Coffee from a Reusable Ceramic Mug

Clair is turning into a communicative little person these days. I swear, seemingly over night, she is able to understand me. She also has her own ideas about how to do things and is pretty adamant about it. For example, if I am eating with her, she will get down off of her high chair and join me at the table kneeling on the chair next to me. Today she was amazing. I could ask her to do little errands, and she totally understood what I was asking and was tickled to show me that she could do it. I could also ask her if she wanted to do things by herself or if she wanted my help. Granted this is a little tricky given her limited vocabulary - I ask her yes or no questions. A very determined ‘NO’ means no, and a blank stare with the mouth slightly open, apparently, means yes. It was a slightly exhausting day because I am not used to having so much interaction with her on that level. She seemed to have been drained at the end of the day as well. I wonder what she will do tomorrow. I am hoping for lots of sleep…..

Anyway, I took this photo today to show how she sits with me at the table. This is why there are constant piles of laundry at our place. I have started stripping her down to eat sometimes because there is really no point in dressing her to eat unless I feel like changing her directly afterwords.

Matthias’ sister, Sandra, and our nephew Maxim have been here visiting us since Wednesday. Even though there are three adults and only two babies, it feels like we are out numbered!

Clair is a wee bit jealous of her mommy holding and cuddling with a little baby, but she is slowly getting used to it. She showed off when we were on Skype with Oma and Opa and was being really sweet with Maxim. She doesn’t try to hit him (much), and she pets his head and tries to give him things. It is sweet. She calls him ‘baby’, like she calls most cute little baby-like things.

It has been pretty relaxing having Sandra here. Her English is very good so we all ending up speaking a lot of DEnglisch. My brain gets a little mixed up, and when I went to see my friends Sarah and Andrea yesterday, I kept stumbling when trying to speak only English. Fortunately, both of them are fluent in DEnglisch.

Here are a few photos from the past few days. We’ve been handing around home, going to town and to the swimming pool. The kids loved the pool. Clair is finally warming up to the water and spent the most amount of time ever actually playing in the pools. Clair has a fabulous swimsuit cutesy my friend Liz in Phoenix. She was the best dressed toddler in the place until she pushed her swimming diaper to the limits and had to be changed into a fresh pair of disposable swim diapers for the last half hour (her swim diaper works - phew).

This January marks the hottest January ever recorded (The article is only in German, but I’m sure there is one in English out there somewhere). You might not believe that if you live in the blue stripe of cold weather going across most of the US and Europe….

Here are a few random photos. Clair modeling a new outfit from grandma and grandpa today. Her clothes have been building into a massive pile on the floor lately because I had to go through and switch out the old stuff. Once I went through it all, I found this great outfit that Clair got a few weeks ago in her big Christmas package. She looks a little tired in this photo because she is fighting something, I think. She keeps getting a fever since early Saturday morning. It goes down with some ibuprofen, but when it is up, she is an angry little girl (gets that from me). It started going up again right before her nap today. Nothing else seems wrong with her, so hopefully this passes soon.

Clair also has a (fake) coon skin cap somewhere around here! Once I find out where she stuffed that, I am going to get a photo. She has a way of hiding things in the most unexpected places.

Here is our little comedian with her doll named ‘baby’. Her great-great-aunt Sib made it for her, and she loves it. She needed to run around after her bath the other night and show baby apartment.

Here is my husband chilling out after a long week. He is making some home made spaghetti Bolognese and chicken soup. I love that he relaxes by cooking! Fortunately, he does it quite well so Clair and I are happy.

One of the things about living overseas is that some of the American ‘Holidays’ kind of slip by without realizing it. So, really, is it Superbowl Sunday? If it is, who is playing? Does anyone know if you can watch it online anywhere (for the commercials, of course)?