We're BACK!

Ready for Spring!

So much has gone in since I wrote last...

My parents came to visit.  My dad was sick for most of the trip, so my mom was able to lay low and help out around the house, and help entertain Clara!  It was so nice to have an extra pair of eyes and hands around.  So many people take for granted having their families around... being away from both sides of our families has helped to teach us to not take for granted the help from grandparents when it is offered!  Oh how I wish we were living in Texas or Michigan when this next baby gets here!  Taking care of two will be challenging, but we can do it (hoping Nick won't get sent anywhere in the first few months... if so you will all be receiving desperate e-mails)!

We moved AGAIN!  Right after we unpacked, our floor started peeling very badly, giving splinters in our socks!  So when I called the housing division they said they would reseal it, then the next day I got a call saying we needed to move to another apartment.  Luckily the one under was available so it was a pretty easy move.  Sadly, they would not give us a bigger apartment,  so we are still stuck in a tiny 800 sq. feet.

Clara on moving day... it really wore her out!

Nick "tried out" for Air Assault school and will be headed there shortly, then shortly after that he will be headed to the Democratic Republic of the Congo!  So he has some very exciting events coming up!  We are interested to see how they get him to the Congo!  I told him to take lots of pictures!  Keep him in your thoughts the next few months, he has a lot going on with work and to add school to it!  What a guy!

Clara turned 1!  We had a great time eating cake with granny and grampy and Nick cooked some great fajitas!

Playing with her new book from Aunt Pat!

Lowest possible sugar/ calorie cake I could... I will save the sugar and calories for when she will eat more then a few bites of it!

Sharing cake with Daddy!

On the phone with Nonno and Nonna on her birthday!

Clara has also become OBSESSED with wearing her helmet.  We have been riding our bike around since the weather has gotten warmer and Clara wants to wear her helmet for everything... dinner, playing, napping!  Safety First, I guess??

We also found out we are having a little boy and as of now he will be called Finn Robert Ingrao.

Clara went on her first eater egg hunt today!  The MWR program on post sponsored it.  She caught on after a while and picked up a few eggs on her own... only two at a time though, because we had to show her to put them in her basket, not just walk around holding them, then drop them to pick up too more!  She enjoyed it and especially the other kiddos!

Thats it in a nutshell!

Let's try this again...

This will be my second time to try and blog today, as Clara deleted my 3 paragraphs earlier.... she thinks it is hilarious when she touches the keyboard (b/c she knows she is not supposed to...).

First off, we got our STUFF!  Just minutes ago we actually unpacked the last two boxes.  Trying to fit everything in this little apartment is very frustrating.  I hated everything about the house in MO while we were there.. but now I miss it oh so much.  It is very crowded with the three of us in it, and the thought brining a baby into it frightens me.

The weather has gotten MUCH nicer.  It turns out the sun does NOT hate German and we have had several pleasant days in the last week.  When it is nice out, this place comes alive!  There are so many kids on our kasern that when it is pretty outside and you open the windows all you hear is kids playing.  Clara loves to go on rides in her wagon and watch the kiddos.  She loves it even more when she can get out and run with them (yes she is RUNNING now).  She wants so badly to keep up with them and gets very angry when I pull her away.  She enjoys the swing and the slide the most.  After she goes down a slide she will try to climb back up it (maybe a few steps) then sit back down as if to slide again.

We got her a picnic table for her birthday.  I put it together and it is in our living room and she will push it over to the TV stand and climb on top of it to get to the TV.  She thinks this is hilarious also... she pretty much thinks it is funny if she is not supposed to do it.  The terrible twos should be fun!

Granny and Grampy get here Thursday, just in time to celebrate Clara's first birthday!  I can't believe it has been a year!  They are excited to see where we live and see in person everything I complain about!  We are thinking about taking a short road trip somewhere, or a train trip.  We are going to be spontaneous though.  I have to drive to Frankfurt to pick them up, which will be my first long drive on the Autobahn by myself... Yikes!  As of now they will be staying with us, it should be interesting have 4 adults in this little apartment.  Hopefully it will make us get out and about.

Oh how I long for the house I hated in Missouri....

I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T

Clara's newest trait is her need to do absolutely everything on her..  Rarely does she want help, will scream when you pick her up, push the spoon out of the way when I am holding it, hates riding in the stroller.  She wants to walk up the stairs to the apartment by herself, which she can pretty much do, however now she would like to go down them on her own too.  While I want her to learn how to do this, it just takes about 5 minutes to walk down the one flight of stairs...  I have also resorted to a lot of finger foods for her.  She is working in using some training utensils, but it is usually at the end of breakfast where I let her "explore" using them.  She knows to dip the spoon  in the bowl, then that goes into her mouth.  Rarely does what is on the spoon make it into her mouth though...

Here is what she looked like after she won her fight for being independent at dinner...

Needless to say, bath time was pushed ahead about 2 hours last night!  The Ingrao's will be happy to know that that is an Italian dish all over her!  She loves her ravioli and spaghetti...  

Daddy at Happy Kids!

This Monday, Nick had off for Presidents Day, so we headed to Eppleheim to show him Happy Kids!  He had a blast climbing around with Clara!  It was also fun to show him some of Clara and Mommy's typical activities.  Needless to say, he was pretty worn out at the end of it!

At the top of the Alligator slide!

Weeeeee!

Keep up with me, Daddy!

Clara will barely take a break for a picture... this girl is nonstop!

One of the few times she accepts help from us... she is getting VERY INDEPENDENT.

She loves to play in the balls!

Daddy watching Clara in the balls (and possibly taking a breather)!

Down the big slide... she refuses to sit in our laps...

And we ended here for the day!

This keeps making me laugh-

So, the language difference here can sometimes be really funny!  A lot of the translations are very literal.  As in "Lizzy produced dinner" as opposed "Lizzy made dinner", etc.

The FUNNIEST one this far was when we were at the emergency room for Clara when she was so sick (when we were 5 hours away from home in a foreign country...) MURPHY'S LAW...

Anyways, the doctors and nurses spoke a decent amount of language and between all of us we were able to get our points across.  One of the nurses came in the room and gave us cream to use on the "baby's ass".  At first I was not sure if she had referred to my infants bottom as an ass or not... Then she came in again to tell us that "the baby's ass will get very red from being so sick".  Then Nick and I both looked at each other, like did she really say that?  Every time she came in she wanted to know how "baby's ass" was doing.  It made us crack up during a frantic time, so it was good.

When I want to kind of giggle about it and talk about the crappy language barrier, I have to remember that she knows a hell of a lot more English then I know German!

Oh yeah... and Valentines!

So, this morning, Nick took Clara and I brunch on post in Heidelberg!  It was great!  They have a really nice pavilion there, that they use for special events!  The food was great, and it was great to get up and out of the house early in the morning!

Here is a picture of Nick and his Valentine at Brunch!

Learning...

So today I decided I wanted to learn to make a cake using fondant icing!

I made the fondant from scratch using marshmallows and powdered sugar.  It was a lot of fun and the whole process kept me occupied for a nice amount of time!

I am LEARNING so it is not perfect at all.  I have a lot of left over fondant, so I will probably be trying again this week.  Considering I have about 5 kitchen utensil, I don't think it is too bad.  When I get all my kitchen gear, this will be even more fun!  My goal is to get really good by Clara's birthday so I can make her a cake to match her tutu!

Here is my first attempt!