I love snow boots. Coming from Oregon we knew that we were not prepared for a German winter so we started preparing and now that snow has come I am very grateful for our warm coats, snow pants, and warm gloves. We also did a considerable amount of looking for snow boots. It took a while to find ones for me that were comfortable enough for walking, but still looked nice enough for church. And even though I love my snow boots and have enjoyed walking all around in them and keeping dry, I think I love James' snow boots even more. Yes they are very cute, but my favorite part is that the completely slow him down.

The first time we put them on him he wanted his Puma shoes back on. Not that I can really blame him, his Puma shoes are amazing for little feet. I highly recommend them to anyone with little kids. He can run so fast in them and Todd is convinced they are great for his development. His snow boots on the other hand are big and clunky and keep his feet warm and toasty in the snow. But the absolute best part is I can keep up with him.

Yesterday when we picked up Hailee I decided to try and keep them on him. He cried "I want my Puma shoes" all the way to the bus stop.

 Here we are at the bus stop. We had a few minutes to wait and he started realizing that his feet weren't getting cold in the snow. He started to seeing the advantages of his snow boots.

And by the time we picked up our Christmas tree he was a little red blur again. Thankfully though he is still slow enough I can keep up.

Official..

We are official "Residents" of Germany. The kids and I just have a two year conditional (we are tied to Todd) residence, but Todd got a 10 year unconditional (not tied to his job) residence. It feels a little strange but in a very fun way. So far we're set to be here through the end of 2012, of course they have extended ever other deadline we've had so who know what will happen.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.....

This little guy definitely gets the prize this week. I was expecting the absolute worse and for the most part he's been in very good form. I knew I had a lot of errands and shopping to do this week. It started out on Monday with shopping downtown. We went to 5 different stores and spent quite a bit of time at the Christmas Market. He didn't have one melt-down. Of course we stopped for "hangerbers" in the middle of all the fun."

 Tuesday came and I still had quite a long list. When I asked James if he wanted to go shopping he informed me that he wanted to "play trains." I humored him and we spend some of the morning playing trains then convinced him to come out with me with the promise of "hangerbers." He was ready to go again and did so well at the couple of stores we stopped at. He even had a fun time picking out a present for his "Sissy." He did surprisingly well at knowing what she would like.

Wednesday brought another fun day of shopping and James knew the routine. As soon as we got to the car he asked for a "hangerber" and of course I got him one. Who knew a happy meal is all it takes to keep him happy shopping? This McDonalds had a play place and I let him get his wiggles all out before sticking him in a cart again. Today we just have a few errands to run and we're going to wait until Hailee gets home. She gets home early today and we can't wait to go pick out Todd's Christmas presents. Everyone else is all done. :)

 Snow has come to Munich. And I must say Munich gets an A+ in keeping the roads nice and clear. Maybe it's because I'm coming from Portland where they don't own a snow plow so the one time a year it actually snows it's an absolute nightmare. But whatever the reason I've not had one problem driving in the snow. The funniest thing here is they have big snow plows like we're use to from Utah for the big roads, and then they have tiny little ones for the regular roads. The little ones are quite adorable.

 It doesn't matter how clean my house is when I leave, the second I get home it looks like this. I got a few boxes from Ikea so I'm hoping to get the kids (and myself) to be a little more organized in our entry way. And if you're wondering where the lack of James clothes are....

I just find a trail to the fridge. The top priorities for the boy are (1) clothes off and (2) food.

Quick list

I am so far behind on blogging....it happens every December so it should surprise me. So for my own benefit I'm going to jot down a quick list of happenings, and then when I make my book later I'll be able to write more about each one.

• Having Todd and the kids sick the first two weeks of December really slowed down our Christmas preparation, but we seem to be back on track. We might not get "everything"done, but we'll get the important stuff done. 
• Pretty sure James can eat his weight in yogurt and cheese in a single day. I had no idea a "boys" appetite started at birth and just got worse as time goes on. As I'm writing this he just finished off his 4th yogurt pot.
• Hailee is our families angel. That girl is perfect and my sanity on most days. She danced the cutest little ballet that she came up with all on her own in her class christmas show. 
• James on the other hand is her perfect opposite. These terrible twos are just about to kill me. Don't even get me started on the lovely scratch he gave my face. Let's just say I'm happy to have photoshop so all our Christmas pictures won't be featuring a 3 inch scratch on my face. After getting out of time out he asked me "what happened to your face mommy?" When I told him he had scratched me he replied "Oh I'm so sorry mommy, I love you so much." Good to know.
• I have now completed all my "manual transmission" training. I have been in road construction, a traffic jam, down town Munich (where driving and roads are even crazier), a parking garage, parallel parked our huge boat of a car, and have now driven on icy roads. I don't think anything else can surprise me. Granted I'm not perfect, but I'm perfectly confident to drive and if I stall I don't mind the honking. 
• James loves to sing. He is quickly learning lots of words to songs and will sing along. At night he sings along to "Hush little baby" and when we get in the car I hear him singing "We're going on a trip in our favorite rocket ship..." What we just discovered that if he doesn't know the words he's decided that isn't going to keep him from sining so he'll just sing his favorite words. Last week in church we sang "Silent Night" and James sang "Robots, Robots" over and over again. This wouldn't be that bad if he sang quietly, but since he likes singing so much, he sings as loud as he can. In our small congregation everyone got to hear. 
• Todd is doing so well at work. He is settling in quite nicely and taken on lots of extra projects. He has a great manager and is getting busier and busier as the days go by. (Something he is thrilled about and something I'm learning to be happy about.)
• We are really enjoying learning about new German Christmas traditions. One we had heard about is on the 6th of December Santa brings treats for kids shoes. We heard about it before and with being sick completely forgot about the day. On the way home from picking up Todd from work Hailee was sitting in the back and said, "Sarah told me that I need to put my shoes out tonight because Santa is coming to put treats in them." Thankfully Santa was ready in time. The weekend after we played in the snow and left all our boots outside our door to dry out. The next day James brought them in and as I was doing my hair he told me that he had chocolate in his shoes. I didn't really believe him until I saw him eating chocolate. Sure enough someone at put chocolate in each of the kids shoes. It was a fun surprise. 

• I am probably the last to know this....but I just discovered that you can download the PDF versions of the church magazines and put them on the iPad. It's totally cool. Hailee absolutely loves reading the friend and I like reading the ensign. I've always know you can download these through the gospel library, but it's just the text and not very pretty. I love having the pretty version on my iPad. Todd just discovered that he can link his lds.org account with all the notes he makes in his scriptures and lessons. Now he can read and prepare his lesson on the bus on the iPod and bring it home and teach his lesson from the iPad. We are all enjoying our early Christmas present. 
• Todd's has also been enjoying his early Christmas present. He got the Adidas miCoach stuff for his iPod. It's a great little running program that plans runs based on your heart rate and your goals. He is just like a kid at Christmas as he goes out for a run and when he gets home to download his information. If you're looking to set some healthy goals it would make a great Christmas present.
• I just finished reading "A Tale of Two Cities." I can't recommend it enough. It was an awesome book. Of course now I need something a little lighter. Any ideas???
• We have most of the big things out of the way and now just settling into Christmas. I still have a couple of days of shopping to do, but then we have a whole week with Todd home. We didn't know until late that he would have the week off, so now we have to figure out something to do. 
• Hailee is even looking forward to Christmas Vacation. She recently had one of her friends move back to the US. It was a sad day, but one she'll probably have to get used to. There is a lot of transition at the International school. She is doing so well at school. We are so proud of her and how she is growing up. 
• James is completely obsessed with "Hangerbers" also known as hamburgers. The last few weeks every time he sees a McDonalds or Burger King he insists on getting a "hangerber." (even at nine in the morning). I'm pretty sure every person on the train thinks I'm a terrible mother who only feeds her child hamburgers. 
• Our other favorite German Christmas thing is Kinder Punche. It's a warm drink for kids (the adults drink spiced wine) and I'm completely addicted. I'm usually not a fan of wassail, I always stick to hot chocolate. But Kinder Punche isn't like wassail, it's fruity and so lovely. Now I just need stock up so I can have it through the winter. 

Hopefully we can get caught back up and download some pictures but for now we're just enjoying taking the pictures, shopping, and getting ready for Christmas. 

Snow Day

Hailee has been looking forward to the first snow fall for quite a while now. She absolutely loves the snow. We woke up Saturday morning will a little bit of drama. I don't know which one woke up first, but they woke up the other and both were grumpy. As they were squabbling they went downstairs and as soon as they saw the snow they stopped squabbling immediately and started planning our day.

They requested that we go play in the park and have a snowball fight. It was James' first experience with snow. He absolutely loved it. His favorite part was getting hit by a snowball.

He also had to taste it.

Hailee was completely in her element as well. I think she could have stayed out forever if we would have let her. She loved the snowball fight, but my favorite quote of the day was when she said, "Ahhh, Help mom, I got snow up my nose." Sure enough a snowball when up her nose and I was surprised to find quite a bit of snow up her nose. Who knew that was even possible.

Of course I tried to tell everyone that I wasn't participating in the snowball fight since it was my job to take pictures. For the most part they were pretty good, but they couldn't let me avoid all the "fun."

One of James' favorite parts was when the kids were in the swing and Todd was tossing snowballs at them. James kept saying "Hey dad, over here, get James!" He was laughing hysterically every time Todd would toss one in his direction.

On the way home there was even time to make a snow angel. The now was too wet to build a snowman, but we had plenty of fun. James played his heart out and slept for 3 hours after lunch.

The Boy

 I'm not sure where he got that nickname for him, but it's very fitting. He is "The Boy." There is just no way around it. He is all boy and is constantly being "boy-ly" (as opposed to girl-ly" I suppose) as Hailee would say.   I can't even begin to guess how many times I've heard "Mom!!! Can you come get the boy." "Mom!!!! The boy is driving me crazy." and "Mom!!!! The boy is climbing on the table." And a number of other variations. For some reason "The Boy" just fits him.

So far our experiment of "wear James out so he'll sleep" has been going quite well, except for the days that we don't get enough outside time in. When we get the run around time, nap time is always lovely (except for the day he slept 20 minutes because he woke up and needed to go to the bathroom).  The weather doesn't seem to bother him at all, so we've been out most days. I love his little red coat and I'm looking forward to getting his new boots in the mail. After that I don't think we'll ever have a problem with it being too cold (except maybe for mom).

James has been picking up so much German. He can count to ten in German and comes up with words that I don't even know what they mean. I started letting him watch German television again, during the summer they changed their programs and I didn't like them so much. But now they have gotten back to a few cute shows during the day. One time Todd caught him putting together a couple of German words. I think he's learning even more than I think he is. I am excited to get him in a German "kindergarten" in the spring.

One day as we were leaving the park he was telling everyone good-bye. He was running through the list, "Bye slide" "Bye swings" then I heard him say "Ka-chow slide." It took me a minute to figure it out, "Ka-chow" is what Lightening McQueen says. But later as we were leaving the grocery store the store clerk said "Ciao" as we were leaving to which James quickly responded "Ka-Chow" with a nice little wave. I guess he figures "ka-chow" is a lot more fun than just "ciao."

German playgrounds are absolutely crazy. Which goes along perfectly with "the boy." I'm slightly worried that when we get back to the US he's going to have a hard time adjusting back to the "safe" playgrounds. But I'm fairly confident he'll find a way to even make the safe playgrounds dangerous. A new park we found that is fairly close to our house has everything our little boy could ever want. A slide, climbing area, a several trampolines, and a teeter-totter on steroids. James loves it when we find another little kid that wants to play on it with him. This teeter-totter not only goes up and down, but also around. I can't believe how fast they get going. I'm pretty sure I would be sick if I was up there. So far I have't seen any injury's, but it still makes my heart go a little crazy.

I wish I could have gotten a picture of his face as he is jumping on the trampolines. He thinks it's the best thing in the world.

One of the perks to having a boy is that they are very easily distracted. One day we jumped in the car to discover a new park that was a little too far to walk. He thought we were going to pick up Hailee's friend Isobel. This was our conversation on our way...

James: Go pick up Isobel?

Nicole: No James we are going to the park.

James: Go pick up Isobel first?

Nicole: No we're going to the park.

    Once we were there...

Nicole: Come on James let's go to the park (at this point he still couldn't see the park).

James: No, go pick up Isobel!

Nicole: Let's go.

James: I sit down right here (in protest to not picking up Isobel he sat down on the grass).

He had the biggest scowl on his face as I put him in the stroller as he continued to complain that we weren't picking up Isobel (we were really close to her school). Then he saw the slide and the scowl was replace by a huge smile. 

James: Oh a slide! Let's go play on the slide. 

Off he ran, as happy as can be. Boys....so easily distracted (just like his father).

Somehow this little boy has a way of driving me completely crazy. One minute I'm ready to sell him to the highest bidder and the next I don't think I would be able to live without him. No one can drive me crazy quite like him, not even his dad. (Of course his dad has learned that driving me crazy is not a good thing and already knows I can't live without him.)

He is getting to be a much better shopper. It helps that I give him a job to do while we're there. He gets to push around the cart, help me get things off the shelf and then put them up when it's time to check out. Usually it distracts him enough to keep him out of trouble. It works, until I get distracted. I needed some new olive oil and as I was sitting looking at my options he ran off. It took me a minute to realize it and then I was running in the direction I thought he went. By the time I got back to the olive oil area he came running back from the other direction with a HUGE smile on his face. In his hands he had a bag of chips and a kinder-egg, and said "I did it, I found the chips and Kinder-joy, great job!" He was so pleased with himself. I was so relieved that I found him and his proud little face just made me laugh. He is not afraid at all when it comes to going anywhere completely alone. Hailee wouldn't have never thought of going anywhere without me (even now if we're together she is always right by my side).

One cold morning after taking Hailee to the bus we got home and James quickly stripped down to his underwear, like he does everyday, as quick as he can. I was trying to remember when Hailee could dress herself and realized that James would probably be pretty old since he's just interested in taking his clothes off. But after a cold and rainy morning the sun came out and James had another surprise for me. While I was finishing up lunch he went and put on his skeleton clothes (top and bottom) and also put on his snow overalls. Then handed me his shoes and socks and told me that he needed to run. I guess the break in the clouds was enough for James. I let him run on the patio while I finished making lunch. Then we went to the park later. I guess he can dress himself, he just chooses not to.

Before it was time to start our Advent Calendars I was questioning my sanity. What was I thinking? How is a two-year old suppose to understand the concept of an Advent Calendar. Much to my surprise once Advent started he caught on pretty quickly. First thing in the morning Hailee and James run to their calendars and open up they number they are suppose to. James is really good at waiting for the day. We know that today is "Number 9" as he has told me several times already. It's also plain to see that I picked the right one for him (Hailee, as well, loves hers). He absolutely loves playing with his "lego mans." I hope Lego keeps making them, because I have a feeling this is going to be a lasting tradition.