ZMC - Temper Tantrums!

Just so you don't think our smiley baby is ALL fun and games....here he is having a temper tantrum. See the sippy cup in his hand, he is angry/frustrated because I was trying to get him to drink from the cup instead of me pouring it in his mouth. Now he gladly takes the cup in his hand - and promptly dumps it over on his tray and plays w/ the liquid, OR dumps too much in his mouth and chokes, which makes him giggle. Sigh. The second picture was an attempt to get another tantrum on 'film', but everytime the red light for the flash came on, he stopped screaming. He is not smiling, he is mid-scream. If you look closely (or double click on the picture), you can see his two top teeth (with a nice gap between them!).

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone! We had a fun New Year's Eve, or Silvester - as they call it here in Germany (after a pope from the 1600s) - here in Dusseldorf. Art's brother Karl was here visiting us. The day started with us missing the 9:40am tram to church and taking the 10am tram. We still only missed 1 song from the service - they NEVER start on time! Then we went to the Altstadt (old town) to see if they still had the Christmas Market (Weinacht Market) booths up, but they didn't. So we walked around a bit and looked at downtown. We finally ate lunch at Space Burger. Burgers = great. Service = good. Zachary's behavior = abominable. Having had a big lunch, and Art just being a huge fan, we had a 'snack' dinner, where every course was a snack type food. I did insist we alternate a fruit/veggie for every other course. Some courses were currywurst, ham & cheese, chips & salsa, mango, paprika chips, cucumber, etc. Even Zach got to be part of the festivities by staying up until a little after 9pm! The evening's activities consisted of playing Cribbage, watching music concerts, taking turns comforting Zach (he had a bad night - waking up screaming every few hours), and talking to family (And Karl on the phone w/ his girlfriend). We rang in the New Year here at the apartment and spent 30-40 minutes after the New Year out on the balcony watching and listening to crazy German fireworks. Keep in mind that we live in a very residental neighborhood and these were serious fireworks, going 100ft into the air! They take their post-New-Year partying pretty seriously! Dexter unfortunately did NOT enjoy the fireworks. He would come to the balcony door very tentatively, and when I would open the door, he would run under the bed. This repeated several times. He was glad to crawl into bed with us around 12:45 and get some rest!

Merry Christmas to All!

Merry Christmas from Art, Shayna, Zachary, und Dexter


This year was a very different Christmas for us. Last year was different because we were in Taos, yet with my side of the family. This year was different because we were in Holland with Art's extended family - Oma Holland and Tante Mieke. We first celebrated Christmas in Dusseldorf by opening the stockings Mom sent to us. Zachary promptly stole something out of my stocking and claimed it as his own.

On Dec. 23rd, Oom Hans and Tante Jop came to pick us up. We left Dexter here in the apartment with a large portion of food and water as well as extra litter and kept our fingers crossed (he did just fine by the way). We arrived in Utrecht about an hour and a half after leaving Dusseldorf, just in time to get settled in before a borrel (pre-dinner snack and drink ~ 5pm - Dad, you would HATE it!). Tante Mieke had set up her very old wooden playpen for Zach (these days everyone has a pack-n-play). We loved it, as did Zach. We called it the box. As in "Do you want him at the table with us, or playing in the box?"

Oma and Tante Mieke have a new (to us) dog: Rex. We generally are not fans of little dogs, but this one is a cutie. We say that he has the face/head of a big dog on a little dog body. We enjoyed him quite a bit. Even Zachary. A few times, Zach would be crying in the box and Rex would come over and bark at him, which would make Zach laugh. Rex seemed to enjoy it as well.

Christmas Eve we met up with several cousins for snacks and drinks around 2pm. We saw (I know I will butcher the spellings) Marika, Ruurt & thier daughter Eva; Maartin, and Annemieke (Karl was there too). It was a real nice time seeing them all and catching up. Back to Oma's for an early dinner and a viewing of the Cambridge Boy's Choir Christmas program (~1hr), which was excellent!

Christmas Day was a special treat for Zachary. He woke up earlier than I wanted to get up, so I went and got him and put him in our bed and he went back to sleep until about 8am. Merry Christmas to us all!

Speaking of sleep, Zachary LOVES Holland. He slept the best there that he ever has. Super long naps, sleeping through the night without needing a late night/early morning cuddle to get back to sleep. It was great! With no Dexter, Art and I got some serious sleep as well. We are considering moving there!

Christmas Day was very nice. We spent it at Oma's and just mostly sat around and visited. We opened a present for Zach (wooden blocks) from Tante Mary, and a present for us from Tante Mieke.

Each night we played some games after dinner and after Zach went to bed. Mostly Zwarte Piet and 31.

On Dec. 27, Oom Hans and Tante Jop picked us up from Oma's and took us to their house in Arnhem to spend the night. We had a great time there as well. Art loved it because they provided such an excellent borrel that he could hardly eat his dinner (Dad, you would be vindicated). Zach loved it because they let him have some apple juice in a sippy cup. That boy loves his juice. We watched a favorite show of Oom Hans' - Judge John Deed. It is a mystery, and pretty enjoyable. All in all we had a great time. Oom Hans drove us back the next day, and one of the best things about being back in Dusseldorf (the first being that Dexter survived) was that it finally felt like 'home'. It was good to get back 'home' and back to 'normal'.

ZMC & Dex friends

Dexter and Zachary have been getting to be better friends. Dexter has been trying so hard to cuddle with Zach recently - it is very cute. Dexter will come up to Zach and rub his head on him, or try to groom Zach (which of course Z hates). What is odd though is that Zachary seems to enjoy Dexter more from afar (at least a foot away) than up close and personal. Could be that every time he is up close Dexter either licks his nose or head, or something else that Zach isn't thrilled with. Yet, Z giggles up a storm when Dexter is near enough for Z to watch him.

In one picture, Dexter is laying on Zachary's legs. In the other, Dexter is waiting patiently (?) for his toy back, or for Zach to play with him. If you look closely, you can see the red wand that is near Zach. The wand is attached to a string w/ a feather on it - Dexter's currently favorite toy. I was a little nervous with Z playing with the red wand, with Dexter right there, but Dex was a good boy.

As a side note, I should be getting lazy-mother-of-the-year award. As you can see, I like to let Zach play in our bed(s) quite a bit - with me there too most of the time - because he can't get hurt if he falls over. AND, because sitting on the floor with him is awful - the floor is SO HARD. So we spend a lot of time just playing in the bed. Check out that wallpaper - yikes! Mom, you can see the pillowcases you gave us are coming in handy. Art hates the giant German pillows, and is very grateful that we packed his pillow!

12.28 ZMC - Bottle holder

Zachary held his own bottle, AND correctly tilted it so he could actually drink from it, not just chew on it, for the first time on 12.28. Attached is the picture. Unfortunatley, he is not so good with the sippy cup. We have been trying to give him apple juice (well, water flavored with a splash of juice really) in a sippy cup, both with and without the stopper thing and he isn't thrilled. He either gets very frustrated with the stopper thing in (that requires you to suck the liquid out), or pours too much in his mouth w/out it and then it goes everywhere. He will get there though.

WAC & ZMC - New Hats

Art got a new hat. It came with one of his graduation presents from his siblings - Scotland Yard. The hat is a Mr. X hat, which you wear during the game if you are Mr. X. Zach is modeling it for his Dad. Zachary is also modeling a hat from his Nana that we thought would be WAY too big (it is 2-5T, meaning 2-5 years old), but when we put it on, it is not horribly big. Cute, we think, but we are biased.

ZMC - Sinterklaas from Oma & Opa

We received our Sinterklaas presents from Zachary's Oma and Opa. Janneke was nice enough to bring them with her when she visited us in Germany. Attached are the pictures of Zach opening and playing with his present. It took me about 3 days to eat my chocolate letter that I get every year. It is just so good, I couldn't help it!

ZMC - St. Nickolaus Day

December 5th is Sinterklaas in Holland, which we celebrate by giving gifts and doing some teasing poems/gifts etc. In Germany, December 5th is called St. Nicholas Day. Our upstairs neighbor (Herr Schiffer), who speaks no English, brought a chocolate (shokolade) St. Nicholas for Zachary. Of course he can't have chocolate, but it was a cute gift. So we made a hand-made thank you card for him w/ an outline of Zach's hands. These pictures are Zach with the St. Nicholas. Check out one of the pictures - you can see the line of drool from his mouth to the chocolate....gross.