Andre's Birthday

Elliot and I had a lot of fun getting things for Papi's birthday ready.  I baked cupcakes for his colleagues and Elliot was so disappointed to see them gone the next morning.  I had a little cake in the freezer that we decorated for the afternoon and he was happy with that. 

 

We went to the flower shop and I let Elliot pick out one flower for Papi.  He picked out the white rose.  Nolan picked out the pink rose with Elliot's help. ;)

 

Elliot was so excited that it was Papi's birthday.  Maybe you can catch a little of his excitement even if the videos are mostly in German.

 

 

We think this is one of the best videos of Elliot we've ever taken. :)

Catching Up

 

Elliot needed pancakes for supper the other day, so I said yes.  I wanted to do something special for him--I had some metal cookie cutting forms and it worked out okay, but for several reasons, I  probably won't do it again.  The biggest reason is because when we sat down at the table (I was pretty proud of myself), Elliot said, "What is this?  I want ones like you, Mommy."  What did I have?  Normal round, plop them in the pan pancakes.  Go figure.

Momma Teddy is helping make pancakes.

Elliot's collection of balloon rabbits and one mouse.

The reason I am not losing weight--fried sweet bread!  Yummy!

Chestnuts--Part 2

I just can not let these chestnuts win.  Well, we had a second chestnut craft afternoon.  We painted the insides of the acorn hats and put them in a vase with chestnuts.  I really like the result.

 

Elliot's hats. :)

 

Yes, well, I wanted to do one of these really cute chestnut hearts that you see on the internet.  I even got wire (0.8 mm thick).  Hahahahahaha.  Andre just laughed when I told him what kind of wire it was.  To do a heart shaped chestnut wreath, you need the bailing wire.  The fence wire.  The sturdy wire--barely bendable.  These chestnuts are heavy little things.  My intended heart turned out to be an oval.  Oh well.  And I wanted to hang it on the door.  But what little string is going to hold that???  You need a big nail.  And we don't put big nails in our rented apartment door.

Who's who??

Train Station

We took Elliot to the main train station on Saturday for a look at some new trains that will be running in our area.  We thought he would love it--we left after 45 minutes...I guess there were just too many people.

 

They got on and off the train--maybe it lasted 30 seconds?

He got a little foldable tram.

This guy made Elliot a rabbit.  Unfortunately, it only lasted about 10 minutes and the tears were great.

 

Happy camper before the destruction of the rabbit.

This is really what he wanted to see the whole time--a model train system.  Put in a Euro and you have entertainment for 3 minutes!

 

Bugarian Shoebox Project--Part 2

On Friday, we packed all the shoe boxes.  There were things everywhere, but it went well!  We ran out of wrapping paper, but this week someone volunteered to do that.  We had a few things left over--scarves, a few pairs of underwear, etc, so we are just going to box it up and send it too.

 

Raczehas

Well, you are asking who Raczehas was???
Here was what Elliot was singing--can you name this tune???

Raczehas was climbing up a tree.  And He said, "Come down from that tree."  "Raczehas, I'm coming to your house today."

And we had snow last week.

Bulgarien Shoebox Project

When Andre was in Bulgaria last year with Larry, Ingo and Mark, they visited a Bulgarian orphanage about an hour outside of Sophia.  It really touched Andre's heart to see what the children do not have.  Larry made a list of things the children could use and we decided to do a shoebox project.  Each child will get a shoebox with socks, underwear, a scarf, school supplies, a package of Kleenex and a few other things.

We went shopping yesterday.  The orphanage has the capacity for 55 children, ages 7-18.  We decided to do 60 boxes just to make sure that everyone gets something.

 

Just socks and underwear.

Kye with four of our teens from church

I was so thankful for Doreen's help!

Elliot came with me--he did a great job.  Here we are buying the school supplies.

 

Hedgehogs

 We are having beautiful fall colors here!  We really have enjoyed the leaves and pretty fall flowers!

Elliot found two of my fun food cookbooks and told me that we needed to make the hedgehogs.  I had a few things at home and we bought a few things and here they are--our edible hedgehogs.  I ended up eating most of the hedgehogs since Andre is not a pear fan.

 

Keeping the baby warm.

 

Didn't wake up from his  stroller nap when I put him down, so I just left him in his bunny suit.

 

Chestnut Crafts.....NOT!

Go look at Pinterest for gorgeous chestnut crafts--the beautiful fall wreaths, the cute chestnut hearts, the creative little animals....I had high hopes of doing something like that this year. 

 

I hot glued chestnuts to wooden sticks.  Thought it could be a center piece for the table.



Elliot picked it up...one fell off.  I picked it up...another fell off.  I ended up taking the chestnuts back off and throwing the rest away.



Our chestnut snake, caterpillar....



Our sheep

A dog?



Huge!  Barely fits in Elliot's hand!

The rest of the chestnuts are sitting in a pile...what to do with all the chestnuts...maybe I will display them in a glass vase?