What have we been up to lately??

We celebrated Dr. Seuss...

We got a new cape...

We soaked up some long-awaited sunshine...

We had one of our very best buddies over for the afternoon...

We played with Play-Doh...(which doesn't happen very often...Mommy HATES Play-Doh)

We decorated cookies and had an Easter egg hunt at school...

Little R ate BOTH cookies all by himself...

And we drew a self-portrait in art class...

THAT'S what we've been up to lately!!  And yes, we do still have two other children!  You can tell by the pictures who I get to spend the most time with...so he ends up in front of the camera more often than the girls!  And T leaves the vicinity when you point a camera at her...so photos of her are rare!  And I really have no excuse for the absence of A...but I will definitely try to do a better job of taking more pics of her!!

Shopping Day in Stuttgart

The kids had a day off of school, so we headed down into Stuttgart to explore a little.  There is a great shopping area downtown that we had never been to, and we had heard about a neat little donut shop downtown, also.

We found the donut shop first, but after driving around for 30 minutes trying to find a parking spot, we decided to head on into the shopping area.  The shopping area was great!!  It's a neat pedestrian-only street, and it was a weekday, so it wasn't overly crowded....very neat!

And as a treat to Little R...we ate at McDonald's, which is a rare treat for him these days!

After a few hours of shopping, we decided to try the donut shop again.  Drove around again for a while looking for parking, then decided to take our chances and park illegally...after all, it would only take a minute, right?  R was VERY nervous about it...but we made it in and out without a ticket!

The donuts were WONDERFUL!!  I don't know if it's because donuts aren't something we see here very often or what, but they were well worth the illegal parking risk!! 

Overall, it was a great family day!!  We live in a small town about 30 minutes from downtown Stuttgart, and we don't venture into "the city" very often.  LOTS of people, LOTS of traffic...two things R doesn't handle exceptionally well these days.  But this day was worth the effort...we all enjoyed it!

We love the mix of old & new architecture in Europe!

Konigstrasse...a pedestrian-only shopping street.

It was cold!!  I was wishing for an indoor mall!

Give R the camera, and you get LOTS of pics!

This was just a cool church we saw after leaving the donut shop...so we had to stop and take pics.

R ran inside to snap some quick pics!

The churches here are amazing!!

Basketball Season

After years of Daddy saying what a shame it is that A doesn't play basketball, she decided to give it a try this year!  Her one stipulation:  that Daddy would be her coach!  He agreed, and off they went on a challenging journey!!

They began with a team that only had a couple of players who had ever played before.  They started the season with very little knowledge or skill.  But R was a great coach, and even if they weren't winning games, they were definitely learning...and having fun!

A improved SO much over the course of the season.  And in the last games of the tournament, I was so proud to see her actually get quite agressive!!

It was obvious the boys looked up to R...and he was definitely "in his element" when he was coaching!  He has had a dream of being a high school teacher and coach his entire life...and I have somewhat shot down that dream...telling him when he retires from the Army, I want him to be able to focus on his own kids, not a team full of others people's kids.  After seeing him coach this season, I realize how selfish that is of me...he enjoys it, he's good at it, and he's a great example (most of the time) to the kids he is coaching!  I think any team would be lucky to have him as their coach!

Overall, it was a great season!!  A is still undecided if she will play basketball again.  Cheerleading is still her first love!  But even if she never plays again, it was a great learning experience for her, and quality time with her Daddy...which is always a good thing!

A on the court

Free throws were a challenge for most of the kids on the team. 

Team 6!! 

Little R supporting Sis from the sidelines!

Team talk!

Team 6 with their amazing coach!

A big day for our big boy!

When we moved Little R from his crib we bought this bunk bed system.  We thought it would be a great set to carry him all through his childhood...his "forever" bed!  He loved it because the bottom bunk was his little "fort", where he was safe through the night.  We have kept the ladder to the top bunk put away since we purchased the bed...and told Little R that when he turned 5, he could have his ladder.  He had to wait a while...I kept putting him off when he asked about it, even though he was 5.  It still made me a little nervous!  Finally, we brought the ladder up from storage and put it on his bed.  He was one happy little boy!  But we still didn't let him sleep up there....until now!

Last week, Little R slept on his top bunk for the very first time!  He was so excited!  So he is now officially a big boy!  He told me the other day that now we can get a baby brother, because the baby can sleep in the bottom bunk, since he doesn't need it anymore! : )  As if the lack of an extra bed is the only reason we don't have a baby brother!! : )

He was so excited and proud!

All set!  He likes to be surrounded by pillows, and lots of stuffed animals!

Valentine's Day

Thankful that for another year we got to be T's valentine.  We know that someday soon, some young man will steal her heart, and it will never be ours in the same way again!

Thankful that A will be our valentine for many more years to come!

Also thankful that Little R will always be MY valentine!

We always buy the girls flowers for Valentine's Day...and usually chocolate...but this year we made the smarter choice, and simply got flowers!  Little R, on the other hand, doesn't appreciate flowers...so he got a big 'ol bag of M&M's!  He just finished them off yesterday...he's been having a few each day!
MiMi & PaPa sent a box full of goodies and cards.  Lots of fun stuff for the whole family!

All in all, it was a great day!!

Side note:  This picture is a little too "real" for my liking...you can see the dirty dishes piled up in my sink in the background!!  Oh well, this time I choose to look at the smiling faces, not the dirty dishes!

Basketball!!

I am doing a horrible job of keeping up with our blog!!  There is so much going on in our lives, but I really need to keep blogging, for the sake of family trying to keep up with us as well as for us to have a record of our crazy lives to look back on someday, when our life actually calms down (or doesn't)!

So on that note, let's try this weekly blog thing again!

One of our new activities this season is basketball!  R could not be more excited to have two of his kiddoes playing basketball!

Little R is playing basketball for the first time, and it is nothing short of hysterical!!  Watching 4 & 5 year olds attempt this sport is quite entertaining!  I can't say that Little R loves it, but he happily goes to practice, and gets excited before a game.  So hopefully he will come to love the game!  He is still quite short, so I don't know how successful he will be, but Daddy sure would love for him to be a basketball star!!

Ready for his first game!

Attitude!  He stands like his sister!

Sitting on the bench is almost as much fun as playing in the game!

He has a pretty good shot!

To add to the basketball excitement, A also decided to play basketball for the first time ever!  She is the cheerleader of the family, but after years of being the tallest in her class, Daddy finally convinced her she should give it a try.  She has done quite well, and is finally showing some aggressiveness on the court!  R is the coach for her team, so it has been a fun experience for both of them.  She informed us the other day that she probably won't play basketball again, but she is glad she tried it!  R's dream of a basketball star now rests solely on Little R's shoulders...we will have to wait and see what his passion becomes.

Only 2 girls on the team, and the other one wasn't here this day.  And yes, A is taller than all the boys!

And she has a pretty nice shot, too!

Garmisch, Germany

Edelweiss Lodge and Resort in Garmisch, Germany.  Definitely one of the best places we have been in Germany so far!  Garmish is a neat little town, in a beautiful area, surrounded by mountains!  The views are breathtaking!  Edelweiss is an American Resort...all English speaking, fully staffed by Americans!  It was awesome!  Other than the beautiful scenery outside, you could literally forget you are outside of the United States!  That was a wonderful change of pace for our family! 

We spent two nights at Edelweiss.  The first night the kids had swimming on the agenda!  They have an indoor, heated pool...and since our kids haven't been swimming since we left the States in 2011, we decided it was time!  They had a BLAST!!

The next day we got bundled up in our snow gear, rented some sleds, and headed to the slopes!  No skiing for the Willises for several reasons: first, some of us are way too accident-prone, and would be guaranteed an injury; second, after this little stint in Germany, never again will our vacations include winter weather activities; and third, some of us just have NO desire to learn how to ski!  So we opted for sledding instead.  Once again, it was a BLAST!  R and I even sledded down the hill several times, and it was FUN!  I loved watching our kids laugh and scream, and just have good 'ol fashioned fun!

We decided after going back to Edelweiss and warming up, that another swim session was in order!  So off to swim again we went!  Again, the kids had a blast!

That evening we had reservations at a highly recommended German restaurant in town.  They had traditional Bavarian slap dancing, which was pretty cool.  Our waiter and the guy who runs the place were both SO friendly!  They made us feel very welcome, and accomodated T's dislike of sauerkraut and love of potato salad, with no complaints! It was a refreshing change of pace from some of the other German establishments we've been in!  The food was amazing!!  Overall, a great experience!

The next morning we checked out and headed home.  We let the GPS take us home, which took us a much more scenic route into Austria, and through some beautiful mountains.  This was a GREAT weekend trip!!  We can't wait to go back and explore some more!!

Their first swim!!

Ready for dinner the first night!

This is the lobby at Edelweiss!

They had these great rocking chairs...with THIS view!





Ready for sledding!

The girls' first trip down the hill!

My first trip down.  I was a bit nervous!

The view from our sledding hill.

Little R going down.

Our little guy trudged up this hill SO many times!!  I was impressed! But the thrill of going down was WELL worth the climb up!

A little Dance Dance Revolution challenge before dinner.

This is where we ate dinner.  I highly recommend it, if you are ever in the area!

Waiting for our food...which took a while!

My food!  Jagerschnitzel with spaetzle and mushroom sauce!  It doesn't look pretty, but it was delicious!  BTW...this is AFTER I had eaten all I cared to eat!  It was yummy, but there was LOTS of it!

R and T ordered the same thing!  Of course, they found the item on the menu that included the most meat, and that's what they ordered!  There is sauerkraut underneath the meat...R's favorite part!

This is the view from the balcony of our room.  Beautiful!



Headed home...



beautiful views!

More amazing views!

We saw lots of skiers in this town...

Nice to see mountains...we don't have them in our area.