(Annika is on the attack, and Lucy holds onto her title as Queen of Funny Faces.)

The next day, feeling confident, I bundled up the kids and we drove to the park. The sun was shining and Annika was excited. We lasted all of about 3 minutes at the park before Lucy and Elise were screaming because their little fingers were frozen. See, I remembered the snow coats and hats, but I didn’t think it was so cold that everyone needed gloves. Lucy and Elise were crying and crying in the car because their hands hurt, and Annika was screaming because I made her leave the park. I wasnot quite as pleased as the day before.

I gave up on the “get outside everyday” plan. I’m not saying it is a bad idea, but it didn’t work for me. With no backyard, and lots of icy rain, it just doesn’t seem worth it to bundle everyone up and plead and beg and carry little girls until everyone is outside. I feel grouchy just thinking about it.

So we stayed inside and made the most of it. My girls are really starting to enjoy playing together, and it has been wonderful to experience. Not only do I get a little bit more time without them around my ankles, but I love listening to them laugh and talk and giggle as they make up games or sing songs or dance. Not that it always goes so smoothly. Lucy tends to get left out, and there are always tears, but it gets a little bit better everyday. I hope they stay friends forever.

(When you have to stay inside, nothing beats boredom like books and cookies.)

Today it snowed a little bit and we all went outside to catch snowflakes on our tongues and dance in the falling flakes. Maybe we just need a change in the weather – snow or sunshine would do the trick, I think. Both would be great.

Brad was home more than usual over the holiday weekend and life is so much more fun when he is around. It is also easier to get out the door and I try to take advantage of that.  Now that I am always thinking about leaving Germany, I feel like I am seeing everything from a new perspective. Knowing that I will be in the United States soon makes me value all of my unique experiences here. On Monday we drove up to the castle by our house just to play. We’ve been there numerous times, but usually we are showing someone around or eating at the restaurant there. This time we went just to climb and explore and I felt so grateful for that. Seriously – how cool is it that my girls get to go spend the day playing in a real castle?

On our first family home evening after the new year, we sat down at the computer together and looked back over all of our pictures from 2011. We were surprised to see how much snow we had last year at this time. Since that last snowfall the week before Christmas, we’ve had nothing but rain and wind. I’m kind of a homebody, and enjoy days that don’t require me to leave the house, but after a couple weeks of near-freezing temperatures, wind, and rain I was feeling ready to spend some time outdoors. So, when it warmed up a bit and the sun peeked out from behind the clouds on Monday, we went for a walk.

The drained the lake this winter, which I guess the only do every 20 years. Apparently they dig out a lot of the silt, and then they’ll fill it back up in the spring? Anyway, taking a walk around a big muddy puddle is not quite so nice as walking around a pond. However, it was nice to be outside, the girls enjoyed running around and around, and the ducks seemed especially hungry. Plus, we put Elise on Annika’s lap, and I got a nice workout pushing all three of them home. It felt so, so great to spend some time outside, and got me itching for spring.

A month or so ago Brad and I made the pizza dough recipe out of my favorite cookbook – Artisan Breads in Five Minutes a Day.  Not only was the recipe great, but we got hooked on making our own pizzas, and it became a Friday night tradition. We load them up with all kinds of good stuff – so its ok to have it weekly, right? We pushed our pizza night back to Saturday and all the girls got in on the fun. (With new aprons from Nani!)

After about a minute of letting Lucy and Elise help with the real dough, we found them some playdough instead. They didn’t know the difference.

Mmmm……

It gets dark around here at 4:00, so Annika had been telling us for hours that it was dark outside and we could do fireworks before we finally made it outside. We started with sparklers, which everyone enjoyed, and then moved on to Roman candles and bottle rockets which Annika only tolerated and Lucy and Elise did not like at all.  I think Annika had the most fun with those little “pop-its” Does anyone else have fond memories of those?

We promised Annika we would wake her up for the big fireworks at midnight. She sat in her window for only a few minutes before she said “When are they going to stop!? I want to go to bed!” We can add New Year’s celebrations to the long list of things I am going to miss about Germany.

But by the time we put the kids to bed and did our dishes on Christmas, I was feeling a bit down. And exhausted. And we spent a long time talking to our families on Skype, which was wonderful, but I missed them and wished we could be with them. And I laid on Brad’s shoulder in bed and cried for a little while, then felt ashamed that I was crying on Christmas when I had so much to be thankful for.

The next morning we got up and the girls were in a terrible mood. Lucy was crying and screaming so hard I even tried to put her back to bed. Against our better judgement, we decided to go ahead with our plans to drive two hours to go to one more (after)Christmas Market in Strasbourg, France. I am so glad we did.

We put a movie on for the girls in the back seat of the van, and as Brad and I sat in the front and talked while he drove we noticed how quiet it was. When our girls are awake our house is loud and crazy – really loud. Once they go to bed, we always have something to do – dishes, application essays, work, editing, projects, laundry, etc… We were so happy to be just sitting together and talking while our kids were quiet we joked that maybe we should just drive around all day. Our drive there was one of the best dates we’ve had in a while.

Even though the day started out rough, our girls were exceptionally well behaved once we were there. It was early in the afternoon, the market wasn’t too crowded, and the weather was nice. There was a giant Christmas tree, hundreds of food stands with pretzels, candies, cookies, and crepes, hot spiced apple cider, a beautiful city, and a carousel ride for the girls. We didn’t buy anything besides food, but just being together in the city was perfect.

As a bonus, we stumbled on a ice skating rink. For 2 Euro we rented Annika some ice skates and spent an hour on a children’s rink with her. Our little Annika, who is generally afraid of everything is apparently growing up. She was excited to try ice skating and jumped right on the ice without needing any persuasion on coercing. Even when she fell she got right back up, licked the ice off her sleeve, and kept going. I was a proud mom that day.

We ate galettes (savory crepes) for dinner and danced around the giant Christmas tree before heading back home. I had been feeling so sad that I wasn’t with family this Christmas. Doing something I loved that I can only do in Europe was just what I needed. Having a whole day with Brad and seeing my girls smile all day was icing on the cake. It was a day I think I’ll remember for a long time.

Our girls are a wonderful age for Christmas this year. Annika was old enough to remember last Christmas, and to anticipate each new morning and the eventual arrival of Santa Claus. Lucy and Elise weren’t really sure what was going on, but they were certainly old enough to get excited by the lights, the music, the food, and all of our activities. Each morning they would look out their window at all of the Christmas lights hanging in the street and excitedly point and say “Mommy! Look! Look! Christmas!” That said, my girls are at a fun, crazy, chaotic age where nothing ever goes as plans, and everything we try ends up in some kind of disaster. I was going to write this post and just share pictures and stories of all the fun, happy, yummy things we did this December but that wouldn’t be quite honest or fair. You see, we did a lot of really fun things, but it was really crazy too. We made snow globes – but the first time we tried it Lucy and Elise were screaming because I wouldn’t let them hold the glue gun, then Annika dumped a huge pile of glitter in the water, but it was too fine and wouldn’t sink so we had this snow globe with a glob of glitter floating on the top that would never filter down the the bottom. We made cookies together too many times, but mostly the twins just tried to climb up on the counter to eat the dough and when Annika tried to frost them they all got broken and there was frosting everywhere. When we made gingerbread houses Elise sat by me and licked the frosting off of my house and painted the table with it. Annika was interested for a couple of minutes, and then ran off to play. The rest of the evening I could be heard saying “Go away, girls. Go play somewhere. I’m making my gingerbread house!” We have fun around here, but it is messy, and there are tears, and Brad is continually reminding me to temper my expectations.

So, there are supposed to be captions with these pictures, but they’re not showing up. Lame. But basically we got a tree and decorated it, Elfie left fun surprises, Lucy and Elise loved the snow globes (after they worked), we celebrated Brad and Cambree’s birthdays, Annika decorated cookies, and we delivered “candy cane play-dough” to all of her friends.

We have officially submitted our paperwork to separate from the Army next August. I am excited to be going back stateside and to be closer to family, but leaving is bittersweet. We’ve lived here for over 4 years now, all of our children were born here, and it is really the only permanent home we’ve known together. We love Europe. This was our last Christmas here in Europe, and I’m a bit torn up about it. Christmas markets really aren’t Brad’s favorite thing, but we went over and over again because I didn’t want to admit that each one could be the last. I visited the Christmas market in Bern-Kastel Kues, we rode the train to Mainz, and the Baumholder Christmas market was right outside our front door. (Literally — in the picture you’ll see Annika and Brad standing at our front door.)

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day we spent together – our little family of five. Brad didn’t even get work calls the entire weekend. It was a little Christmas miracle. On Christmas Eve I planned a dinner with the kinds of food Christ would have eaten, and even came up with scripture verses or stories relating to Christ to go with all of the things on the table – candles, bread, grapes, water, pomegranate, cheese, lamb, etc. It was one of those things that seemed like a good idea in theory, but really is not. Before we could even get the food on the table Lucy and Elise were screaming for the grapes. Then I turned the lights off so we could eat by candlelight (authentic, you know) and Lucy kept yelling “Dark! Light on! Dark! Light on!” I would try to read a scripture, but nobody was listening – the girls were just crying for food and Brad was busy trying to keep them fed. By the time I finally gave up on the scriptures, and got ready to eat my own dinner Elise adamantly informed me that she was all done and wanted to get down. It was a delicious dinner anyway. We also attempted to act out the nativity, but the twins hijacked baby Jesus and kept putting him to sleep in different places. Annika did fabulous in her role as the angel – she knew just what to say. “Glory to God! Peace on Earth!” After Lucy and Elise were ushered off to bed Annika left Santa some cookies and bubbly water “because he probably gets tired of milk.”

I’ll let the photos of Christmas day speak for themselves. We had a wonderful holiday, and we hope you did too. Merry Christmas!

We took Lucy and Elise out in the snow last year, but this was the first time they were really old enough to play in it. While hesitant at first, they came around and became very attached to our little miniature snowman. They drop their “s” when they say snow, so for the rest of the week whenever we passed a window they would call out “noman! noman!” After an hour of playing outside in the first snowfall, our time was cut short when Brad pegged Annika in the face during a snowball fight. He had been lobbing snowballs at the girls’ feet, but Annika bent down to make a snowball and then looked up at Brad just in time to get hit square in the face. It hit hard enough to make a loud “whack” and Annika couldn’t open her eyes for the next few minutes. It was really kind of funny for everyone but Annika.

On Tuesday, after another snowfall, Brad took a long lunch, and we went sledding with the girls on a little hill near Brad’s office. We were so proud of Annika, who went down the hill very first, slid down on her stomach, and was excited to try a bigger hill. While none of those things are exceptional, it was a big step for Annika, who has been known to show fear of small bunnies, fruit flies in her room, the Dumbo ride at Disneyland, and her own Father dressed as Santa Clause.

We’ve had a wonderful December and I might be just as excited as Annika for Christmas. We hope that everyone has a very wonderful holiday and feels an increase of joy, love, and peace in their lives. Merry Christmas!

Today the sun was shining (!!!!!), nobody was sick, and we had nothing planned so I figured we should go for it. Forty minutes later we were out the door with only a few tears. We were outside for over an hour. I waited, I played, I sang songs, I gave instructions, I begged, I promised candy, I danced, I raised my voice, I bribed some more, I pleaded, and finally I just gave up. So for all those Moms who think they are the only ones who struggle to get pictures of their children — you are not alone.

I always like to start my photoshoots off right. I'm pretty sure I didn't ask for kissy faces, but thanks anyway, girls.

Lucy is the queen of funny faces in our house. She didn't disappoint today. (And Elise refused to let go of that hat.)

I'm pretty sure Annika kicked her camera after this shot. She's obviously very enthusiastic about getting her picture taken.

Elise gets in on the funny faces...

When Hollands smile, their eyes tend to disappear. Paige calls these "smile eyes." In this case, however, Annika's eyes are just closed and it has nothing to do with smiling.

We love each other anyway...

. . . most of the time.

Let’s end with a few good ones, just so I go to bed a little bit happier.

I am thankful for dirty dishes, because they mean that we have (good) food to eat.

I am thankful for toys all over the floor, because they make my girls happy (most of the time.)

I am thankful for messy girls

and messy floors because they are a reminder that I get to stay home and play with my kids all day.

I took all of these pictures last week when we were all stuck at home sick. We’d been quarantined in the house for days and I was needing some things to feel grateful about. Rest assured I am not always so thankful for dirty dishes, laundry, and messy floors. Most of the time they are downright discouraging. But this exercise in gratitude was a good one for me, and got me through a long week at home. In fact, I actually enjoyed it. We didn’t have to run any errands, we weren’t going to any activities or playdates, and I remembered that I really am grateful to be a stay at home Mom.

Today I am thankful for cookies. Is that too lame? But, really, I am. That last two days have been foggy, and dark all day. So dark that while eating breakfast at 9:00 (long after the sun had come up) Annika asked if it was time to go to bed. I was puzzled. She responded with “Well, it’s dark outside! Is it bedtime?” Nothing cures the rainy/foggy/misty day blues like baking cookies. And then eating them. It warms up the house, everything smells good and the day went from cold and dark to warm and cozy – just like that.

We made both pumpkin oatmeal cookies and brown butter chocolate chip cookies. The oatmeal cookies were soft and chewy and full of fall spices. They are sort-of healthy, and you could sort-of, almost, but not really consider them breakfast cookies. The chocolate chip cookies may have me sold on brown butter. I’ve been seeing recipes calling for browned butter popping up, but had yet to try it. It’s pretty good stuff. It takes a bit more time, but if you really want to put your cookies over the top, give it a go. I was going to type the recipes out for you, but I’m too lazy for that. Here they are: Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies from the PickyCook and Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies from The Little Red House.

P.S. It may or may not look like I stole this post from the little red house. I’m not going to lie. That post about the brown butter chocolate chip cookies was my inspiration for making cookies yesterday, but my gratitude is sincere. I guess I am also thankful for hundreds of food blogs to feed my love of trying new recipes.