Look what Jackson did!

I was a little bored one day so I thought what the heck, why not try finger painting. I love things like that and so I'm sure Jackson would love them too!  I was right for about 5 minutes!  I realized he is still very young for this and really loves putting things in his mouth but it was super cute and now he has a framed piece of art work on his dresser made just for him by him!  We even sent a get well card to Great Grandpa W made by Jackson!

Beep.....Beep............Beep

You know that annoying sounds you hear when your smoke detector's battery is getting old? You know that high pitched BEEP every 5 minutes.  Yesterday this was going on all day long. I wait for Josh to get home from work because I of course can't reach the stupid thing and am not going to carry a ladder up those crazy spiral stairs.

So I have forgotten about the BEEP until bath time until I am oh so rudely reminded by BEEP! Josh is immediately on it. It's almost Jackson's bedtime and believe me we do not want to keep him up at night! So he removes the detector and takes it down stairs. A nice temporary relief from the BEEP! 

We sort of forget about it until we're ready for bed. Brushing our teeth when BEEP... what?!?! we haven't heard it for the last hour and a half and now really.  We obviously took down the wrong one.  So Josh is off on the hunt for the other smoke detectors and finds one in the attic.  He takes that down and we're off to bed. 

We just lay down when BEEP...really?!?!  You have got to be kidding me.  This time we're both looking for the stupid thing. We go downstairs and listen, no beep.  We go back to the attic, beep... ok we think we have found it. When he gets it down BEEP but oh no it is not this one!

So we're back on the hunt and searching every room in the house where we have found a blended in smoke detector!! BEEEP.  Ahhh, good it's the one!! Josh takes it down stairs and removes the battery. He sets it next to the other one we have already taken down when BEEP!! It seems we now have 2 bad batteries, so he removes the other battery and now there is silence! :)

Now all I have to worry about is there being a fire in the middle of the night and we have 2 smoke detectors sitting on the kitchen table with the batteries removed! Don't worry everything was ok and we have new batteries ready to go!!

A visit to the farm!

Before a trip to the farm has always meant a trip to my Grandma and Grandpa's farm, but since we're a little far away right now we took Jackson to another little farm.  The weather is turning nice so it was a great way to get out a little bit!

I think our favorite part were the pigs, they were digging in the mud and then were chasing each other around.  It was pretty funny!

They also had cows which you can watch get milked or maybe even help milk every day.

There were tons of chickens where you can reach in and pull out your own eggs.  Josh got a nice surprise when he opened the door to check for an egg and there was a chicken right there.  (I think it scared him, though he wouldn't admit it)

Then after you are all done at the farm you can buy any other their own organic products.  Meats, cheese, eggs etc. We just got the ice cream :)

We're still here!

Well you get to hear a lot about Jackson but not a lot about Josh and I, so why not have a little update. (I know it's not nearly as exciting as hearing about Jackson but too bad!)

Where to start, we're just sooo exciting!  Well for starters, I am finally breaking out of my shell a little bit and have joined a International Womens Club and a baby group to take Jackson to.  It is still very new to us but we have met some great people and are looking forward to the interaction and friends we will make.  I kept putting it off because of not having a way to get there, which leads me to my next great topic. I finally after 10 months of being here have decided to get a car.  We are just renting it for a year but it a VW Up! brand new 2012.  Pretty exciting since I have not had a car since December 2010.  It's hard to believe I know!! 

All of this was prompted by our week of no heat! Long story short- it was the coldest week of the year and the people just didn't really know how to fix the heat so we had a house that was 50 degrees for about a week. Don't worry we're all back to normal!!!

In other trip news we have been asked to stay a little longer than 18 months and will now be here until March 1, 2013.  Of course it's hard to be away from family but we're excited to be able to be back for Jackson's 2nd birthday and to hopefully travel a little more while we're here!

Speaking of traveling, our latest and greatest trip was back into France for a visit to Normandy and to also see Mont Saint Michel. Both we're amazing and I really recommend it to everyone if you get a chance. Normandy is such a huge part of WWII history and it really was a sight to see! Hard to imagine all the lives lost, but makes you really thankful for the people who gave their lives to save so many others!!

Mont Saint Michel, is so amazing! It is basically an island off of the coast of France where the tide comes at some 17 feet per second. The monks built a church at the top of this island at the highest point in order to be closer to God.  There is so much history that has gone on there and you can't believe you're walking into a little "village" that is so old yet still so beautiful and more extravagant than anything you will see built this day and age! (Josh gives a much better description of it than I do)

We have really enjoyed our trips and are planning a few more, one to England, one to Rome and hopefully another (place yet to be determined). 

Josh is still enjoying his job here and we're so excited to have some more visitors in March, then April, then May and still more after that!  We hope everyone is doing well and I hope you have enjoyed catching up on Josh and I as much as you do Jackson :)

There I have doubled the amount of blogs that I did last month!  I swear I will try and be better!!

11 Months

Well it's hard to believe it has already been another month since I have done our last blog!  Time really is going so fast! Jackson turned the big 11 months yesterday and is continuing to amaze us at how fast he is growing and changing everyday!

Some of the latest and great accomplishments are walking with things (well pushing around anything that will move-this includes the vaccuum), pointing, saying dada dada dada over and over. I try and tell him no I'm mama! :) Jackson is also saying words that maybe only mom and dad can understand but we think they are hi, ga=grace, we even get the occassional bye.  He waves when you leave a room or if he is ready for bed, he loves to turn the pages of books and throw balls, he makes lots of silly faces, and is just constantly on the go. 

We have joined a baby/toddler group and Jackson seems to really be loving it!  He gets to play with lots of other kids and is getting socialize which is great (for me too!!) He comes home just exhausted making for a great nap time in the afternoon!

We busy getting prepared for the big 1st birthday with some visitors from home!  Hopefully I will have more posts between now and then! Until next time....

10 months old

Jackson's 9th month has come and gone while we celebrated Christmas back in Iowa. We had a great time seeing our family and tried to see a few friends while we were back as well!  The flights are proving to be much more difficult now that Jackson is more mobile!! So we're happy to have the flight behind us!!

Now we have already gotten to Jackson's 10 month birthday.  We can hardly believe it!  He really changed so much from 9 months to 10 months.  He has now gone from scooting to full out crawling. Sitting to pulling up and standing and he is now daring enough to let go while standing up for a few seconds while giggling at the excitement of standing alone!!! He went from having 4 teeth to now 8 teeth and I believe we're going to have a little chatterbox here pretty soon.  The only words we can make out are Dada and the occassional mama or ga (which we assume is Grace).  But he is jabbering all the time and keeping us very entertained!

We have now babyproofed even more and are finding out everyday that there is still more to do!!

In other news, we have just booked our February adventure to Normandy and are looking forward to having a few days away and we getting very excited for our string of visitors to start arriving in March to help us celebrate Jackson 1st birthday! 

Time for the holidays

In the Netherlands they celebrate with Sinterklaas on the 5th of December so Jackson was pretty lucky and Sinterklaas came to visit him and brought along a small gift for him aswell. This was the first gift he has ever opened and he did really well.  Of course the wrapping paper is a better gift than what is actually inside :) Jackson was also lucky enough to get a nice gift from our neighbors here, we're kind of spoiled!!

Up until now there has not been alot of "to-do" about Christmas here, no black Friday or anything!! I did hear about a little Cyber-Monday on the radio but nothing like back in America!!! It is getting more and more popular to celebrate Christmas in The Netherlands, it seems to be as children get older they celebrate Christmas more and more. 

Germany is like America and Christmas is everywhere.  We kept hearing about the Christmas markets so last weekend we went to Dusseldorf, Germany to check one out.  It was so neat!!! There were vendors everywhere selling all kinds of sweets, Christmas ornaments, bratworsts, and my favorite warm mulled wine. They also had a cross country skiing track set up with "fake" snow, an ice skating rink and a little sledding slide for the kids.

When we got there it was a little overwhelming!  People everywhere, we couldn't even get through with the stroller without hitting someone.  (sorry to those people)  We weren't the only crazys with a stroller though!!! First off, we hit up the wine station and got some yummy brats then Jackson and Josh took a little ride on the merry-go-round! It was such a fun afternoon, I'm sure we could've spent all day there!!!