Adwoa und Ama

We had a fun weekend, which included our first full-blown birthday party in a very long time. E was invited by a girl in her class and we all went. It was a nice time. Of course, being at a 4-year-old’s house, there was PLENTY of princess garb to go around.

When we got home, we had some time to play outside a bit. This included the girls chasing each other,

J dunking with Daddy on our driveway,

and E, for once, stopping long enough for me to take a picture.

I was in DC for work last week and Michael and the girls had some beautiful weather while I was gone. One evening, they went bike riding. This picture shows a little girl being a bit frustrated with her tricycle…..

and it also shows the bike path behind our house and the park land/ field on the other side of the bike path… our “extended backyard”… without the mowing!

Today I took the girls in to the pediatrician to make sure they are on track with all of the US standards of care for their ages. They are right on track and got a clean bill of health. Both girls got finger pricks, but no shots. I thought the doctor was excellent and the girls really seemed to like her. She gave us a huge amount of time to get a detailed history and talk about anything we wanted to. We were in with her for almost an hour, I think.

I was really, really proud of E tonight. The girls ate lots of good stuff at dinner and so I told them they could have dessert. I gave them the choice of ice cream, a popsicle, or a cookie. J chose a popsicle and I opened it for her and she started eating it. E chose a cookie. When J saw E eating the cookie, she (of course) immediately started crying and whining for a cookie. I said, “J, you can only have one dessert and you chose popsicle.” Of course, this did not make her feel any better. Her big sister spontaneously broke off a piece of her cookie and gave it to her sister to make her feel better. This was just one Girl Scout Thin Mint… we are not talking about a huge cookie here…. She did it entirely on her own to make her sister happy. I was so, so proud. For a moment, I almost gave E a second cookie to reward her. But I thought better of that. A few weeks ago we were at the store and she asked for a box of Kleenex with princesses on it. I told her that I would buy them, but we would save them for a special day when she did something really nice. She had long since forgotten about the princess tissues… but I pulled them out and told her I was so proud of her. She loved the tissues (isn’t that amazing?) and she was really proud of herself, too. I don’t know, may not seem like much… but it was huge to me.

Michael is on a short trip to LA for work. Unfortunately, he and Matt seem to be like ships in the night… Matt was on a trip, too, and arrived back at LAX tonight. They were going to try to meet for an hour or two this evening, but it seemed quite questionable whether it would actually work out. Unfortunate. Luckily, the Ryans have already planned a visit here in August, so we know it won’t be too long before we see them.

You may remember our post of March 3, 2008 in which we shared my grandmother’s obituary with you. We thought it was pretty great.
(Here is the obituary.)
Apparently, New Yorker magazine thought so, too. They reprinted it in their April 28th issue.
We were shocked, amazed, and thrilled. Nana would have LOVED that. She was a loyal New Yorker reader.

J is singing the ABC Song in her crib, trying to stay awake. She knows the whole song (but, of course, mumbles that L,M,N,O,P part…. as we all do). E is listening to Michael read the book, “How You Were Born.” She is quite fascinated by this, these days. Michael is coughing up a lung…. he heads to the doctor tomorrow.

Our house is 90% unpacked, finally. Still a mess, but we’re making progress.

We got Iowa drivers’ licenses on Saturday, so we are official.

Sunday we had dinner at the house of a family of Zweibruecken expats who have been here for 2 years and are headed back to Zweibruecken in June. It was a truly beautiful day and we enjoyed being outside together. We were amazed to hear their 6-year-old and 3.5-year-old sons speaking American English with no discernable accent and using all the typical expressions of American kids those ages. I guess that is how our German friends reacted to our daughters, too… it is amazing to hear how little kids pick up languages and cultures so easily. The 4 kids played really well together, speaking in English the whole time… *sigh*…. it is going to be hard to keep up the German.