German Dancing

New Braunfels is a town rich in German heritage. There is a fair ground AND there is Wursthalle for the annual Wurstfest. The community education program offers "Kids German Folk Dancing" starting at age 4. We were excited to sign Alayna up, and she was excited to learn.

Here she is at her first practice with the other children in her age group.

• Clap, clap, clap
• Turn a round
• Bow 2 3 4

In addition to the $5 class fee she needed a dirndl. We pulled this little number together in time for her first recital yesterday as entertainment for the Meals On Wheels Conference.


Alayna said that she was "slightly nervous" to dance at her first recital. Mostly, she seemed very excited.

Here she is lining up with her partner to go in. Her group danced the Dance of Greeting and the Herr Schmidt. Peeking thru the window (I know, not very professional but I didn't want to crowd/block the doorway with the other parents) I saw Alayna look around at her audience with a smile as she began to dance. After watching the older groups dance, all the children made a circle for the Chicken Dance! After one chorus all of the attendees were invited to make a circle outside of the children's and join in. Following hearty applause the children exited to go home with their parents.

I took Alayna to Dairy Queen for a sundae with chocolate sauce and a cherry on top afterward in celebration of a job well done. Now she is excited for her next chance to dance.

Shoe Laces

Alayna tied her own shoe today. She had a little trouble with the right shoe. After letting me show her how . . .

. . . she tied her left shoe all by herself!

Happy Birthday, Alayna!

I can not believe that this little girl

is 5 today.

Look at our beautiful birthday girl now.

She said it was a very, very, very, very, especially good birthday; including her Pony Party yesterday. We love you, Alayna.

Hair

Cavell had his hair cut this past week. I cannot get over the amount of hair he has. There was more hair on the floor from the first half of his haircut than I leave after getting my hair cut short.

before after

Books

I love our new library. Mostly because it has a children's room. They have train tables set up and computers with child sized chairs and learning games that the children can play with. The librarian doesn't even mind if I let Cavell play on the computer while I look around for books. We were just there this week. Alayna picked out her own books. I never know what to look for at the library. She picked out GOOD books! A Pipkin of Pepper, Best Friends, and The World God Made.

When we got home and while I was making lunch, Alayna READ this book, BY HERSELF!! When she finished, she starting reading the Charlie and Lola book I had found for her, only needing help with the word, "photograph." She only got about half way through before lunch was ready, so I finished it for her for her quiet time story. I have noticed all of the signs she had been reading and I have heard her reading before, but I thought she was mostly remembering what I had read to her. I now realize she has been reading for awhile. I just haven't wanted to admit it, because that means my little girl is growing up.

Little Helper

Sometimes it is hard to remember how long Alayna has helped me in the kitchen. Because of our gluten free diet there are a lot of opportunities to make something from scratch that most people would just pick up at the store. I think she started helping before she was two!

Every week we make a double batch of waffles to use as sandwich bread, for birthdays (including some of yours) we make cake or cupcakes and for a random weekend treat we will make brownies or cookies. Alayna loves to pick which kind of cookie: chocolate chip, chocolate-chocolate chip, peanut butter, peanut butter with chocolate chips, macaroons, or snicker-doodles. For the first time ever, we made cutout cookies. We bought a heart cookie cutter just for the occasion (Valentine's Day).


But, Alayna wasn't the only one who wanted to help this time. When it was time to roll out and cut the dough, Cavell pulled his chair up to the counter as well. He made sure our surface was properly floured (with rice flour) at ALL times. He also wanted to help transfer the cookies to the cookie sheet, but didn't understand that the turner was meant to go under the cookie, not thru it.

We have four other cut out cookie recipes to try. We will be making cookies for St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Memorial Day, and Independence Day to try each one and pick our favourite. I think my new little helper will have plenty of opportunities to learn.

Hair

Lately, Alayna and I have been following a few hair blogs. She loves to look at the pictures with me and then we choose what hairdo we will do. I thought I could share a couple we have done.

From this page

Can you tell this is a heart? Alayna let me do it for my birthday. Paul had the camera in Cancun, and the pics from my phone were not very good. The heart was really cute, but I didn't like how Alayna's hair went into the piggys (I didn't do the messy buns). This time we left off the piggys for Joy School. I was teaching the letter H, and the kids were passing out Valentines.

Alayna wants this different heart hair do for her birthday party.

We also did this hair do. The first day we did this I, again, did not like how Alayna's hair looked in the piggys, especially how they were pulled back together. This is probably why I didn't take pictures that day. But, I loved how the first two braids looked on the front. The next time, when her hair naturally parted in the back, I just added the other two braids in those spaces. Which worked out well, since I didn't know what else to do with the rest of her hair.





Even with all the fun we have been having with Alayna's hair, I still love when she wants to leave it curly.

self portrait

Mmm Mmm Good

Friday night, Cavell would have nothing to do with dinner (home made chicken enchiladas). He almost ate a black bean, but once a drop of juice landed on his lips, he clammed back up.

Immediately after dinner he got down from the chair, ran to the open windows, ran his fingers inside the window casing and licked them with abandon.

Yum.

Our New Homestead

A couple weeks after our arrival in Texas, we were able to move out of our 2 room cottage and into a full size home. We have learned that our families happiness together is directly proportional to the amount of space we have available to separate ourselves from each other.

Yesterday we spent the morning cleaning up from the move. We have lived amongst cardboard boxes for the past three weeks and it was time to clean up our act. We still have boxes in a couple of rooms that we are not spending much time in, but our bedrooms, kitchen, and living room are free and clear. Its a great feeling to walk around the house without tripping over, rubbing up against, or being cut by cardboard boxes. Even though we are hoping to only be in this house for a year, it is finally starting to feel like home.

When we moved, we decided not to take our washer and dryer with us. We are now the proud owners of high-efficiency front loading machines. It took me a week to get the washer level enough that it stopped walking around the laundry room but now it just sits there and quietly spins our clothing clean at 2400 rpms. The washer has a gaping 4.7 cubic feet of space for clothing. In other words, we can do a weeks worth of laundry in two loads once a week instead of two loads every other night. The only drawback is that it takes a ridiculous amount of time to fold all of the clothes that can fit in the machine.

One of the drawbacks to renting is that I don't get to do any home repairs or projects. In fact they made me sign a sheet of paper promising to call them to fix anything instead of doing it myself. So now instead of being able to procrastinate fixing all of the little things that need to be worked on, I have to wait for somebody else to decide to do it. I'm starting to understand how Stacy feels.

Texas or BUST!!!

We survived our move from Florida and arrived in Texas just in time for Christmas. The trip was about as exciting as it could be. If you have ever spent much time on the Southern Gulf Coast, you are well aware of the complete lack of geographical interest. There are occasional rolling hills, but for the majority of the 18 hour drive, it is relatively flat. Luckily the boredom outside the minivan was countered by the excitement inside the minivan.

Yes friends, family, and fans, the excitement was at times, just too much to bear. In anticipation of this long ride and from long gained personal experience traveling across Nevada with my family without air conditioning, I thought I had prepared well for this experience. I was wrong.

The new minivan that I bought for work a while ago has everything. Seat warmers (just silly in Florida), build in DVD player, wireless headphones for the DVD player, multiple thermostats so that everybody can be as cool or warm as desired, cup holders everywhere, and plenty of room for four people to be comfortable. We had snacks, food for meals, and drinks to keep us going for three days just in case our two day trip was extended. The Pioneers would have been so jealous! But the smaller members of the family did not appreciate how far long distance travel has advanced in the past 175 years. These small children not only expected everything that was offered to them, they expected even more and expressed the displeasure of not receiving what they wanted with fervor.

About four hours into the drive, Cavell was done. He decided that until he was released from his car seat, he was going to scream. He did not just scream or cry for a while and then stop. He just screamed. When he couldn't scream anymore, he would take a short breath and resume the screaming. This would continue for hours. I thought for sure he would have to stop or hurt himself or break something. But he persevered and was able to reach his goal.

After 18 hours of screaming and listening to the audio for the movie Cars, we were very excited to arrive at our little two room cottage in Gruene, Tx. I understand a little better what the pioneers felt when they arrived in Salt Lake valley or any other destination. Travel weary people are just happy to stop moving. We all knew that we still had unload a moving truck, set up a home, and put together a new life in a new area of the country. As much work as that will be, we were just happy to get out of the van.