Sunday, June 1, 2014

4 years AND 6 months

Believe it or not, we have a 4-year-old and a 6-month-old on our hands!!

It's quite convenient that our kids birthdays are exactly 6 months (and 3 years) apart -- to the very day -- May 28th and November 28th.


We are just recovering from all the pink, princess partying we did to celebrate Gracie's 4th year -- as you can imagine she had a BLAST!!

Dressed in her pink princess best : )

The festivities actually began BEFORE the big day.  Gracie had been counting down for weeks, excitedly awaiting celebrations with friends at school and with friends at home.

Overjoyed to find her princess castle cake
for her party at school

Castle Cake for school

The school snack time must have gone well because she came home with only one small wedge of leftover cake!

The next day was her actual birthday.  Daddy was out-of-town until that afternoon, so G, S & Mommy celebrated at breakfast with pink princess scones...






Sitting in her "princess" chair

S loves his sister...
she has a way of making him smile, even through tears

Once Daddy returned home, we were able to skype and facetime with some of our family, which is always a treat!  That night we took a break from cake and opted for ice cream "pop-ups" because we knew that the following day had more cake in store...



The party at our castle (a.k.a. our apartment) was lots of fun for G and her 6 princess friends!

Decorating crown party hats

G & S -- sweet friends

Making edible necklaces with "fruit loops"

Look at Princess L's pretty necklace!!

Dianna let her creative juices flow and with some Pinterest tips was able to make a 4-room cardboard castle for the party...

The Castle

More castle art

The girls enjoyed the crafts, especially decorating the castle, and enjoyed being princesses for the day!!
The older princesses helped the younger ones
by cutting shapes out of glitter sticker foam sheets



Taking a decorating break...

Sweet sisters having fun!

But we had to call it quits so we could enjoy our castle PB&J's and open gifts before...

G was showered with sweet gifts

heading outside to join the princes and younger princesses for cake.

Cake party outside with friends

Racing the wind in order to blow out her candles!

With Dianna's arms literally full
(see upper right corner of pic)
J was sweet to take over serving the cake

Sweet Sims, who was to be the frog prince at the party, slept through all the princess giggles inside, but woke up in time to join in the fun outside...



 What a JOY it is to live life with our dear, sweet, full-of-life little girl!  Hard to believe she is 4 (going on 24 -- as you know if you know her) -- what will she teach us next...


Princess G
A true princess because her Father God is KING!

DDG&S

--Special thanks to fellow student, DH, for catching some quality photos for us--

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Deutschland

Well, we are ending another 2-week school break -- classes resume tomorrow AM.  This break was much needed.  We both completed another round of testing (which we passed!!) a couple days prior to the break.


In celebration of S's 3-month-birthday, we loaded our Ford Fiesta and set off on our first multi-country car trip as a family of four!



The first day was a long one and after 6 hours in the car, Mr. S had had enough but toughed it out the remaining 4 hours...  G is a great role model as she travelled contently without incident, so we trust S will acclimate, eventually!



Our first stop was north of Frankfurt, Germany where Dianna's friend (a German high school exchange partner from circa 1998) lives with her family.  They were great hosts and we enjoyed catching up with them.







Next stop was Ramstein Air Force Base for a fun-filled week with Nona, Boppy & Uncle Darol!



Lots of story time with Boppy

Craft time with Nona

Snuggles with Sims

It was "fasching carnival" season (think Mardi Gras) so we attended a parade-style celebration

G & her pony

Air Force marching band in the parade
They were impressive!!

We also took a few day trips to see some nearby sights...

Exploring the Schloss in Heidelberg




And we couldn't forget Boppy's birthday...

Traditional German meal for Boppy's special day

G gave Nona her belated b-day gift
Train ride to Trier...

Getting ready to board

Riding the train

Silly girls...we ride horses NOT pigs!

Roman city gate in Trier, Germany

Hitching a ride, Uncle D style



One of several beautiful cathedrals

More Roman ruins

Schloss in Landstuhl, Germany

S finding his hands..."Wow, those are mine"

Couldn't pass up an opportunity for some family portraits...

Loving Uncle D

Special Memories

Thanks so much for coming to see us!!

We also caught up with 2 med school friends and met their newborn twin boys -- so sweet!  But in the midst of 3 baby boys (all less than 14 weeks old), no photos were taken.  Oops!

On the way back to Albertville, we made our third stop near Strasburg, France where our future Chad teammates (a German family with 2 little girls and a little boy on-the-way) are learning French.  What a blessing to meet with the B family and to know that we will, Lord willing, all be together in Chad later this year!!

B family

We returned to Albertville just in time to greet Dianna's college roommate at the train station.  More on our 3 days with Mary will be coming soon...


   DDG&S