Our Christmas

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! We certainly enjoyed ours. We sure miss home on the holidays though!

Here are some videos and pictures of our Christmas morning!

This video can explain why it took us an hour to open gifts. Miles has to be the slowest 2 year old ever to open presents!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Can you tell that it stays dark well into the morning? It's 8am!

The sun finally rose by the time Miles was finished! Time for stockings. Brad got Modern Warfare 2 and I have not seen him since. Every spare moment... "pow pow pow Ahh! I'm dying! Get cover!"

I made the leap...

and got bangs!

Ok so I normally would not blog about a haircut, especially my own. But hey, I've had the same hairstyle for....ever (almost) and have always been too chicken to get more than 3 inches off much less a new style.

So whatdya think?? More like a mom? or am I just finally catching up with last decades style?

chokes

This video is actually for Brad so he can view it from work. Just about everything fun is blocked from his work but not blogger! :)

Miles did some serious choking tonight. It was very scary. I want to learn CPR and the heimlich maneuver now. Anyway, this is Miles

recapping his choking experience.

When he hits himself on the back he is imitating me when I had him

hanging over my arm pounding on his back. Silly kid.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

5 degrees outside

...but feels like -3 according to weather.com. It's SO cold!!

Christmasy Weekend

We're getting excited for Christmas! How about you?

Brad has been on night shift this weekend so Miles and I have been keeping busy and trying to stay quiet so Daddy can sleep.

Here's some pics from our Christmasy weekend.

Miles was throwing snow away!

Making some Christmas crafts for the refridge.


Christmas cookies!

Updates

I know that some of you were aware that Brad applied for a little program this year and like us, were anticipating the results. Just wanted to let you know that it did not work out at this time in his career. It wasn't meant to be and we do what we do best... move on.

There are still many open doors for us in the military realm. Fortunately for us, we get to stay in Germany and complete the tour. That being said, we have about a year left here. We're considered "movable" at the 2 year mark and that is this summer!

So, if Germany is one of those places you want to see then please come visit while we have the accommodations!

In other news... I had surgery yesterday. It was about time I tackled some of the tumors in my breasts. I went in with the intentions to remove two of them but the first one took almost 3 hours to remove! Both the surgeon and I were so frustrated with this thing we named it "Tommy the Tumor." Would you believe me if I told you it was the size of a golf ball?? And that was just one of them! There are at least 7 or 8 that are that size and dozens more that are smaller. I've been joking with Brad that if I get all these things removed then I won't even fill out an A-cup anymore! Haha

Anyway, it was pretty painful and it will take a lot of coaxing to go back. I definitely think I'll opt to get knocked out next time. No idea why I chose to be awake for that. Nightmares!

Hope everyone has a good weekend! Can you believe Christmas is 2 weeks away?? Time sure flies!

Edelweiss

We're home from Edelweiss! Pretty cool place but we definitely went at the wrong time of year. We were too late for the beautiful summer gardens and summer tours but too early for skiing/winter activities. It's been such a mild fall/winter so far that we didn't have enough snow to go skiing. :( But, we'll be back!

Here is some of what we did...

Located in the foothills of the Alps! Gorgeous!
Town of Garmisch. It's like one long strip of shopping. Of course Grandma and I hit that up!
Enjoying a traditional German dinner. Brad was still hungry...

Love these rocking chairs. They were in front of a roaring fire. Great for a long day after skiing. Oh wait...
Recognize this building? No? We didn't either... It's McDonalds!
More rocking.
At the Linderhof palace. Beautiful! Another one of Mad Kind Ludwig's castles.
These swans had to be freezing but gosh aren't they gorgeous?


Brad and Miles in front of the Linderhof Palace.

Nappy time!

Christmas market 09'

So we took my mom to the Weihnachtsmarkt or Christmas Market this year. The Christmas market alone was one of the main reasons I wanted her to come out the time of year she did because we were so impressed with it last year. It is such a world-wide attraction!

Here we are on the train ride there. It's only 6 stops down from our house.
This is the Neues Schloss in downtown Stuttgart. You many recognize this from some of our daytime pics. This is where the Christmas market is located!
Tasting some traditional German Glühwein.

I thought this picture was neat because the streets are lined with markets and the old church is in the background.
Right after the sun set. The whole downtown is so lit up!
My mom buying some treasures from one of the markets.
Thanksgiving evening. My mom was here too but couldn't manage to get a picture of all of us. Fun night!

Christmas tree time!

So, I did a lot better than last year! This year I almost made it to Thanksgiving before decorating. Last year I think we decorated a couple weeks before. Maybe I won't get so sick of our tree this year?

First things first. Plastic ornaments go at the bottom so the cats and toddler can knock them off as much as they want.

Here is a cute video of Miles discovering the moon. It's true! The moon really exists outside of the books!

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SLOW week!

So it's definitely been the quiet before the storm this week. We've literally had nothing going on other than playdates and a ladies night for myself. Brad had 6 days off and was in so much pain from that medicine ball hitting his face last week.

It ended up getting infected and the inside of his mouth was this giant open abyss. It was pretty gross. So the poor guy was miserable and couldn't eat, drink or talk really. So we just stayed home and laid low for Daddy's sake. He's finally doing better but that only means it's time to go back to work.

My mom will be out here in less than a week! Yay!

We plan to do so much! It's nice to have someone from the family to come spend Thanksgiving with us. This year is the first year my whole family lives in the same city (that is like unheard of in the Baker family) and of course I have to live across the world (which I guess means we still don't all live in the same city.) It makes me sad and I wish so bad I could be there to be with them, but having my mom out here makes me feel so much better. It's also nice to have such great friends here too. That's one of many things I love and cherish about the military community. We all take care of each other and it's as though we are family!

So you might find this video interesting. Miles has learned a new word and loves to execute that word constantly. Can you guess what this word is?

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Happy Birthday USMC!

Happy Birthday to all the Marines out there!

Today is the 234th birthday of the USMC and I am so proud to be a part of America's elite fighting force. Brad has been in for 9 years now and is one of the toughest Marines I know. He started off in the infantry and served 4.5 years as a rifleman. If you ever asked him about his infantry days he would have some amazing stories to tell you, especially since he was in one of the first units to invade Iraq back in 2003. Since then he switched jobs to an intel analyst at the request of his worried wife and has served 2 more deployments to Iraq.

Here are 2 of my favorite Marine commercials. Every time I watch them I get chills down my spine. I really have such a special spot in my heart for this country and our military. I know tomorrow is also Verteran's Day so if you see a Soldier/Sailor/Marine/Airman in uniform please send them your thanks and appreciation! I know it always means a lot to Brad.

Poor Brad!

So what a weekend for Brad! Brad likes to do this workout that they used to train the men from the movie 300. I think it is now safe to say this workout is doing him more than he is doing it. See pic below:


The workout includes throwing a 20 pound medicine ball to the wall, catching it, squatting, and throwing it back to the wall. Over and over and over. Well something went wrong yesterday with one of his throws. The ball hit a lip or ledge in the wall and instead of falling back to the ground, it show straight out and hit his face.
Not only was the poor guy's head swollen to all get-out but we had family pictures scheduled the very next morning! (Today)
Needless to say, we did not go get our picture taken because Brad would have looked like this:

This picture actually makes him look good! I took it a couple hours ago. Thankfully the swelling has gone down a little today. I guess his tooth punctured his inner lip pretty bad and his face is pretty bruised up. Poor guy has a pounding headache that hasn't gone away since the event. I guess things could have been worse!

Shadow Art

I didn't even know this kind of art existed! I just kinda stumbled into it on the internet this morning. I think it's so creative! Brad needs to take me to an art museum one of these days so I can get with the times. I just love this kind of stuff.

Halloween pics

It's not like trick or treating in the States but Miles wouldn't know the difference. Because base housing is apartments people set shop outside and wait for you. I guess it makes for some convenient trick or treating. Here are some pics...enjoy!

Friends that we went with.