Happy New Year?

Hallie is SCREAMING her head off in her room right now. She doesn't want to take a late nap today so we can go to a New Years party at some friend's house tonight. Because of her screaming, I have no doubt that she waken Chase up from his late nap...which will make for 2 grouchy kids tonight instead of 1. Happy New Years, right? I guess it's time for some resolutions.....that I probably won't keep.
1. Stop drinking Diet Coke (again). (Yeah right)
2. Work out three days a week. (I think I can do this one, have been for about a month now, but gained three pounds as a result. What the?!?)
3. Be smarter. I really want to start brushing up on my history (by brushing up, I mean actually learning it. Ignored it in high school and didn't take much of it in college.) We are surrounded by amazing history everywhere we turn here, I yearn to know more.
4. Be a nicer wife. More thoughtful. I have a really great husband, I want to do more to deserve him.
5. Stop spending all of our money at Ikea.
6. Stop seeking out any McDonalds I can find just to eat fast food again. I feel like fast food has pretty much left our lives....but if I see a McDonalds (which isn't very often) I just have to stop. So stop stopping, basically. Except sometimes. :)
7. Start folding my laundry the same day that I wash it.
8. Start washing my laundry.
9. Stop digging through dirty laundry to find clothes that are still pretty clean.
10. Buy more clothes
11. Get ear plugs
12. Use ear plugs at all times
13. Sound proof Hallie's room
14. This list is getting ridiculous.

Salzburg Weekend!

We made it back from our long/really fun road trip to Austria last night. We all had a really good time, but as always are glad to be back at home in our own beds! Here some pictures of our fun adventure...
Chase in his normal get up. Stroller, blankie, beep and he's happy. This is at the Stuttgart Christmas Market. Second largest one in Germany.

This is Hallie and I ATTEMPTING to ice skate at the Christmas market. Hallie would just go noodle legged and make it impossible to teach her. I ended up holding her while I skated around the rink. :)

The whole fam at the Mirabelle Gardens in Salzburg. Part of the sound of music was filmed here. I want to watch that movie over and over again after our trip. It was also a REALLY rainy, REALLY cold day...hence all the bundling up.

Matt and Hallie at Mozart's house

The Salzburg Fortress. We took a train up and got to walk through it. It was really cool, and had a really awesome view of the whole city.

Hallie and her best friend Rhiannon have SOOO much fun.

Creepy right? These guys are called Krampus. It's an Austrian tradition that before Christmas time these guys have a big parade and run around the city to scare away evil spirits and to scare children so they will be good. Their costumes are passes down from generation to generation within families. We just happened to be in the right place at the right time and got to see the whole thing. It was pretty crazy. Hallie FREAKED out when she saw them and started screaming and crying. Rhiannon informed her that she didn't need to be scared because they were just men pretending to be goats. :)

How scary looking are these guys?

Matt and I above Salzburg

Hallie and Rhi above salzburg. They spent a few minutes up here pointing which castle belonged to which disney princess.

A good shot of the Salzburg Fortress

Caught pigging out on some Chocolate! It was soooo good.

MAtt and Hallie drinking hot cocoa and eating Apfel Strudel.

Hallie reaching her breaking point. Kids can fall asleep anywhere.

Hallie and Rhi showing us their sleeping beauty necklaces while we were on our horse drawn carriage ride up to the castle that Walt Disney used as his inpsiration for her castle. THey were sooooo excited to see the castle that Sleeping Beauty lived in. :)

Neuschwanstein's castle. (Hallie would argue that is sleeping beauty's castle)

Me in front of the castle

And again

And again.

Hallie with her sleeping beauty umbrella that she carried around for the ENTIRE trip (whether it was raining or not).

Front Load Washing Machine

STUPIDEST invention EVER. When you realize you forgot to add something to your washload that you started two minutes ago....it's too late. Gotta wait for the next load. And when you try to pull all your wet laundry out of the washing machine to put it in the dryer, it falls all over the dirty floor because when you pull out one piece of laundry.....the whole load comes out. Ok, done venting. I hate that thing. Now I'm done venting.

Just missing the sunshine....

Don't get me wrong, I love Germany so far and I'm really looking forward to our trip to Austria this weekend, but look at THAT! The blue water, the blue sky, the days when I could confindently throw on a bikkini, ahhhhh. :) Miss those days sometimes. It's pretty rare that we get to see the sun here....I think I need to get a tanning bed pass somewhere just for the UVs. Not to mention, after a lifetime of always having a tan....I'm losing it now and realizing that I do not look good white. It's gonna be a long 3 years of paleness. Here's a random list of stuff that's been going on for the past few weeks:
1. The other day Hallie was arguing with me and she told me I was "mean". I told her if she said that to me again I would put her on time out (proving that I am in fact, mean). Then she glared at me and said "you are UGLY". UGLY!!! Can you believe she would say that to me? I told her that was a very mean thing to say to me and she asked me, "well how do you say Ugly in German?" She's trying to figure out to insult me in other languages too. Great.
2. My cousing Amy inspired me with her blog to finally take away Hallie's stupid "beep" (pacifier). She is only allowed to use it in her bed and I just haven't had the heart to take it away from her prior to now because of all the changes that she's been through. Well we officially took it away yesterday with promises of a new toy pony from the store if she was good and went to bed (I'm all about bribery). There was a pretty good amount of screaming, but she hasn't had it for her nap today and went to bed tonight with only minimal threats of taking away her new toy pony. So while it's too soon to say, I think we have a success!
3. Chase seems to have a pretty major mean streak in him and hits me on a regular ocassion. When I put him in "time-out" for it he laughs like it's funny to sit in a corner for 2 minutes. He tortures Hallie all day by trying to take away ANYTHING she has in her hands, and running with it. Then when she gets close enough to him to take it back, he chucks whatever it is as far as he can. Monster baby. We love him.
4. Matt keeps trying to force me to eat German food. I don't like it. Maybe he'll read this post and stop trying to make me. :)
5. Matt is watching "50 First Dates" by himself in the living room right now, and even though he's seen it about 50 times, he's laughing himself silly. Love him.
6. I'm developing a love-hate relationship with a treadmill. The love will continue to grow as I continue to get skinnier.
7. I'm sad to be spending xmas away from either of our families. It will be nice to have our first Christmas by ourselves, but just won't be the same without our family all around and people spoiling our kids rotten.
8. A few weeks ago I went to a girls night of playing bunco and had a really good time. Afterwards everyone was going to club not far away to have drinks and hang out and enjoy the rest of night kids free. Normally not my thing, mostly because I don't drink and don't enjoy that atmosphere so much, but since I'm new here and trying to make some friends I went. It was fun just hanging out with all the girls at a table and watching all the old people in Germany who still go to clubs when all of a sudden, HELLO! In walks the male stripper. Yeah I guess I'm in Europe and shouldn't be surprised that strippers can be lurking around every corner, not just at designated clubs or private parties. In hind site, it was really funny. I think I'll just call it quits right after bunco in the future. :)

Name it!

So here is my cute little salon that I made downstairs. I'm up and opened for business now, and have three apts for tomorrow morning. I'm going to make some business cards, but I need to name my salon. If you come up with a name, and I use it, I'll give you a free haircut! You just have to come to Germany to get it. :) I need some pics and what not on the walls, but for now, I think it's really cute and happy.

We had such a fun night! We went and bought our first REAL Christmas Tree as a family then spent the night blasting Christmas music and decorating the tree with the kids. It was so fun. We decorated the whole tree in Gold and Red and it looks so pretty.

I found these sparkly bird tree decorations and i love love love them.

And this is what Matt's parents sent us for Christmas, when I opened it I wanted to cry. It's a picture of the temple where we were married with our wedding date written on it. I love it so much. I love the vintage look of it and the how personal it is for us with the writing on it.
So we've been loving Christmas here so far. It will be weird to not be with our families for the first time, but should still be a nice cozy holiday for just us. We're excited as we're planning our trip to Austria, can't wait to go and do some exploring. We're going to go and see the castle that Walt Disney modeled sleeping beauties castle after, and I'm really excited for that. Anyways! Hope everyone is enjoying THEIR holiday season so far as much as I am. Merry Christmas.

This kid and her ears, seriously.

I feel like we live at the ENT's office, and have for the past two years. I would guess that in her 3 1/2 years of life, she's had at least 30 ear infections. They put in tubes, only to have to redo one of them because her ear was constantly bleeding. Since we've been here in Germany, she is on to third ear infection. We went to the ENT a few weeks ago only to be told that one of her tubes has fallen INTO her middle ear and she would eventually have to have surgery to remove it. Since then, the tube seems to have made it's way back to where it belongs and the ENT is hopeful it will stay there.

ANYWAYS, the point of this post is that last night Matt and I were both up the entire night with Hallie crying and screaming, running a fever, telling us her ear hurts, and yellow fluid literally DRIPPING out of her ear. I feel so bad for her, but am so frustrated with her ears at the same time. I always ask the doctors if there is something I'm doing wrong, or something I should be doing differently, and they always tell me "no". We were back at the doctors office again today, only to be put back on antibiotics and ear drops. Going to lose my mind.....

Can I get a whoop whoop?

We are back in business!! We finally got the internet up and running yesterday and were soooo happy. I spent the day calling everyone under the sun to get updates on what is going on back at home (congrats Kelly King on getting ENGAGED!!). Anyways, it's been a crazy month but we are loving our lives here. Hallie likes preschool a lot, but is obviously struggling with the language barrier. She told me that shen she talks to the kids at school "they can't hear her". Even though it's only been a week though, she is already starting to understand what her teachers are saying to her and translating for me. :) Our house is looking good and starting to feel more like home.
We had a really fun day today and went the Christmas market in Aachen. They have tons of booths set up all over the place selling cute Christmas ornaments, and with lots and lots of yummy food. We tried Roasted Chestnuts for the first time (definently NOT my favorite) and has the best hot chocolate I've ever had (ok, second best. Matt's grandma Pat makes her own how chocolate and that's my favorite) but the whipped cream on top was amazing. Anyways, life is good...we are good....everything is good. Here are some pics from the Christmas market today and Hallie's first day of school.

First Day of Pre School!!
Me at the Christmas market BEFORE it started raining.

Hallie giving me a smooch. Up above all the shopping action.

Awww, family pic minus Chase. He was securely buckeled and bundeled in his stroller and we were NOT getting him out.

Love this little girl.

Chase all cozy in the rain. This is Hallie's old umbrella stroller. It's pink, but Chase is secure with his masculinity.

Hallie and I waiting for our Hot Chocolate

Hot hubby.