Egg Hunting and a Soccer Game

Egg Hunts and Soccer

This morning we woke up bright and early to go to the Easter egg hunt on base. Colin was pretty excited about getting to do that and he was hilarious all crouched on the sideline waiting to hear "GO!" When the kids all took off Colin got about 25 feet out when another little kid slipped in the wet grass and wiped out. Colin tripped over him and wiped out too. He was just fine, though a little scared from all the kids and craziness of people running everywhere, but was ALL better once he started collecting eggs to throw in his basket. He got several eggs that each had a chocolate inside them and when that was all done he got to go jump in the bouncy castle.

Later on I went to a scrapbook party all day and so Shelby decided to take Colin to see an FCK (stands for Fussball Club Kaiserslautern) game. Colin has never been to a soccer game and Shelby thought it would be a good way to spend the afternoon entertaining him. They rode the train from our house to the game, which was part of the fun for Colin of course, and then watched the game, ate junk food and did all the fun stuff you are supposed to do at a soccer game. Colin was super excited to wear his new soccer shirt and wave his new soccer flag around. Fun times for Colin and Daddy.

Third time's the charm

After two failed transfers I'd been feeling pretty down about this last upcoming one. I knew that it was the last of my frozen embryos. I knew that we have to move this summer to a place where there will be no IVF treatment available. I knew that this is probably our very last hope and chance to have any more biological children...no pressure right. Then my uterus didn't want to cooperate. When I went in for a check with hopes of transferring later that week I was told we would have to postpone transfer. My uterine lining was too thin and not looking good so they upped my dosage of medication and told me to come back in a week.

When I went back a week later I thought for sure it would be good news. It wasn't good news, but it wasn't bad news either I suppose. My lining was still not fully cooperating. It measured at the extreme minimum end of what they want to see in order to do the embryo transfer. Our options were to either wait another week and see if it would plump any more, or go ahead with the transfer and work with what we've got. The doctor said in his opinion, based on the dosage of meds I was taking he didn't foresee the lining get any better if we waited. And since it was just over the thickness needed for pregnancy to occur he said we could transfer on Friday. I was happy but pretty nervous and discouraged. Then Wednesday the doc called with the thaw report...of the two thawed only one survived, so we potentially would only have one embryo to work with and since it was just starting to grow we had no idea what kind of quality it would be until the transfer on Friday. I tried not to be upset, one is better than none, but I wasn't feeling very positive with all the problems and negatives this cycle had brought me.

Friday we went in for the transfrer and I was so relieved when I saw the picture of our embryo. It was beautiful! It was 10-12 cells, all even in size, the picture of perfection. The doctor said it was very high quality and by far the best one we've transferred so far. Thank God. I needed that little boost and I'm still riding the wave of excitement from seeing it.


Now comes the hard part, the waiting. I'm hoping it will go by fast since this week is a quick week at school, teacher workday on Friday and Saturday we head to The Netherlands for a week of vacation. Vacations always fly by too fast, so that should help with the waiting some. Cross your fingers, cross your toes, cross your eyes if you can. :) We really hope that this is our miracle and the third time is the charm for us.

Wordless Wednesday

Cannon Ball!

Diving Board

Today Colin and Shelby went back to the pool to play on the diving board. Colin went off the diving board for the first time last Friday, after begging and pleading with Shelby to let him do it. Shelby first took him to the deep end of the pool and showed him that it was deep and he was not going to be able to touch. Colin didn't care. Then Shelby went way down under the water with Colin and showed him how to come back up to the top. Colin was ready and finally just started swimming away from Shelby towards the side grumbling about knowing how to swim. So Shelby let him go and was waiting in the pool for him to jump. The lifeguard didn't see Shelby in the water and about had a heart attack and blew the whistle when Colin got on the board. Then she realized Shelby was waiting in the pool below for him and calmed down. No one could believe he jumped right in off the diving board. Or that he came up laughing and smiling and very pleased with himself. He swam to the side and went off the board again. And again. And again. And again. And pretty much spent the rest of the pool visit jumping off the diving board feeling like a super hero. People couldn't believe Colin was so young and so willing and unafraid to jump in. That kid is fearless, I'm not sure that is a good thing for Mommy, but what can you do?

So today we went back to the pool because Mommy wasn't there on Friday, and I had to see all this for myself. I got lots of pictures and some video of Colin jumping off the board and having a ball. I think we've created a monster!

Ostermarkt and Zoo

Osternmarkt and Zoo

Today we went to our first Ostermarkt (Easter market). Easter markets aren't as popular as Christmas markets and not as many cities and villages have them, but some do and we finally made it out to one. Sankt Wendel is a town not too far from where we live and they are known for their wonderful Christmas and Easter market. It was pretty neat and fun for Colin. They had a whole kid area where the kids could catch bubbles from the bubble machine, do Easter arts and crafts, listen to a story teller, or even learn to shoot a bow and arrow. Throughout the market they had little booths set up with displays of wooden carved rabbits in different scenes. They were cute and Colin liked looking at them. We had a nice time and the weather was fantastic, it was sunny and 60! It felt like summertime!

After the Easter market we headed to the Neunkirchen Zoo, which is one we have not been to before. I was a decent little zoo, it wasn't crowded and we had a good time. We found ourselves at the elephant area right as they were feeding the elephants and inviting people up to pet them. Colin was NOT touching that elephant and we tried and tried to get him to pet the elephant trunk but he was not going to do it. Finally I gave up trying to make him do it so I could get a picture and decided to feed and pet the elephant myself and right then the darn zookeeper finished off the bucket of carrots and started to shoo the people out of the area. I didn't get to pet the elephant and I was a little disappointed about that. I can't believe Colin was afraid of the elephant, silly boy. It was a fun day in the sun and Colin should be good and worn out tonight, I hope. He's been springing out of bed at 6 AM every morning on his own lately. Tonight we spring forward here in Germany, so I'm already losing an hour of sleep, I need the child to sleep in tomorrow!

Wordless Wednesday

St. Patty's Day Fun!

St. Patty's Day Fun

At the wee top o' the mornin' Colin crept into our room telling me that "maybe there was a leprechaun downstairs, we better go check!" So we headed downstairs to check his trap and he was surprised to see leprechaun footprints on the table near his trap. Then he was not pleased the sneaky leprechaun had escaped the trap with his gold coins. He looked under the couch and then demanded my camera to take pictures of the "evidence" and tracks. LOL
Sorry the sound is bad in this video, not sure what the deal with that was...


After discovering the living room mess he had to go potty and discovered that the leprechaun had been there too! Just as I knew he would be, he was overjoyed for the chance to pee on the leprechaun pee, I don't know what it is with this kid and peeing on pee...wierdo! The leprechaun also visited our kitchen and turned our milk green, sneaky sneaky! I made Colin a special rainbow breakfast to go along with his green milk. This was too much fun!

Wordless Wednesday

The things this kid says...

Colin has been hilarious lately. He went to the the dentist today for a check up and the dentist said his teeth look great. He was impressed with how we brush and that Colin can use flouride rinse and spit it out. He said his two front teeth (the ones he almost knocked out at school last month) look ok and are still a little wiggly but should be just fine. After the dentist we went to the commissary to do some grocery shopping. A lady with a loaded up cart passed by us and her jumbo pack of toilet paper fell out from underneath her cart as she went by. I stopped her and picked up the toilet paper for her and Colin says "Hey lady, why you got a lot of toilet paper? You have a lot of poop?" She just smiled and laughed and I hung my head in shame as I sped down the aisle before he could say anymore.

This afternoon Shelby is out in the back yard with Colin putting some salmon on the grill and from inside the house I hear Colin screaming and having a royal fit. He didn't really sound hurt, so I thought maybe he had gotten in trouble and Shelby had told him to go in time out or something. So I go downstairs to see what the trouble is and Shelby explains that Colin was inside the clubhouse part of his swingset when he saw a spider web on the ceiling, freaked out, squeezed himself into the corner of the playhouse and got all hysterical like a little girl! LOL There was not even a spider in the web, which by the looks of it, had been there a LONG time. I blame it on the fact that he is the only boy at preschool and is around girls all day long. The boy was deathly afraid of that pathetic spider web and Shelby and I spent ten minutes laughing at him and forcing him to go knock it down with a screwdriver. He stalled and had an absolute fit and you'd have thought we were trying to get him to touch a hot burner or something, he didn't want to get back inside the house and we really had to force him to knock down the web (we're so mean!) and see it wouldn't hurt him. It was quite the scene and to think I heard him screaming about it all the way inside the house! LOL Crazy child!

Leprechauns and Leather

Today I taught Colin all about leprechauns and St. Patty's Day. He is big into holidays now and loves decorating for them and celebrating. I told him we had to make a leprechaun trap and then realized he doesn't know what a leprechaun is. Teacher books to the rescue...because you know I have books for every stinkin holiday and so I was able to pull out the book and show him what a leprechaun looks like. I told him all about how they make shoes for fairies and they like to steal gold and keep theirs hidden. Then we made the trap, and put some gold coins down inside, so we can catch a leprechaun next Saturday and make him tell us where his gold is. Colin's reply was "YEA! Let's do it, that's a great plan!" LOL.



In other news we got new couches! I'm very excited about this for a couple of reasons. The main one being I couldn't sit on our old couch. For whatever reason sitting on the couch would make my sciatic nerve freak all out and my back and legs hurt. I didn't realize the couch was the problem until we went on Christmas vacation in December. My back didn't bother me at all the whole time I was gone, so when I came back I knew that the pain had to be caused by either my bed, something I do at work, or the couch. Well I wasn't about to give up sleeping in my bed, and I had to go to work, so I just stayed off the couch for a week to see if the pain was related to that. Sure enough, no pain. So I sat on the couch a few nights to be sure and discovered that was the problem. The other reason I am very excited about a new couch is because it is leather. YAY! People buy you all kinds of crap when you have a baby and get pregnant, and the one thing no one buys you that every new mom needs is a leather couch. The poor couch gets hit with everything from drinks, to food, and snot, vomit, pee, etc... Never again will I have to strip the cover off a couch cushion to wash it and then spend 45 minutes in a wrestling match trying to get the damned thing back on. And I will die a happier woman because of it too! Ahh the little things in life! LOL
Ain't they purty???

Tigga tigga tahnah

This morning Colin and I were driving to work/preschool and I said "aww man I forgot my sunglasses!" Colin sat quiet in the back for a second and then said "Tigga tigga tahnah Mommy!" I had no idea what the heck he was talking about and I said "tigga tigga tahnah? what is that?" He tells me "Tigga tigga tahnah, it means no worries." I said "OH, you mean hakuna matata?" and he got all excited and said "yea, tigga tigga tahnah!" LOL His cuteness totally made my day. :)

Wordless Wednesday

Rumor Has It

Colin's new favorite song...LOL

Boys Day Out

Today I went to a friend's house to scrapbook and make cards all day so the boys were left to entertain themselves. Shelby decided to take them over to Speyer to the aquarium and the Tecnik Museum. We've been to both before, multiple times, but Colin always has a good time at them. Boys just never get tired of looking at airplanes, trains and submarines I guess. Daddy did a good job taking pictures and Colin appeared to be pretty cooperative posing for them. They had a fun day and Colin told me all about the sharks and the octopi (how many he saw and how many were hiding)and showed me the super cool helicopter and tanker he got at the museum.

Speyer with Daddy

Read Across America Week

This week at school was Read Across America Week, each year it is held in honor of Dr. Seuss during the week of his birthday (which happens to be today, March 2) and schools and organizations come together to promote literacy and love of reading in kids through fun events. Colin's little preschool was participating in the events as well as the elementary school where I teach, so we had a lot of fun doing the events together. Tuesday, to go along with The Foot Book the kids wore mismatched socks and shoes. Wednesday was wacky hair day and my hairstyle was easy, because I was not about to take the time to do my own real hair wacky, nor was I going to run all my errands after work with my hair looking all ridiculous, therefore the afro wig was my solution. Put it on at work, have a blast with the kids, take it off after work and be normal again. Though it might have been kind of fun to actually wear it out and about in public just to watch people's reactions. Anyway the real dilemma was what to do with Colin's hair. His hair is super short, not quite a buzz cut but close to it, so no barrettes or clips are going to stay in it. I was at a loss for what to do and couldn't find any spray hair color so I went to the makeup section and found the most obnoxious shade of electric blue I could get my hands on. I painted blue spots all over his head with the mascara wand and it turned out pretty good. He loved it. He did not however, love my hair. I woke him up that morning with my wig on telling him it was wacky hair day. When he finally did open up his eyes and look at me he jumped back and hit his head on the side of his bed when he saw the wig on my head. I felt bad but also had to laugh a little, then I felt bad for laughing, lol. He was not feeling having his picture taken in the morning, but here are the bad shots I snapped of him before school...



And here we are at preschool that afternoon with our wacky hair-dos


Thursday was wear your sunglasses to school day, he thought that was pretty fun too. Friday was hat day and the kids were supposed to make a recycled hat out of things that had laying around the house, or recyclables. At my school they were having a big hat parade where the whole school comes out and walks around campus so that they can show off their hats and Colin's preschool class was coming to watch it as a field trip. Colin liked the idea of a robot hat so that is what we made him using an old kleenex box, some paper towel and toilet paper rolls and a few other miscellaneous items. It was a hit and he really liked it. Here he is in his recycled robot hat.


And he insisted he take my picture with my silly hat on