Karina's 1st Birthday was Feb. 25, 2011. Over one year ago (!) and I haven't posted any news about us. Shame on me! But we've been busy...I'm trying to make it all up and write little posts over the next weeks.
As you can see in the picture, she enjoyed her first taste of chocolate frosting quite a bit ;)
She is 28.94 in tall and weighs 20.55 lbs at that time.
Proudly she presented her new purse to everyone. Since she was crawling, she tried to carry bags/purses around with her, even if they were bigger than herself!

 

Karina's 1. Geburtstag war am 25. Feb 2011. Ueber ein Jahr ist das schon her (!) und seitdem habe ich ueber keine Neuigkeiten mehr geschrieben. Ich schaeme mich auch schon...aber wir waren sehr beschaeftigt und ich versuche in den naechsten Wochen wenigstens die wichtigsten Ereignisse nachzuholen mit kleinen Eintraegen.
Wie ihr im oberen Bild sehen koennt, hat Karina den ersten Bissen vom Schoko-Guss sichtlich genossen ;)
Sie ist mittlerweile 73.5cm gross und 9.32kg schwer.
Stolz praesentiert sie jedem ihre neue Handtasche. Seit sie krabbeln kann, hat sie versucht jede Hand-/Tasche mit sich herumzutragen, auch wenn diese groesser als sie selbst war!

Merry Christmas!

We are having a great time with our family up here in Washington! No snow, just rain, but that was to be expected. There is a pile of gifts under the Christmas tree and only a few hours left for them until we can unwrap them! Everybody had a last minute shopping to do today (!), it was our 3rd time at the mall since Sunday and a lot of money was spent...but it was worth it!
Love you all and Merry Christmas!

I really need to do this more often...;)

Hello family!
Time went by super fast...I haven't been writing or 'blogging' in FOREVER!

Karina is already 7 months old, she is crawling, pulling herself up, learning how to chew with her gums, she got 2 bottom teeth and two more on the top are creeping! She is such a busy girl and she smiles so often; I love when she smiles :D I swear, the moment she wakes up, she gets in crawling position and tries to stand up. Only seconds after waking up, like she is afraid to fall back to sleep and miss out on something cool that's going on! She cracks me up! Whenever we are somewhere new or busy she won't sleep or eat. I don't even try anymore...she is too busy looking around.

I am hanging out at home, trying to add some pictures to Karina's baby book, clean the house, be a good housewife ;) I recently started working out again at the gym (10 min or 40 min...as long as Karina lets me! hahaha) and it felt so good!

Adam is in the States this week for work. Nothing really new to post about his work or so...same old, same old ;)

Alyssa is a Cheerleader 5 days a week right after school. It's her second year in High School and I must admit, until now she's got very good grades and is a VERY ambitious Cheerleader. They recently had their first 'show' at a "Cancer run" (Running to support people with cancer) on base. On top of that, Alyssa practices with a German Cheerleading team twice a week. There will be German Championships in November.

In July we visited Disneyland Paris with Haley and Jason for a few days. It was pretty busy and Karina LOVED the lights at night and we even went on some rides :) Carousel and slow stuff for little kids. Karina wasn't even scared at the 'ghost house'! Unfortunately Alyssa couldn't be with us, as she was in WI for 4 weeks (2 weeks longer than planned cause she couldn't find her passport anymore...yeah, long story, don't ask! ;)) It was crazy expensive, but the kids had fun and we even went to Paris to see the Eiffel tower and the Mona Lisa at the Louvre! Back in Germany we visited the castle of Neuschwanstein (the Disney castle is build after this real one!), one of the most popular castles in Germany.

We're planning to visit Gregory and Catherine for Christmas this year! All of Adam's siblings will be there too and it is also planned to bring Haley and Jason from WI to WA too! The house will be super crowded! LOL
It will be Karina's first time flying! I must admit that I'm a bit nervous about that. She seems to be very sensitive about changes in her 'schedule'. No idea what a 12 hour flight (or 14?) does to her or us until she is over jet lag! Maybe it won't be too bad as she will be almost 10 months in December.

Well, that is my update for now. More to come in the next days!

Our little girl...

She is finally here!
All the waiting was SOOO worth it :D
We are enjoying the time we can spend together. Adam took some time off after she was born and we just love to hang out with little Karina.

Already a month has gone by if you can believe it!! We've already had some great moments to share :D Babies are hilarious!!!






Karina loves to grunt and stretch endlessly after a nap, she pulls the funniest faces! Yesterday while nursing she took a pause and when I said 'oh, are you already done sweetie' (without letting go) she looked at me with one eye and started smiling the cutest and naughtiest smile we've seen so far! She is going to be a handful ;)

10 days left!

Being pregnant for 9 months seem to be a long and a short time...yeah, both at the same time if you ask me. It took 'forever' to show my baby belly, to the point where people said weird stuff to me like 'you don't even look pregnant!' (when I was 6 months pregnant actually) to 'I think you are lying to us, there is no baby bump to see!'....Finally it is visible for everyone around me and although from my point of view (looking down on my belly) it seems like a nice little belly...looking in the mirror I feel HUGE! I said to Adam the other day, that I wished I would've been a little taller, so my belly would 'stretch out' a little ;)...he laughed at me.
Well, today (Feb 18th) was Adam's guess on when our baby girl would arrive. It is 3pm already and nothing happened so far, so I am kinda glad that Adam wasn't right...haha! It would've been a little creepy as he already was right with the gender-guessing in my early pregnancy (before the ultrasound showed us).
We got so many gifts for our little girl that I can't wait to use all of them...clothes (SO many clothes!), socks, blankets, arm rattles, the crib and stroller we bought...I wanna take so many pictures of her, she will have her own daily-picture-dairy...LOL!
I haven't been able to paint animals on the nursery walls yet...I'm running out of time if I want this to be done BEFORE she arrives ;) But I need to be in a creative mood and there was so much else going on lately that I couldn't get myself up from the couch and do it. Being sick now doesn't really help ;) Anyhow I think it is a nice change of my daily life with baby too, so I'm guessing she will be ok if I paint her room later :D
Btw. we don't have a name yet...it is SO HARD!! I am usually not as indecisive about things, but the name search is 'kicking my butt', so to speak. In Germany you have 2 weeks after the birth to decide for a name...not sure if I want to wait until she is born though. Usually I want to be 'prepared' for (anything possible) things that could happen.
Last but not least I hope I'll have an easy delivery without any medical problems for me or my little girl. As I wasn't working out for a long time a part of me can't wait to get back in shape! Although I know it will be definitely hard to work out with the baby around, I still want it to be a steady part in my weekly schedule :) Let's hope that she will be cooperative and get on a good sleeping schedule soon ;)

8 months pregnant...

Well, well...it is January 2010 and although it took what felt like 'forever' it is almost already time for our baby to be born! :) Just a few more weeks and it could happen every day! I'm excited, but a little part of me wants the baby to wait until March to be born :D haha, I know, I don't have any saying in this, but I just find March to have more of a spring feeling :)
Our Christmas and New Years 2009 were pretty much relaxed with a few family visits. We also had a brunch with friends on the 26th. We had a tree at the house and some extra decoration in our hallway. The only thing missing on Christmas Eve/Day was SNOW! We have it now, but it is always cool to have it on Christmas...I'm sure the kids agree on this! We're supposed to have more snow coming our way this weekend!
Well, back to the baby stuff ;) We still have lots to do! The room didn't make any progress unfortunately. I bought paint to be artsy on the walls, bringing animals to life in the baby room :) My Mom gave me today a bag with my old (and washed) stuffed animals...she is all about being a grandma I suppose. She bought almost more things for our baby than we did! Hahaha!
Adam is cracking up every time we visit them ;)
I am still adjusting to being at home, not going back to work is what I wanted for quite a while, but now that I AM at home I need to organize my days new. I am positive that it will happen soon though. Probably sooner than I think and by the time I have it all organized I need to change it again when our baby is born...LOL! :D

Lots of changes

So, I JUST saw the comments on my last post...here is one link...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdBZhHYWEQ8&feature=channel
not my best day to sing "Son of a preacher man"...it was our first Gig and I know, I can do way better...the other videos on YouTube are from the other singers. Nothing newer...and now I left the band already. For various reasons, one of them being too tired and exhausted to go to rehearsal and Gigs in the middle of the night. Pregnancy is just kicking my butt there ;) Plus, I realized I want to sing in a smaller band, more Motown, Pop and just other songs than what I had to deal with the "Crazy Crocodile Band". Anyways, no band no more.
Adam is again NOT at home but in the States. We went for vacation in August, visiting the kids for a week and chill in the Baltimore area for a couple of days. Adam stayed there and I flew home alone on August 16th. Since then I am totally alone at home...It's boring. Last week I even got a cold and it was even MORE boring! At least when I'm healthy I can occupy myself with some cleaning or organizing at the house! Well, Adam will come home in about 2 weeks! Yeah! Finally...I hope he can stay at home a while, we have loads of stuff to do before the baby is born! Alyssa is not coming back to live with us. All kids are in WI. School already started...High School for Alyssa (9th grade), Middle School for Haley (7th grade) and Elementary School for Jason (5th grade). It's way quieter at the house...less drama, which I am pleased with. I don't think I could handle being overly stressed in my free time while pregnant. The way it worked out it seems to be ok for everybody.
OH! Hopefully on the 28th we'll find out the gender of our baby :) I'm excited! Adam thinks we're going to have a girl. I just wait for the result from my doc ;) I have just a little baby belly, I'm totally impatient for the belly to grow and to be done with the 9 months! Haha...don't know why. I probably want to hold our little one in my arms...Wish me luck so the baby cooperates! :)