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.

Catch up time!

Okay, I am WAY behind on my blogging!! Why? I have no idea!! We had a pretty calm, quiet Christmas around here, and other than the craziness of getting back into a routine, our life has been relatively uneventful.  Christmas was spent at home, just the 5 of us. It was nice in a way...the kids got to spend the entire day enjoying their new goodies! It was weird not to have a Christmas dinner somewhere, though.

We normally have a "3 present rule".  Each child gets 3 gifts from us, and Santa usually leaves 1 gift for each child.  But this is what happens to that rule when you do most of your shopping online, and you start early!  Next Christmas, we are back to the rule!

Little R had to open the biggest one first!

T was excited about her new Ipod.  She has completely worn out the one she got 2 years ago...beyond repair!

A got lots of clothes and shoes...just what she wanted!

And right after Christmas, we start gearing up for A's birthday! She hasn't had a friend party yet. One of the downfalls of being a military child with a birthday during Christmas break is that your friends are NEVER here for your birthday! She was going to be missing some key players in her friend party, so we will have it sometime this month. But for our party, she requested Mexican night and I was happy to provide! I even found a recipe for her very favorite...white cheese dip...and it was delicious! We finished off with birthday cake and presents. I can't believe she is 11!! She is an amazing girl...full of spunk, drama, and smart as a whip! She is definitely all girl...loves clothes, jewelry and shoes! And she's my big helper...almost always willing to help out around the house when I ask. One thing that has developed this year is a sassy mouth...we are working on that! She's still a vegetarian...every year we think maybe that will change...but every year it remains!

 

We LOVE our Mexican food!

A's cake!

Two 1's

She got all the candles...without little brother's help!

What gets A so excited, you ask?  Why pink sparkly boots, of course!

The cake was yummy!

Our next event was New Year's Eve.  Again, a low key night at home, just the family.  We bought all kinds of junk food that we don't usually eat, and just grazed all night long!  The Germans really get into New Year's Eve.  You can buy huge fireworks at the grocery stores, and everyone buys them and sets them off at midnight.  It is awesome!!  It's almost overwhelming, with the sound of fireworks all around you.  But it is really cool!

R &T had hot wings for the first time in FOREVER!

This is one happy guy!

Pigs in a Blanket...MMMMM

A's junk food of choice?  Doritos!

Some of the fireworks from our balcony...

The fireworks are almost overwhelming!!  We live high up on a hill, surrounded by houses, so we couldn't see them all, but we could HEAR them all!  And it goes on for like 30 minutes!  It's really pretty cool!  Last year, we weren't aware that Germans did this...at midnight it started up, and kinda scared us a bit...until we went outside and saw the fireworks everywhere!

We got Santa Pictures!!

2012 is a year for the memory books for the Willis family!  Little R has ALWAYS been terrified of Santa!  He has had an enormous fear of being anywhere near Santa...even being in the same mall was too close for our little guy!

R and I are pretty much experts on Santa fear.  A was also terrified of the jolly man.  I have one picture of A with Santa, when she was almost a year old.  She is SCREAMING!!  We didn't try Santa again until A was 6 years old!

But this year was a bit different.  Little R began showing some interest in Santa.  Then we saw him outside the PX when we were in the van.  Little R didn't cry.  Then we saw Santa across the food court while we were eating dinner.  Little R kept his eye on him, but he didn't cry.  So I made the decision that this was going to be our year for our first Little R Santa pictures.

I had this great little outfit I had bought on clearance at Target before we left the States.  A had a pretty hand-me-down Christmas outfit from T.  So we dressed them both up, and told them we were going to see Santa!!

As I put Little R's outfit on him, I was almost in tears!  He looked so handsome!!  I took him to the full length mirror in my room to show him how handsome he looked.  He was so proud!!  He kept looking at himself and getting this little grin on his face...it was too cute!  He said numerous times throughout the night "I look snazzy"!! 

A & Little R at home, before we left.

He had to show off his reindeer ornament he made at school.  It's his footprint!  I LOVE IT...and so does he!

So off we went to the PX.  Little R and A both went up to Santa...Little R sat on his lap...and.didn't.cry!  He didn't talk to Santa...not one word...but he didn't cry!  This Mama was proud of her big boy!!

My very handsome little man...with Santa!!

And A was so sweet to go along with him.  I am pretty sure he wouldn't have done it by himself.

And she wasn't afraid to talk to him!

When we got back to the car, Little R was still pretty hyped up by the experience, and looking so "snazzy".  From the backseat he says "Is this what I'm gonna wear when I marry Piper?"  Oh, my heart melted!!  Piper is the daughter of some of our very best friends back in Oklahoma.  And while we talk about this family A LOT, we don't specifically talk about him marrying Piper.  It was just very sweet that he still remembers her, and the fact that he thinks he is going to marry her just shows that he felt the love in this amazing family!  So my answer was, "Yes, Buddy, I think that would be a GREAT outfit to wear when you marry Piper."