Miss Anika

I'm in Mountain Home, Idaho with my sister right now.
Her Baby is due on April 17th but for a little while it seemed like she was planning on coming out early so I packed my kids in the car and headed towards Idaho. Well actually I first headed towards Las Vegas, we spent the night there in a hotel and then the next day I drove the remaining 10 hours to Mountain Home.
The drive wasn't as stressful as I thought it would be, the kids did pretty good. Mainly because we had the little DVD player with us in the car so they were entertained most of the time. Thank Heaven for portable DVD players :)
Anika (my sister's baby) seems to take her time now and I'm almost sure that she won't come the next few days, that means I probably won't be there when she's born :(.
We really have to head back, we just have too much going on at home we can't be gone for more than two weeks.
I'm gonna pick up Jan from the airport here on Wednesday, I'm so glad he's gonna drive back with us. Like I said, the drive is not that bad but you're going through the Mojave Desert for hours and hours without seeing a single house, car, animal or human being, it's beautiful but you get very tired after a few miles of nothing. It's gonna be a lot easier on the way back when Jan is with me and we can take turns and I have someone to chat with.
Tomorrow is my birthday and for some reason I am really excited. We're thinking about going to Boise and eat at the Cheescake Factory tomorrow unless Ute goes into labor of course, that would be absolutely fine with me too :)
I'm soo excited to have a new baby in the family soon and this time I'm not the one who has to go through labor, hehe. As soon as Miss Anika decides to come out I'll let you know and post some pictures!
There is one more thing: I made some washable nursing pads for my sister, they are such an easy and fast sewing project, really inexpensive and they work at least as good as the expensive ones you can buy at the store! Here's the link: http://www.passionatehomemaking.com/2009/04/homemade-nursing-pads.html

I finally...

... have a few minutes while the kids watch Strawberry Shortcake.
Things are crazy right now. I know, I say all the time that things are crazy, but for some reason they really are most of the time :).
Jan has a lot of work and he started taking classes again, we hope he'll be able to finish his Bachelor's Degree this year. But that means right now that he doesn't have a lot of free time.

It is only a few weeks now until Ute's baby is due. I'm very excited, it's gonna be great to have another baby in the family! Ute asked me to sew her a changing pad and I did, Leeann helped me pick out the prints for the fabrics. I used one layer of fleece, quilt batting and a layer of regular cotton (quilting) fabric.

We're still making plans to go to Germany this summer and I am sooo excited! My mom has only one more round of chemo to go next week! I hope things will calm down a little here and I'll have more time to write next time...
Here some pics of the changing pad I made for Ute's baby:

Tyler's new backpack :)

I finally had my sewing machine repaired :)
The first little project I did was a little backpack for TyTy.
He loves backpacks but until now he had to carry around Leeann's and they are usually pink or purple :S.
Anyway, we went to Joann's and Tyler picked out the cars fabric.

It's a really easy project, it took me about an hour and I was talking to hubby and watching TV while I did it, without distraction I guess it'll take no longer than 20-30 min.
Tyler really likes it and uses it to take his little toy tools everywhere, we also use it for church or playdates to put a change of clothes or snacks in it.
Excuse the bad quality of the photos, I took them with my phone since my camera disappeared mysteriously (I have an idea who made it disappear)...

Here's the link for the tutorial I got the idea and instructions from:

http://mamaurchin.com/pats-tuts-and-how-tos/how-to-sew-a-string-backpack/

Valentine's Day :)

Wow, it's been over a week since I last posted something! I've just been extremely busy, mostly in a good way. The weekend was great! We had a CCV neighborhood BBQ at the park Saturday afternoon, then we had our night out Saturday too. It was great, we went to The Cheesecake Factory for the first time. The food was just delicious, and the cheesecake...yum! It's not cheap though, we paid about 70 $ in the end, it's for special occasions only :)
Then Sunday, Valentines Day, was beautiful too. Our church had the official grand opening party (we just moved into a new building) with a BBQ and bouncy castle, it was fun! We had A LOT of hot dogs this weekend, I think I'm done with those for a while.
Our church had childcare for Valentines Day from 4 to 8, so Jan and I went out again. I have to tell our children's pastor what a great idea that was, I think it was the first time since we have kids that we actually got to go out on Valentine's Day. We went to Ground Control first and had coffee and appetizers which were great, real Italian, like the food I remember eating as a kid when I was on vacation in south Italy, not easy to get that kind of food here! After Ground Control we went to the West Gate Area and I had a waaaay to expensive Martini that wasn't good at all. Anyway, Jan and I had a lot of time to talk and I think we both enjoyed it a lot.
Talking about Jan, he just got home so I have to go. Both kids are napping btw, I can't believe it!

Dirty Jobs

I can't tell you how wonderful it is just to sit on the couch and watch Dirty Jobs with hubby. It's not even half as funny without Jan. If you haven't watched it yet, you should. Mike Rowe is just hilarious and I didn't even know there were so many dirty jobs out there. Today Mike is working on an ostrich farm.
Slowly we're getting back into a routine here, last week was just complete chaos. Jan went back to work on Wednesday and for some reason in the 3 weeks he has been back, I already forgot what to do with the kids and myself all day. So I kind of let the house go and myself. Now everything is getting back in control. I can't stand a messy house. At least not any more, before Leeann was born I didn't care, I don't know what changed but I just can't stand it anymore and I'm glad I can't.

We're trying to figure out right now when we'll finally be able to go back to Germany for a few weeks. We'll have to see if/when Jan will deploy and when he'll be able to get leave long enough. My cousin is getting married this summer, so it would be great if we could make it to the wedding. I have a huge extended family and I'm pretty sure all of them will be invited. In the summer Jan hasn't been to Germany for 3 years, I haven't been there for 2 years.
I can't wait to see my mom again for the first time after her diagnosis. Another reason why I can't wait to go home and see everyone again: I realized how fragile life is, how fast it can all change. People keep telling you this but you don't realize it until something happens to you or your family. I'm thankful that this something was something curable these days. And for some reason I believe that my mom will fully recover.
I'm just happy, content and grateful right now to have Jan back by my side :)

pets

For years now we've been thinking about a pet. We always wanted a dog because Jan and I both were never allowed to have a dog when we were kids. When I was little, the apartment we lived in didn't allow pets, at least not dogs and cats and my dad didn't want to have pets at all. I HATED it, I was lucky enough to get a bird and later a turtle but I always missed having a pet to touch and play with. I remember I daydreamed for hours about having a dog.
But we're not sure about getting one now since we are moving a lot and that's probably not gonna change for another 15 years or so.
Leeann just started asking for a Bearded Dragon because her friend Hailey has one. Bearded Dragons are pretty high maintenance though and we are traveling a lot (to visit family in Tennessee, Idaho and Germany) and it's gonna be next to impossible to take the dragon and I'm not sure if we could just ask someone to take care of such a complicated little lizard...Asking someone to take care of a dog would probably be less complicated and demanding (especially if that person has a dog too, and A LOT of people do).
So, we have no idea what to do, for now it seems like a good idea to not get a pet at all. We just wanna make sure whatever little animal we chose will have a good life with us.
I think we're gonna wait a little while but at some point we will go ahead and adopt a puppy. I know that my husband feels the same way, we're just gonna wait another few years or so, we'll be fine :)

a few updates

I was busy the last few days, Jan finally found a truck, a 2001 Dodge Ram. Things just don't work out with just one car around here, so I'm really glad we can just get rid of the Honda now , it's not working since June.
We watched the book of Eli yesterday and I was really surprised that you could almost label it a christian movie. I say almost because there is a lot of violence and it is rated R, but the violence is only supposed to reflect the difficult and violent times it plays in. We really thought it was a good movie.
Leeann had her Spiritline (cheerleading) Promo Night on Friday and I can't wait to see her in her little outfit! She's gonna have practice every Tuesday afternoon and then games Friday nights in April and May, I'm really excited and I think she is too!
My mom just had her 4th round of chemo of a total of 6 rounds, so only two more to go and it's over! Her hair can grow back and hopefully she can be her old healthy pre-cancer self again :).
Well, actually it's not completely over yet, she will still have to go through radiation but that won't be a big deal, I hope.
Jan is going back to work this week. I'm a little sad that he won't be able to spend that much time with us anymore but I'm excited too that everything is going back to normal like it was before he left.