I'm Back!!! Here is Part 1 of our summer recap..

We had such a crazy and busy summer I wasn't even able to fit in some blogging time. Lots of positives and fun times and also some sad times. First, we bought a new vehicle, Cadillac Escalade, which Jeff adores. Bought a new house which I adore, ha. Faith turned ONE, which is still hard to believe. We prepped Trey into getting ready for his first year of school which he is PUMPED about and can't wait. My brother and sister in law welcomed a baby boy named Wyatt. And found out that my baby sister is having a baby of her own. Boy, am I feeling OLD!! We had plans to take a trip to California and Las Vegas with our friends Bryan, Jane and baby Hudson for a friend's wedding, but had to cancel it because at that same time frame we were closing on our house. Bittersweet I know!! They have promised though to come visit us next summer. Just had to put that out there so they know we haven't forgotten, haha.

Here is a picture of our new home (minus the minivan and ladder)

It is so sad this is the only picture we have of our house. This was taken by the inspector that performed the home inspection. And the nice weather we had that day really helps the house look better huh? ha

Here is Jeff's baby :)
On a sad note I lost one of the most important people in my life and that was my grandmother. It is still so unreal to me, I just can't believe she is gone. She taught me about strength and to trust in my faith. I have never and will never know a person like her, she was the strongest and bravest person I ever knew. Mema, you will truly be missed, but will always be with me.

Another sad note Jeff also lost someone close to him. During my grandma's funeral he got a call that his uncle passed away. He was only 55!!

We had some very sad times during our summer vacation home this year, but we were glad we were there and not thousands of miles away.

Back on a positive note...Faith turned ONE and is just running around everywhere. She now has 8 teeth, loves learning new words and still wants to follow Trey everywhere he goes. I try to mold her into my little princess, but she tosses the barbies and baby dolls aside for the footballs and basketballs. Go figure!! And I am FRIGHTENED that she is going to take after her daddy somewhat in size. We went from a size 3 shoe to a 5 and now she wears a 6. Daddy wears a size 17 please Lord don't do that to my baby. She is my little chunky monkey though and I am thankful every day that God blessed us with her.

Here are her one year pictures:

We also went swimming with our wonderful friends The McClures this summer. Oh my did Faith LOVE the water. She didn't want to get out! Trey always loved the water too, but for some odd reason the past 2 summers he was not having it. He told us he was scared, we're still not sure what that is all about. We spent lots of time trying to coax him in the water.

Here Faith is rocking her bikini

Ahh milk break :)Here, Trey looks like he is all ready to go..

Testing the water, we're good so far..

Ahh we're in...he's happy...

BUT not for long..do you see how scared he is? So not like him, poor guy. Kori is wondering what the heck his problem is, haha

Here is Kori and Kruz playing in the water, with Faith in the background kicking up her feet, loving life. :)Please notice in this picture...do you see Jeff pulling Faith away from Trey? That was NOT Faith holding onto Trey, it was Trey holding on to Faith because he wanted HER to hold him up. He thought he was going to drown. HAHA!!! Priceless.And this is where he ended up staying the rest of the dayHere is Jeff with Kyran and Kori. We love spending time with the McClure family. It is always entertaining. :)

Mommy & Trey time!!

Trey and I decided to spend last Sunday evening baking cupcakes. While Daddy entertained Faith, Trey and I baked away. Trey was so excited, he got to mix all the colors he wanted for the icing. He made blue, red and green. And for the ones he wanted white he put sprinkles, a smiling face and on one his name and another Faith's name. Here is Trey's job well done!!

Mixing the ingredients..

Look how excited he is mixing his colors

Check out the concentration..

He was so proud, he wanted to show Daddy.

And Daddy gave him his "props" :)

Putting the icing on.

Here is Trey's finished product.

I think he enjoyed his cupcakes!!

Team Bowling Night!!

Another night at bowling! The team had the day off from practice Tuesday evening so they decided to have a team bowling night. One team were the Americans, another team were the Germans, one team were the coaches and management staff and the last and most important team were the wives and girlfriends. :) Then the kids got their own lane separate from the competition. The set up was not quite fair, because there were only 4 of us wives and girlfriends, if we had more we would have easily won. ha! The winners were The American players so of course Jeff and Bryan were happy. I never care about beating anyone but Jeff and I think he cheated and lied to me about his score because rumor has it that I beat him. Men, they just can't admit when they are beaten by a WOMAN!! :) But needless to say Trey had a blast as he always does at bowling. He did not want to leave and keeps begging us to take him back.

Here are the babies and daddy's :) Hudson and Faith in usual form, ha.

Trey even had a little dance he did after he bowled, ha ha

Look how happy he is, he had so much fun!!

Faith is 9 Months Old Today!!

Only 3 more months to go til we are done with formula, WOO HOO!! She has done so much within these last couple of months. Her favorite things to do, besides crawling all over the place and getting into everything, is pulling herself up on anything she can get a-hold of and walking along it. She loves to walk along the couch and the tv stand. She can stand for seconds at a time but then falls. She forgets that she can't quite walk yet. She loves her walker and loves to play with Trey. She calls him TT (I call him Trey Trey so we abbreviated it for Faith) Our proudest moment within this last month was when she picked up a baseball size plastic ball and threw it PERFECTLY to her Daddy. Now you can tell that her parents are athletes for us to be that proud, ha. She's gonna have an arm like her momma, haha :) I think our kids will always master their motor skills first. We are working on broadening her vocabulary, right now she can say bye bye, momma, dada, TT, bottle and of course ball. Oh and she says Uh-Oh when she falls! And she only likes to kiss her Daddy, no love for momma yet. She is definitely a Daddy's girl, she lights up whenever he walks into the room and immediately wants to go to him. Though she loves to follow Trey around and do whatever it is he is into at that moment. And Trey has wonderful patience with her and always tries to involve her in his games. They love to wrestle on the floor but at times Trey gets a little too rough and we have to remind him she is still a baby. I keep telling Trey that one day when she gets older she is really going to pop him one, haha. He loves having her to play with though! He is extremely protective of her, if he doesn't know you he doesn't let you near her. Her favorite object is the basketball (go figure) whenever someone has a picture of a basketball on their shirt she goes straight for it. She loves game days, she gets excited when Trey puts on his jersey, she knows that means she is about to go watch Daddy play. She sits at Jeff's basketball games and claps her hands and yells for "Dada". Her favorite game is Peek-A-Boo, she will do it to anyone and loves when we play with her. She is so ticklish, especially her tummy area and inner thighs. She cracks up and thinks that Daddy and Trey are the funniest people in the world. She ABSOLUTELY LOVES when Daddy sings to her, she has pumped up his self esteem so much that he thinks he should be on the next American Idol!! :) She tries to repeat some things that we say and loves it when we mimic her sounds and words. As of right now she has her third tooth starting to poke through. Her and Trey are truly our most enjoyable entertainment and we love EVERY second of our days with them.

Here is our precious baby girl..

Trey and Faith having fun as usual..

Happy Easter!!

We spent the day coloring Easter eggs and making a mess for Mommy to clean up :) Here is how excited Trey was to color eggs..

I think Faith was just as excited, look how happy she is here..

Then the kids got their Easter baskets (of course Daddy too) and enjoyed the rest of the day off!! And Mommy had to play dress up and get some pictures..

Trip to Berlin..

In the years I have lived in Germany I have never visited Berlin until now. I had plenty of opportunities but at the time I just wasn't up for the drive (5 1/2 hours). But since the team was flying there we thought it would be fun for us to all go. Jeff has been there a few times, but never really got to see the city or any of the sights. So we decided to make it a little weekend vacation. Jane's father was visiting and he wanted to see Berlin as well. So Jane and Benson decided to rent a van, drive there and then we all drive back. As long as I have my co-pilot I'm up for any road trips. :) In case it hasn't been obvious this is my reason for living in Germany in the first place. :) This is my hubby in action, the one higher than everyone else, ha:)A big win in Berlin was the first event of the night. Then afterwards we were all pumped to get to go to Hard Rock Cafe. It's so funny to see how excited we all get to eat some good ole American food :) Here are a few pics of us enjoying Hard Rock..In case you were all wondering, Faith was there with us but decided to sleep during the timeframe of the pictures being taken! :)

And the "Parents of the Year Award" goes to....drum roll please......
Bryan & Jane

Do you notice in this picture, there are 3 glasses of beer and a BABY bottle, HAHA :)

So after that entertainment we drove around a bit before heading to our hotel and saw the city at night. I have been told before that it's been compared to Manhatten and I find that to be true. It reallly does look like downtown Manhatten with of course the European twist to it.

Bright and early the next morning we all headed out to Dunkin Donuts. Once again some very HAPPY Americans were we. :) And our little journey begins!!

Here we are at the Berlin wall

Trey seems to forget who he belongs to..

Here is the Brandenburg Gate

The Victory Column Reichstag Building
Checkpoint Charlie

And this is what Faith and Hudson did as usual

Here is the crew after our drive back home (minus myself and Trey)
Benson-I hope you enjoyed your little road trip with all of us, I know you were just thanking God you made it back to Ulm safe and sound. ha :)

And here was our driver home..