Winter Is Here

It has been crispy cold here over the past week with record setting low temperatures. Now all we are hoping for is a bit of snow. Sophie still keeps asking every single day. We spent a day at my sister's house in Gütersloh, where we at least had a dusting of the white stuff. 

 We keep hearing: "Well, you should have been here last year..."

I much prefer this over the rain we had in January though. 

Cousin Kiron's Birthday

It was Kiron's third birthday, so we headed over to Gütersloh for a quick overnight trip to help celebrate. Sophie and Kiron play very well together and they are always happy to see each other. 

 Sophie helped unwrap presents.

 Birthday cake at the kids' table. Note the miniature snow shovel and broom. All Kiron needs now is a lawn mover. He wants a pink one.

 I don't know what it is with Sophie's male friends to always want to try on her dresses. Kiron almost did not want to let go of this one. Very handsome.

Chilling in front of the TV at the end of a long day. 

Visiting Gütersloh Again

Since we are so relatively close now, we arranged another trip to visit my sister Anke and her sons in Gütersloh for a couple of days again. Unfortunately we seem to be attracting the rain there, so that most of the time was spent with indoor activities. 

 As soon as we arrived on Monday, we headed with Kiron and Anke to his gym class, where they had a Nikolaus party for the kids with lots of cookies and other goodies.

One of Sophie's favorite things to do was going on this giant swing.

 Running off the sugar high.

 Action shot!

 Singing about the Christmas bakery (Kiron, Anke, and Sophie)

 Baking Christmas cookies. Anke had found letter stamps to mark the cookies with. 

 But about twenty minutes into it, the attention span started to be stretched.

Of Monsters, Rain Boots, Koffers, and Bees

With all the rain last week we had to think of some silly games for inside.

 How about this for a scary Halloween costume. Note to self: must visit California next year in October for pumpkin patch, Halloween and some of the best weather of the year.

 A perfect fit I say.

 They journey to and from Anke's was almost over and I had still not taken a picture of Sophie's own brand new 'Koffer.'

Finally back for more ice cream when the sun came back. We had a bit of a bee scare this time. Look closely - it's flying right by Sophie (it only looks as if it landed on her hand). Sophie of course panicked and screamed. Talk about getting the German stare from the other tables! The bee finally drowned in Sophie's ice cream. What a way to go. 

(Just noticed the shot of the cigarettes and lighter - yuck!)