Visit with Oma and Opa

Lily is a lot of fun and her smile is enchanting. She likes to grin from ear to ear and loves to see new faces.

Oma and Opa help Finn with feeding the ducks along the blue Danube.

We saw lots of tiny fish at the bottom of this man-made waterfall.

Finn throwing a "leaf-boat" into the water.

This might be why dress shirts with extra long sleeves are becoming more and more popular...

We all had a very nice day walking in the park. Finn even got to see an exhibition about fire-trucks with Opa.

Happy 2nd Birthday Finn - Part 4

chugga chugga choo choooo!

This train really goes. You can even fill up the tank and it makes pumping sounds. Finn got this huge Lego train set from his Oma and Opa. They came to celebrate and play with him. He loves it! We are thinking about moving our furniture outside on the patio to make room for all the toys...

Birthday Cake!

With every birthday comes a new birthday cake! This one Claudia made tasted great. Papa helped to make the chocolate flake "2".

Finn had no trouble blowing out the candles, even from far away. Thanks to the story of the big bad wolf and the three little pigs, Finn has been practicing huffing and puffing with papa for the last couple of weeks :-)

yummy!

What does little Lily get? No birthday cake this year (she is still on a diet of mother's milk). No presents today either! In this picture you can observe her using her hypnotising stare to render the blue horse powerless. Next she grabs it and gums it's head and ears furiously. It's good that she found an outlet for her aggression caused by the unfairness in this world (like getting no cake or presents). It's pretty tough on the horse though... please don't share this blog with any animal rights activists...

Happy 2nd Birthday Finn - Part 3

The Winnie-Pooh spoon and fork are now Finn's favorite utensils, no matter what we are eating. Thanks also for the neat puzzle and the good looking sweater!

Ulli came in person to drop off Finn's presents a week before his birthday, driving a nice white Audi-TT! Finn's papa worked for three years developing the instrument cluster for the TT, so he is glad that you liked the car (too bad it is just a rental).

Perhaps Finn will drive one again some day... on the autobahn!

Happy 2nd Birthday Finn - Part 2

How about those presents...
Finn received a big bean-bag to sit on and a nice new steering wheel for his bobby-car (with police lights, siren, horn and motor sounds :-) from his parents.

Thank you Martina! You recognised Finn's passion for helicopters and found just the right lego-duplo firefighter helicopter to go with the rest of his lego toys! You made Finn very happy and now when he hears a helicopter flying over the house he runs and gets his lego-helicopter before coming outside to take a look.

A diamond for Mommy - Love Finn and Lily

Mama gets a surprise on Finn's birthday too! Finn and Lily have a present for their Mommy - a diamond ring. Papa helped pick it out and as you would expect, knowing papa, the ring was not ready to give her on the day Lily was born. That is why she get's it on Finn's 2nd Birthday. The inscription reads "Love Finn and Lily"! Of course papa loves mama too! She is very very precious and has given birth to two beautiful children (which isn't as easy as you think - try it sometime). The picture below is not from mama's "birth-ring" but it is similar and almost as beautiful.

Happy 2nd Birthday Finn

Good morning birthday boy! Time to wake up. Sleeping with your two cuddly little bunny-rabbits is nice, but today is a special day so let's get started.

We'll stick to the familiar routine at first: drinking your milk in Mama and Papa's bed,

then having your juice and getting dressed on the changing table in your room.

Dr. Suess's birthday-bird-book from uncle Karl is still a bit tough for Finn to understand but when he see's all the presents on his "birthday table" in the living room he catches on right away...

Now there is no stopping him. It's time to open presents!!!

Big Birds

The incredible bird show at Rosenburg is worth telling about. It was amazing to see the eagles, vultures, bussards and falkons do their stuff. Some just flew back and forth, some caught fish in mid-air or in a pool of water. The vultures seemed to enjoys flying right over peoples heads. Claudia looked at baby Lily and so didn't duck in time and got hit in the head by a vulture wing. One funny little vulture cracked open an egg by throwing it repeatedly on a small stone. This show is worth seeing if you come and visit, but only available from March until October.
more infos at http://www.falkenhofrosenburg.de/

Missing walks with Grandpa

It has been quite some time now, since Kurt and Finn went for a walk...




FINN:

Grandpa and I had many adventures. Countless stones were thrown down through the holes of the manhole-cover. We saw sheep. We saw motorbikes! We saw big trucks! We saw helicopters!!! There was time to play in the sand or just stop and sit on the fence. We fed grass to the rabbits and saw the ducks and the chickens. We slid down slides and dug in the stones with the shovel. We lifted the stones up in the pail on the chain. Grandpa found berries. Grandpa picked berries. Everyone ate grandpa's berries. Grandpa picked more berries. Sometimes we threw stones in the water. Sometimes we brought stones home in our pockets, or in the stroller, or in our hands. We picked up small stones. We sat on big stones. We wore rubber boots. We stomped in puddles. We saw cats. We called the cats. We saw Jimmy the dog. We watched the soccer game. We went home. Grandpa went back to watch more soccer. We rode the wutsch (or the woosh, or the wucht, or whatever Grandpa called it that day). We saw cows on mountains wearing bells eating grass. We saw combines. We saw tractors cutting the grass. We even saw a mouse in the forest. We found good walking sticks. We sometimes took Mama or Papa or even Grandma with us.

We sure had a lot of fun grandpa. Thanks!

Cute Kids

Lily has an incredible grinning smile.

Finn has fun trying out new foods that his mother creates. This time she found Spanish ice-cream in real fruit skins.

Lily's Dedication on July 29th

The Gospel of Christ is a powerful force from God.

He who believes in it experiences that God frees him from his debts

and saves him from his despair.

Romans 1.16

(Hoffnung für Alle translation - but in English)

This is the verse our pastor picked out for Lily's dedication. The main theme of the service was "new life" and although there was no sermon we heard the complete gospel thanks to numerous readings from Paul's letter to the Romans. Claudia and Neil made a commitment, with the help and support of the church, to raise Lily with Christian values and teachings in love and in grace.