Enjoying the nice weather while we still have some!!!!

Well, as I have stated in the previous posts we were having some nice weather.  So last weekend we did our best to enjoy it.  The weather is slowly changing here and soon , very soon it will get cold and rainy.  Yesterday, a friend of Kevin's took us to the hardware store so we could stock up on some small bundles of wood until we can figure out how to get it delivered here.  Last Sunday we decided to bike into town and take Ivy to one of the bigger parks before heading to lunch.  She has recently been very good at wearing her sunglasses when she is on the bike or when the sun is directly in her eyes. So a lot of these pics she will be wearing sunglasses. She is so cute in her snazzy , grocery store shades.  The first picture was at the beginning of our trip when we got to the park.  She was so excited to go for a bike ride and be at the park.

Isn't she just cute!!  

 Next we have  2 videos of her playing!! Grandmommy don't have a hard attack.  She has been doing this for months and is very good.  Yes, she slips a little but this is after playing for a while and she is getting tired by now.  As you she we are there to keep her safe.

Ivy climbing the rope ladder to go down the slide

Ivy climbing the ladder

As usual, Ivy was sad to leave the park.  We had been there over an hour and she was getting tired and we needed to head to lunch.  We sat outside and had a very nice lunch at an Irish place. Then we decided to enjoy some ice cream after lunch.  Here are some cute pics of Ivy enjoying her kinder waffle cone.  She doesn't get this often.  This is only her second time. She gets them as treats when she is really well behaved and it had been a while she we treated her to her last one.  I think the last one was in July or August not really sure.  

Then we headed home on our  bikes and as you can see when we got home Ivy was pretty pooped.  She actually made it almost all the way but the last 5 min.  I just thought this was a funny picture of her.

She was out like a light!! She slept for 3 hours if I am not mistaken.

She completely destroyed her shirt with her ice cream so when she got up I had a tee shirt ready for her but Ivy having her own mind and knowing what she wants to wear decided to create her own fashion statement and this is what she chose to wear and yes the sunglasses she wore inside for a while as well. 

 Later she switched out her sunglasses for her cupcake hat!!! This girl cracks me up some days!!!!

I have a lot to share but will end this post here.  I will likely post in the next day or two.  As we will be leaving for a long weekend to Helsinki Finland.  A lot of people ask why we are going when its cold there.  Flights are cheap and while Ivy is still free we need to get as many places in as possible.  I look forward to sharing more of what is going on with you very shortly.  I think I am doing pretty well keeping up with posts and I hope to continue to do so.  Have a great Sunday !!!

Shop until you drop!! ( Or at least until Ivy drops)

Well last Friday Ivy and I went to town mid morning until early afternoon.  She needed some more Pjs and a few other things.  I have some stuff and Mom Sours's house that is 2T that my sister has given me.  Ivy is just not quite in 2T.  She should be right around 2 years old I would think.  I have a few items that are 12-18 months being pants that is that just fit her and will not go much further.  So I decided to go to this store here that is called Primark.  It has very in expensive clothing as is great for this type of thing.  People from France and England come here to get clothes since they are so cheap.  They have a small section of 18-24 months or 24-36 months.  I really don't understand what 24-36 months are but why wouldn't you just by 2T?  Any way, they had some great prices and well I came back with a little more then I was planning on. Mamma even got herself a robe, a skirt, and a wrap sweater.  We had a great time and I found some great items for Ivy to wear.  Here a some of the items I got for her.

The first picture are two pairs of cute pjs.  Yes the one pair is Christmas which I liked them even though its not Christmas.  They really don't look Christmas like so I figured she could get buy wearing them. Each set was 6€. Which I thought was pretty cheap.

 I got 2 pairs of pants.  1 pair of Jeans and 1 pair of cords. They were 6 €a piece.Then I got her some shirts.  2 turtlenecks for 5 € and 3 long sleeve tees for 2€ each.  I think these were a great deal.  Also in the picture are a pack of 5 pair of socks, and a pack of 3 pair of knitted tights.  The style here is for girls to wear these heavy knitted tights in the cold weather with either shorts or skirts.  Some have their kids just wear them with a very long shirt.  Everyone at dance  class last week was wearing these tights except Ivy who was wearing some red sparkly stylish cords.  I joke with Kevin they we apparently didn't get the memo that tights were the in thing to wear and Ivy should have some.  So now she does, and I honestly like the style.  Its also like that for adults.  I may be able to get use to wearing shorts with crazy colored tights and boots who knows!!!

 Then I got her three really cute outfits.  The one is just a sweater dress with some matching tights.  I thought this would be a comfortable outfit for daycare.  Then you will see a long sleeve tee-shirt paired with pink corduroy shorts and matching tights.  Finally you will see a red long sleeve with snowflakes, a foe-fur sleeveless vest (yes normally I am not a fan but it was cute normally I wouldn't buy any type of fur.) Paired with denim shorts.  I think she is going to be mighty stylish.  If I do say so myself.

I did not take any pictures of Ivy passed out in the stroller.  She made it all but 3 minutes form home and crashed.  We missed our bus so I knew it would happen, but she did very well.  I am trying to post more when I can. I should have more time once Ivy is settled in daycare but we shall see.  We are going to Helsinki on the 3rd and the temperatures will be a bit coolers so I will try to get some pics of her in her new outfits.  I got some great pictures of her this weekend.  Should make you smile and laugh.  I just hope I can remind Kevin to download them tonight.  I forgot my phone so we took them on his.  Hope everyone is having a great week.  

Guess what we've been up to???

Well last weekend was quite a busy , productive but enjoyable weekend.  It was cooler out and rainy, I guess a taste of what its going to be like here for the next few months, except it will be much cooler.  We had a great weekend.  We motivated early Saturday morning and went to the Hornbach which is the name of their hardware store here.  Its a very much smaller version of homedepot but its a rather nice hardware store.  We picked up many items we needed to start making our apartment feel like ours.  Then we went home and Ivy took a nap.  I had a craving for pizza and we haven't figured out how to order take out yet.  So I decided to make my own.  Now Kevin and I have made pizza in the states but we made the dough with the bread maker.  This was the first time I was making it hand needing the dough.  It turned out pretty good.  I still have some issues to work on. We have never made the perfect crust but it was still very delicious and even Ivy enjoyed eating it.  I didn't have pizza pans so I used my tart pans.

Then we played with Ivy until bed time and got to work.  Can you guess what we did last weekend???

That's correct we painted the 2 main rooms of the house.  We are not finished yet but we got 4 of 8 walls painted.  This is a pale yellowish color if you can't tell from the wall behind Ivy.  We also rearranged both rooms.  We originally had the dining table in with the fireplace and in front of the big glass doors/windows since we ate outside a lot when it was warmer.  Now we have the biggest part of the couch in that room in front of the fire along with Ivy's rocking chair and a few small toys in the corner.  In the other room we have the dining table where her little area use to be and we now have her play area in between, along with the small portion of the couch. We are hoping to create a little reading corner for her as she loves to pull books out and look at the pictures or pretends that she is reading them.  I will post some updated pics of the two rooms when they are complete.  Its a gorgeous weekend here so we are not really getting much done around the house and the sunny days are less and less and soon it will be cloudy and rainy for the next few months. So we need to get out and enjoy as much sun as possible.  Other then that is has been a busy week running errands, playing at the park even if its all wet outside, cleaning etc.Ivy had a pretty exhausting night Tuesday and didn't sleep so she took a really long nap on Wednesday. I had to wake her up for dance class, I felt bad but she was excited to go and I would have felt even worse if she missed it.  Here is a picture of her sleeping sound before I woke her. 

  Its election time around here and there are 3 parties in Germany. The FDP, SPD, and CDU.  They each have a color that represents the party.  FDP is yellow, SPD, is red, and CDU is rose or pimk.  The campaigners have been out and about doing there thing. Its different here they hand out balloons to children and roses to adults.  In the past 2 days I have gotten 5 roses.  I put them in a glass juice bottle and have them on the fireplace.  They are pretty .

Well, that is pretty much all I have at the moment.  I will add this cute video of Ivy after I taught her how to gallop.  She really only gallops for a few seconds but she is too cute not to post it.  Its hard to get videos these days of her as she wants to watch them and doesn't understand that you are recording her and need to do so before she can watch.  

Well I hope you all have a great weekend.  I will post again when I get a chance.  I hope you are enjoying some nice weather . Until next post!!!

Catch up post!! (Warning Very Long Post)

Sorry I didn't get to post midweek again.  It was another crazy busy week.  Things should be more organized in a few weeks and I should have more time to post.  Well last time I told you I would post about what we did last weekend so I will.  We had a very busy weekend.  We went to our first German wedding on Saturday the 7th.  It was our neighbors and landlords who got married. Very nice couple.  It was Ivy's first wedding and honestly, we had no idea how she would do.  So we sat in the very last row close to the door.  I have to boast for a minute about Ivy.  She was such a good girl.  I brought snacks/toys etc.  She was fairly quiet and she behaved the entire 1 and a half hours of the wedding. The funniest thing, which I did not get on video, was when the orchestra finished.  Now our Landlord is a Conductor and his now wife is a musician as well.  Its not customary for German wedding to have so many songs played, but under the circumstance they had a lot of music with an orchestra. Now back to the story.  At the end of each song Ivy would put both hands up ( as if it were a touch down at a football game) and yell " OOhh!!"  We would try to shoosh her but every one around us was laughing so that didn't help us much.  They all thought it was cute.  Here is a cute pic of her and I at the end of the wedding.

She didn't nap very well that day but we were at the wedding until 5 pm and left.  It was very nice and we enjoyed watching the different customs they celebrate that we do not.  It ended up being a rainy night and we had a nice dinner at home.  Sunday was very rainy , so we took a walk to the closest bakery and the only one open on Sundays, and got a pretzel.  Ivy loves soft pretzels.  Then we just hung around the house and had some fun.  We made forts, wore silly hats, read books, played etc.  Here are some fun pictures from our day at home.  

Fun was had by all.  We had a nice dinner to end the evening. Even Shorty had fun!!  It looks like he is posing in the last pic!!!  The Giraffe is so loved by such a big heart!!!   I get jealous as he gets more hugs and kisses then I do some days.  Any way, the week before last we learned the color yellow.

 We made 2 projects since one of them was a birthday card.  I hope Granddaddy has his card by now or this is going to be a spoiler!!!!  We made some binoculars out of toilet paper rolls and we decorated them by having Ivy paint them, then I traced her hands and made some yellow tang fish to go on the sides.

After teaching Ivy what they are for she had fun playing with them.  Here are some cute pics of her in action!!

 Then we made a really cute Birthday card for Granddad.  I really liked how it turned out to be honest and she had fun making it.  

 This past week we learned the color green.  

Out project was kind of a bust but its still cute.  The plan was to make a butterfly.  I traced Ivy's feet and then she decorated the wings with these little foam shape things that I bought from the hobby shop.  She put them on and I glued them down.  We used pipe cleaners for the body etc.  The butterfly does not have a head since the project didn't turn out or didn't glue properly.  So this what we made. 

Since last post I bought Ivy her own broom.  Since she fusses at me when she sweeps and I am apparently not sharing the broom as often as she would like. So I got one for her size. 

Po even got in on the action.  We got some great news last week.  Ivy got into the daycare we wanted her to get in. It was the only one that has part time. She will go 3 full days.  It will giver her time to learn German and play with other children. I love her but I really think she needs to be around more kids.  Also, I am hoping to take some German language courses that start mid Oct. So this will allow me to do so and not have to worry about a baby sitter.  The first week or two they require I go with her until they are sure she is comfortable with them. So I will be pretty busy the beginning of October.  Ok,  this was a long post and I still have lots to tell you but Ivy is waking up and I promised to read her some books and look at some pictures when she woke up so I will end here.  

Chores

Hello all, Sorry I haven't posted sooner. This was a really busy week. We did learn the color yellow, and made a new project. I will post about that another time. I don't want my posts be just about colors that Ivy is learning.  So instead I am going to talk about her chores.  No, I do not force her or expect her to do chores, but she sure does love helping her momma around the house. She has always loved helping me with the laundry since she could stand on her own.  She likes to help load and unload the washing machine.

When we bring the wash up she loves to help hand me the clean wash as I hang it on the line.  The cutest thing she does is sniffs the fresh clean laundry and says "mmmmmm", every time.  I have this on video, but on Kevin's phone. If can get him to email it to me I'll post the video. Until then here is one of her taking the clothes off the clothes line.

Of course, like most children she loves helping me unloading the dishwasher.  She sometimes, even puts the silverware in the drawer. I have to sort later, but she is an excellent helper.

Finally, Ivy loves sweeping and moping. 

She looks so serious and hard at work doesn't she. I will do my best to post on midweek, about our weekend. I have some really cute pics to share.  Hope you all had a great weekend!