grayson is deux

sometimes he comes across french. ask him how old he is and sometimes you get "two!" and sometimes you get "deux!". my silly, sweet, funny, determined little man turned the big 2 on sunday. we celebrated with a laid back day of grayson, at home with just the 4 of us. he woke up to a decorated house...courtesy of troy. he opened all presents before 8am but that's just fine. he and mayer spent all day playing with all the new toys. after dinner, we had cake. my attempt at a firetruck cake can be seen below. it ended up looking like an ole timey firetruck but i'm okay with that and grayson was happy. there are a couple videos we took and are mostly for the grandparents.he also had his 2 year well baby appointment yesterday. all is well there. he's 27 pounds and 33 inches of love....and for the grandparents that's 70% for weight and 24% for height and his head is 90%....which all equates to a short, fat man with a big head. he's not a big talker yet and has a referral for an evaluation but if you remember back to mayer at 2 he wasn't talking yet either and then one day he exploded and i don't think he's stopped talking since. we aren't very concerned but we'll see what they have to say. grayson seems to have new words everyday and manages to get his point across one way or the other. he watched a video of his cousin lena a few weeks ago and said "baby" and "lena" for the first time all on his own. grayson's favorite person is still mayer and they play very well together - most of the time. he is such a little boy - it's all things that go around here - trucks, cars, planes, trains. he also holds his own when light sabers make an appearance and he and mayer have a battle. grayson is also getting smarter or sneakier...whatever you want to call it. when mayer has something he doesn't want grayson to get a hold of (aka destroy), he'll put it up on a shelf. well, grayson has figured out if he takes the step stool out of the bathroom and put it where he needs it, he can reach just about anything. i knew a while ago grayson was going to be the one to keep me on my toes...so the adventure continues.

here are some pictures and videos from grayson's birthday....the last 2  are almost identical but after the first one i rememeberd more words he says and did another one...those are mostly for the family but feel free to be entertained.

the firetruck cake

streamers by troy

very excited elmo is on his present

boys and their trucks

how old  are you?

prague

over president's day we went to prague. it's only a 4 hour drive so it didn't involve planes and trains - just loading up the car with a suitcase and a stroller and some snacks. the hotel ended up being the most awesome location. right behind the old town square, there is a courtyard that dates back to the 1200s and it was used for merchants to store their goods before the markets in the old town square. our hotel was in that courtyard - right behind tyn church. we got to the hotel, unloaded the car and went exploring. we didn't get in the car again until it was time to head home. we walked over to the astronomical clock and it was about 5 minutes before the hour - just in time for the show! it took all of 30 seconds, cross that off the list. we just randomly walked around, turned here, turned there. we found a cute little italian restaurant tucked back off a side street, off that side street. super yummy. the next day, we walked across charles bridge and went to explore the castle....with a pit stop at starbucks. after the castle we headed back to the hotel just to regroup and then we went back out and decided to turn the other way and stumbled upon a market. we bought a couple framed pictures....which turn out to be the only pictures from our trip, since the memory stick to the camera decided to enjoy the peace and quiet of our house all weekend. for dinner, we picked another little restaurant that was attached to the back of a church. sunday was going to be the jewish quarter day - pretty much the one thing i really wanted to see. unfortunately, i woke up sunday morning sicker than sick. troy took the boys to breakfast and loaded up the car and i crawled down and we went home. but we figure that since 1) "we" forgot the memory stick and 2) missed out on the jewish quarter, we are calling re-do. we also decided to leave the boys home and just go for the day....a really long date. stay tuned for real pictures and prague - take 2

here are some pictures i took off the internet of things we saw.....

this is the old town square in front, tyn church is the crazy gothic church and our hotel is right behind it

this is looking across the bridge up to the castle

mayer's birthday

my little peanut turned 6 last week and i'm still adjusting to it all. mayer starts asking when his birthday is as soon as the weather starts getting cooler. after halloween, it's all i hear about. every year for the last 5 years, we have had a party. this year since we were going to be in the states until the beginning of december, i just didn't want to have to rush around after we got back and throw something together. so back at the beginning of november i had a brilliant idea and i gave mayer his options. we could either 1) have a party OR 2) we would get a babysitter for grayson and mayer could spend the whole day with just mommy and daddy and we would go out and do whatever mayer wanted to do. he instantly picked option #2 or what is now know as the day of mayer.

troy and mayer on the day of mayer

so the saturday before his actual birthday was the day of mayer. and what did that involve? well...first up was bowling. mayer is actually getting really good and is starting to figure out how to line up the ball with the pins. of course troy won. next on the agenda was the movie arthur christmas. cute movie complete with sour patch kids. next was supposed to be sushi for dinner but i couldn't find a restaurant that was open early enough, then it was dinner at ikea but the thought of ikea on a saturday night did not have either one of the bigger people very excited but at the last minute someone decided he rather have taco bell. and last was a trip to the store to get his friend a birthday present and to also play at the huge playplace.

on his actual birthday (dec 12) mayer took star war cupcakes to school for all of his buddies. and when he got home there were presents and decorations waiting for him. his friend justin came over for a little playdate...can you still call it a playdate when they are 6? after that troy got home from work and it was present time from all the family. and then it was time for cake. i debated whether or not to post a picture but it's not horrible and mayer knew instantly who it was supposed to be. my little man is starting to get into star wars and is all about darth vader. and all he asked for was a darth vader cake...if he only knew what fear looked like on his mother's face.

that's a whole lot of the dark side sitting on those cupcakes.
 behind them is mayer's list for his day of mayer

an awesome gift from uncle jeff and aunt amy and lena

my attempt at a darth vader cake. the foil stuck to the black icing.
mayer's favorite part - the light sabers.

it is hard to believe my peanut is 6 and it's a little crazy to watch him become the person he's becoming. he is a very funny, sweet, energetic, smart, and sensitive little man. grayson fell the other day and busted his lip and mayer was crying. troy is a little freaked that mayer will be 7 next year...my thoughts - let's get through 6 first. happy birthday mayer!



this video is for grandma and grandpa. it's mayer opening their gift. by far one of the best toys. it comes apart and makes a million different vehicles and boats. and both boys have been playing with it.

the states

a little over a month ago we embarked a bit of an adventure. we headed back to the states for three weeks. the first adventure was trying to get out of germany. we decided we rather not spend a small fortune to fly commercial so we opted for space a - or a military hop. a free flight on a military plane, the trick is that it's very much a first come, first serve system and then there are different categories. i could try to explain it all, but that deserves it's own post and is boring. basically since troy was with us, we were category 3 and we weren't first on the list but we weren't last either. so there were several flights going out the day we wanted/needed to leave. our first try was to charleston, sc. it would have been an easy drive to my parents. we made the list for this flight and literally, as we were walking through security to get onto the plane, they threw everyone off the plane - the reasoning - people and cargo on a cargo plane require 2 loadmasters, there was only 1 and rather than call another guy to work they opted to throw all the people off the plane and add more cargo, which only requires 1 loadmaster. so back to the terminal we went and waited a couple more hours for the baltimore flight, which we got onto. this was great and also sort of a huge pain. it was great because it is a commercial plane, so it was like a regular plane...with seats and each seat had it's own tv and there was food almost hourly. the downside....it was going to baltimore, which added an extra day of driving....lots and lots of driving. but we made the flight! the kids did fantastic. after landing in baltimore and getting the rental car it was almost 10pm. The kids slept for a little bit in the car, troy and i tried not to sleep in the car. we had been up for over 24 hours by this point. we drove until about 2am and stopped at a hotel. troy slept and i stayed up with the kids, who were beyond wide awake since it was around 9am to their little bodies. we got up around 6 and had breakfast and started driving all over again.

we finally made it to florida. grayson's little alarm clock refused to let him go beyond 4am almost every morning, but he adjusted pretty quickly to naps and bedtime. mayer fell asleep around 5pm the first few days but after that he was fairly adjusted. troy had a business trip to vegas the 2 days after we got to florida so he was gone the first week we were in florida. and this would be when i did a good majority of my shopping. in hindsight, i should have combined all the bags into just a few instead of just throwing them all into our bedroom, it was probably a bit of a shock for troy to walk into a room full of shopping bags but whatever. it all resulted in 2 boxes having to be mailed back and one extra suitcase....not too bad if you ask me. and some of it was birthday and christmas presents for the boys. flordia weather was awesome, i did pack a couple shorts and t-shirts but i had no idea it would be so warm a majority of the time we were there and that resulted in more shopping.  we got to the beach 3 times and i hit target 4 or 5 times and starbucks every time i left the house. i figured if i overdid it with target and starbucks i wouldn't miss it as much when it was time to leave. i decided mayer was old enough for his first dolphin cruise and it was awesome. i don't know that i have ever seen that many dolphins before and that was my third cruise. the boys had a great time playing with grandma and grandpa. there was a lot of lego building, coloring, book reading and playing in the back yard - mayer had to show grandpa his soccer skills. another big moment was grayson's first haircut. i was not looking forward to it but it was time. he did awesome. he pretty much sat frozen the whole time. and i was very happy to see his hair was still curly when it was all done. my mom and i were able to sneak out a few times for some margaritas and shopping...not always in that order. although, it was pretty awesome/scary when the waiter asked if we wanted our margaritas to go....uhhh, what?

mayer and grandpa

grayson and his first haircut

playground at the mall

mayer and grandma

grandma and grayson playing around

another playground at another mall

the beach! and grayson is happy - even better

one of my favorite pictures

grandma and mayer with uncle jeff's legos

grandma and the boys at a shell beach

mayer and grandma on the dolphin cruise

captain mayer turning the boat around - he took his job very seriously

grandpa and the boys

the saturday after thanksgiving we got back in the car and headed back up to the virginia/dc/philly area. troy's sister recently moved from philly to alexandria and since we were going to try to fly back from bwi, we thought it would be awesome to stay with her and her family and spend some time with our nephews. it was a bit of a nightmare to drive on thanksgiving weekend and i instantly remembered how much i disliked northern virginia/dc's traffic. it was great to see shaina, tom and jake and to meet our newest nephew, ben. quite adorable. mayer and jake instantly started playing and it they went nonstop until we left. the day after we got to virginia, we went to philly for the day to see almost all of troy's family...where there was another new niece we had to meet, again quite adorable. it was awesome to have the boys get so much attention and to have them see most of the family, it was a long day but worth it and that night we went back to virginia. the next day we just hung out with shaina and the boys. and then we learned there was flight back to germany that night and there were no flights for the next couple of days and since troy had to be back to work by friday, we packed up and headed to bwi. a huge thank you to tom and shaina for letting us stay with them for those few days - it was great to spend time with you. at baltimore, we kept our fingers crossed we would make the flight. even with troy being with us, we were towards the bottom of the list but we made it. i think it left around 10pm so it was pretty easy for everyone to fall asleep. on a side note....my camera died 2 days before thanksgiving and i forgot to bring my charger so i have no pictures from thanksgiving or virginia/philly but we've got the memories :0)

it was a very busy 3 weeks. full of family, driving, starbucks and shopping but it was great!

fall soccer

mayer's fall season of soccer started right when school started. and a little side note, his coach is someone i went to high school with and i haven't seen her since - very random. alright, back to mayer...he has developed some serious skills either that or they are genetic and he totally scored the schultze soccer gene just like his uncle. mayer did really well last season but he actually started playing offense and defense this time around. he scored goals, kicked the ball out when the other team was trying to score, helped out the other kids on the team. his coach came up to me at the last practice and wanted to make sure mayer moves up to the next age level for the spring season. so that's exciting, plus he loves to play which makes it even better. here are a few pictures from the season. we never got one of him scoring a goal - we were too busy celebrating :)

fests, fests and more fests

i love fall - by far my most favorite time of year. i love the food, the weather, the holidays, the leaves falling. i'm not too fond of the frost on the car at 7am when i have to take mayer to the bus stop but beyond that, there is not too much that can get me grumpy in the fall. and now i love it all even more. why you ask, well because there's the volksfest/oktoberfest, kurbisfest, wurstmarkt (wine festival) and all the christmas markets start up around thanksgiving. i think there is also a onion festival and a cabbage festival but we haven't checked those out yet...and i'm thinking we may not, but you never know. so in september is the bad durkheim wurstmarkt, which is the wine and sausage festival. you may vaguely remember a picture of me holding probably the biggest glass of wine ever - this is where i was and of course we went again this year. it's like volksfest but wine instead of beer...yay for me! it has a ton of carnival rides and games and of course wine and yummy food.


right after wurstmarkt, volksfest/oktoberfest kicks up. this year we did what you are suppose to do - went to the tents and got drunk with all of troy's co-workers. his office bought a table in one of the tents and so we got a babysitter and went and got our chicken and beer on. so wurstmarkt is clearly for me since troy is not a huge wine drinker and volksfest all for troy since it's all beer. our table was right in the middle of the tent, right in front of the stage so it was just crazy from the beginning. i think the only time we sat down was to eat, other than that, we stood on the benches the entire night singing and drinking. it was good times but we learned some valuable lessons for next year. the biggest lesson is that jenn cannot consume 3 liters of beer - i tried and drank 2 but my limit really is 1...very valuable lesson. 

before anyone drank anything

not the angle of the camera, the beer really is bigger than my head

troy's security system - can't misplace the beer tickets

and finally october brings kurbisfest in ludwigsburg, translated to pumpkin festival. last year was an ocean theme, this year was a dinosaur theme. mayer was in heaven! this year we went with some friends and saw even more of the castle grounds than last year. we also ate lunch there - the menu is all pumpkin, all the time. quite possibly the best spaghetti i have ever had, i would totally pay another 8euros to go through the gate to buy another bowl or two. they also have pumpkin champagne - i did not have high expectations for this. it sounds weird and like it would be a pumpkin mess. it is super yummy! almost tastes like peaches. and now we are only a few weeks away from all the christmas markets opening. so excited!!



mayer up by the castle

at one of the playgrounds

bonus of going somewhere with friends - get to get a picture of the whole family

mayer's favorite dinosaur

grayson and jillian checking out the pumpkins

lunch!

the castle grounds have a maze and this is the center,
 if you step on the wrong step the frogs shoot water