Oh My Goodness

This Christmas was a surprise-filled display of utter awkwardness. I will do my best to capture all it's goodness but I fear I will fail, so just imagine all the details that I forgot to write.

It all started with a phone call Christmas eve day around 2PM. A 25ish-year-old new member from mainland China studying at a university in Scotland appeared in Berlin and needed a place to stay overnight. The missionaries called the stake president, who called some bishops, looking for a mandarin speaking member who wouldn't mind having him overnight. We got the phone call asking if we could help him out, of course.

I get the irony -- a lonely traveler on Christmas can't find a place at the inn and is looking for a place to stay. I should have immediately opened my home and welcomed him in no questions asked, but I was pretty upset for a variety of reasons: this is our last time as a family together before Jeremy leaves for his deployment, I'm not prepared food/present wise, my house is a mess, I have two small children and I don't know how I feel about a stranger in the house with them, are my dogs going to kill him in the night, will I have to teach English for the next few days, etc. Needless to say, I wouldn't be much of a Christian if I didn't act as Christ would, so we offered up our spare bedroom and frantically began preparing for his arrival.

I wish I could tell you more about who he was or why he was here. For the next three days (yup, they just said he'd be here one night but he loved it so much he extended his trip) he asked me ONE question. The rest of the time I was stuck having to come up with a MILLION questions for our visitor to fill the super awkward silence. He always answered with one word answers so there wasn't much to expand on any topic I was able to come up with.

Day One -- He tagged along to our friends house with us. They managed to figure out that he was hitch hiking with a friend from France, they got into a fight and he ended up in Berlin solo. He was planning to hitch hike from Berlin to Freiberg and needed a place to stay along the way. His goal was to travel around Europe for the next two months (by hitch hiking) and see as many temples as he can. That's how he found us. He was terrified of our dogs, so they spent most of the next three days in their boxes. I had NO food in my house so we ate a lot of what we could find around the house and even dipped into our food storage.

Day Two - Christmas -- I had been planning on playing secret Santa for a lady in our ward so I had a chocolate bar, mini rubik's cube, a pretty journal I bought in India, and an Ensign about temples ready to wrap for our surprise guest. After we opened up gifts, I made him craft some labels and help make the Christmas candy for our neighbors. He didn't speak the WHOLE time. On the way to hand out presents I realized that he hadn't eaten since breakfast, even though I told him to snack on the finger foods I put on the table and showed him where all the snacks/food was. He was starving. My friend Shawna was just about to eat when I stopped by with her present, so I made our visitor a plate of food, which he held on his lap the whole way home and starred at.

Day Three -- We went to one of our friend's house for a boxing day party. Our visitor sat in the corner for most of the party, even though I asked him four or five times to come closer and join in the conversations. Jeremy had given up trying to socialize with him (or socialize him, however you want to think of it) and left me to keep going over to check up on him. Near the end he sat at the kids' table and helped build a gingerbread house. That evening we drove him into the city to catch a train; although I am pretty sure we walked back out to the road after we left and tried to hitch hike.

So... ummmm... not much more I can say about that. Total awkward balloons for all involved. I'm expecting HUGE blessings. HUGE.

And as a side note, I found a ton of Otter Pop wrappers in the garbage in his room. I guess he was eating the warm liquid freezies from the cupboard thinking they were some kind of fancy drink. I guess he wasn't THAT hungry.

Overall, I'm glad that our visitor got to spend the holidays with fellow members. I hope that he felt comfortable and loved, even though you could cut the awkwardness with a knife. It was a good experience for us as a family to realize that acts of charity don't come when you are always prepared. It forced us to get out and make the most of the holiday because we had someone counting on us make it special. It's certainly was a Christmas we won't forget anytime soon.

I didn't get many photos on Christmas day. That bummed me out, but I had other things on my mind.

Love this video of Abby happy (mad?) that Santa came. She wasn't fazed at all that we had a guest Christmas morning. Although she did make a pile behind her of all her gifts just in case the strange man got an inkling to play with any of her goodness.

Christmas OCD

Abby goes to a German school, so it's only fitting they speak only German. This causes quite the 'Lost in Translation'-type moments when it comes to things like field trips or special activity days that I am to participate in. It happened again just last week, when I thought I was invited to a special breakfast WITH the children. It turns out it was a special breakfast FOR the children and I was only supposed to drop off my food and leave. Cue 15 minutes of pure awkwardness, standing around, holding Oliver, dressed to the nines, wondering why there wasn't a place for me to sit and where the other parents where. They must have thought I was on crack. Ugh -- crazy foreigners!

Two things stuck out to me as I was standing around looking like an idiot: Germans don't care about peanut allergies because they give the kids big bowls of shelled peanuts as a snack every day -- rebel yell -- AND Abby most definitely got my OCD.

Just look at the awesome snowman she made below. It's the one up front. The other kids made their snowmen all crazy style with mismatching eye colors, crooked buttons with varying sizes, hat pompoms that don't go all the way across -- I could go on forever! **Shudder** Perhaps they would have performed better if they had parents were so invested in their academic careers they would even go uninvited to the special Christmas breakfast :P

That evening I was getting gas and backed into the gas pump. I was super glad we didn't explode in a fiery ball of flames and was pleased that there was no damage on that side of the car. Unfortunately, the bump knocked snow off the other side of the car and I was bummed to find out that someone had crashed into the back of our car and didn't bother to tell us.

I'd be super petty to be peeved over something so small when we've been so super blessed this year. I guess a vehicle is not really yours until you've -- or someone else -- has smashed it around a few times. I'm not going to bother to fix it; I think it gives the large beast some street cred.

Speaking of blessed... this year we were invited to have a traditional Christmas with a wonderful German/Swiss family in our ward. It was fabulous. Oalf and Antje are some of the most honest and humble people that I have ever met in my life, and it is truly a blessing to count them as some of our closest friends here. Oalf served his mission in Toronto, which makes him nearly a Canadian, right?

The Lewis missionaries are also fantastic. The Lewis' are serving as Abby's primary teachers, and she just adores having them around to cuddle and play with her. They have grandchildren nearly the same age as Abby and Ollie, and our children are a reminder of what wonderful little miracles await their return home next year.

We had a traditional feast of cold meats, cheeses, vegetables, eggs, and homemade breads.

Jeremy REALLY wanted to decorate our tree with real candles this year. Yup, not going to happen. Antje also gave in and used fake candles.

Antje had some little figurines that she got from her grandmother when she was very young. She let Abby play with them until she told us how precious they were. Jeremy and I were pushing each other out of the way to pry them out of Abby's hands. Some people are just too trusting.

I took this video of Abby without her knowing. She was in charge of sitting still for 2 minutes while we sang a song. She did.... well... see for yourself.

This is a random video of Oliver 'talking.' He makes these awesome high pitch sounds that do NOT sound like they come from a baby. He really freaks people out when he does them in public.

A Lesson in Patience

Anyone that needs a lesson in humility should attempt to take family Christmas photos. To be fair, I never should have tried to snap a few shots while we were already late for church, but I was a tad afraid the outfits would be ruined before we returned home. I could not get Abby or Ollie to look at me at the same time, and it was nearly impossible to get a picture without one or both of them crying or whining. You are just going to have to take my word for it that they are super cute.

The following is the best of what can only be described as our mediocre family photos. I've added captions to at least make them interesting.

In this photo.... Abby and Oliver are making bets on who is going to make mom cry first.

This photo cracks me up because Oliver's head is twice the size of Abby's. It's almost like he's harboring a 'Megamind.'

Abby looks like she's about to drop a naughty word. You can almost see the trouble brewing.

This photo would be cute if she didn't look like she was a Cullen. What's with the blue tinge?

Oliver's hair has a Ludwig Von Beethoven feel to it. I'm not about to cramp his 1770's style by cutting it or brushing it down.

This was probably the best photo of the day. It's even better because I'm not in it.

My favorite boys got some cute shots together.

About 10 minutes into it Abby started to destroy the ornaments again, so we turned the photos into videos. Too bad we can't frame that joy.

Here is Abby singing O Christmas Tree in English and German:

This is Abby bossing Oliver around and tattling on him:

This is a perfect example of another crazy -- dogs barking, Oliver crying, Abby yelling -- Sunday at our house.

Twins

Jeremy decided that store vanilla was just not good enough for him, and went about creating his own. He ordered a variety of vanilla beans online and then got some vodka to finish the process. I am in charge of shaking this bottle every two days while he is gone. Lucky me!

Oliver loves to watch Jeremy cook.

The next day I was in charge of watching my friend's baby. He is adorable. They are about three weeks apart, so it felt very much like I had twins for the day. It was EXHAUSTING, but so much fun.

It was interesting watching them side by side and checking out the similarities and differences. Layton weighs a lot more than Ollie but he is way more mobile. He can nearly roll over and was constantly lifting his head and kicking his feet. That being said, he doesn't quite know how to use his fingers and grabs at things with his fists. Oliver is so deliberate with his moves and will use all his focus spreading his fingers, getting a good grip on whatever he wants, and then slowly moving things to his mouth. It's almost like he lives in slow motion. Layton loves to giggle, but Ollie is a fan of screaming and growling. I could have watched them all day.

Nobody panic! I moved the table up against the wall and Jeremy and I each sat near a child so nobody would fall off the table. We had to keep switching their entertainment so no one got bored. Luckily, at this age, they don't mind sharing.

They also spent some time in their car seats looking at each other. They both fell asleep soon after this photo was taken.

That afternoon we headed out to another Christmas market.

I want to buy a smaller version of this for my house.

Abby REALLY wanted to ride on this bench on the merry go round. Usually I let her do whatever she wants, but there was no way I was paying three euro for something she could sit on for free.

She met me half way and sat on the sled instead. I fear she may have gotten her dad 'adventurous' spirit. *Sigh*

A very special thank you to Denna for sending this obnoxiously loud Joy to the World book that Abby is obsessed with. She is so kind to play it every time Oliver is sleeping, we are on the phone, or when we have guests. I pray the battery runs out before my sanity does.

My friend, Kim, sent me this rocking burka for Christmas. She is currently deployed to Iraq and has limited present buying options. Do you think it's too much for my ward Christmas party?

Here is a video of Abby loving her new book:

Christmas Countdown

Dec 6th was St. Nicholas Day. All the boys and girls put a boot outside their bedroom door and he came and put presents in it. Abby was THRILLED.

The thrill wore off when she saw how practical St. Nicholas was. I thought this toothbrush (that was electric and came with a pile of stickers so she could decorate it) was fun. Apparently it was just confusing and pathetic. She'll thank me later when she doesn't have a mouth full of cavities.

I also got her some fun butterfly slippers to wear around the house. Ever since I fell down the stairs I've been pretty anal about her wearing either bare feet or socks with tread.

St. Nicholas got Jeremy a biography of Nelson Mandela, which coincidently was something I wanted to read as well. That crafty little man. I love Oliver's super squishy cheeks-o-chub.

We celebrated that night with citrus green beans, roast in a red wine gravy and garlic potatoes puree. Delish!

I can't believe my kids are fighting already!

I love how my ward in Germany goes against the church handbook and totally decorates the chapel for Christmas. It is AWESOME, and totally brings the spirit in more abundance to our meetings. It's a far cry from our chapel in Japan where I couldn't even hang a photo of the Savior on the wall because we didn't want to "ruin" the walls in the YW room. They did let me compromise by bringing a picture to class every week and fixing it to the white board with a magnet. My bishop totally sided with us (because he was seriously fantastic) but we had to share the building and respect the other ward craziness. I am SO happy we don't share a building here and can do whatever we want!