Our 1st Parent-Teacher Conference

We received an email from Liam's preschool teacher, Mrs. Tenney, that it was time to sign up for parent-teacher conferences. For preschool?!  Okaaaaay. We weren't sure what to expect but were pretty interested to see what she would have to say.  Liam just adores Mrs. Tenney, who has done such an incredible job including him in all her class projects, holidays, and snacks, many of which normally include foods or ingredients that aren't safe for him.  I so appreciate the way she has worked with me to adapt her recipes or find ways to make them in a slightly different way so that he could join in.  VFPNS has been a wonderful place for him.

So off Dad and I went to our first parent-teacher conference, where we sat in teeny tiny chairs (Dad may as well have been trying to sit on a pin head!) and talked with Mrs. Tenney about how Liam is doing in school.  Among other things, she informed us that she can always depend on him to be her little "sheriff" at school.  Translation: he is an unrelenting tattletale!  He makes sure she always knows what everyone is up to, for better or (usually) for worse.  He also apparently has lots of energy at school, and I think she is looking forward to nicer weather so that they can get outside a little more often.  We let her know that because Liam spends so much time with Doreen's older niece and nephew, he has taken a real interest in "homework", and asks for his own while they are working on theirs. Mrs. Tenney now often puts a little worksheet in his backpack to bring home so he can join in the fun.

For as much as Liam has learned from being at Doreen's, we've been amazed at how much he is learning at preschool.  He studies a new letter and number each week, coming home with a foam letter magnet to hang on the front of our dishwasher and lots of little practice sheets of letters and numbers.  He loves to tell us all about the things he learns: how snowflakes are made, fun facts about groundhogs and dinosaurs, and all kinds of funny little songs.

Mrs. Tenney gave us a copy of Liam's progress report.  We did a double-take when we first saw this, only to realize "U" stands for "usually" and not "unsatisfactory"!  

I had to laugh at her comments under Speaking Skills... he is a notorious interrupter, full of questions and side stories, whenever you try to read him a book! He is working so, so hard on hopping... but just doesn't have it down quite yet.  It will come soon enough, buddy!  We're so proud of our big boy!

Speaking of which, look what I found on my shopping list the other day:

It was the first time I'd ever seen him write out his name, completely unassisted!  He has also taken a real interest in drawing, and his people are awfully cute:

Bienvenido a 2013... Bienvenido a Miami

The start of 2013 was a little rough for Team D... and for Team ND.

On the home front, both Liam and Joergen brought in the new year with what we thought was some kind of stomach bug, but turned out to be a seemingly never-ending GI infection.  Joergen had it, or some version of it, ever since the beginning of December, and Liam joined the party in January.  We will leave out details, mainly because we are doing everything we can to forget that chapter of our lives, but let's just say it was awful. For everyone.  And I would especially like to take a moment to thank Miss (St.) Doreen, the most amazing caregiver ever, who continued to watch our kids despite their, ahem, messy illness.  She truly loves our boys as if they were her own!  And let us all thank the good Lord for that, because one would have to in order to have dealt with that...

... and to have kept the boys overnight at her house for not one, but two nights in the midst of it all!

After ND earned their spot in the National Championship, Dad and I joked that we were "GOING TO MIAMI!!"  We didn't actually mean it!  But then we started looking at flights... and hotels... and talking to all our old roommates and friends... and suddenly... we were "GOING TO MIAMI!!"  The deal was sealed when Miss Doreen agreed to keep our boys while we were gone.  Liam and Joergen were so excited for their sleepover at her house that they didn't even ask us where we were going!

We dropped them off at Doreen's on Sunday morning, drove to Atlantic City, flew to West Palm Beach, rented a car, and finally arrived in South Beach on Sunday night.  It all seemed so surreal!

We got there just in time to check into our hotel, change clothing, and run off to meet friends for dinner.  I was so excited to reunite with all my old roommies!  We hadn't been together as a group since before any of us had kids, and who knew it would take ND being in the National Championship to get us back together?!

Welsh Girls!

We met for dinner at Hakkasan  in the Fontainebleau Hotel, which was also incidentally where the Alabama football team was staying.  After an amazing meal, we ditched the sea of red and white and headed down-beach to friendlier territories.  Ocean Drive was definitely the place to be-- crawling with ND fans and even some familiar faces.  We loved every minute and even found an Irish pub calling our name.

The next morning, we woke up bright and early, hit up a diner for breakfast, and went straight to the beach.  Heaven!

The lots opened for tailgating around 1 pm, and we didn't waste a second getting there.  No sooner did we park and locate our home-base tailgate in the VIP lot (thank you, CJ!) when guess who walked right past us... Brady Quinn!  I ran after him like a teenage girl trying to snap a picture.

We couldn't believe how close we were to the stadium!  It was a gorgeous warm day and an incredible college reunion.

Heater, Carolyn, and me

The view from our tailgate-- almost game time!

The atmosphere at the stadium was truly indescribable, and we both just felt so privileged to be there for the experience.  I think we both got a little emotional at the first sight of the field.

It was all incredible... that is, until the game started!  But hey!  Look who we found at halftime!  Nick Creten!

Unfortunately, not even running into long-lost friends could make that game more palatable.  Now, if this game were decided on by who had the better band, or who had the most fans in attendance, or who had the best tailgating, ND totally won.  In reality, though, we were subjected to an embarrassing number of these:

.... leaving us with an awful lot of this....

Sigh.

We will say, though, that Alabama was nothing if not classy and kind to us as fans, although I would be okay to go through the rest of my life never again hearing "Roll Tide!"

After the game, we reconvened at the Knott tailgate to say goodbye to all of our dear friends, hoping that there is another National Championship sometime in the future to bring us all back together again.  Because despite the outcome of the game, it was still totally worth it.

Ok, I Lied...

... that wasn't my last post of 2012.  This is.  And then we can really start 2013.  Promise.  It's a short one, but I couldn't end the year without it... our annual family photos!

We decided to get our Christmas portraits taken this year at Portrait Innovations again, and well, it was interesting.  Joergen wanted absolutely nothing to do with having his picture taken (which was reminiscent of last year's experience, and really shouldn't have been a surprise), so we did the best we could! Don't mind the streaky photos- my scanner is not the best.

First up was Liam, who was his usual hammy (cheesy?) self:

Next came Joergen.  Don't be fooled by this smile-- it's literally the only solo picture we have from that morning of him doing so!

They were able to get one decent shot of the four of us, even if it was in front of a corny holiday background.   Just wish we'd been able to get a good one of the boys together!  Trust me when I say they were disastrous!

Right around that same time, Liam had his first school pictures taken.  Here is his little class-- 11 boys and 2 girls!  His teachers are earning their wings, that's for sure.

Here is, hands down, the winning shot.  This kid kills me!  Who was his photographer, and what did he say to get this smile out of him?!

I had to include this one, which just made me laugh.  "Cheeeeese!"

Remember back when we were in Illinois for Thanksgiving and Grandma arranged for us to get photos taken?  Well thank goodness for those, because we finally got our picture of the boys!

From all of us, Happy New Year!

As if that wasn't enough Christmas...

I promise, this is our last post about Christmas... and our last post of 2012! 

We returned home from France on the 29th and were amazed to see that even though Santa knew we were away for Christmas, he still made a stop at our house!  Not to mention the fact that we had some gifts to give one another, since there was no way we were going to bring more stuff with us to France, only to have to bring it right back home with us again.

The boys, okay, all of us, were totally exhausted when we got home.  There were no arguments whatsoever about going to bed and saving presents for one more day, especially when Mom and Dad knew that thanks to jet lag, we would all probably be up before dawn anyway.  So we decided to have another little "Christmas morning" on the 30th!  And after all the traveling and running around, it was really rather nice to just be home.

Liam stepped up to play "Santa" and did a great job making sure everyone had a little something to open.  He's really learning to recognize letters and even our names, so he had fun trying to read the tag on each gift and get it to the correct recipient.

I think kids just enjoy the process of opening gifts so much, and both boys were really good about letting the other help them tear each one open.  This was serious work!

One of the big hits-- for both Liam and Joer-- was definitely the big bucket of dinosaurs!

Liam and Joergen also gave Dad a very special gift, Darth Vader and Son, which Liam helped read to Dad while Dad extricated a toy from its packaging.  As a side note, this book is hilarious.

Because of the jet lag, the boys ended up only being awake at the same time for a relatively short while that day, which actually became a really good thing!  We realized it allowed us to have a little "Christmas morning" with each boy individually, which was quieter, calmer, and let us really take our time.  It was a neat blessing.

Joergen checking out his new animal book.

After gifts and naps, we headed outside to deal with the snow, which had fallen sometime while we were gone.  There was not much left to worry about, thanks to some slightly warmer temperatures the day before, but some jobs to be done nonetheless.

 

Our neighbor Miss Susan and her grandson had made a big snowman, which was standing right in the yard between our houses.  Joergen had never seen a real snowman before!

Not to be outdone, Liam wanted to make a snowman too... but there just wasn't much snow left to work with.  So he decided to make a pint-sized version of his own.  With its little baby-carrot nose, it just may be the cutest little snowman I've ever seen.

Liam and Dad then decided to move their little snowman to the old tree stump right next to Miss Susan's big snowman, so that they could be friends.  When we woke up the next morning, we saw that Miss Susan's snowman shared his scarf with Liam's snowman overnight, so now they could both be cozy in the snow!

Within a couple of days, our snowman duo melted away, and there has not been much snow to speak of ever since.  The boys are still hoping we'll get a good storm in before Spring... although I can't say that I share their hope!

Joyeux Noel!

Disclaimer: this is a mega-post...

So after I spent an amazing weekend celebrating Uncle Tim's graduation from the Air Force Weapons School out in Las Vegas, we had just a few days state-side before our big trip to visit Aunt Erin, Uncle Thomas, Sarah, Pierre, and Augustin for Christmas.  It had exactly a year since our last visit with them, and we couldn't wait to get to spend a whole week together! 

We left on a Friday evening and arrived in Frankfurt, Germany, early the next morning.  Joergen wasn't feeling well to begin with, but they both did amazing on the flight.  What a difference a couple of years makes!  It gave us such hope that these transatlantic trips may actually get easier. 

This picture was taken in the Frankfurt airport, 8:30 am local time, 2:30 am to us.  You can see by how flushed poor Joergen's cheeks were that he wasn't feeling so well, but we were proud of him for being such a trooper.

After a few hours in Frankfurt and a bus ride to France, we arrived at the station in Strasbourg to see Uncle Thomas waiting to bring us to their new house in Bischheim.  We were never so happy to see a familiar face!  It was a joyful reunion for all.  Given our sleep-deprived haze, I frankly have no idea what we did that afternoon after we got to their house.  I do, however, have a couple of pictures from pajama time that evening that at least remind me of how happy my boys were to see their cousins!

Joergen and Sarah

Liam, Augustin, and Pierre

Having 5 kiddos running around (4 of whom were boys aged 5 or younger) was crazy and loud and wonderful.  We had some rainy weather throughout the week that kept us indoors now and then, but the kids found plenty of ways to occupy themselves.  One of their favorite (and most argued-about) things to do was to play Angry Birds on our iPad.  The Hantz kids got good at it quickly!

Liam and Joergen had a blast discovering all of their cousins' toys, books, games, and puzzles, most of which they had never seen before.  I would often find Joergen by himself in Pierre and Augustin's room, playing in a mountain of cars and trucks and whatever else he could pull out of their toy bins.  The kids clicked quickly and in general played really nicely together.

Pierre, Augustin, and Liam

On the 23rd, we headed into downtown Strasbourg to check out their amazing Christmas Market and see our dear friends Chris and Ariane and their little guy Xavier... who you may remember from this post back in the summer.  Or from this one a couple of years ago. 

Joergen, Sarah, Pierre, and Liam at the city Christmas tree

It was  a cool coincidence to be there at the same time as Chris and Ariane, who normally call Boston home... Ariane's aunt happens to live right in Strasbourg, and they happened to be visiting her (among many other family members and friends in Europe) over the holidays.  It was such a great and unexpected spot for a rendezvous!

Anthony, Chris, Xavier, Ariane, me, with Liam, J, and Pierre in the front

Although Anthony and I hadn't been to Strasbourg at Christmastime in 7 years, the city was as beautiful as we'd remembered it.  It really is a magical place to be at that time of year!

The Notre Dame Cathedral in Strasbourg

It was a cold evening, but nothing that a vin chaud couldn't fix, and we had a great time wandering the busy Strasbourg streets while catching up with each other and taking in all the tourist-y goodness.  Some of our favorite spots:

Xavier, Ariane, and Chris

Sarah, Me, and Anthony

Pierre, Sarah, and Erin

The Christmas Capital, indeed!

Pretty sure we had similar pictures to this in college with the first person to "fall asleep"!

The city Christmas tree at night

Back at la maison de Hantz, there were many moments of fun to be had.  I have a ton of photos to share, but in the interest of space, only our favorites could make the cut.

Aunt Erin and the herd

An unlikely favorite new game-- run down the hall!  Go!

Celebrating Pierre's 5th Birthday

Augustin playing Pierre's new recorder. Next to the iPad, this was the (germier) favorite toy to fight over.

Augustin and Joergen hugging it out.  What could be cuter than this?!

Celebrating Augustin's 2nd birthday on Christmas Eve.  Joyeux Anniversaire!

Hey! Vegan cupcakes are really pretty delicious!

Augustin opening his birthday presents

Sarah and Liam testing out Augustin's new crab-catch game

An intense game of Candy Land

Sarah's Hair Salon (where they even serve wine!)

Cuddle time before bed- what could be better?!

After a great celebration of Augustin's birthday on Christmas Eve, we woke up on Christmas morning to Liam running down the upstairs hallway yelling, "Guys! Look! SANTA was in my room!  I'm serious!!"  And whaddaya know?  He was!

Above the bed where Liam was sleeping, Santa had left a stocking full of little toys and treats for Liam and Joergen.  And he left one for Sarah, Pierre, and Augustin in their room too!  AND he left presents for everyone under the tree!

Some of my favorite pics from Christmas morning...

Sarah opening her One Direction CD, which became the soundtrack of our trip.

Aunt Erin and Augustin

Dad with a surprise gift from Uncle Andrew

Pierre with his new Leapster game

Every time Joergen would open a present, he would hand me the wrapping paper with this face and say, "Trash" as if it were the grossest thing in the world.

Liam and Joer opening new books

Toddlers in red jammies eating Pez... love!

Our fabulous hosts, Aunt Erin and Uncle Thomas

Later that day, Mamy and Papy came over to celebrate Christmas with us.

Uncle Thomas practicing his American smile

Pierre and Liam playing with Sarah's beads

Sarah helping Augustin slam dunk with his new basketball hoop

And then... things got interesting...

"We can't cope with all this craziness.  Let's just suck our thumbs."

The girls of the house, unite!

The next day was a perfect day to play outside.  Sarah, Pierre, and Augustin have an awesome swing set right in their backyard, and even though (or perhaps because?) it was a little muddy, they had a blast.

We also had fun with a little game of soccer.

That night, we headed over to Mamy and Papy's house for a feast.  Seriously.  Augustin got to open a few more birthday presents (which everyone had fun with!).

Augustin, Joanna, and Liam

Mamy set up the cutest kids' tables for all the little ones.  My favorite was this toddler table for two!

The "big kid" table (Liam couldn't get enough of the fizzy water):

Uncle Thomas' brother Mika with his new baby Lucy.  Even though she's a little sad in this picture, she is one of the cutest baby girls I have ever seen!

Sarah and Joergen

The next day was Daddy's and my 9th anniversary!  And because Uncle Thomas and Aunt Erin's 11th anniversary was the next day after that, we decided to feed the kids early and have a grown-up joint-anniversary celebration that night... complements of Nana and Grandpa.  Thanks guys!!

But first, it was spaghetti night.  Joy! Rapture! Mess!

And after the carb-loading, it was time for a little one-on-one:

While the kids finished up their dinner, Uncle Thomas, Dad, Joergen, and I headed into Strasbourg so I could pick up Dad's anniversary gift: a Strasbourg beer stein for his collection.  It was rainy and windy and cold, but the cathedral still looked amazing:

We got a break in the rain storm long enough to take a couple of quick pictures.  I love Thomas's American smile!

Happy Anniversary!

No sooner did we get back to the car with the beer stein, when I was fumbling to put away my umbrella and the package slipped out of my hands... and smashed onto the sidewalk below.  I could have cried.  There was no time to go back and get another one, so after all that I had to head back stein-less, and make a plan to come back the next day.  Ugh.

Once the kiddos were all in bed (well, except for Liam, go figure.  But he was content to watch Arthur on my Kindle upstairs, and did so until he too fell asleep), we got to work on our special dinner.  Uncle Thomas shucked some delicious oysters:

And we opened a bottle of (real) champagne:

Cheers to our favorite couple and a combined 20 years of marriage!  And thank you Mom and Dad for an incredible dinner!

After a fantastic night, we woke up to our last day in France.  I loved this pic of everyone reading/iPadding together:

On departure day, we woke up before dawn to catch our bus back to Frankfurt.  We were so incredibly sad to leave, but with Joergen still not feeling well, we knew it was time to head home.  We were treated to a beautiful sunrise on the bus ride to Germany:

It wasn't long into our flight when the Derry boys all succumbed to their exhaustion from a wonderful week:

Thank you Hantz family for such an amazing visit.  We love and miss you all!!!