Minnesota is Heaven, But Virginia is Home

Yes, to answer Sarah's question: I got the Flip as an anniversary present. It is so amazingly small, lightweight, cute (pink!) and EASY to use! It came in the mail yesterday from our friends at Amazon (bless you O Amazon!). I opened it up, popped in two AA batteries, easily set the date and time, and pushed the red button to record. Pushed the red button to stop recording. This thing literally has seven different buttons: on/off, red record, zoom in, zoom out, play, skip and delete. That is it. And when you're ready to download the videos, it has a built-in USB--you just pop it out and plug it directly into the computer. It comes preloaded with Flip software that I guess allows you to edit, etc. I haven't tried that yet. I'm just thrilled to finally have a camera that is this easy to use after years of struggling with our Sony HandyCam. Anyhoo--it shoots two hours of video which is plenty. The best things happen in little increments, anyway, right? And did I mention th...

View from the TV tower - downtown Stuttgart Will having lunch in his little German bonnet Admiring the view Hans and his Stuttgart Hofbrau Admiring the view from the cafe Happy Thanksgiving All!!

So...Will has been a little grumpy lately. OK, a lot grumpy. He has two issues: gas and the refusal to nap when he needs to. I know...remember this same person saying that he slept dang near all day? Yes, that was me, but keep in mind that that was five weeks ago. As any mother knows, a tiny baby changes a great deal in a five week period. The gas problem is something Josiah and Annika both suffered from, so I'm experienced with that. We say "Oh, Will is popping popcorn!". He is that gassy. Sometimes he'll pass gas and I'll give the side eye to Hans. It's that loud. Sometimes it's more than a little funny and we'll all burst out laughing at the poor little thing, but I know that having gas is no laughing matter for Will, who gets quite angry and red-faced trying to get it out. I have actually Googled infant gas pain to get some tips on how to get the gas out of him. This has led to several new techniques that would probably cause onlooke...

We're wrapping up the first day of a new experiment in the D4 household: cloth diapers. If you're curious about what diapers I'm using, they are the Bum Genius 3.0 all-in-one diaper. I wanted to include a picture for my mothers, who are probably picturing something quite different when I say "cloth diaper". I had one family that I babysat for who used cloth diapers back in the 1980s and yes, they were the old-fashioned square pads with pins and plastic pants over top. They weren't very efficient or ergonomic and were a pain in the butt (haha) to change for someone used to Pampers. Well, cloth diapers have come a long way even in the last few years. I never would have considered doing it for Josiah. I didn't even really know that it was an option. Cloth diapering hadn't even hit my radar yet for Annika. It's only been in the last couple of years that I started hearing about it more and more. I had a neighbor here who used a diaper similar to the Bum...

Because who can resist the absolute adorableness of a naked baby?!

Sorry that it's been so long since I posted...but I've been very busy learning how to hold it all together in this new-fangled family situation. And I've been busy alternately wondering where baby eyelashes come from (seriously...Will had no eyelashes at birth and three weeks later, pop, there they were and of course, they are long and getting darker and thicker--my kids have eyelashes that Heidi Klum would envy) and wondering how someone who weighs 10 pounds and does nothing but eat, poop and sleep could store so much fury. And in between nuzzling Will's fuzzy head, smelling his tiny ears and nibbling on his baby corncob toes, I've been busy bringing up his sister and brother, keeping a house tidy, doing pile after pile of laundry, buying groceries and taking three-hour car trips to Garmisch sans husband. And exercising as much as I can, since the scale doesn't seem to want to budge past a certain point that I will not disclose because it horrifies me. Yes, ...

Annika says "Happy Veteran's Day!" My boys share some love Conked out in his carseat Warm and cozy in his teddy bear bunting

Two of the dumbest stories I saw today in the six minutes I've been able to watch TV: From Oprah (whose word I usually take as gospel): her entire show today was "shoe and handbag makeovers". She and her fashion editor and a couple of stylists had a shoe intervention. I learned that wearing the wrong pair of shoes can make your feet look fat. Great, thanks a lot Oprah. I was just worried about my butt and thighs...now I have to worry about my feet, too! On a sidenote: is it just me or do these makeover shows always give ladies the most unrealistic new look? I mean, granted, the ladies usually do look better and I'm all for updating one's look, but when the most important thing about your favorite pair of shoes is that they're comfy and don't pinch your bunions, is the stylist really doing you a favor by putting you into 4" leopard-print, peeptoe stilletos? From the BBC and the amazingly awful Trisha Goddard Show, which is a little like a combo...

This is the one: http://www.triumph.co.uk/usa/2010_SprintST_Overview_2010SprintST.aspx Or, if the Sprint is a "bit much" for me to handle, I like this more simple, classic approach: http://www.triumph.co.uk/usa/2010_Bonneville_Overview_2010Bonneville.aspx I've got five years to plan for it.

"Peek-A-Boo"! Chicken, Lil' Punkin', Chicka-Chicka Boom Boom So, Halloween has come and gone and as usual, I feel like a bit of a slacker because I didn't decorate, dress up or even make treats for Josiah's class. I did make his Chicka Chicka Boom Boom costume, so I did something...but even that was pretty simple. As you can probably tell. Josiah absolutely refused to wear it to school on Friday, insisting that no one else would be wearing costumes. Imagine his surprise when most everyone at Patch Elementary came dressed up. I tried hard not to be offended. You have to pick your battles and it was one I didn't particulary feel like going crazy over. Josiah and Annika weren't terribly excited about Halloween until about 4:15 p.m. yesterday evening. Trick or treating was to begin at 5:00 and run until 8:00. Suddenly, the idea of CANDY (!) being handed out seemed to penetrate their skulls and within about 28 seconds, both of them were in costu...