pumpkin patch

happy belated birthday

Two months ago today, Axel turned 1!

August 8th was a Sunday so we invited the family over for dinner to celebrate. Axel had fun opening gifts and playing with the wrapping paper and he loved the banners and mobiles I made to decorate. I think he had a pretty happy birthday!

Invitations, front and back:

I made his 1 onesie with some scrap fabric.

The mobiles were easy peasy to make...here's the tutorial from Project Wedding.

And the cake...

...came from I Am Baker. Very tasty!

6 months old and super-cute!

a fairy is born

"When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies. And now when every new baby is born its first laugh becomes a fairy. So there ought to be one fairy for every boy or girl." - Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie.

Last Thursday, Axel laughed for the first time!!

He developed a little giggle that was really just a quick exhale when he smiled sometimes. But Thursday evening I was watching something on TV and Karl was in Axel's room changing his diaper and singing to him and I begin to notice a giggle between Karl's singing. By the time I make it into his room, that giggle has become a full out laugh!

I grabbed my camera and made a little video of Axel laughing for his very first time...

my little guy

seriously cupcakes in cyperspace

Remember how my sister Susan makes the best cupcakes ever? No, really... Best. Cupcakes. Ever.

Her business, Seriously Cupcakes, is still booming and she just opened a website! Go to http://www.seriouslycupcakes.com/.

If you live in the West Houston area you can order her yummy cupcakes (like Pumpkin and Italian Cream and Boston Cream and Triple Coconut) through her website and Susan will personally bake, decorate and deliver them!

And if you don't live in the West Houston area...well, you can drool over the photos.

my blessed boy

A month ago on September 27th Axel was blessed by his father. Karl's parents flew out for the occasion and, of course, to meet their newest grand baby. It was a happy meeting!

My brother, sister-in-law and their son, Max, also came. Max and Axel liked each other a lot.

Here they are at Axel's blessing. Silly boys.

And Axel's blessing was beautiful...

I'm so grateful he was born into such a wonderful family that loves him. And it is such an honor to be his mother!

I can't wait to see him grow up...but at the same time I just want to freeze him just the cute little way he is right now!

axel wolfgang

8 August 2009

11:52 pm

8 lbs 2 oz

20.5 inches long









This beautiful, beautiful boy arrived after 24 hours of labor, 1 hour and 15 minutes of pushing and a C-section...and all worth it!

I'm in love!

today is my dad's birthday!

I wish I didn't have your nose but thank you sooooo much for those eyelashes!!



Happy Birthday, Dad!

my sister, the cupcake baker

Man, have I ever been neglectful!

Sorry for the lack of posts the past couple of weeks...I've been getting settled here: getting over jet-lag, sprucing up my resume for job-hunting, hanging out with family and trying to get used to being in America again. I'm missing Germany something awful but I'm seeing a lot of perks to being back in Texas...like the yummy Texas food and spending more time with my family than I've had for the past two years (or more!).

One thing I've been especially enjoying that combines food I can't get in Germany and my family is my sister's new cupcake business! She started up a cupcake baking business, Seriously Cupcakes, this past year and I've been dying to taste her work for months, espeically since Germans don't make cupcakes...but now I'm cursing her evilness because I'm surrounded with cupcakes I can't stop eating!

Susan seriously makes a good cupcake! I'm deeply impressed at how good she can make a simple vanilla cupcake with vanilla frosting (but it's probably the vanilla sugar, vanilla bean and Madegascar vanilla extract she uses in both the cake and cream cheese frosting...not to mention the obscene amount of butter). Just when I thought I was starting to get tired of eating such rich little cakes, she brings over some coconut cupcakes with coconut cream cheese frosting (a total of 6 sticks of butter went into these little bits of heaven) and I'm hooked again.

If you're in the Houston area and are interested in getting addicted to some amazingly good cupcakes, you can contact my sister, Susan, through her cupcake-y blog, No Seriously, No...Seriously.

a weekend with family i don't even know

So...where have I been, right?

Sorry for disappearing off the blog-o-sphere. I blame a weekend in Gotha, a few days in Belgium, my husband finally coming home to distract me, and a miserable cold we both caught. I still have the cold, but I'm getting sick and tired of feeling sick and tired so I'm determined to get back to you, dear readers, and reassure you that I still live.

But although I have lots to post about, I'm going to start off slowly...because I am still sick and tired...with a little report on a surprisly cool weekend, September 13 and 14, in the German town of Gotha meeting family I hardly knew existed.

So, here's the backstory on this strange little weekend I had. Remember last November when I was in the States visiting my family and Karl searched out his distant German relatives in Gotha and made a very cool film about it? That film was shown at his huge family's annual reunion in February and it inspired one of his uncles to visit Germany. Uncle David planned to come to Germany with one of his sons who was going to be attending a medical conference in Munich and make his own visit to these German relatives. He'd been planning this trip for months with my husband who was going to serve as a translater for him. And then Karl decided to take a trip home for his neice's wedding. So guess who got delegated to be his uncle's translator?

Now, keep in mind that although I've meet many of Karl's relatives I've by no means met them all and I can't even keep straight half the ones I have met. That's how big his family is. I mean really big. Early in our relationship we would often go to his family events and the following scenerio happened to us far more than once: someone would come up and talk to us, they'd leave, I'd ask Karl who that was, and he'd respond with "I'm not sure, I think it was one of my cousins."

Karl's mother was the third of 13 children and I don't think anyone in the family really knows how many first cousins my husband has...everyone seemed to have lost track at 80. In fact, my brother ended up marrying one of my husband's cousins...his family it THAT big. It was bound to happen.

So...long story short, Karl has a big family and I was suddenly in charge of meeting with people I've never met before to show them around a town I've never been before and translate with some German people I've also never met before and that's how much I love my husband!

But it really turned out to be a very, very cool weekend. Karl's family was a delight (not that I was surprised, his family IS amazing!), the Germans were very gracious, we had a lot of fun and I impressed even myself with my German language skills!

I was so busy translating between families most of the time I didn't get many pictures taken, but here are a few...

Gotha is the town where Karl's grandfather, Henry, was born. His grandfather's mother, Gretchen, was also born there and she was the one who made the decision to leave for America, thus separating the German and American lines of his family.



First stop was Wolfgang's house who was the star of Karl's film. I arrived with Karl's uncle David, his son Geoff and Geoff's wife Kathleen with their two sons Jon and Will. They graciously fed us a wonderful meal including tasty Thuringer Wurst (a local specialty!). Then they gave us a tour of the Protestant church next door to their home where Wolfgang and his son restored the original church pews. Wolfgang's son, Wilfred, continues to wind the church clock taking it over from Wolfgang when he retired who had taken over the job from his own father.



Wolfgang's family invited over another cousin, Annemarie, who had some great stories of the family. We all watched Karl's finished film together and I think Wolfgang was very proud of it!



The reason great-grandmother Gretchen decided to leave Germany for America was because she and her mother was baptized into the LDS church when she was a child. After she started her own family she felt the need to move to the States where she could be closer to others of her faith. She only ever described the location of her baptism vaguely but after a bit of research we found a possible location...here is Uncle David with his grandsons at a possible baptism location for David's grandmother. Her choice both to be baptized and to relocate her family to America had obvious far-reaching consequences for Karl's family and I think this trip to Gotha was not only a exploration of family roots but an aknowlegdment of her sacrifices for giving her family the best she could.



Geoff and his sons gazing up at the birthplace of great-grandmother Gretchen.



Geoff and his son Will in front of grandfather Henry's birthplace.



More distant cousins... Klaus and his wife (sorry for the bad photo!). They weren't expecting us and we very nearly didn't find their house. But they were incredibly welcoming once I explained we were distant American relatives!



I had so much fun and I'm so glad I can no longer call these family member, both the Germans and the Americans, strangers. And I even forgave my husband for leaving me all alone to deal with this! And this post turned out longer than I intended and I'm starting to feel that cold again so I'm off to drown myself in juice and cough suppressent on the couch in front of the TV...

adventures with the girls at the paris opera house

One of the last places we visited in Paris...and one of my more favorite...was the old Paris Opera House.

When I was a little girl...and, I admit, even now...I dreamed of one day becoming a prima ballerina for the Paris Opera. On my first trip to Paris my hotel was within walking distance from the opera house and I took lots of photos of the outside, but I never went in, silly me. On my second trip to Paris I made a point to go inside...and danced a little in one of the beautiful rooms...fulfilling in small part my childhood dream! On my third trip to Paris I attended an actual ballet performance there! Amazing and beautiful and incredible...even though the cheap seats were the most uncomfortable I've ever sat it...but still, perfect! And on this trip, I galdly returned again to it's gilded halls!

And here's why....

Danielle, Kayla, Diana, and Hannah at the Paris Opera House

How can I stay away for long?

Our holiday with our wonderful family was, in fact, wonderful! This is the first time I've had some one-on-one time with these particular nieces and I loved the opportunity to get to know them better. If you'd like to see more of our adventures I've created a photo set with a lot more images...just click here!