Easter 2012

Easter is always a fun time. Last year Elly and I were in Alaska which was so nice.  I loved spending Easter and Elly's birthday with my family.  This year we were back in Germany and had fun with the activities available here.  Child & Youth Services always has an Easter Egg Hunt the Saturday before Easter.  You never know what the weather is going to be like and this year is was very cold.  I met up with my friend Kim and her little girl Sydney and was thankful she had an extra jacket for Elly because the wind was blowing and it was very cold as we waited for the Egg Hunt to begin. 

Elly and Sydney were comparing baskets

Elly kind of got into gathering eggs.  She still wasn't that interested in it, but after some encouragement she got several in her basket.

She wasn't sure what to think of the Easter bunny at first, but when she realized Sydney liked him and wanted to be near him she warmed up to the idea. It looks like she's still trying to pull away in this picture though :)

Kim, Sydney and us with the Easter bunny

Family picture with the Easter bunny

Saturday evening we colored eggs at home.  This was the first time we did it as a family.  The first year Elly wasn't into it and then last year her and I were in Alaska.  We had fun and Elly enjoyed it.

Easter morning I had Elly's baskets set up on the table.  Mom sent her a basket too so it looks like Easter basket overkill, but it didn't all come from us :) 

Chocolate!!

Ready for church!  I planned on getting her a new dress for Easter this year, but realized the dress she wore last year still fit her.  She had worn it only once (last Easter) and so I couldn't really justify buying a brand new dress when she had a perfectly good (and beautiful) little dress just hanging in her closet.  And she certainly didn't mind!

After church Elly was going through everything in her basket.  Checking it all out :)

April happenings

I'm trying to get caught up on this blog....once again...or maybe I should say "still" because I never seem to get totally caught up.  Anyhow, here it is the end of June and I'm just getting around to posting April.  Hopefully, I can get somewhat caught up in the next couple of weeks. 

April was a full month for us. Some things throughout the month required a separate post, but there were just a few pictures that didn't really belong anywhere else.  So, here are the extras.

I thought this picture of Elly laughing was so cute.  She found her bunny ears from last Easter and was playing around acting like a bunny.

Like most other little girls, Elly loves to dress up.  Anytime she finds a pair of my shoes she goes clomping around in them.  This day she was having fun dancing and watching herself in the mirror. 

Elly loves organizing her books.  She wanted me to take a picture of her with the books she had all laid out.  She loves to group them into "like" categories.

She is such a great little helper around the house.  Sam needed to wash the rolladens on our downstairs windows and Elly thought it was a perfect opportunity to help Daddy :)  She loves her Daddy and loves helping so it was perfect for her. 

Anyone who knows me knows that I don't like hot weather. I am much more comfortable on the cool days. However, I'm really enjoying the weather finally being warm enough that I can put pretty little summer dresses on my sweet girl. Being overseas, I shop a lot of online sales and I've always bought clothes ahead for her. This has always served me well, but somehow I bought way to many summer dresses for this year. Partly, I think it's because she's still in some 3T clothes, but a lot of the 4T summer clothes will be too small for her next year so I pulled them all out and put them in her closet. She must have over 20 summer dresses!  I can't believe my baby is already in size 4T!! Anyhow...I need some warm days so she can get use out of all those dresses :)

Daddy and Elly were heading out to go to a playground and I just had to snap a couple of pictures.  I LOVE how Elly still carries her blankie and teddy bear with her :)  She is so sweet and I just wish I could hold on to her at this age forever.  I love her so much!!

Helping Daddy once again.  This time she had been playing in the pool out back, but then wanted to help Daddy so she got her little rain boots on and off she went :)  Oh, to be so young and carefree!

And ANOTHER day at the zoo

I'm really behind on this blog so bear with me.  I'm still trying to get March finished so I can move on to more recent activities.  Anyhow...here goes.

We have certainly enjoyed having our annual pass to the Wilhelma Zoo in Stuttgart. We've been there several times and once again at the end of March we went with some friends. It ended up being a long day, but the kids really enjoyed it and got some energy used up.  Elly loves her little friends and has the best time when we get to be with them.  The zoo has become a favorite place for us to spend a day.

Just inside the entrance of the zoo there is a big grassy area with a nice flower garden.  The girls were having so much fun running around there and looking at the flowers.  They were being gentle with them and hadn't picked any so we were quite surprised when one of the zoo workers came over yelling and motioning for us to get the girls off the grass.  He didn't speak English so we don't really know what he was saying, but by all appearances he wanted the girls off the grass.  We were pretty baffled though because there was no fence or signs saying to stay off the grass and the girls weren't hurting the flowers. We figured we better just move on.  We were able to snap a couple of pictures before the guy chased us off the grass.

Elly and Sydney

Elly's just gotten into the stage of picking flowers for me.  It's so sweet and I love getting flowers from her.  Here she was showing me what she brought me.

Kristal and Sammy

Watching the hippos

Elly and Maddie

Kim and Sydney

This seal was obnoxiously loud.  He would start on one side of the area, pop out of the water and bark and bark and bark.  Then he would swim to the other side and do it all over again. He did that over and over and over.  He finally got out of the water and laid out on the rocks.  I'm sure he must have been exhausted.

Sydney and Elly having a snack before we headed home.  These were Sydney's snacks, but Elly felt the need to dole them out to her and Sydney was fine with it :)

One tired little girl after a long day at the zoo.

Killesberg Park

One day in mid-March we went out in search of Rubble Hill, a hill here in Stuttgart that was created from rubble left over from the war. It is some sort of a park from what we gather, but I can't tell you first hand since we never made it there. We couldn't find it. Instead, we decided to stop by Killesburg Park. They have a very nice playground that Elly loved playing at.




There was a zip line that I was nervous about putting Elly on., but Sam said she could do it so I just told her to hold on tight when I let go of her.  I held my breath until I saw that she didn't fall off.  I was surprised at how good she did and of course she loved it.  She had to go back on it over and over again.