Helpful Hands

Oma Christel F* and Sofia 

Austrian Cousins in town

Kersten's Uncle Rainer and Aunt Moni are in town right now.  They come from Austria and probably have not been here in about 12 years.  So it is super exciting.    They brought us these cool rock that they gathered at the Rhine river and had each of our names carved in them.  Noah adores his and has been carrying it around the house.  And will continueally spell his name out loud to show it to me.   Funny boy.  I thought this was a very thoughtful gift and the rocks are really beautiful.  

Here are Kersten and Yan wrestling at the G house.  It has been so fun getting to know their boys.  Yan is 11 and Clemens is 9.  They both twinkle.  And have lots of mischief in their eyes.  Yan is especially sweet with Sofia.  He is taken with her.  He constantly asks to hold her and laughs at her antics.  I don't know what  he is saying about her since it is in German but I can tell he is lovin on her.  
Here is a pic of Yan and Clemens wrestling .  Noah loves going to play with the boys.  He is used to people not understanding him and he loves that they like to play the same things he does.  Josh (Noah's cousin)  has been in video game heaven.  They want to play as much as he does.   They have been getting along so well.
We had a huge family dinner up at the Mandarin.  The food was really good.  I think my favorite moment was when Yan took a bite out of a lettece wrapp and actually made the "Mmmm" sounds.  He ate three of them.  Moni (pictured above)  I told Kerst has such a naturally cheerful personality.  I can tell life amuses her and it is refreshing to be around her.  She speaks a little English.,  I have really enjoyed getting to know her a bit.  

I have so enjoyed watching them with my baby.  Rainer just loves her to pieces.  He just plays with her and makes her laugh and she grabs his face and hair and he just laughs.  It is great.  I wish I had better words to express this.  It really has just been delightful.  We went up East Mill Creek Canyon last night and roasted Hot dogs and had Smores.  The boys all got filthy and played in  the creek and fire.  The weather was perfect.The are here for a bit longer.  Next Saturday,  Noah and Kersten are meeting them in California to go to Disneyland.  So we have weeks more of our adventures with them.  Hooray. 

Through Your Eyes

I read on a blog, a friend was wishing her friend Happy Birthday. In her post she listed bullet points of all these things she loved most about her friend. It was touching and cute. I stalk both their blogs and leave comments very irregularly. I started reading the comments and the friend who was having a birthday,first talked about how disconcerting it was to see her face pop up on her friends blog and then made the comment "I like myself a lot better in your eyes."

I really started thinking a lot after this. How nice it would be to see ourselves more often in the eyes of the people who love us in spite of ourselves. I wish that I saw myself more through the eyes of my sweet husband. I first of all would know what he is thinking half the time instead of trying to beat it out of him. But more importantly, I would probably know that I am the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. (He tells me this every day and I am still working on believing him). I would laugh at myself a lot more and take things more with a grain of salt. I would be able not to stress myself to sickness hoping to make him happy. For I would know that he is happy with me just by being me and does not need me to worry so much. I think this would be really nice

I also thought it would be nice for some of the people that I love to see themselves through my eyes. Like the fabulous Mara, who is so stylish and ambitious. And is the most amazing mother to her boys. I know I could not do all she does for those boys. They are lucky to have her. Or my friend, Kieran who can make anything look beautiful and has the most creative amazing, inspiration brain I have ever encountered. She can always make me laugh and can accomplish more in one day than I can in a week. Or my sister Amy, who has found an amazing talent with hair. She works so hard to learn all she can. And now she is a wizard with hair. All the sacrifices she has made will be worth it. These are just three examples of woman I love who are quite amazing. If I wrote about all of you I love who read this blog this post would be way to long but you get the idea and don't be offended that I did not write about you for I hope you know how much I love you all. I try to show the people I love that I love them

Anyway what I was really getting to in this post, is I am going to try to start looking at myself the way my Heavenly Father sees me. Okay I know that was and abrupt change. But if my sweet husband, my amazing friends and family think I am pretty cool. If I try to see myself the way my Heavenly Father does, I would never lose confidence in myself, put myself down, curse at my after baby body or critizize my mothering or wife skills. If I just continue to strive to be what I know I am, which is a daughter of God. A woman who is trying to do what is right and good, in spite of the influence around her. Than I can not lose. As woman I think we struggle more to see our worth and how amazing we really are. We all try to sugar coat things so that we have the illusion of a perfect life. But the reality of it all is that we all will struggle, That is what we are here on earth for is to learn, We all will have bad days where we will want to pull out our hair. I for one am going to start reminding myself of the love my Father in Heaven has for me and maybe it will all be just a little bit better.

I Believe

I believe in Pink.

 I believe laughing is the best calorie burner. 

I believe in kissing;  kissing a lot.

 I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong.

 I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. 

I believe that tomorrow is another day,

 and I believe in miracles."

{Audrey Hepburn}

image by Ratatat  Kat

Noah and Lily

Noah and his friend Lily are so cute and fun together. I just love this girl. There are many reasons that we love her. They met at preschool this past year.Lilly is a tomboy through and through. No wonder that Noah and her love to play, they love the same things. Spiderman, Star Wars and super heroes are in their top things to play with. They love to play outside in the water pool and playground. Noah says he kisses her 4 times everytime they see each other. I have never seen evidence of this, nor has his teacher or Lily's mom Annie. But it sure is funny that he says this. One thing that fills my heart with joy and makes me want to keep this girl close forever. Is one day as they were playing, Annie (Lily's mom) could not understand what Noah needed. She said to Noah "Sorry buddy, I just can't figure out what you need" Then Lily goes over to Noah and says "Whisper it in my ear Noah, and I will understand with my heart". Okay, can you just say melt my heart. I wlll keep this girl around forever. I feel like a superstar when any of Lily's fam or friends meet me. For I am Noah's Mom. I sure am lucky.

We signed them up for soccer together. They love being together so it has been fun. But really there has not been a lot of actual soccer being played. There teams name is the Spiderman team, orchestrated by Lily and Noah because of their red jerseys. So they spend most of the game running around the field casting webs about the field. We tried explaining that the net was the web that they needed to kick the ball into. But they just want water and snacks and to play together. It was fun and they have started to get it, a bit more, To bad their last game is tommrow.

happy 4th of july

happy 4th of july !

the freedoms we have

are so numerous,

that I Know I take them for granted.

these blurry kids are sure cute though

Sofia-6 months old

Wow,  it is so unbelievable that my sweet baby Sofia, is 6 months old already.  She turned 6 months on Saturday the day my sister Emilee got married.   Sofia has grown to be so joyful and curious.  This girl is methodical.  She has to know exactly what is going on around her at all times.  Dr. Katie at her appt today commented that she was one nosy little girl.  She can't wait to get on with life.  She is impatient to be big and go and do some amazing things.  She loves her brother and he can get her to laugh more than anyone.  One of my favorite things about her is that when she recognizes someone she loves, she instantly smiles and acknowledges them.  She now can roll forward and backward.  She grabs at everything.   Raking at things on the table and floor to get them to her.   She grabs hair and has a strong grip.  Noah gets a bit upset with her when his head gets to close.  She loves to rub peoples faces.  Like she is studying each contour of their face.

Favorite Toys- anything that crinkles and makes noise.   her music cube and radio.  Anything that Noah has,  Paper bowl,  Honey bee,  her black and white rattle.  Anything that can go in her mouth,  loves playing in her walker. She loves my flower necklace,  She grabs it whenever I wear it and  it goes straight to her mouth

Favorite Books-  That's Not My Monster, Goodnight Moon,  Owl Babies and Clone Wars Vol 7

First Rice Cereal was on  Sunday June 22-  Loves eating big food and starts kicking when she sees me with bowl and she is in her high chair.  Such an enthusiastic eater.  

Can sit up by herself,  she has been teetering all month but on June 26 she could sit for about 10 minutes without falling so I will count that.  

At her 6 month appt today, 

She weighed 15 lbs 10 oz in the 50%

She was 26 1/2 inches in the 75%

her head circum.  43 cm  in the 75%

She has gotten to be a little bit bigger on the scale.  We just love our little princess.