Christmas Eve

We started our Christmas Eve day by heading to the Christmas Market in Nürnberg. It was magical!

There were hundreds of vendors. We saw ornaments, wood carvings, baked goods, toys, nativity sets, and more:

The city itself deserves a whole second (and possibly third and fourth) trip. It is a beautiful historical city with cobblestone streets, a wall surrounding the “old” city, and decorative churches:

 

We weren’t planning to buy much (except some brats for lunch), but we didn’t anticipate everything being so cheap because of it being the last day of the market. We came home with a few little things, but these two are my favorite:

A hand-carved ornament.

A big nutcracker.

That night we held our traditional pageant. The kids had a great time dressing up. Bailey was Mary, Erick was Joseph, Joey was an angel, and TJ doubled as a shepherd and a wise man:

TJ was super excited to show me that he had a friend and fellow shepherd:

After the pageant, the kids opened gifts containing their new PJ’s":

Despite the distance of family and friends, we had a fantastic, magical Christmas:

Pool Party

A few weeks ago, a neighbor invited Joey and Bailey to a birthday pool party. It was an amazing indoor, heated pool. It was a wonderful relief from from the snow falling outside:

Strumpfhosen

It’s winter. Did you know? And Bavaria gets cold in the winter. Very cold.

This week we learned a little trick from the Germans.

They are called Strumpfhosen.  The kids wear them under their regular pants to stay warm.

Basically, they are just really thick tights, but they are designed for both girls and BOYS. That’s right. TJ is wearing tights. He loves them. In fact, he won’t take them off. He slept in them last night.

I even got a pair of them for myself. I was pretty toasty on our trip to the Weiden Christmas Market. Keep reading below to find out about that fun outing:

Weiden Christmas Market

Last night, we decided to drive to downtown Weiden to see the annual Christmas Market. This Christmas Market has been a yearly tradition in Weiden since the 16th century. Knowing this, we couldn’t miss it.

This is the entrance to the market:

My camera cannot truly capture the lights and magic of the evening. There was a delicious smell in the air. I guess it smelled like a German Christmas.

In case you are wondering, yes, that is a miniature pony on the bottom right hand corner of the picture. The poor creature looked sad and tired. I didn’t let the kids sit on him.

Near the entrance, there was a glass enclosure of a nativity scene. One side had the manger scene and another side had an angel visiting the shepherds with their flocks. The kids loved it:

Here, once again, is the Rathaus, or city hall:

This year, they turned the entire building into an advent calendar. Every night at five o’clock, they open a window. Then they give treats to all the children who come to watch.

We watched them open door eleven last night. Inside the window was a little boy and St. Nikolas. We couldn’t see inside very well from our angle, but it was still fun!

After the advent calendar window was opened, we headed over to a shack that was serving this:

I have no idea what it is called, but it is a round cake-like thing filled with apple and covered in vanilla sauce. Erick and I thoroughly enjoyed this treat.

For the kids we ordered donuts, which they made right in front of us:

TJ thought they were especially good:

The night was cold, but we were prepared with our strumpfhosen, and we made good use of the portable fires lit throughout the market square:

We came home with one new Christmas decoration:

A Christmas train.

But this is no ordinary train, it is a smoker, an incense burner. These are huge around here. We place a piece of incense in the engine, and smoke comes out the smoke pipe. The kids thought it was amazing.

Here’s a better look at the incense burning:

I was glad it did not set off our smoke alarm.

Merry Christmas!

Bailey vs. the evil ear

This is my sweet Bailey with her fantastic kindergarten teacher.

A few weeks ago, Bailey had a double ear infection. We haven't dealt with ear infections since Bailey was three and had tubes inserted. (At that time, her ears caused her constant pain, and her hearing was in jeopardy).

Now, we have discovered that both tubes have fallen out. This is normal and expected. But her ears have reared their ugly lobes in protest.

 

A few weeks ago, we went in to see a doctor for a follow-up to her ear infection. We learned that the redness and infection are gone but that her ears are still filled with fluid. This is what her ears did before the tubes, and it is affecting her hearing.

The last month or so, she has acted out more, gotten frustrated more easily, and constantly says, "WHAT?!" because she can't hear us very well. Her teacher has also noticed that Bailey has become less responsive. She doesn't always notice when her name is called.

It breaks my heart.

The doctor is going to see us again on the 21st, and if the ears have not cleared, we will be seeing another Ear Nose & Throat specialist (ENT). Our doctor is hesitant to suggest that we re-insert the tubes because Bailey already has a lot of scarring on her ear drum and more tubes will cause more scarring causing her hearing to decrease even more.

So, I am asking you to include Bailey in your prayers. We really want her ears to clear up, and her hearing to improve.

Thank you!   And come visit soon. :)

Thanksgiving

We had a fabulous Thanksgiving. We had some incredible decorations from school:

Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of our fabulous dinner with Pete & Pam. I did, however, take pictures of our cute kids playing with dress-ups after dinner.

Dress-ups at a boy's house are so different from dress-ups at a girl's house. Meet Spiderman, Optimus Prime, and Superman:

Who is that boy in the middle, you ask? Why that's my princess Josephine. Joey's friend, Noah, called her Mrs. Optimus Prime:

After our fabulous Thanksgiving dinner, we went back to our house, where we had a neighborhood dessert pot-luck. We had about six families come and eat delicious creations of all types: pumpkin pie, chocolate pecan pie, chocolate cream pie, pumpkin crisp with ice cream, pumpkin roll.

I made some warm wassail to serve as well. It was a really fun night!

Again, no pictures. Happy Thanksgiving!

Last night's surprise

Hey Sleeping Beauty, are you in there?

Since Erick didn't have to work the day after Thanksgiving, we decided to go on a little day trip. This is where we went:

This is Neuschwanstein castle. It is only about three hours away from our house. Isn't that cool? But let me tell you about our entire day:

We got up this morning, and I tried to pack a lunch and some snacks for our trip. But there was something in my cooler:

Once we pried TJ out of the collapsible cooler and changed him out of his PJ's, we were on our way.

On the drive we saw some amazing views like this one with the mist rising from a valley:

We got really excited when we could see the Alps in the distance:

We got closer:

Then, suddenly there it was:

When we got to the base of the mountain, we decided to take a carriage ride up. The girls were thrilled. They were like princesses riding a horse-drawn carriage to the ball:

The view on the mountain was spectacular, but TJ preferred looking at the horses:

My favorite views were a little different:

The kids kept calling it "Sleeping Beauty's Castle." I didn't disagree. It looks just like sleeping beauty's castle to me.

Getting closer to the top:

I thought is was so interesting that the front entryway of the castle (to the left of Erick) was a reddish brick. While the rest of the building was covered in limestone.

Joey tried her hand at some photography so that I could be in a picture or two:

Then I took a bunch of close-up pictures of the exterior:

Above the entrance:

Entering the courtyard:

We were in the courtyard for about 15 minutes waiting for our tour to start:

It was a little chilly. Can you tell?

TJ spent most of the day on Erick's shoulders...

...playing:

We could not take any pictures inside the castle, but that's probably a good thing since I have already overloaded this post with too many pictures.

We learned that Ludwig II was obsessed with swans. So everything around this area is called swan-something. Even the castle: Neu = new, schwan = swan, and stein = stone.

The interior was covered in swans as well as paintings of his other passion, opera. He loved music. There were paintings in nearly every room depicting his favorite opera stories.

Other interesting facts: We learned that Ludwig II was insane. We also learned that an architect did not design this building, but instead a theatrical artist, that is, an artist that paints scenery for the stage.

There was a painting of a man slaying a dragon that caught TJ's attention, and later we saw a dragon sculpture. So TJ decided he needed to fight off the dragons that may attack Sleeping Beauty's castle. We complied and bought him a wooden sword in the gift shop.

From Neuschwanstein, we had a great view of Hohenschwangau, another castle, along side Swan Lake:

Here is TJ showing off the castle and sword:

Another view:

Here Joey is showing off the waterfall and our next destination, the bridge:

A close-up of the bridge:

Views from the bridge:

It's even more breathtaking in person. Don't worry, I will bring you here when you come to visit.