Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

In the spirit of St. Patrick's Day...pictures of our GREEN kitchen!! : )

By German standards, this is quite a large kitchen!!

The very best part of this kitchen?  We can fit our full size fridge IN the kitchen.  So, we have our small German fridge (to the right of the stove in the tall cabinet) AND our full size fridge IN THE KITCHEN!!  At the last house, the extra fridge had to go in the basement...and because it had to fit down the stairs..it was a very small extra fridge.  So this setup is SO MUCH BETTER!!

This amount of cabinet space is almost unheard of here...and the tall cabinet is the fridge and freezer...also pretty large by German standards.

And even more cabinet space...and COUNTER space!! 

Now, I know what you are all thinking....It's Avocado Green!!  I know, I know...it is the original tile from when the house was built in 1979...but it is in great shape...and for the space this kitchen provides, and the ability to have the fridge IN the kitchen...I can definitely handle the green!!

Another room...the girls' bathroom!

I have taken a break from posting pics of the house...life has gotten in the way, and I haven't made much progress!  Hoping to get my room done tomorrow, and T's room should be clean enough by then...so we will try to post more pics then.

But here are just a couple of pics of the girls' bathroom.  It is a small bathroom, so pictures are difficult...

SMALL bathroom!!  This is the bathroom upstairs with A's room.  We are hoping to add a bathroom in the basement for T...there is a room that used to be a bathroom, but they removed the fixtures to install a sauna...now there is no sauna, and no bathroom! : (

I found this cute owl valance that went with the 70's color scheme of the bathroom.  The girls are going to paint some canvases to match the valance, so we can decorate the walls a bit.

Our sunshine is back!!

After a very long, dreary winter with almost NO sun, we are finally seeing a change!  The sun has been shining much more frequently these days, and we've even had a day or two that we didn't need our big winter coats!!  The lack of sunshine was VERY hard on me...I never realized how much I NEED sunshine, because I've always had it.  But, I don't think I am the only one who has missed the sun this winter....

The back of our house stays drenched in sunlight all morning and into the afternoon on sunny days.  Anji has been soaking up as much as she can!!

My favorite room so far!

This is probably my favorite room in the entire house!  I love a fireplace...a real fireplace, with a real fire!  The only time we have had a real fireplace in our home was in Texas...and we never used it...because it was Texas! : )

We have built two fires so far in this fireplace, and they were both wonderful!  A and I would sit in our dining room chairs all evening, enjoying the fire.  Now we have picked up some comfy chairs...but it has been a bit warm for a fire.  We are also holding off for A's asthma issues to clear up...she's had some issues the last 2 weeks, and while I don't think the fireplace bothers her asthma...definitely don't want to take that chance when she is already having issues!

I still love this room!  During the months that we can't have a fire, it will be my reading room.  Which means I won't get to spend nearly as much time cuddled up in those chairs as I would like...but I am going to enjoy every minute I can!! 

This room also includes our dining area.  Where we sit together at least 4 nights a week and have dinner and talk about our day.  In my mind...this is important.  I work hard to plan a menu and cook meals so that we have this time together as a family.  In my family's mind it's a time to fuss about the food on their plates, or fuss about who is going to carry the plates to the table, or negotiate exactly how many nibbles of food have to be eaten to count as trying something.  And one member (who will go unnamed) joins us for about 5 minutes...that is just about as long as he can possibly find a plate of food interesting!  But I hope that someday my kids look back at family dinner time as a good thing.  And that they will realize the work and effort I put into it because I felt it was important.  And I hope someday when they have their own kids, they continue the tradition because it is what they grew up with.  And I hope someday that their kids come up to them and say "Thanks for dinner Mom, it was great!"

Our fireplace definitely has some 70's charm...but that doesn't even bother me!

One of the first things the girls ask when we choose a house is "Where is the cross wall going to be?"  This time it's the dining area.

The comfy furniture...can't wait to spend more time in it!

It's never "home" until the mantle is hung!  My dad made this for our fireplace in Texas.  It has travelled with us since.  A lot of times it has hung over our bed in our room because we had no fireplace!  But this time it is at least hanging NEAR the fireplace.  I can't wait to hang stockings on it at Christmas time!!

Suggestions??

Okay, another room completed!  A's room is pretty cool, if you ask me.  Her area is the mother-in-law apartment of this house...the entire upstairs!  The room she is using as her bedroom is supposed to be the living/dining area of the MIL suite.  There is a former kitchen up there (now just storage), a bedroom, and a bathroom.

A's lounging area...

A's desk/keyboard/tumbling area...

These are the doors to the balcony...

A's sleeping area...

A's dressing area...

I tried to get a view of the entire room...

I think she likes it!!! : )

This is our extra room.  The first time in our almost 15 years of marriage and even more homes that we have a room that we just don't know what to do with!!!  My first inclination is to fill it with more kids!!  But not sure hubby or rest of the family would agree with that idea! : )  Any suggestions???

More work...DONE!

Working my hubby to death, but slowly getting ALL the rooms done! 

Our bathroom...the one room in the house that has been remodeled!!

Toilets here are a bit different than in the States...

Shower that R barely fits in...

Towel bar is HEATED...greatest.invention.EVER!!  I absolutely LOVE it!!

Living Room is finished...

Back area of the living room...AKA my office space and little R's play area...

Still have some empty white wall space...but we will handle that eventually!  We left a lot of our wall decor in storage in the States.

More progress at the house...

R has been on leave this week, so we have gotten a lot done at the house.  Not as much as I had hoped...I expected to be completely done by Friday, with everything hung on the walls...but errands and walk-throughs and doctor appointments limited our progress.  But we are chugging along...here are some more pics of a few more rooms...

Our front entryway.  Stairs leading up to A's area, and stairs leading down to T's area and the guest room.

Our coat room; entry way leads into this room, which leads into the kitchen on one side and the living area on the other.

View of coat room from living room (this also gives you a "sneek peak" into the kitchen, which also has some lovely 70's charm)

View of the coat room from the entry way...and another "sneak peek" of our kitchen...anyone like avocado?? : )

View of coat room from the kitchen...

Little R's room is always one of the first rooms we try to get done...the more comfortable he feels, the better we sleep! ; )

His room here is much smaller.  When he first saw it and I told him this would be his room, his response was, "I need a bigger room than THAT!"

With this move, he didn't have to go even one night without his bed...which to him was a big deal!

R's closet...we ended up getting two of these wardrobes for free from a family who was moving...such a blessing!!

Chapter Closed

We had our walk-thru today of our previous house.  It was just as stressful and dramatic as we had hoped it WOULDN'T be.  But now we can close that chapter of our lives, and focus on unpacking and making our "new" house our home.

Our "new" house was built in 1979.  Our "old" house was built in 2010 and was VERY modern.  So this house is VERY different.  It has some definite 70's German charm!  But it has LOTS of space for our family, so we felt we could work with the "charm"!  It already feels much "homier" than the other house...and we don't even have our things hung on the walls yet!!

We feel good about this house and about the current landlord.  We had a clog in our kitchen drain the other day...R called the landlord, and he was here within 10 minutes to take a look at it! 

So now we have LOTS of hard work to unpack, hang up, and make this house our home!!  But I will leave you with a sneak peak of one room that is relatively done.  It is our 1/2 bath in the entryway of our house.  It is in all it's original 70's glory, but we are just gonna roll with that! : ) 

This room has solid concrete walls...so it is really hard to hang things on the walls.  I can use the Command picture hangers...but since they are $3.09 each at the PX, we will hang things sparingly! : )

Our "new" home...

We are moving this weekend.  I have mixed emotions...I am happy to be freeing ourselves from the landlord situation we have going on at our current house, and we are blessed to have found a house that suits our needs AND keeps A in the same school zone.  But we are finally feeling settled in THIS house, and to pack up and move somewhere different is always a challenge.

I still feel it was the right decision, even while we are in the trenches of moving our entire household!  I am anxious to get settled in our "new" house, and make it feel like home.  So, I may be absent from the blog for a while...we won't have internet for a couple of weeks at the new house...and I'll be working frantically to get everything situated.  In the meantime, I will leave you with a pic of where we are moving to...with a promise of more to come once we are moved in!

We are still here...just busy!

I got on the laptop today that has the blog as the homepage...and noticed I haven't posted since Jan. 1st!!  OOPS!!  It's just been a busy time, and we haven't been on any trips lately, so I just get bogged down in "normal" life and forget to update the blog...sorry...will try to do better!

Update on us...January has been pretty busy, but pretty uneventful.  We survived R's first TDY back to the States, leaving us here alone in Germany for a week.  No major issues while he was gone, so that was great!

We have been househunting, and found a new home to move into.  We continue to have issues with our current landlord.  We move to our "new" home in February...so we have a lot of work in our future.  But I think it will be a better home for us, and definitely a better landlord situation.

The girls got semester report cards this week, and they both have all A's & B's.  Yay girls!

Little R continues to attend German kindergarten, and continues to refuse to speak any German!! : )

And that's about it..."normal" life for us!  But I will leave you with one little tidbit of how my day went today....

Germans like "see thru" stairs in their homes.  In ALL their homes!  I despise the "see thru" stairs for a number of reasons:  the cat fell through them her first day here (still have no idea how she wasn't injured); fear that 4-yr old boy will fall through them at least 20 times a day; dirt and dust collects underneath the stairs in the basement, because it all falls through from the upper floors; and there are others, but that is all I can think of right now.  But today an event occurred that caused me to despise the see-thru stairs EVEN MORE!!

Imagine an active 4-yr old boy, who is always busy.  Usually too busy to go to the bathroom until the VERY last second!  Imagine this 4-yr old boy, pulling down his pants & underwear to his ankles and running for the 1st floor bathroom.  Now imagine that 14-yr old sister is in that bathroom with door locked!  4-yr old boy then realizes his only hope is to get to the 2nd floor bathroom in like 10 SECONDS!!  Imagine 4-yr old boy walking upstairs (with his pants & underwear still at his ankles, hindering his progress).  About halfway up the stairs to the 2nd floor...TOO LATE...peeing EVERYWHERE!!  Imagine this would be bad enough if it was normal stairs...it would be puddling and running down the stairs.  But NO...in the world of "see thru" stairs it is puddling...then running down between the stairs to next stairway below, all the way down to the basement.  As the pee runs through the stairs, it is hitting the basement floor with such force (remember it is coming from almost the 2nd floor) that it is splattering everywhere downstairs!!  Have I mentioned we use the space under the stairs for storage???  PEE  EVERYWHERE...on the stairs, running through the stairs, and hitting the basement floor and splattering ALL OVER everything!!!!  Ummm....yeah....that was fun to clean up...

And there you have it...you are updated!  : )  Never a dull moment in the Willis household! : )