Roman is 5 months!

Dear Booger,

You are now five months old. I can't believe it! Who are you now? Well you have zero patience and tend to scream when you lose it (you get that from Daddy). You also get VERY cranky when you're hungry (you get that from me). You have discovered your voice and you can be LOUD! There's lots of new sounds coming out of you and they're so stinkin adorable!! But mostly you smile. Your smile is like every cliche song out there.

When I see you smile
I can face the world, oh oh,
you know I can do anything
When I see you smile
I see a ray of light, oh oh,
I see it shining right through the rain
When I see you smile
Oh yeah, baby when I see you smile at me

And it's not just Mommy and Daddy who feel that way. You light up the lives of everyone who sees your smile. And your laugh? Wow it really IS the most precious sound in the world.

At your well baby check up you weighed 16.5lbs (80%) and you are 26.73inches (91%). You are a healthy baby! You are starting to teeth so you drool ALL the time (like soaking through clothes kind of drool). We have to keep a bib on you always now. Some nights it has bothered you but some tylenol and teething tablets have worked so far. We've also now bought Ora-gel but haven't tried it yet. You are also eating baby food now. As of your five month birthday you have had (on top of rice): green beans, peas, carrots, squash, and sweet potatoes. You love it all except the peas which you only tolerate. This weekend we start fruits. :-)

The biggies this month were of course Christmas (which was amazing) and your first fever. The weekend before Christmas you started running a fever but after a couple doses of tylenol and lots of rest it went away. However that night while Daddy was bathing you and washing your ears you began to scream like we've never heard before (and boy- we've heard LOTS of screaming from you!) I finally got you to sleep but you were back up by midnight in pain so we took you to the hospital just to be safe. We thought you might have an ear infection but after a few hours waiting in the german hospital we were told you just had a lot of congestion which was probably making your ears tender. So good news was no infection, bad news meant no way to fix it! The next day you slowly perked up as the day went on and by the day after you were back to yourself.

Today you went to visit your new daycare classroom (or school as I call it with you). You met your teacher, Mrs. Martina, and a few of your classmates: Calista, Shambre (?), and Kevian. You didn't mind staring at them and smiling and they gave you some pats on the head but you didn't like it when you saw another baby in the excersaucer- you wanted in there! You were also not so sure of Mrs. Martina holding you when two of the babies started crying. Overall though you were super excited and trying to move as best you could. Daddy and I think you will be crawling in no time- especially watching all those other kids. You start daycare next Monday. I'm so nervous for you but I know you'll be just fine.

I just want you to know how much Mommy and Daddy love you. You are the best thing that has happened to us. We both smile when we look at old pictures and videos of you but we're not sad to see you grow. We are so excited to watch you change. We love you son.

Love,
Mommy and Daddy

Roman at 5 Days old:


Roman at 5 Weeks old:


Roman at 5 Months old:


Other highlights from this past month:

First sickness:


Daddy snuggles:


Christmas break:


Shirt from Yaya:

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I FINALLY read a book!

At least I finally read a book that had nothing to do with parenting or teaching! I borrowed a book from a friend and spent a couple of car rides reading it one day (I miss that). I also spent 2.5 glorious hours finishing the book in bed after the baby went to bed. MAN I miss that! I haven't read for pleasure in....how old is the baby?...oh yeah FIVE MONTHS!!

I read "The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner" by Stephenie Meyer. If you read Eclipse then you already know the ending to Bree but still the book is great! I found myself engrossed and praying that she wrote a different ending.


Another great book by Stephenie Meyer is "The Host." I wasn't so sure about this book and almost gave up after the first 3-5 (can't remember now) chapters but a friend encouraged me to hang in there and it was great!!


I need to read more often....maybe this summer after school is out LOL.

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Roman's first Christmas

There won't be another "First Christmas" for Roman. This was it. It was good. Great.

The day before Christmas I helped Gadi make his first gingerbread house...or attempted to anyways. Thank God he's two and doesn't care!




He didn't want to claim it!



My side...


Gadi's side (note to self: don't use marshmellow fluff!)


Christmas Eve was spent in the kitchen for Mommy but somehow that just felt right. I made homemade cinnamon rolls, two homemade pumpkin pies, 4 batches of homemade cookies (are you catching the homemade part? This girl cooked FROM SCRATCH!) plus chex mix and mudbuddies! Part of the time Roman "cooked" with me. He sits in his bouncy seat on the kitchen floor and babbles to me and chews on his links and watches the bubbles in the aquarium. I just talk to him about what I'm doing and respond to his babble as if he were really answering me back. Someone driving by wouldn't see Roman so it'd look like I was the crazy lady (in a Santa apron) talking to herself. That's cool. He's the best helper in the kitchen.









After Roman went down for his morning nap I took a brief break to watch part of "The Christmas Story" (oh Ralphie...I miss you on TNT!) with my hubby. Before it could end though our dear friends (or my "Germany Family" as I call them) called and Gadiel had sliced open his finger down to the bone. They needed to go to the ER so they dropped off my favorite two year old, Gadi! He helped make the chexmix and mudbuddies by pouring in each cup of cereal and all the other ingredients I measured out for him. He added his own flavorings by sampling items and putting them back in the bowl. Oh and flying his helicopter and driving his Thomas Tank in the cereal. He helped stir it all up and did so well at following directions (like "clean that up please" or "no give Keekee the spoon back"). After cooking I laid him down for a nap then laid mine down for a nap and made the cookies. Gadiel returned with two stiches but he was still smiling. I wish I had pictures of Gadi and I cooking. Oh well. Next time!

The afternoon was filled with more baking and getting ready for church. Then I made homemade (!!!) tortellini alfredo, bread, and asparagus for our family dinner. My hubby went all out with our crystal candle holders and glasses. He dug out the folding table (our downstairs is too small to hold our dining room table AND our desk so desk won) and table cloth. We turned off the light and ate by the light from the candles, the garland and tree lights, and our amazing fireplace DVD (you MUST have one if you don't have a fireplace!!) I even had Roman in his high chair playing next to us and smushed up some aspargus to feed him.







After our beautiful (and yummy if I do say so myself) dinner we ventured out in the "blizzard" for church. It was beautiful. Since I started reading my favorite blog this summer, while pregnant with Roman, I have been dreaming of taking pictures at the candlelight service (www.kellehampton.com) and I finally got to do it! Most turned out blurry since I don't know how to take a good picture without the flash (help!) but I got a few keepers. Behold my amazing boys.









After returning home and reading Roman "The Night Before Christmas" Matt and I got to play Santa for the first time. We put together Roman's house and rearranged gifts under the tree to make them more appealing to the eye. We watched half of "It's a Wonderful Life" and argued over who was going to bed last (and thereby seeing what they got in their stocking). Matt won.





Christmas morning we both took Roman downstairs and gave him his bottle and joked about not peeking. We finished It's a Wonderful Life then got to unwrapping! Roman was very entertained by the santa head on the top of his Reeces tube. Oh and the bows. We thought we were filming it all to only discover that 12minutes into it our memory card was filled and it shut off. Ho hum. It was still awesome and I know it will get better with the years!







Our Germany family came over for breakfasts and the kids exchanged gifts. Then we took a "nap" break and the adults shoveled their own driveways (fun...not. nothing romantic about a white christmas Bing you liar). Then we went to their house for lunch and met up with more friends for the adult present exchange. After playing around we came back over to our house for Christmas dinner. I'm telling you I was SO exhausted! And Roman was totally overstimulated and just done. He refused to take his long naps so by 7pm he was out. I, however exhausted I was, still stayed up to midnight messing around with my new toy (oh yeah, Mama got an iPad!)





Now I'm up to midnight for the third night in a row and my body is screaming at me and I can hear my husband snoring from downstairs. I may not recover. So I will leave you with some pictures of my beautiful snow baby. Good night!

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Nuremburg Christkindlmarkt

It's funny but I get inspired reading others blogs. I constantly think about blogging and what I'd write about this or that. At night I lay in bed and think it out in my head but never sit down to the computer. If only they had a contraption that I could just put on my head at night like a head band and it'd take that blog in my head and upload it for me- edited pictures included! Soon they will...scary.

Nuremburg (or is it Nurnberg? Are they different cities?! So confused) Christkindlmarkt or Weinachtsmarkt (or just Christmas Market for you Americans) was beautiful. It's like the largest one in Germany or Europe or the World...something like that. We (being my family, the Barreto's, and the Rodriquez family of five- three boys! Wow just realized we all had sons..no girls! Anywho) took the train there because Aixa and I had both been told how horrendous the parking was. Well little did we expect the train to be so horrendously crowded! And on a Wednesday afternoon! So the majority of the trip (hour and half?) we were standing by the doors. Eh. When you get there and follow the signs out of the train station for the Tourist Info booth you walk right into the Christmas market (but never hit the TI booth...).



I love her for loving my baby


My baby's first train ride!







It's hard to describe things like this. It just feels so...German. And in a good way. When I'm doing things like this I am grateful for this opportunity to be living so far from home and seeing things I'd never see in Texas. I also wish, every single time, that someone (ANYONE) from home would visit just so I could share this magic with them. Adri doesn't count since she's been to Europe 2x now. ;-) Love ya Adri.







And the stuff you can buy at these markets ranges from totally random to so beautiful and unique! I've seen booths selling spatulas (really?) and others selling handmade lace and glassblown ornaments. And I think about each and every one of you and what I'd buy for you. Then I look at the prices and do the conversion from Euros to dollars, shudder, and tell myself that you know I love you anyways! ;-)





We didn't try any new foods this time. Same ole steak sandwiches and brats and crepes but still so yummy.





My baby passed out about ten minutes into the market. It was chilly but not too bad and he was comfortably bundled in his snowsuit and riding in his stroller like a big kid *tear.* Just kidding. That stuff doesn't make me sad, I love it! I'm so excited for each new phase to come. Speaking of phases Matt and I watched videos from when Roman was teeny tiny and while most brought back smiles the one of him screaming during one of his colic fits shook me back to reality and thank God that he grew out of that!



Back to the market. We weaved through the streets, sampled food, looked at things we couldn't buy, and pretended to be photographers. The train ride home the Barretos and us were able to sit in one section together and the Rodriquez's were able to find another area to sit so we were all much more comfortable. Did I mention how much I love my friends here? We all just shared our kids all day and it was awesome. I would constantly be counting the R boys (1, 2,...where's 3? Oh there he is! 3 come back here!) and Aixa would have Jen's boy and Jen would have mine. And our husbands all love each other which is always heaven in couple hood.





Christmas post to come ASAP!

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Rothenburg Christkindlmarkt

Whoa look who's updating again so soon!! Today we went to our favorite German town Rothenburg ob der Tauber for their Christmas market. Rothenburg has many christmas stores all year long so we love going there. I'm sad that I never got Matt there this summer. Adri and I went our first summer here because I read about it in Rick Steve's Germany book and it was gorgeous. Matt's only seen it during winter which is also beautiful but in it's own way. Last year we never made it to the market so I've been very excited about going this year. The market was different than Schweinfurt's because while it is on the main square it also weaves through different streets. So far we haven't been too impressed with the merchandise for sale at the markets because it's either very random or ridiculously expensive but we did find a couple of stands in Rothenburg with great priced stuff. Very christmas-y and/or german-y! Matt and I shared a half-meter hotdog and I tried a Nutella crepe (yummy!). Tomorrow in Nuremburg we're going to get roasted chestnuts (we're taking our own creole seasoning to go with them though lol) and I'm finally going to try gluhwein (hot spiced wine). I was tempted to get a cup of fuerzanghenbowle (hot rum ran through sugar that's on fire!) but decided to go for the crepe instead. Roman slept through the market part but while we were enjoying warm doner kabobs he woke up and ate then we went back out and took some pictures before heading home. Surprisingly it wasn't very cold!

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Much needed update

Wow my early New Years resolution is to update more often! It will help that I have to update my classroom blog (if you want an invitation just shoot me a comment) weekly so I vow to at least update with some highlights. This is especially important since I tend to use this as Roman's sort of baby journal! Ok big highlights...
Started work. Week and half of prepping room (HUGE task as we had to clean out the old stuff, move in and unpack ALL brand new stuff, then organize it all!) and then three weeks of teaching. The kids are great. I've got a couple of pistols and LOTS of chatty cathys but every one of them is sweet. And one pistol and one chatty cathy just moved this last week so we'll see how the new year goes...I'm bound to get new kids very soon in our military school. I have a wonderful full time aide (Ty) who is a saint. I know this even more now after not having her the last week of school and doing everything solo. For my teacher friends: kindergarten here is different. We have full time aides yes but that's because they don't have lunchroom/recess monitors for kindergarten so the aides go with them to lunch and recess as well as going to the "specials" classes (PE and Host Nation for kinder. No music or art. Weird...) with them. So when there's no aide then the teacher goes to all of that with them so you have zero break all day long. Exhausting! Most days though I leave with a smile on my face and that's what counts.

Roman has been staying with his "Aunt Jen" for now but come January he starts daycare. Not super excited about that but at least the daycare is right across the street. Speaking of Roman he is recovering from his first illness. Yesterday early morning (1am to be exact) he started waking up at night which is weird for him. He's been sleeping through the night since he was 3months with the exception of a couple of days of growth spurt (babywise is the shiz. read it.) but that night he was up 1-2:30am, 5:30-7am, then awake for the day at 8:30am. We thought he was having another growth spurt so when he woke up for the day we gave him a morning serving of food. He's been doing rice at night since 3.5months but lately he's not been spitting alot of it out so we figured he's tired of the taste (or nontaste I should say). Anywho he's a week away from five months so we decided to start veggies. I wanted to start while we're both on vacation in case there's any major problems. So we gave him peas and cereal for breakfast and he was eating ok but then just puked it up. While I was cleaning him up I noticed he was hot and sure enough he had a 100.4temp (which for babies is considered a fever). He ran a fever all day until the evening after taking a long nap with Mommy in her bed. Then he woke up happy and playful for the first time that day (he had been sleeping on either Mommy or Daddy all day long). But then during his bath Matt was cleaning out his ears and he started wailing. And kept wailing while Matt was drying him and dressing him. He stopped (sort of) and Matt said it started while he was cleaning his ears so I went to look at his ears and when I touched the right one he began screaming again. Several times I tested and yup his ear was killing him. Since there was no more fever we decided to wait til morning to do anything but he woke up at 11:30pm and was still in pain so I gave him tylenol, fed him, then we went to the hospital. 2.5hrs later and no infection just pressure build up from being congested. So we get back home and Roman slept in his car seat for the remainder for the night (2:30-5:45am) woke up to eat and went back to sleep in his crib til 11am!! Then he woke and ate a 6oz bottle and a serving of peas and went back to sleep for another hour. His appetite definitely hasn't been affected by any of this. We've been fever free for almost 24hrs thank goodness but if his ear still hurts in the morning I'm calling our Dr.

In other news we've decorated for our 2nd German Christmas. We were supposed to be coming home but that didn't work out with the Army. Oh well we will be together and that's what counts. Matt and I are both on vacation for the next two weeks so we plan to visit Christmas markets and get much needed errands done this week (check up for Mom, refinance car so we can sell it and buy a new one!!, make our wills, deep clean this house, etc). Next week we plan to go to Berlin for at least one night, maybe two. I promise to update before the vacation is over!!

PS sorry this blog is so boring with its lack of pictures. for some reason the uploader HATES this blog! It works for my teaching one with no problem...weird!

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