birthday week

We are rounding the corner on "birthday week" in Germany. We now officially have an 8, 5, and 3-year-old. All growing fast. All celebrated well.

Cakes were store bought for the first time ever. This might become a tradition. They were delicious, and stressfree since I didn't have to come up with some kind of animal cake decorating design (though the kids kept asking and did not understand that buying a cake also meant Momma wasn't decorating it.) If only I can get back to a European bakery for future birthdays...

Gifts were simple, with the goal being suitcase-sized for our eventual return trip. The biggest birthday gift was a visit from my parents, who spent the week on mini-excursions with us. They did not obey the suitcase-sized-gift rule. Karsten's ukelele may make a very nice hand-me-down for little German child a few months from now.



I often dedicate a separate post to each child on their birthday. In the spirit of our motto to live simply this year, instead, here is a simple slice in time of each child and what makes him or her unique.

Annike: 8 years old (on September 19)

Is... a kind leader, often serious and reserved in new settings, but has a creative side that is bursting below the surface. She knows who she is and the things that she likes, and this year of crazy transition hasn't changed any of those things.

Loves... animals, animals, animals. Currently, she is infatuated with animals native to Germany. She is an incredible reader and speller, and loves to draw (mostly animals, of course). She is sweeter than ever while she plays with her younger siblings, and the two sisters have become quite good buddies over this past summer of having only each other as friends.

This year... she developed a joy found in being helpful, whether in the kitchen or with the laundry, or in watching her little brother. If it doesn't interupt her play time, then she loves to help!

We celebrated... with a trip to the "schwimmbad", and treats for her class at school, and cake for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.


Sommer: 5 years old (on September 22)

Is... a talkative, social, bright little light in our family who remains charming and pleasant as long as she is not hungry or in some kind of discomfort (in which she decides everyone around her should also be brought down to her own miserable state.) We think she is pretty smart, but it might just be that she never stops talking, and has thus developed quite a vocabulary for a 5-year-old.

Loves... beauty in all forms, whether playing dress up or coloring pictures that use every color of the rainbow, or wearing all of her favorite sparkling accessories at the same time. She appears to also love talking, singing, or making noise of one kind or another, and there are days when she never stops.

This year... she became a better friend to those around her, including those at school, her siblings, and her mother. She can be the sweetest companion, and has come a very long way in learning to play kindly with her younger brother, who doesn't always appreciate or respect her love for having beautiful things.

We celebrated... with a trip to Alsace (France) and a ride on the carousel, and ice cream for lunch.

Karsten: 3 years old (on September 28)

Is... an even-keeled, easy-going, friendly little guy who enjoys making people laugh and having deep converstions with strangers, who are then charmed into giving him all sorts of things.

Loves... trucks and police cars that have moving parts like doors that open, and scary animals such as tyranosaurus rex and crocodiles. His imagination has recently come fully alive and the line between real and make believe is often a bit blurry in his mind. This makes for a lot of great conversation with him.

This year... he has become a care-taker with a compassionate side, wanting to protect and nurture the people he loves in his sweet little 3 year old way. He loves to "save the day" as any superhero his age should.

We celebrated... with trips to many different playgrounds in the area, and chocolate filled croissants, and cake at various times throughout the day.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this celebrating, and cake, we took explored Switzerland on some amazing day trips with my visiting parents. Lauterbrunnen (meaning "loud waterfall") must be one of the world's most beautiful valleys. Nestled in the Alps just outside of Interlaken, is a striking contrast of lush green cow pastures and steep snow-capped mountains, scattered with old Swiss architecture that adds to the charm. Here is a glimps of our train ride through Lauterbrunnen and hike around the base of the Jungfrau and neighboring mountains. It surely must have been inspiration for authors of fantasy novels, because it simply did not look real.

 

 

resurrection sunday

There is no testimony like that of a child, whose innocence and sincerity cannot be argued with.

This year, Annike (my oldest), created a set of Resurrection Eggs with her class as a craft. Prior to this year I was only vaguely familiar with the concept of Resurrection eggs. To briefly explain, they offer a visual and hands-on way to tell the story of Jesus' death and resurrection using a dozen plastic eggs. Each plastic egg contains an object that represents one piece of the story, beginning with Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on a donkey and ending with the empty tomb. A perfect way to engage children in the story and make a connection between plastic eggs and Jesus Christ.

After Easter dinner, 12 of my family members and welcome friends lounged around our dining table, scraping at our plates and searching for room to stuff down more food. Annike was dying to share her craft and present the Jesus story to our table of guests. Eventually plates were cleared, and eyes turned to my 7-year-old.

She passed the Resurrection eggs around hot potato style, one at a time. In turn each egg was opened, revealing a palm leaf, a communion cup, 30 pieces of money, a cross fashioned from nails, a crown of thorns... all the pieces that tell the story.

Sommer (age 4) was in on the story having previously practiced with her sister. Giggling with glee at each new reveal, she wanted to give away the secrets contained in the eggs. Delighted squeals escaped saying, "The next egg is my favorite!" Her jubilant laughter was contagious.

The final egg was passed, and opened. Wait - is it EMPTY?

A four-years-old's excitement burst into the room as the joyful innocence of my most animated child could no longer be contained. Sommer squealed with conviction, "It's empty because Jesus isn't there anymore! He escaped from the tomb!! He's ALIVE!!!"

There were a few teary eyes at the table. No one can argue with a four-year-old who knows that she knows that she knows the truth about the greatest act of love shown to the world. She is loved. She believes.

He is risen, indeed.

Mine with new baby cousin!

My side of the family together for Easter.

turning four!

Dearest Sommer,

Happy birthday to my spunky middle child who keeps us in giggles all day long!  As a good friend puts it, you are the perfect combination of sugar and spice.

Three was a fun age, and your imagination has grown to be much bigger than you are. There are days when you never stop talking, or singing, or sing-talking. You still have have a lisp, pronouncing your Rs and Ls like Ws, and your Ss like a TH. I want to always remember the way you sound right now with all of the musical inflection of a girl who is enthusiastically enamored with the world. 

You have the perfect middle position between your siblings, with a friend on both sides. Well designed for our most social child. You are growing into an excellent older sister, being sure to teach younger brother all of the rules, while enforcing a few of your own at times (we are working on that.) You and your older sister have become the best of friends this year and each other's preferred playmate. Together you are learning to get along most of the time, and are practicing fair fighting strategies the rest. 

Four is truly a magical birthday. You are excited to finally be a big 4-year-old, and now insist on taking four more bites of dinner instead of three before being excused. Of course, you are well beyond your years in many ways. You have memorized the names and calls of hundreds of birds from your bird song book, identifying more than I can. You are the youngest child in your pre-school class, but the teachers assure me that you are well placed (meaning if you were in the younger class you would be bossing everyone else around.) You learned to swim this year, which I believe was possible because you have no fear. Your independence and strong opinions can feel like an overwhelming job to parent, but I have to remember this is our opportunity to help shape those personality extremes into future greatness.

We celebrated all four years of you with your very first birthday party of your own. Like Annike's, it was a last minute affair with no extra frills. A cake and plenty of tutus and tiaras to share from the dress up bin is all a group of 4-year-old girls really needs to make it a party! You appropriately convinced the other girls to pretend that you were the queen while they were your daughters. Because it was your birthday, everyone seemed to think this was just fine.

Oh yes, and you gave up the idea of an osprey cake in favor of a much more colorful peacock cake. The inside was flavored like pink lemonade, just one step tastier than bubblegum. We may be giving the rest of this cake away to the neighbors, but at least it looked pretty.

We love you Sommer Sunshine! Happy 4th year of life!

ketchup day

Usually Mondays are my catch up days, when I do the laundry and pick up and clean the floors and all of the stuff we were not doing over the weekend. We need Mondays to get caught up as much as we need weekends to let it all go.

After the long Thanksgiving weekend with family in town and all that extra fun we were having, my catch up day flowed over into Tuesday. After everyone else went off to school and work today, I told Sommer, "Today is catch up day! We are not going anywhere. We are going to get your room picked up and do laundry and put this house back together! Let's play catch up!"

She said, "I like ketchup on my eggs. And my hamburgers."

Huh?

Oh, right. Ketchup day.

I suppose there is room for both kinds of day. We will have eggs for breakfast, hamburgers for dinner, and a lot of cleaning in between. Ketchup on our food and catch up on our chores.

On that note... Happy ketchup day!

birthday week: sommer

One of the things that makes turning three special is that Sommer can finally hold up all three fingers to show us how old she is. The problem is that she keeps telling us she is five, so we still have something to work on.

Dearest Sommy-som, Sommy-num, Sommer sunshine, Som-Som,

I really do want to put you in a bottle and freeze you in time. Your squishy squeezy babyish body can not hold all the personality in and it is always exploding all over the place, much to everyone's delight. You are charming and funny and kind and imaginative and silly and snuggly and creative and smart and very very talkative, when you are not low on blood sugar of course.

I love your voice right now. Your vocabulary is impressive despite the lack of Ss and Rs and Ls and you manage to say quite a bit without these extraneous letters. You pretend to read everything, and you surely have every word in your favorite books memorized. You are an excellent story teller and I am never quite sure if it is the story that has fascinated me or the listening to you and the inflection of your voice.

I love your spunk. I never worry that another child will bully you because you understand well the art of defending yourself. We will tame this over time to become more gentle and fully appropriate, but you clearly understand your personal boundaries. You say what you think, so we never have to wonder. This means we get to hear lots of spontaneous "I love you"s. This also means we never doubt when or why you are upset.

I love hearing you sing. You sing everything and everywhere. Some of your favorites are "Raindrops on Roses" and "Jesus Loves Me". You do a pretty good job with "Part of That World" from The Little Mermaid too. You have a song for all occasions. You sing while you play pretend and your animals often sing to each other. You even tell made up "story-songs". You carry a beautiful tune. But most importantly, there is a song in your heart. May it always remain.

At three years old you already have a clear sense of conscience, forgiveness, and God's ever-present love. You are even quick to remind me when I am hurting: "But, Momma, God loves you."  What could possibly comfort me more?

I love you deeply. May three years old be a wondrous, magical year full of good things and growth in all the right ways.

Love, Momma

a dance in her heart

When I was a child, church consisted of two parts. The first was an hour where everyone broke into age group classes, like Sunday School. The second part was the church service in the sanctuary where everyone convened together for worship and the sermon. Families with kids sat in the back, but we were all of us sitting together in "big church". I admit that most of my memories of that time include things I was drawing on the empty spaces in the bulletin. But it is also the period in my life where I learned the words to many of the hymns still retained in my memory.

Most church experiences are designed differently now. While the adults meet in the sanctuary, the children are divided into their respective classes. I am not going to criticize this model because we all know it is hard to concentrate in a room full of bored and wiggly children. I think that Sunday School classes are wonderful and designed to teach the Bible at each appropriate age level, but I also think there are some valuable lessons for kids to learn during big church.

It is good that I think this, because whether I have wanted it or not, I have had one or more of my children in big church with me for the past 5 and a half years since we first became parents. This is due to all sorts of things like separation anxiety, grumpy children, and my germ-a-phobic husband who does whatever he can to prevent any incoming viruses. Sunday School is unfortunately a big contributor to our household colds.

This past Sunday (now a few Sundays ago as I can't seem to get my posts up in a timely manner!), Sommer made it through a good two thirds of big church before we had to retreat into the Overflow Room set up with video feed of the service. I actually think that two thirds of the service is pretty good for a 2 year old. She might not have paid much attention to the sermon, but when the worship music began she was riveted. Her response confirms that no harm has been done by keeping her out of Sunday School for a few more months while we have a baby in the house we are trying to keep healthy. This little gal was worshiping the Lord with her whole body, dancing, arms waving, head nodding in rhythm, heart captured.

It is hard to fully appreciate from this video, as it only caught the end of her worship experience. I was too wrapped up watching her in the beginning to consider whipping out my camera. By this time she had been joined by a friend. And she was holding a lot of favorite items originally intended to keep her quiet during the church service.  Still...

It was a blessing to my soul to see this small child respond to the call to worship. It might look like any old 2 year old to you, but I know it came from a heart that was caught up by the Spirit all around her.

I am not really sure at what age a child can technically accept Christ. I am absolutely positive that I would have argued differently in a debate about this prior to having kids. What I do know, is that to the best of her understanding and ability, this small child has embraced Jesus in her life. And He has put a song and a dance in her heart.

In the bedtime voice of Sommy: "Jesus loves me? Jesus loves you, Momma? Jesus loves Papa? Jesus loves Anka (Annike)? Jesus loves Baby Karton (Karsten)?..." this list goes on...

Yes, Little One. He loves us all.

apples in the orchard

My friend Jessica inspires me. A year ago in October, she had the brilliant idea to capture these priceless photos of newborn Sommer. Of course, the pictures were special at the time.

One year later, however, these pictures have reached a new level of meaningful. Only somewhat because Sommer would rather eat liverwurst than sleep, let alone in the orchard. I find myself staring at the baby in the photo on our wall with affection and nostalgia, and a hint of envy at her state of innocent bliss.

On this hot day last October a sliver of our experience on this farm was frozen in time behind that camera lens. Meaningful because the time is slipping away. Inspiring because never would I have personally thought to combine these two important elements in our life: baby and farm. And yet, they are immiscible.

This year, Sommer is not sleeping in the orchard. She is eating apples and picking weeds and getting muddy like a good little farm girl does. It seems those newborn pictures were prophetic. Life here is part of her very being. She is a lover of nature, an admirer of all things outdoorsy, and has a noticeably sunny disposition, just like her name might imply.

Thank you, Jessica, for inspiring our newest annual tradition of photos in the orchard.

forgiveness

When I put my baby to bed, she screams her head off.  She is angry.  She gets sweaty and hot from all the crying.

After she wakes up, I peek over the edge of the crib and this is the look I get.

This is the face of forgiveness.

little sommer-sunshine

I. am. in. love.

These were snapped by my amazing friend Jessica (check out her site!)  Little Sommer is changing so much already.  In fact, these shots were taken just before she started to bald and broke out in a terrible case of newborn acne.  These conditions are probably God's way of battling a mother's vanity in her child.

And some priceless family photos...

"But may they who love you be like the sun when it rises in its strength."  

Judges 5:31