Happy Birthday Maggie May!

Out little girl turned two last week. I can't believe it has been two years. Time has flown by. Maggie has the sweetest personality and is constantly making us smile. Happy birthday princess!

Grandma and Grandpa came down from Frankfurt for the festivities.

The birthday girl enjoying her pizza!

Holly's birthday masterpiece.

Maggie blew out her candles all by her self (with a little help from her brother).

Dad and Grandpa putting together Maggie's kitchen.

Family pictures

Here are some shots from our family photo shoot taken by our friend Jenny.

October in Germany

It has been so long since we've posted...so sorry!  Life has been a little crazy here.  Dan has been extremely busy with his job, I've been busy keeping up with the kids and being pregnant, Josh has been busy in preschool, and Maggie has been busy keeping up with Josh, and daily adding to her vocabulary.  Josh and Maggie have had so much fun celebrating Halloween.  They had a great time helping me decorate for Halloween by making little paper pumpkins to put in our window.  At school Josh did lots of fun Halloween activities and went on his first field trip to a pumpkin patch.

Josh with some of his classmates at the Pumpkin Patch (the girl in purple is Hadley, Josh's best friend here)

 

Josh and Maggie with their new pumpkin from the Pumpkin Patch

We had a fun filled Halloween week.  On Monday for Family Home Evening we carved a pumpkin. Josh didn't like touching the guts, but Maggie sure did!  Our church had a trunk-or-treat on Tuesday, then Josh got to dress up at school on Thursday. Friday we had a party with some friends at our house, then Saturday we went up to Grandpa and Grandmas and celebrated Grandmas birthday and Halloween German style.  Yes, Germans do celebrate Halloween.  They do it a little differently though, they all dress up as scary things, no cute costumes, all scary ones.  When they come to the door they say in German "Sweet or sour" instead of "trick-or-treat."  Here are a few pics from our fun week!

Dan's masterpiece!

Josh as a musketeer, Maggie as the princess he's protecting

Playing in the leaves by Grandma & Grandpa's house

My little princess!

Josh the brave musketeer off to find some treats!

Captain Colton!

Captain S. Daniel Colton

Dan got promoted to Captain on the 6th!  I am so proud of him!  It was a really amazing experience which I actually got to be a part of!  Dave (Dan's dad) and I both got to "pin" on Dan's new Captains' bars.  We had a little luncheon after as a congratulations Dan and good-bye to the Colonel who is PCSing (moving) to a new base.  It was a fun day!

Dan getting pinned on Captain

We're so proud!

Happy 4th Birthday Josh!!!

Josh turned 4 years old on the 1st!  I can't believe he is already 4.  It has been great though, if he starts throwing a fit or something I just remind him that he is 4 and he snaps out of it and tells me, "Oh your right mom, I'm a big boy now."  I love that kid!  For Josh's actual birthday we made chocolate muffins for breakfast, played at the park, and played in his castle (constructed from moving boxes and duct tape).  His Grandpa came down from Frankfurt for the weekend and Grandpa, Dan & Josh all went on a special date to the dinosaur park.

Josh after his breakfast of chocolate muffins Dan putting together Josh's new Toy Story bike--Josh's favorite present

The following weekend we had his birthday party with some of his new friends, and Zoe our friends the Reeds' French bulldog.  Up until the day before he wanted a "red dragon party" then he changed his mind to a "red dragonf'y party"  So I had to get creative and change things a bit.  Here are some of the pictures of all the celebrations!

Maggie adored the dog Zoe

Josh LOVES Zoe!

Time to catch up (Part 2 of 2) (See part 1 below)

After our trip to Frankfurt and the Rhine River, we took another weekend outing and went to the awesome medieval town of Rothenberg ob der Tauber. Rothenberg dates back to the year 950 and has been incredibly well preserved and restored following WWII. There is a wall that stretches around the entire city and most of it includes a walkway where you can get a higher vantage point of the town.

Our hotel. One of the newer buildings in town, it was built in 1927.
Holly and Josh on our walk around the top of the city wall.
We visited the Crime Museum a.k.a. the Torture Museum
I have been told that Josh and I either accused of committing sexual sin or dirtying the environment. A couple of trouble makers if you ask me.
The Mask of Shame. I think this Torture, eh, I mean Criminal museum had some great ideas for dissuading criminals. Make someone walk around in this for a while and they'll think twice before committing that crime again.
Holly and the kids in the town square.
Super Josh and Maggie having a blast walking around the city wall.
A typical street in Rothenberg
Here are a couple of my "artistic" attempts

The weekend after our trip to Rothenberg was another three-day weekend and so we decided to fly down to Sardinia, Italy with a couple of friends from work to enjoy some R & R at the beach.

Josh and Maggie loved burying Mom in the sand.
Josh also loved being turned into Sharkman!

With our friends enjoying a delicious Italian dinner overlooking the harbor.

Here's the harbor at night
And here it is at dusk

It was a great trip and we enjoyed getting to know our new friends. As you can tell, we've been busy having a lot of fun here in Germany. I promise, I do work. However, we had four three-day weekends in a row and we tried to take advantage of them. Arrivederci!

Time to catch up (Part 1 of 2)

So it has been a whirlwind couple of months (not like the previous ones were any less so) and we have totally neglected our blogging audience. So here goes:

Frankfurt Castle and Rhine River Cruise

After moving into our house (see last entry) we decided to get out and see a little bit of Germany. Our first real outing was to go up to Frankfurt on a Friday evening to see a nearby castle, stay the night with my Dad and Julie and then wake up Saturday to take a Rhine River cruise with my dad, Julie, and Grandma Haycock. The kids loved being on the boat and seeing the other boats and castles. We probably saw a dozen or so castles during a couple hour cruise down the river. Here are some of the highlights from the weekend.

Josh was excited to meet his first "real" knights. Notice that Josh dressed up appropriately for the occasion.

Sir Joshua (officially knighted at the castle) and his best buddy, Grandpa.

Some of the beautiful scenery from our cruise:





Here are some bonus pics from our "cruise":



At the end of the cruise we arrived in the village of St. Goar where we took a tour of the amazing Rheinfels Castle. Josh, as usual, was the biggest fan of the castle. He and Grandpa spent most of their time exploring all the nooks and crannies of the castle in search of dragons. Fortunately for us, all the dragons they found were already locked up behind closed door. The first few pictures are of the train/shuttle ride up the mountain to the castle.