Happy Birthday, Big Sis!

Today is my sister's birthday, and it's a big, round-numbered one!

Of all my siblings, Susanne (Susi) is the one people will usually say I look like. She is the most adventurous and athletic of all of us and lives with zest!

Here are a few "sibling pictures" in honor of this momentous occasion.

Here we all are in the early 1980s.


Sisters! Tanja is rocking an awesome Dorothy Hammill 'do.


I think Susi and Tanja both look a little like Susi's daughter Charlotte here:


Ah, Susi... The 1980s were not kind to either of us:


I chose this one because Susi has the same haircut as her son Andreas here:


And look at her now, all grown up:



HAPPY BIRTHDAY! WE LOVE YOU!

First foods

Last Saturday Sara had her first taste of solid foods! She took to it like a champ! From the very first bite she started swallowing it--no shoving it back out with her tongue. It confirmed what I already suspected when she was watching me longingly while I ate in Germany: she was ready!

Of course we have some video to commemorate the occasion:



We started with rice cereal and have since added carrots to her menu. She rejected them the first day but has since decided she likes them. Unfortunately, Mommy and Daddy aren't crazy about the subsequent poops. Yech!

My first "real" Mother's Day

The day after we returned from Germany, I celebrated my first "real" Mother's Day. Last year I was pregnant and everyone acknowledged the day, but this year our little one was here in the flesh!

We celebrated with a very nice barbecue at Alex and Carla's house. My fellow mommies Tanja and Claire were also in attendance. There was a ton of yummy food, plus we also celebrated my and Claire's birthdays! Claire's birthday was actually on Mother's Day, so she had double the reason to party and relax.

It was a really lovely day! Thank you to Carla for putting together a wonderful party for us!

Claire and one of her two wee ones:


Tanja and jet-lagged Ryan:

Our Germany trip

From April 29 through May 10, Tanja and I were in Germany with the kids. We first visited our sister Susi and family; we then went to see our grandma. Here are some photos from the trip:



As you can probably tell, Susi lives in an absolutely beautiful region. Every time I visit Garmisch-Partenkirchen, I'm awestruck. It was also wonderful to see my beautiful nieces and nephew for the first time in one-and-a-half years. The cousins were very cute together.

Here are just a few notes about the trip:
Air travel: Much to Tanja's envious annoyance, Sara slept about 80% of the flights in both directions and then still managed to sleep fairly decently the first night in each destination. She did brilliantly!
Luggage: We had a lot of stuff. A lot! I had a stroller, a suitcase, a car seat duffel bag, a carry on, and a diaper bag. On the way there, Tanja had a stroller, two suitcases, a car seat, a car seat cart, and three carry ons. Our luggage was so excessive that our precious sister Susi actually transported it up to our grandma's for us a couple of days after we had headed there on the train. It was so excessive that random strangers offered to help us at the airport. As we set up strollers and loaded luggage carts at the airport in Frankfurt on our way home, a European couple came up to us. The man actually said, "Please, I can't stand watching you try to handle everything alone. Please let us help." It was pretty bad. We also got stuck in the airplane gangway when we arrived in Munich because we took too long to get off the plane. Apparently the people in charge of the gate assumed everyone had disembarked.
Traveling with a toddler: Ryan did pretty well, but he's two. Not only that, but he's a two-year-old with the strength and size of a four-year-old. He's therefore not easy to manhandle and doesn't always understand that certain things just aren't allowed... like running past airport security, for instance, or climbing up on luggage x-ray machines, or screaming "Me out! Me out!" after the first five hours of being strapped in his car seat on the plane. Tanja also had several sleepless nights with him while he tried to adjust to the new time zone, which is nine hours ahead of PST. I have already told Larry that if I decide to go again when Sara's a toddler, he's coming with me.
Introducing Sara: Baby Girl loved, loved, loved Germany. She's almost always a pretty content baby, but she's not necessarily the most smiley kid on the block. Well, in Germany she was suddenly all smiles, all the time. I don't know if it was the clean air, the language, or what, but she was definitely in her element. Tanja and I both taught the kids variations of the "Sara Jo song." It was so cute to hear them sing it. Here's a video clip of them with Tante Tanja. Make sure you turn up the volume a bit:



My grandma also absolutely loved her and commented more than once about how sweet she was. I'm so glad I had the chance to introduce Sara to her.

Six months old...and then some

Yikes! I'm very late in getting this one up, but the days before Sara's six-month "birthday" were consumed with travel preparations and a sick little baby. The week since our return has been filled with unpacking, laundry, and conquering jet lag--not to mention Mother's Day and my birthday. ;)

Okay, enough excuses. Our sweet baby girl is now half a year old! The time continues to fly by as quickly as everyone promised me it would. I feel like maybe two months have passed, yet here I sit with a 17 pound baby. At her well-baby checkup on Friday, Sara did beautifully. She really turned on the charm for the pediatrician and was all smiles. She's still in the 50th percentile for height and weight, but--get this--her head is almost in the 90th percentile. Now, I'm not naming names, but one of her parents is known for having an impressively large head--and it ain't me. ;) If she develops a complex about this someday, we know whom to blame, don't we?

In terms of milestones, there is so much going on with Baby Girl at the moment. She is now consistently rolling from belly-to-back, but back-to-belly continues to elude us. She is getting better and better at sitting up unsupported, though I still can't leave her like that, because she will eventually flop over. (I am embarrassed to admit that her head has already bonked on the floor more than once.) Absolutely everything goes in her mouth right now (especially her toes!), and she's easily transferring objects from hand-to-hand. She has always talked a lot, but we're still waiting for "Mamamamamama" or "Dadadadadada."

Needless to say, we adore her as much as ever!


You can click on the slideshow to view a larger version.

One more quick note--

First a little self-congratulations. I am proud to report that I managed to breastfeed exclusively for the first six months (i.e., she has never had formula or anything else). I recently learned that only 11% of mothers give breastmilk exclusively for that duration. So, go me! If you're wondering about solid foods, we just started them yesterday. When I get caught up on my blogging, a post on that will be coming!

We're back!

...and I'm feeling a littler overwhelmed. I feel like I have so much I need to update here, so for now I'll just make a list of what's to come, and then I'll update with posts over the next few days.

Future posts will include:

-Sara's six-month update
-Our Germany trip
-Book and movie reviews
-My birthday
-Mother's Day

I *think* that's all.

Book and movie reviews

I might as well get this one out of the way as it requires no photos.

While on my trip I read The Pact by Jodi Picoult. Hmm. I enjoyed it, but not to the point of recommending it. It's too heavy to be a good mindless read, but not complex enough to be a great read. At the risk of sounding like Randy Jackson, for me it was just kind of okay.

I'm now reading The Shadow of the Wind. I'm really loving it so far, but I'm wondering if its melodrama and/or whimsy are going to start to wear on me after a while.

Movies... On the plane to Germany I saw August Rush. This was a very sweet little movie. It's not realistic, but it's not supposed to be. I liked it. On the way home I watched Grace is Gone with John Cusack. It was a very well-acted, slow-paced movie. It's depressing and not quite entertaining, but at the same time I'm glad I watched it. It's about a father finding out his wife has died in Iraq and how he deals with the first few days after. I also watched 27 Dresses. It was entertaining, but I'd say at best it's a rental. My life would have been just fine if I'd never seen this movie. :)