zauber-a

Friday, June 15, 2007

Those Pregnancy Dreams...

Life has been busy, right? Trip to Holland and a holiday-week on top of that with birthday's and biergarten and trips to lakes...and then the week following that filled with doctor's appointments and me finally taking some initiative and starting to clean up the apartment a bit in anticipation of the July visits. Bascially, that's a formula for sheer exhaustion, and like any normal, non hormonal person, I am a bear when I'm exhausted. Add a little extra helping of 'Georgia Bock' (stubbornness) and you've got a true recipe for disaster.

For example:

she's spitting out her food on purpose. Take a bite, spit it out.
Hitting others.
Dumping out her toys and making a mess, not to play, just to make a mess.
Refusing to get off her rocking horse without help.
Whining 24/7 (yes, straight through the night).
Looking you in the face when you tell her to do something, and ignoring you.
Basically, just being an almost-two-year-old.

Then of course, she's had a vaccination and is over-tired, and therefore a bear herself (without knowing why). We got home from playgroup yesterday, ate lunch and she went down for a nap (a very restless nap). After half an hour, she was awake, but not happy about it. Tried putting her back down, and right the second she fell asleep, the freaking doorbell rings and wakes her. Back to bed, calm her down, get her nearing dreamland, the phone rings (why won't i ever learn to unplug it when she's napping?). Nap flew out the window. Exhausted baby, exhausted mommy, very hot weather. Bad combination.

So I went to bed early last night, hoping that a good night's sleep would soothe all pains. Instead, Georgia tosses, turns, whines, cries, kicks and hits all night long and I have the nightmare of all nightmares, and wake up in a worse mood than I went to bed in. I am not getting into the nightmare right now. It makes me sob uncontrollably to talk about it. If you are a mother, imagine the worst thing that could ever happen before your eyes and you'll probably know what I dreamt about.

So. There you have my pathetic excuses for why I haven't been updating this blog like a good mommy-to-be.

Posted at 08:36 am by zauber-a
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Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Scrap-a-Ganza Recap

Just a taste of what Greece will most likely be like! Georgia loved the beach, loved the water, loved the bugs and the shells and even the waves. At least, up until the last day when Sven let her get bowled over by waves a few too many times. He's worried she'll be scared of the water after that - I'm thinking enough time between Egmond and Kos will take care of things.

So the beach at Egmond aan Zee is amazing. Fine, fine sand that goes on and on and on! It was breezy and cool, not quite warm enough to really jump in the water in a bathing suit, but the kids loved it (except poor Phil). And when it got a bit too cold for comfort, then there was miles of sand to play in. Perfect way for the boys and Georgia to spend their days while Cara and I were in classes. For the full (and somewhat overwhelming) batch of photos, click HERE.

So just to recap as quickly as possible, since editing all those photos took years and years...

I had an amazing time and I think managed almost everything on my must-do list (in no particular order):

Hung with Cara
ate at a real Dutch Restaurant (not just the nasty hotel food)
went to the beach
met Lisa Bearnson (and introduced myself)
finished every single project (except for pictures)
managed to do all but one of my make-n-takes

So. play-by-play (quickly):We were up at 2am on Friday morning (even Georgia) in order to take off by 4am (we made it by 4:45am) and after 10 hours of driving (with stops for eating) we finally arrived in Egmond aan Zee and had a half hour wait before we could check into our room. Georgia hated it. The ride was just plain too long.

Called Cara on the cell a million times, bugging her where they were and when they'd be there. Finally gave up on waiting for them (they were stuck in traffic around Amsterdam) and headed out to find the Egyptian place we got pizza at last year (found it!) for dinner. Ordered two pizzas to go and headed back to the hotel room to eat it (crunched for time). On the way to the restaurant, we bumped into Cara and Family, just arriving.

Met Cara just outside our classroom, shortly before it started. First class was with Karen Burniston (perfect way to start off the weekend). We did not finish the two-page layout in class, but went downstairs to the crop-room to finish it that evening (pictures of projects will come later).

Rough night on uncomfortable beds with a restless G. Dragged myself up out of bed next morning - breakfast. Saw Anthony and Jacques on the way, they'd been swimming! Vincens family showed up shortly after we'd started eating and then Cara and I headed to our first class (at 9 this year, not 8!!!) which was bazzill. the woman teaching was so bubbly, the class HAD to be fun. finished the project IN CLASS!

Morning was free, so we met up with Sven and G and walked to the beach together where we found Cara's family and the onslaught of photo-taking occured. Lunch at a quick snack-shop that Matthieu had found (quick because Cara and I needed to get back to class). Unfortunately, the place sold FISH, fish and more fish. Georgia loves fish. I don't. I survived. I also had a sparkling lipton tea. Um, yuck.

Back to the hotel for a funky Heidi Swapp class with Vivian Bonder. Was a clever little album and used lots of paint and was very sticky. Can't wait to finish it up with pictures and embellishing. Was thinking to do it for Georgia, but it might be fun to do it for Kylene - would just need her to send me pictures. (She won't bother reading this though, she gets bored with all scrapbook related stuff, so she'll miss out on the opportunity of an album all her own).

2nd Class with Karen Burniston (a doubleheader) where we made the most amazing pop-up book that I love. Karen is absolutely brilliant. Did a quick make-n-take and I jammed my finger on the table so hard, i couldn't move it the rest of the night (it's purple from top to bottom now). Melodee's class. Dinner with the boys (they did not feed our children, they waited for us to finish with our classes so we could go with them to eat...which meant the kids were eating dinner at 9:30pm!)

After getting away from the kids and Daddy's, Cara and I got to crop. The place was packed, not a single free table, the raffle was going on (she didn't even get to purchase tickets!) and we had to squeeze in on a corner table - not much room for scrapping, and only one other gal at the table was actually scrapping...

In bed by midnight, up next morning for breakfast and the last of our classes. The men did not take our kiddos to lunch at noon. Sven fed Georgia CRACKERS on the beach instead. She was wretched the rest of the day. Cara and Family had to leave after our last class, so they headed to the car, and we followed so that we could get the Rice Krispies she brought me and so Jacques could give Georgia the cats he had drawn her.

Cara had Matthieu take a shot of our bellies (they look small from that angle, I swear mine was bulging beyond belief by the end of the weekend) because she said we'd regret it if we didn't have one...of course she's right. And then they were off. Georgia missed the boys, she seemed a little lost without them. We went upstairs and she had a bottle and fell asleep in my arms, so i put her to bed and told Sven to let her sleep an hour and then come down and meet me (I wanted to scrap, even without Cara).

We went to dinner after that, and Georgia was so hungry, cranky and tired, it was miserable. She then (when the food finally came) proceeded to eat almost the entire fried fish fillet on her plate! Went back to the hotel and put her straight to bed.

Next morning, she kept looking around expectantly, like she was waiting for Jacques and Anthony to show up and entertain her at breakfast, but of course they didn't come. As soon as we were done, we headed out as well. Didn't get home until nearly 8pm (because we stopped at Toys-R-Us in Cologne for a birthday present).

Now that recap was longer than I intended and took me all day. I'll leave you with one more picture and then I'm off to bed:

Posted at 10:33 pm by zauber-a
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Friday, June 01, 2007

leaving for Egmond aan Zee

in just a few - hopefully we'll make it out the door by 4am! We'll be back on Monday!!!

Posted at 03:14 am by zauber-a
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Sunday, May 27, 2007

Overdue Mother's Day Photos!

Yah, I'm way overdue for posting these!!! So I took some time today (time I should have been doing other things with) and edited some of the pics AND went ahead and created a quick layout with them (quick layout in that I used a multifoto quickpage template by Anna Aspnes to create it - choosing the colors and papers did NOT go quite as quickly).

Full credits will be up at Designer Digitals sometime next month. If you want to see the pages bigger, please click here: left page, right page (with journaling).

And for even more pictures of the trip to Poing, click HERE.

In current news: it's been a hot week - Georgia was out in her little kiddie pool three times (and if it had been up to her, she'd have been in it every day!). She loves the water so much, that you have to watch her. After she's done for the day (according to ME) and dressed again, she'll jump right back in the water and soak herself (did it twice). Monday was her first day in the pool, hot hot weather, but I couldn't get the water to start. Turns out, Dietmar had turned it off because it was dripping. When he came home, he turned it on, we filled the pool and I set Georgie in, not realizing how cold the water that comes from the hose is...Georgia did not sit, she stood and splashed!

Andrea has a pool as well (both of us went shopping together at Aldi) and she filled hers up early so that the sun would warm the water and then later that day (fivish) she came up and invited us down to play. As soon as we got outside, a thunderstorm rolled in. There was NO keeping Georgia away from that pool though - she ran out in the rain and splashed with her hands until I decided there was no sense in her standing out getting her clothes wet and undressed her and let her splash in the pool.

However, the highlight of the pool-days was Thursday, when Killian, Micha and Corvin came over. Killi and Georgia had the most fabulous time...The two of them started sitting across from each other in the pool, threw water over their heads (and sometimes direct in their own faces), looked at each other and giggled uncontrollably. This turned into actual splashing, and before we knew it, Killian was standing up and jumping as high as he could, letting himself fall down on his bottom in a big huge SPLASH. You better believe Georgia followed suit, and the for a while, the two of them were getting everyone and everything wet, including little 5-week old Corvin!

Later, they would get out of the pool, run to the sandbox, play in the sand and then go running back to the pool where they both dived over the edge head-first into the water. The pool was a mess by the end of the day - FULL of grass and sand...and Georgia was exhausted - so of course she didn't sleep. half an hour after she'd fallen asleep, she was awake and crying (that's 20:15, right in time for GNTM Finale...) so up she went until Sven was finished eating and ready to take her back, because I am a little bit addicted to GNTM and the Finale was one show I was not willing to miss. Glad I didn't - the one and only redheaded model won!

Shopping on Saturday: food (of course) mousse for Cara, a cooler for Holland to keep milk in for Georgia (because she still drinks about 2 and 1/4 bottles a day) that will also work in Greece (it comes with a strap for your shoulder and a replacement lid without the electric plugs to make it a normal cooler), disposable swimmy diapers (and of course as soon as we got home, the mail came and mom had sent a speedo swimmy diaper) and then off to Baby Walz for arm floaties. Weren't planning on grabbing any of that stuff so soon, but there is a pool at the hotel in Egmond and we hope to meet up with Cara and Family and go swimming on Friday evening, so G. needs that stuff earlier than expected!

Got home and for the life of me, could not figure out how to inflate those darn floatie things! Looked in the internet for help and finally just bit down on the dang thing and blew. Wow. that was it! Shortly after, had an Email from Cara asking if I'd bitten down while blowing? um. yah. the instructions COULD mention that you DO have to blow and that just 'pressing the valve' isn't going to make them pump up on their own!! Anyway.

When Georgia got up from her nap (shortly before five...) I told her that the 'grandma fairy' had come by and showed her the 'my little pony princess' that had come in the mail. She came running down the hall to grab it out of my hands, and wouldn't let go of it for a good five minutes (about the length of her attention-span).

G and Sven are off on a walk or something now. Heike just called and we're meeting up at Leiberheim tomorrow afternoon. That should please Sven! Now off to make dinner!

Posted at 05:08 pm by zauber-a
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Monday, May 21, 2007

Männertag and Pickles

I do have a good reason for not posting - we were off to Lübbenau for Männertag because it's just one of those holidays Sven can't miss...We took off last Wednesday afternoon and only got back last night. AND, to make things worse, I got very sick on Tuesday and spent the day as much in bed as possible (except when I was babysitting Killian and entertaining Georgia of course...).

So here's the thing I should be ashamed of. ONE picture for all of May? ONE picture?! Thankfully, I have taken a few more than one, but there is only one online. So I need to remedy that immediately.

It may not look like it - but she was enjoying that pickle - a Gewürzgurke staright from the wooden bucket on the Hafen in Lübbenau. We got two pickles and one senf-gurke (for Sven). I thought Georgia would share the pickle with me, but she refused to give that baby up and it was so big, she needed both hands to eat it! I wish I'd thought to take pictures of the pickle-stand but I wasn't feeling 100% and it was hotter than we expected...so. Excuses. When will I ever learn?! We actually wished, after walking down to the hafen that morning, that we could go on a kahnfahrt ourselves, but don't think that Georgia would sit still long enough. I don't know. Maybe we should try and get up there in July with Mom and Kylene and beg Alex for a ride.

Speaking of July, summer plans are almost taken care of. Looks like we are headed to the island of Kos in Greece for a week. We'll have full-pention, air-conditioning, a beach within walking distance and at least two freshwater swimming pools in the resort, plus daily and evening entertainment. Ah yes, and the flight is only 2.5 hours.

It all sounds good.

Okay. Now that I'm back online after 4 days without, I've got a million things to catch up on and don't know where to start first. Plus, as Cara so kindly reminded me, only 12 days until we take off for SAG in Holland! I think we are looking forward to the trip mostly just to see each other without being responsible for four kids the whole time...!

All right then, moving onward. I should probably edit some pictures to share!

Posted at 01:44 pm by zauber-a
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Sunday, May 13, 2007

Happy Mother's Day!

Posted at 04:36 pm by zauber-a
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Saturday, May 12, 2007

Saturday Scraplifts

Take a peek here: Saturday Scraplifts, and tell me if you know what that means? You'll have to scroll down a bit to about the 5th layout (I think, maybe the 4th if you don't count the first one twice).

Thanks for the names help...if it can be called help in some of your cases! Keep them coming please. And just a note: Alexander is out. That is Zane's name. Zephyr is a cool name, it has a lovely meaning, but impossible for Germans, and I think it would be cruel to name your child that, especially a SON, as Zephyr is not a boy name!! But I got a laugh out of the suggestion and am very curious to know where in the WORLD you came up with that?!

Going to try and update more often. Could be boring stuff though. Topic of the moment is vacation this summer, as I more or less promised the family a sunny beach vacation that they won't let me go back on now. The whole thing is giving me anxiety dreams...but I have a fabulous travel agent who will get the whole thing going for me...I think we're learning towards Menorca right now (if I get the okay from the girls), though we were looking at Tenneriffe and the Greek Islands. Any opinions from blog-readers? I know I've got a few German-readers who must have been to one of those places before...!

Posted at 09:41 am by zauber-a
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Friday, May 11, 2007

Names

I am clueless. How does one find the perfect name? I didn't have to find Georgia's, I knew from the very beginning, it felt right, it was right, it was her name. We had trouble with Zane, but at least we had a few options, a few ideas. This time around, I am coming up with such a blank. I can't think of anything, I don't like anything I think of. Nothing is speaking to my heart, this baby remains genderless and nameless. Poor little thing.

So here's where we come to the question: Can you help? Do you have a favorite name, or a good source where we can find names? Any help at all?

Posted at 01:03 pm by zauber-a
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Monday, April 23, 2007

News!

Well, not really, but just for you, Cynthia...I don't know what was up with the past week. I have been so exhausted and then got sick and then Georgia got sick and we even went to the doctor, but she just had a nasty flu bug that gave her a never-ending fever and made her just want to sit miserably on the couch and do nothing - NOTHING.

I haven't felt like doing anything, just have the blahs I guess.

How about a story?

There was this gal who really wanted to BBQ hamburgers on the grill, right? She wanted to last weekend and couldn't convince her family that it was a good idea so she gave up. She still wanted to this past weekend and so she just bought the goods to make the food and hoped. She told her family that the BBQ Grill needed to get started by 4pm so that it would be hot enough to grill and they could eat by 6pm and the baby could go to bed at her regular bedtime...

At 3:30, her family took off for a walk and a play on the playground (the far-away, couldn't get farther walking, playground) and left her at home. Around 4pm, they were NOT home. The BBQ had NOT been dragged out of the basement, nothing had been prepared...but this girl WANTED a BBQ hamburger! So she got the food all ready to grill and at 4:45pm, her family finally arrived home.

It took until around 5pm for them to get down to the basement and start looking for the grill and charcoal and then the bad news. Despite having ASKED at the grocery store on Saturday (because they are closed on Sundays) whether they had everythign necessary to grill with...it turns out they had no charcoal fluid to light the grill. So they dug up an old bottle of POTT, which is about 50proof and took it along with the grill and charcoal out to the backyard.

It wasn't until 5:30 or later, that the BBQ grill was successfully in one piece and the charcoal could be lit. You might have guessed...that the POTT wasn't strong enough to catch the charcoal on fire...by this time, the girl was getting irritated, tired, and hungry. So she went upstairs and set up the raclette on the balcony and once it was hot, she called down to find out whether the grill was working and got a resounding 'no!' in return. So she threw the hamburgers on the raclette (which basically means they started frying in their own fat, as the raclette has no place for the fat to drip off) and got the table ready.

At some point, she called down again to say the burgers were half-done and to come upstairs, and that is when she heard: "The grill is working! Bring the meat down!" Frustrated, she removed the burgers from the Raclette, gathered the baby up for the 4th time, and trekked downstairs, only to discover that the charcoal was lit, but not hot, and it was not getting hot anytime soon (remember her saying to start the process at 4pm?). So eventually, she took the meat back upstairs, turned the raclette back on and finished cooking the burgers, and not without a number of 'i told you so's'.

The meat was terrible, but the girl needs iron, so she ate it, trying to cover the taste in plenty of ketchup and avocados...and in the end, she wasn't even hungry for the brownies they had for dessert.

End of Story.

Now, just so you don't think this family is all terrible - I will say they had the most delicious Sate with peanutsauce on Saturday, with all parties helping. She made the sauce, and he did the marinade and meat and rice and they feasted so well on Saturday, she slept through the night for the first time since being pregnant, without waking up hungry!

Next weekend, assuming good weather, the family is going to try again...and they are looking into getting an electric BBQ...

Currently reading:
The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials, Book 3)
By Philip Pullman

Posted at 08:00 am by zauber-a
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Saturday, April 14, 2007

Chocolate

My daughter may look nothing like me, but she certainly shares my love for chocolate...

credits can be seen HERE. The layout was done for the Saturday Scraplift Challenge at Designer Digitals. yup, that was today. This time around, I was all speedy gonzales!

Posted at 12:08 pm by zauber-a
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