October catch-up

October flew by. Once again I'm left wondering where the time has gone. We had the pleasure of having Sam's cousin, Heather, and her two kids visit us this month. They are currently living in Serbia and came over for a long weekend with us. We had a nice time. The rest of our month was filled up with those every day moments that make up life. Here is a look at our month ~

It has become a bit of a routine on Saturdays for Sam and Elly to do things together. Sam gets very little time with his little girl through the week, so he enjoys (and I know Elly LOVES) the time they have together on the weekend. It also gives me a little break :) Many Saturday mornings they take the recycling in and pick up some milk at the little grocery store in our town.

A house just down the street from us often has things set out to give away. One such little treasure we found while out on an evening walk was this little wagon (below). We see them being used alot by people delivering papers in town. This one was obviously home made, had a flat tire and looked like it had seen better days. Thanks to my resourceful husband he was able to get the tire fixed and now has this handy little wagon to drag to and from the store.

Out on one of our evening walks.

We love it when we come across a herd of sheep. These completely ignored us, but as soon as a dog came down the path they all had their heads up looking at him, ready to run. It's amazing to me how they react to a herd dog.

One of Elly's favorite things to do is get into everything I have on our fridge. She takes it all off and rearranges everything to her liking.

This little outfit was the first that she had ever shown an interest in. In the PX one day I showed her this little dress in red and purple and asked her which one she liked. She said that Daddy likes the red one, but that she liked the purple one :) I got it for her and the first time I put it on her she was so tickled and said "This is fun!!" She still loves it when she gets to wear it. I thought it was so cute that she actually had an opinion on her clothes. (I'm sure someday those words will come back and haunt me :)

Elly loves to look at pictures on the computer.

I stole this picture from Heather :) We were waiting for the bus at Burg Hohenzollern. We take all of our visitors to this castle. It's pretty impressive.

Like father, like daughter...

It was windy and chilly up at the castle.

Another day we went to the Stuttgart Stadtmitte.



We went to the Mercedes-Benz Museum in downtown Stuttgart. It was HUGE and very nicely done, but I was mentally finished before we reached the end :) Maybe the next time we go I can start from the end and go backwards so I can catch what I wasn't real interested in this time.

The beginning...

At one point Elly thought it was more fun to sit and look out the window.

She liked the bus that she could get into and play around in.

Another day we went to Legoland. I love that place! It was a little chilly, but we enjoyed it anyhow. Elly really liked taking the boat ride with Daddy.

Berlin made out of Legos. (Now that we've been to Berlin I'd like to see it again.)

More Berlin

Venice, Italy

Venice

Trying to get a family picture while we were on the train. I love that Heather's cheesing behind us :)

At the end of the day Elly was happy to just play with the pumpkins they had for decoration while we waited for the others to go on another ride.

Elly was intrigued with this little Lego baby.

Too much excitement for this little girl.

Little cutie! It was a rainy day and she was finally able to use the raincoat from Oma and Opa and the umbrella from Aunt Kristy.

25 October 2011 ~ This was a BIG day!! From the time Elly started on solid foods she's been very picky. It's been a huge frustration to me. I question what I did wrong to make her so picky. Did I not give her enough variety of foods when she was starting to eat? What did I do wrong?? I've gone over it a hundred times in my head. I just wish my little girl would sit down and eat like other children. But she doesn't. Those that have never had a picky eater have no idea how frustrating it is and it's easy for them to judge and think I haven't tried hard enough, but until you've been there you really have no idea.

Anyhow, on this particular day Elly just got it in her little head to try some foods. She tried 10 different foods throughout the day!! This, after NEVER tasting a new food. I was so thrilled that she was finally eating! That night at dinner I had to take a picture because it felt like a turning point. It hasn't continued to be that successful though. She is still very picky and has gone backwards a little bit again. Getting her to try anything is still a huge battle, but I know she'll come out of it at some point.

Sam made Elly a sandbox (out of her little pool) in the backyard and she really likes playing in it. A part of me doesn't like it because lots of sand gets tracked in the house, but Elly has fun with it so I just have to sweep a lot more.











This was another day when she was out playing in her sand. She was all ready and just waiting for Daddy to get home. He was going to take her to the playground so she was ready and waiting, but played until he got home.

Then Gabby did what cats do best after eating grass...she threw up and Elly was totally intrigued. It's not like she hasn't seen this before, but I guess having it right in front of her like that was a new experience.



Ready for church one morning I took some pictures of Elly out on the front walk. I just can't believe how big she's getting. She's no longer my baby. Well, she'll ALWAYS be my baby, but she's much more a little girl these days.



Well, that's about it for October. I'll do another post about Halloween. I sure hope to get caught up with this blog one of these days. Until next time...