Remnants of fall

The weather changes quickly here in Germany, but we still have four distinct seasons. Some are definitely longer than others, and fall seems to be rather short. It stays warm for a long time, then suddenly there's that chill in the air at night and the leaves start to turn. Shortly after, the temperature drops and stays low. So we took the babies out this week for a photo shoot in the leaves while they're still around and not sopping wet. It does a lot of raining in Germany, so it's hard to find a sunny day with dry leaves. But we did our best!

Winter already?

It would seem so in Germany! All of a sudden last week it got terribly cold out but for the most part the sun still comes around. This weekend was a fun, lazy family weekend for us. We were celebrating Jay's 25th birthday (which was Monday) and enjoying the time together. We are big fans of games, so we've been playing a lot of Uno and the Amazing Race DVD game. We rented some movies, cooked some of his favorites and went to the Schiesshaus for dinner on Sunday. The Schiesshaus is a traditional german restaurant with HUGE schnitzel and Jay hadn't been there yet so we went for an early dinner. Hayden enjoyed some of my jagerschnitzel (the kid's size!) and some of Jay's regular schnitzel as well as our fries. Germans are typically not too fond of little ones in restaurants (it's often said that your dog is more welcome in the restaurant than your child) but Hayden is undaunted. He would take a bite, and turn around in his high chair while chewing to look at the people around us. He would continue to look at them until they smiled, and then he would break into his million-dollar Rogers grin. He is irresistable, cultural barriers and all! We also took some family pictures this weekend and can't wait to see how they turned out!

Yesterday was the second round of the flag football tournament, and the high was only 44 degrees! Good thing we just bought Hayden a snowsuit. We went to a Discovery Toy party at 5 and then headed to the field for Jay's game at 6. Talk about torture, Hayden got to see all these fun toys but then had to give them back. I bundled him up in his snowsuit and mittens, and then put him in his "sleeping bag", a wonderful stroller sack that keeps him warm and cozy. He's never been so bundled up, so he wasn't quite sure what to do for a long time. He likes to chew on the top tab of the snowsuit, and often loses his pacifier which is troublesome to recover with those mittens! It was a tough game especially with the referees, but we emerged victorious and play again tonight. Good luck Jay!

Hayden's new trick

Baby Hulk

This is just too cute not to share! We ordered Hayden's halloween costume in September and FINALLY decided to try it on him. They only had it in 12-18 months and luckily for us it fits perfectly! And because of the way it fits, we can put basically anything on under it so he'll be warm for trick or treating. We can't wait for Halloween!

11 months old

We are getting more and more lax on updates! Things are in full swing around here and life is keeping us busy. We can hardly believe Hayden is 11 months old! He has four teeth, just had his third haircut today and is not yet walking. Which we are fine with :-) He's still an expert crawler and is really working on standing lately and cruising from furniture to furniture. He is into absolutely everything, which means we have installed a new, sturdy baby gate downstairs and blocked his entry from the kitchen as well.

11 months means we're now busy preparing for his first birthday, which I can't believe. Time flies! Jay is still playing flag football and the weather has taken quite a cold turn this week so we have to bundle up a bit more to watch him play. This last week it just got too chilly for us towards the end of the game, so Hayden and I packed up and got the car nice and warm for dad when the game was over. Monday is the semi-final game, so we wish him lots of luck!
We recently took a trip to Ramstein Air Force Base to visit the mall and it was huge! We've lived in Germany over 3 years now so seeing an actual mall is a little overwhelming. It's basically a giant PX with a ton of other shops, but we picked up a lot of things we aren't able to get close to where we live. Mainly things for Hayden, a little Vera Bradley for me and some combatives gloves for Jay. We also got some American chinese food (we miss it the most) and stayed long enough to enjoy dinner at Macaroni Grill. It has quickly replaced Chili's as my favorite place to eat at Ramstein.

Hayden is in his big boy car seat now, since he was just not enjoying his rear-facer anymore. We ordered it from Amazon and to our surprise it was here in less than a week! Hayden is much happier now that he can see what we're doing, and it's also a lot easier for us to get to him when he needs something (usually he wants his shoes off). In his Nikes and his big boy seat with his new hair cut, he barely resembles the tiny infant we brought home from the hospital last November.

We also recently went to Hayden's friend Gabe's birthday party. He's 7! Hayden enjoyed a lot of good dad time while mom socialized, and even got to test out the bouncy boxing ring a little. Mainly he was sitting on the outside where he can just kind of bounce around on his baby butt without being knocked down by kids, but he loved it. He has become quite the birthday partier, and will be in for a big surprise next month when he gets to eat his own piece of cake instead of sharing with us!

Food for thought

Life has suddenly gotten more interesting as Hayden is now eating table food. He still has his bottles, since babies are supposed to get the bulk of their nutrition from formula or breast milk for the first year. But now when we eat, Hayden eats with us. Most mornings he still eats baby fruit or yogurt mixed with oatmeal since he can't have whole milk or eggs just yet, but sometimes he gets a bite of french toast or sausage. Lunch has gotten way more fun, since I can just cook up some pasta or veggies and feed it to him, or let him feed himself. I've found he is very tricky when it comes to food. Sometimes he won't take anything I try to feed him because he wants to do it himself. That's fine with some things, but pasta with sauce only works with naked babies! If he's eating dinner with us, he'll let me feed him but only off of my fork. Doesn't matter what I'm feeding him as long as it's off of my fork. Apparently the baby spoon isn't grown up enough for "dinner with dad".

Fruits are still a little tricky since he can't chew most of them, so he's still hanging out with the pureed fruit mixed with oatmeal. We did try a banana the other day, and found that he wants nothing to do with the slimy slices but will happily bite into a half banana that he can hold. He still prefers his food spiced up (not that I blame him, we go through more garlic than an Italian family of 5) but doesn't really care about temperature.

Out of the blue he started enjoying the cup, which means he's getting a lot more juice and water than the two sips I used to fight him for. He gets very excited when he sees his cup and knows the "good stuff" is in there. Eating out is also more fun, since I can share what I'm eating with Hayden. We went out for chinese food recently and I'm pretty sure Hayden had more chicken and noodles than I did! It's fun to see him experiments with new tastes, textures and types of food.

We're still here!

You'll have to excuse my two-week hiatus from blogging. When Jay got back from his field training exercise, we started to realize how quickly our time together is running short. Jay will be deploying late this fall, so we've been spending as much time as possible with our little family. Jay has been very busy at work and getting home later than usual, so Hayden and I try to make the most of our time with him. When Jay first got home from the field Hayden was still in mommy-mode and didn't want to spend much time with dad alone. But two weeks later, we feel like he has a baby-sixth-sense that dad is leaving soon for a long time, because he's grown increasingly attached to him.

We are constantly surprised at how bright our son is, and how many of our traits he has acquired already. He is stubborn like his mom, sneaky like his dad and very intelligent. He's a climber and is fearless. Lately he's gotten very good at waving and mimicking the sounds we make. He is into absolutely everything, and already tries to evade us with his sweet smiles and big blue eyes while doing something he isn't supposed to. He is also enjoying more people food, including a giant piece of chicken he gnawed on at a BBQ last weekend. He's standing for just a few seconds on his own, and is showing definite signs of wanting to walk. Our little boy is growing up!

This past weekend Hayden and I hung out at home on Sunday while Jay went to Oktoberfest in Munich. We decided to give him a little boys time while we relaxed at home with Oscar. Hayden is also growing more and more interested and what we're eating and drinking, particularly the cups out of which we drink. So we end up having to down our water pretty quickly and give him the sip that's left in our cup. He loves it! He also enjoys cold bites of our freezer pops even though he makes the funniest face when the frozen treat hits his mouth. It probably feels pretty good on his teeth that are pushing their way through.

Now that Jay is back, flag football is back in business! Hayden and Oscar love to be out at the field for the games. Oscar gets to run around a bit and play with the kids, and Hayden enjoys crawling all over the ground and off of his sheet. Hayden gets very excited when everyone gets loud and claps and cheers, and he joins right in with the clapping.

We have a lot of fun stuff coming up so we're taking every opportunity to relax and do a lot of nothing! October is going to be a busy month with birthdays, long weekends and Hayden's first Halloween. Soon our little boy will be turning one, and we just don't know where the time has gone! It's amazing what a unique little person he's turning into.