May 29, 2013
Dear Sydney,
You, my precious, crazy, demanding, adorable, loving, sassy, bossy and beautiful little girl, are FOUR years old today. Where did that time go? Just yesterday I remember cuddling you in my arms and not wanting to leave the comfort of the hospital bed. It meant precious time spent with just you.
To put into words the type of little girl you have become is not possible. You are bossy. Bossy to everyone around you. You are demanding. And an incredibly good drama queen. But, sweet girl, you have the biggest heart of anyone I know. You are so loving, and so kind. Sometimes the words that come out of your mouth blow me away. Just random 'I love you mommies' to telling others how sweet they are. You have a compassionate heart for animals, and are DEATHLY afraid of bugs. Any type. A fly, a tiny gnat, an ant... it doesn't matter. You scream and burst into tears until it's gone or dead.
To be your Mama has been one of the greatest gifts of my life. The past four years with you have been some of the most trying, demanding, overwhelming, heart swelling and hilarious years of my life.
I hope you always know that I love you. No matter how many times from now until you are 18 that I have to discipline you, I will always love you. I promise to be the best mom that I know how, and to always do my best to see that smile light up your face.
On this day little girl, know that Mama, Daddy and Austin love you beyond words.
Happy 4th Birthday, Princess.
Love, Mama
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Truce?
Hi, I'm Kami, and I write this blog. Kind of. Not really.
I have good intentions, I swear. Some of the stuff I think to write about.... I think, "Well, that isn't exactly appropriate for some family to read." or whatever the case may be. A lot of ideas come to me about writing while I am laying in bed at night, and by the next morning, poof. They're gone.
So, take it or leave it. ;) We are in and settled to our apartment, and are much much happier. Bryant has a 15 minute commute, instead of an hour commute. We see him SO much more, and we are all happier about that. I feel like I have a husband again, and don't feel like I am going to go off the deep end on a daily basis. And locking myself out of the house isn't such a big deal now. HA!
Do you all realize that it's November? MID November? We, the Hines' have been in Germany almost a year. Can you believe this? The year has honestly went so incredibly fast I can't even believe it. I am finally starting to make some friends and settle in. We are starting to get out more and travel, and things are starting to get better. Although, I think in the next few blogs I will go ahead and write a little more in depth about Germany, the Germans, and the views of people around here. It's very interesting.
So as for Bryant- his deployment got pushed, and as of now, it looks as if he will deploy to the same location around the April time frame. His job has been pretty tough on him, as a lot of people are lower ranking, and needing babysitting basically. They don't seem to want to work, and therefore are needing hounded constantly to get their job done. A lot of late nights have been spent so he does not have to work weekends. Hopefully things will start changing here soon for him.
I am still doing my normal mommy thing. Cook. Clean. Run errands. Clean, Cook, repeat. ;) I am able to do a lot more though during the day with Austin in school so that really has been nice. And I am working on putting together a photography business over here, and after the new year I am thinking about getting my German Business License so I can legally operate in the country. We will see how things go, but that's my plan right now. I am also making a few cakes here and there, and really loving it. It's fun, frustrating, but the end result is always satisfying and I love that.
Austin. He just makes me smile. He is doing incredibly fantastic in school. I can't even convey to you how well he is doing. He love love love LOVES school. Every day he's excited. Excited for school, and excited to learn. We just today had his parent teacher conference, and his teacher sang nothing but praises for him. She is so impressed with his ability. So much so, that she impressed me just talking about him. She said he is excelling in every single subject that they do. He's writing his numbers well. He is the only one that she lets write the number of days they've been in school on the board because he's the only one that can write his numbers well enough to read consistently. He's moving up to the next reading level. He's doing advanced patterns, and creating advanced patterns, on his own, without any prompting. They were given a sheet with 7 lines. Each line had heart shapes going across. They were to color in a pattern. His teacher said that most kids stuck to an ABABABAB pattern, meaning they just did like, red/blue/red/blue/red/blue. All the way down the page, just changing the color combos. On Austin's sheet she showed us, every line, he had a different pattern, none of them being an AB pattern. All of them were, say, aabbc/aabbc/aabbc and another was abcd/abcd/abcd, and another was abccd/abccd/abccd. She said that is very impressive for a kid his age. They have a literacy chart that they have to do every day during reading. They recite every letter of the alphabet, and what sound each letter makes. So if a letter makes 2 sounds, they have to make those sounds before they continue to the next letter. Austin recited the entire chart to us, with only two areas of help. When he was finished, his teacher told us that no other child in the class could do that. That most kids get to maybe 6 or 7 of the letters and then can go no further. And Austin did the ENTIRE alphabet. Prodigy. He's a freakin prodigy. hahaha!! Ok, so obviously I am incredibly proud of him!!!!
Other than school, he just finished up soccer a few weeks ago, and is signed up now for BASKETBALL BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAH BOY! I about jumped out of my skin when he said yes I was so excited! He is still VERY MUCH into Star Wars, as he told his teacher today, "I don't know what to tell you, I'm just addicted." HA, that's my boy.
SYDNEY. Cute.as.a.button. HELL ON WHEELS. And I am not even kidding. She is everything you could think of...spitfire, fire cracker, whatever- she's nuts. I got dealt a hand with her. She tries me, and tests me, and pushes my buttons every second of every day. She can really be sweet as pie, but when she's done, she's literally done. And she will let you know. She growls constantly. (Usually when you tell her No, or not to do something she shouldn't be doing, which is constantly, haha) Has the highest pitched scream I've ever heard- or maybe it's a squeal? She does it mostly when she's pestering her brother, (which she loves to do, and does relentlessly) or when she's playing. Her absolute favorite thing is painting. She LOVES LOVES painting. So much so in fact, that about 30 minutes ago I just finished mopping up the floor because she had splattered it all over the dining room floor (thank god for hardwoods) and table. She loves drawing circles too. And I will tell you what, she's incredibly serious about them. I have never seen a little girl focus so hard in my life. She gets her face about half an inch from the paper, but I'll be damned if it's almost a perfect circle and those lines meet up every.single.time! She also has an odd love for all things tiny. ANYTHING tiny. A tiny toy. A tiny rock. A tiny piece of rice. She holds it carefully in her hand like it's a newborn and so sweetly says, "Awww, look how caaaauuuuuutttteee it is!!!!!" And then is completely devastated when she loses it 10 minutes later.
So a couple fun things.
I go to Paris, France on Saturday for a day trip with a few girlfriends! WHAT?!?! I am so over the moon excited!!
Another- we are traveling to the Bavarian Alps-Garmish, Germany for the Thanksgiving Holiday. WHO CAN SAY THAT?!
We are SO blessed.
Life is good.
xoxoxo,
k.
I have good intentions, I swear. Some of the stuff I think to write about.... I think, "Well, that isn't exactly appropriate for some family to read." or whatever the case may be. A lot of ideas come to me about writing while I am laying in bed at night, and by the next morning, poof. They're gone.
So, take it or leave it. ;) We are in and settled to our apartment, and are much much happier. Bryant has a 15 minute commute, instead of an hour commute. We see him SO much more, and we are all happier about that. I feel like I have a husband again, and don't feel like I am going to go off the deep end on a daily basis. And locking myself out of the house isn't such a big deal now. HA!
Do you all realize that it's November? MID November? We, the Hines' have been in Germany almost a year. Can you believe this? The year has honestly went so incredibly fast I can't even believe it. I am finally starting to make some friends and settle in. We are starting to get out more and travel, and things are starting to get better. Although, I think in the next few blogs I will go ahead and write a little more in depth about Germany, the Germans, and the views of people around here. It's very interesting.
So as for Bryant- his deployment got pushed, and as of now, it looks as if he will deploy to the same location around the April time frame. His job has been pretty tough on him, as a lot of people are lower ranking, and needing babysitting basically. They don't seem to want to work, and therefore are needing hounded constantly to get their job done. A lot of late nights have been spent so he does not have to work weekends. Hopefully things will start changing here soon for him.
I am still doing my normal mommy thing. Cook. Clean. Run errands. Clean, Cook, repeat. ;) I am able to do a lot more though during the day with Austin in school so that really has been nice. And I am working on putting together a photography business over here, and after the new year I am thinking about getting my German Business License so I can legally operate in the country. We will see how things go, but that's my plan right now. I am also making a few cakes here and there, and really loving it. It's fun, frustrating, but the end result is always satisfying and I love that.
Austin. He just makes me smile. He is doing incredibly fantastic in school. I can't even convey to you how well he is doing. He love love love LOVES school. Every day he's excited. Excited for school, and excited to learn. We just today had his parent teacher conference, and his teacher sang nothing but praises for him. She is so impressed with his ability. So much so, that she impressed me just talking about him. She said he is excelling in every single subject that they do. He's writing his numbers well. He is the only one that she lets write the number of days they've been in school on the board because he's the only one that can write his numbers well enough to read consistently. He's moving up to the next reading level. He's doing advanced patterns, and creating advanced patterns, on his own, without any prompting. They were given a sheet with 7 lines. Each line had heart shapes going across. They were to color in a pattern. His teacher said that most kids stuck to an ABABABAB pattern, meaning they just did like, red/blue/red/blue/red/blue. All the way down the page, just changing the color combos. On Austin's sheet she showed us, every line, he had a different pattern, none of them being an AB pattern. All of them were, say, aabbc/aabbc/aabbc and another was abcd/abcd/abcd, and another was abccd/abccd/abccd. She said that is very impressive for a kid his age. They have a literacy chart that they have to do every day during reading. They recite every letter of the alphabet, and what sound each letter makes. So if a letter makes 2 sounds, they have to make those sounds before they continue to the next letter. Austin recited the entire chart to us, with only two areas of help. When he was finished, his teacher told us that no other child in the class could do that. That most kids get to maybe 6 or 7 of the letters and then can go no further. And Austin did the ENTIRE alphabet. Prodigy. He's a freakin prodigy. hahaha!! Ok, so obviously I am incredibly proud of him!!!!
Other than school, he just finished up soccer a few weeks ago, and is signed up now for BASKETBALL BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAH BOY! I about jumped out of my skin when he said yes I was so excited! He is still VERY MUCH into Star Wars, as he told his teacher today, "I don't know what to tell you, I'm just addicted." HA, that's my boy.
SYDNEY. Cute.as.a.button. HELL ON WHEELS. And I am not even kidding. She is everything you could think of...spitfire, fire cracker, whatever- she's nuts. I got dealt a hand with her. She tries me, and tests me, and pushes my buttons every second of every day. She can really be sweet as pie, but when she's done, she's literally done. And she will let you know. She growls constantly. (Usually when you tell her No, or not to do something she shouldn't be doing, which is constantly, haha) Has the highest pitched scream I've ever heard- or maybe it's a squeal? She does it mostly when she's pestering her brother, (which she loves to do, and does relentlessly) or when she's playing. Her absolute favorite thing is painting. She LOVES LOVES painting. So much so in fact, that about 30 minutes ago I just finished mopping up the floor because she had splattered it all over the dining room floor (thank god for hardwoods) and table. She loves drawing circles too. And I will tell you what, she's incredibly serious about them. I have never seen a little girl focus so hard in my life. She gets her face about half an inch from the paper, but I'll be damned if it's almost a perfect circle and those lines meet up every.single.time! She also has an odd love for all things tiny. ANYTHING tiny. A tiny toy. A tiny rock. A tiny piece of rice. She holds it carefully in her hand like it's a newborn and so sweetly says, "Awww, look how caaaauuuuuutttteee it is!!!!!" And then is completely devastated when she loses it 10 minutes later.
So a couple fun things.
I go to Paris, France on Saturday for a day trip with a few girlfriends! WHAT?!?! I am so over the moon excited!!
Another- we are traveling to the Bavarian Alps-Garmish, Germany for the Thanksgiving Holiday. WHO CAN SAY THAT?!
We are SO blessed.
Life is good.
xoxoxo,
k.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
It Will Be Good
The housing list hasn't come out yet for the last of the month yet. It may or may not be driving me insane.
However, what I have been finding as a hassle, something came over me.
A little prayer can go a long ways... What I saw as something moving so slow (in reality it's only been a few weeks) I have been able to stop and think. Think about things that I will truly miss about living here. And also about things I am very much looking forward to by moving on base.
What are my thoughts, you ask?
Things I will miss:
• walking out my back door to TRUE Germany.
• the space. While its a PIA to clean, it is nice to have room to put stuff.
• the heated floors.
• the rolladens. If we get a town home, they come with. Stairwells do not.
• the master closet. It's huge. So huge in fact that I don't even use any of my space in either of our two dressers.
• the church bells that ring daily in our village.
Things I am looking forward to:
• being on base (commissary, bx, friends, etc)
•English speaking people
• closets for the kids
• smaller space to clean. You might laugh but these days my back can only take so much.
• seeing more of my husband. And the kids their daddy.
• friends for the kids with no language barrier.
• less money spent on gas.
• a better overall mood for myself and Bryant
• no stress about having to unplug every single appliance right after each use.
• not having to use a transformer to run our tv!!
• a bigger kitchen!
So obviously those aren't all the Pros of on base living but its a pretty good list. So in the end we know that moving (again) will be a good thing for us.
Xoxo.
k
However, what I have been finding as a hassle, something came over me.
A little prayer can go a long ways... What I saw as something moving so slow (in reality it's only been a few weeks) I have been able to stop and think. Think about things that I will truly miss about living here. And also about things I am very much looking forward to by moving on base.
What are my thoughts, you ask?
Things I will miss:
• walking out my back door to TRUE Germany.
• the space. While its a PIA to clean, it is nice to have room to put stuff.
• the heated floors.
• the rolladens. If we get a town home, they come with. Stairwells do not.
• the master closet. It's huge. So huge in fact that I don't even use any of my space in either of our two dressers.
• the church bells that ring daily in our village.
Things I am looking forward to:
• being on base (commissary, bx, friends, etc)
•English speaking people
• closets for the kids
• smaller space to clean. You might laugh but these days my back can only take so much.
• seeing more of my husband. And the kids their daddy.
• friends for the kids with no language barrier.
• less money spent on gas.
• a better overall mood for myself and Bryant
• no stress about having to unplug every single appliance right after each use.
• not having to use a transformer to run our tv!!
• a bigger kitchen!
So obviously those aren't all the Pros of on base living but its a pretty good list. So in the end we know that moving (again) will be a good thing for us.
Xoxo.
k
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Gloomy
It's been gloomy for about a week now. It sure doesn't feel like spring.... but I guess it is. That's what they say anyway. It rained for 3 days straight, and yesterday it POURED all day long. I feel like I live in Seattle, or Eugene or something! I mean, I thought we moved to Germany, but maybe not? And as I type this, the first day that it hasn't rained a lick, it just opened up and started pouring again.
Austin's T-Ball practice got canceled on Monday because of the rain. We were both pretty bummed. I was so excited to take pictures of him and watch him learn and laugh. I hope that next Monday won't be rained out.
Things are kind of a stand-still around here as we wait for a house on base. We have stopped unpacking things, and are just waiting for something to open up for us. We don't really think we should continue to unpack if we are just going to move again. It would be a lot of work for basically nothing. I will admit though that I hate still seeing these boxes, but at least we feel somewhat settled now that we have "our" things. We moved up 6 spaces on the housing list in 1 week, so hopefully this process will move quickly. They publish the list online only twice per month, so I will know again next Monday where we stand. Hopefully a lot closer to the top!
Anyhow, I really don't have much to yak about, but figured it would be nice to start writing a little more for a change. See ya'll soon!
xoxo
k.
Austin's T-Ball practice got canceled on Monday because of the rain. We were both pretty bummed. I was so excited to take pictures of him and watch him learn and laugh. I hope that next Monday won't be rained out.
Things are kind of a stand-still around here as we wait for a house on base. We have stopped unpacking things, and are just waiting for something to open up for us. We don't really think we should continue to unpack if we are just going to move again. It would be a lot of work for basically nothing. I will admit though that I hate still seeing these boxes, but at least we feel somewhat settled now that we have "our" things. We moved up 6 spaces on the housing list in 1 week, so hopefully this process will move quickly. They publish the list online only twice per month, so I will know again next Monday where we stand. Hopefully a lot closer to the top!
Anyhow, I really don't have much to yak about, but figured it would be nice to start writing a little more for a change. See ya'll soon!
xoxo
k.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Easter Success
We had a great Easter this year. It was our first real Holiday away from home, and it was a little tough for me. I spent the day before making all sorts of goodies, and kept finding myself wishing that I was with my mom baking.
The kids loved that the Easter Bunny came and left them each a small gift- a game for Austin and a movie for Sydney along with some chocolate. Austin then got a haircut and we all got ready and headed off to the Hammonds for Easter.
We had to many snack foods that we were all stuffed before dinner was even ready. It was an awesome time- the kids had a BLAST playing with all the other kids, and hunting their eggs.
We are so thankful that we have friends here to spend holidays with- it makes being away so so much easier!
We got home a little later than anticipated, and went to call family, and of course our phone was dead- go figure! I did get to Skype with my mom and dad, so I went to bed with a smile on my face.
Hope everyone had a great Easter!!
xoxo
k.
The kids loved that the Easter Bunny came and left them each a small gift- a game for Austin and a movie for Sydney along with some chocolate. Austin then got a haircut and we all got ready and headed off to the Hammonds for Easter.
We had to many snack foods that we were all stuffed before dinner was even ready. It was an awesome time- the kids had a BLAST playing with all the other kids, and hunting their eggs.
We are so thankful that we have friends here to spend holidays with- it makes being away so so much easier!
We got home a little later than anticipated, and went to call family, and of course our phone was dead- go figure! I did get to Skype with my mom and dad, so I went to bed with a smile on my face.
Hope everyone had a great Easter!!
Sydney opening her Easter gift
Austin excited for a new DS game
Snack snack snacking!!
Austin coloring Easter eggs!
Sydney coloring her eggs--- Notice her hands!
Proud Austin =)
She's so silly!
Daddy and Sydney
She obviously thought that using utensils for eggs was over rated. Hands work better!
All the kiddos getting ready to go hunt eggs!
This is the best I could get from them =) They are
so adorable!
k.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
