Bettina ist hier

The long awaited arrival of John's girlfriend from Germany has arrived! We are all so excited to meet her and get a chance to know her. She (I should say they) made us a scrumptious German meal this evening. I didn't know it was possible to make Knoedel (like a dumpling) in America, but she proved me wrong. Yum!

She is a delight to be around and is always smiling. We're so glad you're here!

Workin' All Day

I decided spontaneously yesterday morning that it was the day to start potty training. Jackson wasn't having a whole lot of success on the big potty, so I decided to try something to help him relax (he was trying too hard and it was stressing him out!). I brought out the little training toilet into the living room with a waterproof pad under it. It worked like a charm! He relaxed and had lots of success through the day... a few accidents too, as would be expected.

While he was having a nap Lincoln came up to me and said, "Mom, I've been working hard all day."

"Really?"

"Yep, I've been putting all the water in there."

"In WHERE?"

"I'll show you!...."

Then he took me over to the potty into which he was squeezing a whole package of wipes. One picture and we put a halt to that.

Wish us luck on our potty training endeavor. Hopefully it will stick and not last an entire year this time!

The Card

This is my beloved card from dad and kids. I love that Lincoln traced his dotted lined name after his first attempt on his own with the giant L you see in the middle.

I love that they signed the cover. Don't think I've seen that done much.

I love that they took the time to find all of these pictures and cut them out and think of things I would love. You have to read the blue insert first, which says:

"So here is the deallio... You get to pick 1 gift from each side of the card. Diese Nachricht wird sich selbst zerstoeren. Danke." It cracks me up that he decided to look up "this message will self destruct in German." Only Jeff.

So now I have to pick. Who votes American Idol concert? Who votes new IKEA shelf to match my sadly missing one left behind in our move?

I've already ruled out Neil Diamond as we've been to his concert before.... it was so fun, but now I've been there, done that. Really I just had to go so that my friend Marna couldn't hold it over my head anymore. That's all taken care of.

Second page was too easy to choose, The Hoff. Just kidding, yummy german food. Mmm.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Ok, so all of these pictures are of Jackson, but admit it, he's way cuter than I am... and suddenly loving the camera, so I took all of these adorable shots within the last week.

I had a super nice birthday. Jeff worked from home (though I don't think he meant to... it just sort of happened that way!), we had our friend Jackson come over for a little while in the morning and the kids played really well together. We built an awesome pirate ship tent with their bunk bed and they had a great time. His mom brought us some pizza for lunch (and ice cream for later!) and stayed for a short visit too. They are wonderful new friends to us. I am amazed at Virginia's patience and love for kids. She has been a HUGE help with Lincoln in primary (not an easy adjustment... to put it mildly) and Jackson jumps right on her lap when she is here as if he'd known her his whole life. We joke that she is Snow White and all of the birds sing when she walks by... : )

We had a nice quiet afternoon and then brother John and girlfriend Bettina watched our boys so that we could go to a real restaurant in peace! We had a gift card left over from Christmas so I enjoyed some yum yum salmon and shrimp at Red Lobster. Total after gift card... $2.67. Afterward we went to my parents house and borrowed their humongo nice tv and comfy sofa and mysterious movie. Movie date... $0. I thought since our date night was so cheap I'd get myself a gift and made Jeff stop at Walgreens for a new Webkinz. I was over-advertised today for this new place to get cheap ones that also donate to some new children's charity. I succumbed... $5.99.

We had a lovely, uninterupted chat with my parents after the movie was over and another brief one with John and Bettina once we got home.

Perfect day! Thanks everybody for making me feel so special.

Surprise Skate

We headed out to Choctaw this weekend to help the family. Jeff and Joe put on a huge shed sale (picture a 3 car garage) in an attempt to empty out years worth of nuts and bolts and STUFF. His sister Amy is also about to move out of state, so I offered to take the kids to the park so that she could get some painting, packing, etc. done. When I went to pick up the kids at her house no one was there. After a few phone calls I found out that everyone had gone to a quick ward activity (that Amy was in charge of) AT THE ROLLER RINK. We headed down the road to join in on the fun.

Jackson and I braved the wheels. Lincoln, not so much. Amy helped Jackson around the loop and then I thought I'd better give it a try too. I was not able to shoot the duck like I had in my 6th grade years. Much to my surprise, I was not able to even stay upright very well while trying to hold onto Jackson. Amy came to the rescue again. She said, "why don't you catch your balance for a minute and I'll take him." I think that was her nice way of saying... "hand him over... you're gonna pull him down with you!"

We didn't have much time to get the hang of it (thank goodness), but we had fun trying! It was also great to see a lot of friendly faces from the ward. We were much luckier than our friend Richie who ended up in the ER from his tumble before we got there!