Strepping Out.

Art is either plagiarism or revolution - Paul Gauguin.

Ola, Elke and Fisher Price. It`s so cute when they all play together nicely.

After weeks of anticipation and excitement, Oli missed his kindy Halloween party today. Strep throat apparently. He cried and cried all morning. And then vomited. Thankfully the antibiotics have kicked in and he`s pretty much back to his old, tip-top self. He`s now planning a father-son trick or treating session on Sunday to compensate. David is not so enthused.

The search is finally over. Hooray. I`ve managed to track down a pair of Camper Woodie boots and soon I´ll be holding them in my hot, little hands. They`re nothing if not practical for a winter in Munich...

Ein schönes Wochenende.

xxx

Breaking news: After weeks of pushing furniture around the house, Elke took her first steps today. Real ones. There she stood, smiling like a cheshire cat. There`s no stopping her now.

Herbstblätter.

 

 

Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower - Albert Camus.

We're only just over half-way through Autumn and it's already a bone-chilling 5 degrees. A tad dramatic perhaps, but it's ridiculously cold for the month of October. A bit of sunshine would make it more bearable but so far mother nature isn't heeding our call. At least the colours of autumn are glorious. Red, purple, orange, gold. One can never have enough photos of autumn leaves. But even they're drying up and dropping off. Autumn is here for another month or so but old man winter is truly breathing down its neck.

But it's not all doom and gloom. Pumpkins, chestnuts and our fave small, crispy apples are now in an abundance. Ola has his Halloween party at kindy next week and is planning on going as a boy witch ( last minute costume change). Then we celebrate St Martinfestfest, St Nicholas and finally the big C.
xxx

PS The last pic is a shoe photo for Maria. Though her locations are always far more interesting. And warmer. Definitely warmer.

Guten Appetit.



I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book - Groucho Marx.

Elke playing and eating her fave food. Makes a nice change from rifling through the bin looking for scraps or licking clean the dirty spoons found in dishwasher. Anyone would think we didn't feed her. But she eats. A lot. Tonight she had her early bird dinner - ratatouille, last night's leftovers - then joined us later for spaghetti with tomatoes & capers. It worked out quite well. Ola would pick through his, remove all the capers and pass them onto Elke who would gobble them up greedily and then bang her hands on the table wanting more. Little girl. Big appetite.

A few exciting shopping discoveries were made today. We stumbled upon a pretty fancy home design store where we could've spent a king's ransom, if we had a king's ransom to spend. Alas, we were pretty stoked just to walk away with a couple of these but dreamed about buying these. And we finally paid a visit to the much-hyped Muji, an oganiser's dream. Needless to say David was like a kid in a lolly shop.

xxx

Fetelicious.

   

To the victor belong the spoils - William L. Marcy

The local Montessori primary school held their Open Day and fete today. We're still undecided as to where Oli will go to school next year so Elke and I tagged along with some friends to check it out. We ate pumpkin soup and plum cake and walked away with these goodies. Except the tools aren't for keeps. They're for a certain little birthday boy.

xxx

Tomfoolery.

A little nonsense, now and then, is relished by the wisest men - Roald Dahl

Though, it's more like every minute of everyday with these two. Ola and his best bud, Dexter.

Yesterday it was 7 degrees. Two weeks ago we were wearing short sleeves and sneakers. Now it's all about jackets and snow boots. Crazy. Talking about crazy, last night we had our 3rd night out together (sans kidlets) since we've been here. We had a date with John Butler Trio and we weren't about to stand them up. To tell you the truth we had our doubts it would actually happen since they were due to kick off at 8pm but come 7:55pm, we were still home and Elke still appeared bright eyed and showing no signs of weariness. So what do I do? Feed, feed and feed again. Our taxi arrived so we asked the driver to wait 'til I thought she was as full as a goog and then off we went. Just upped and left while she was still awake, hoping she would take one for the team and drift off, in a state of milk induced drowsiness. Because of our hasty exit we were half expecting a call from our neighbour babysitter en route but alas, we made it to the gig, bought a couple of beers and finally started to relax. Then it was time to check out our fellow music lovers. Crowd watching has to be the 2nd best thing about going to see a band. And the eclectix mix last night didn't disappoint. We had the guy in front of us on air drums, the couple to our left who at the start of every song would flick through their JBT playlist on their ipod trying to find its title (um, okaaaay) and the woman on our right who didn't move once during the whole rockin two hours. Not even a toe tap. To quote the infamous catchcry of a certain Aussie tennis player: come on! This was John Butler, not Matchbox 20. And don't get me started on the non-applauders. Meh. Anyway, we made it though to the end. Including the encore which was, incidently, 'Funky Tonight' and then made a run for it to the U-Bahn station. We needn't have rushed home. Elke didn't make a peep while we were gone. Not one. We were expecting the worst. It was a case of once bitten, twice shy. The bite being the previous night out at the movies with Vanessa. Elke woke 3 times while I was gone and since all her milk comes from me this put Dave in a bit of a pickle. I could hear her cries as I cycled home down our street.

JBT down, Angus & Julie Stone to go...

xxx

I forgot to mention the highlight of the night was John playing 'Ocean' on his lap steel guitar, one of the 5 guitars he pulled out that night. Including my fave - the banjo. Ah-mazing. David had goosebumps but our mate on the air drums decided to sit that one out. Or rather slump, heavy-heartedly, over the railing in front of him. You can't win em all.

10 months.

Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke
- F Scott Fitzgerald.

10 months old and sporting some new tricks:

- Pushing furniture around the house. Yesterday it was a chair, today a moose.
- Holding phone to her ear and 'talking'.
- Standing alone for a few seconds.
- Waving hello. Actually, it's more like clapping with one hand but amazes her to no end. The usual turn of events - hears someone say 'hi', hand starts waving, looks at hand incredulously, realises she is making the gesture so then turns to greeter and smiles. As pleased as punch, she is.

xxx



String.

If it turns out there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he is an underachiever - Woody Allen.

Organising bits & bobs on our 'new' shelves. We've been scouring Ebay for some String shelves by Nisse Strinning for quite some time now and were very excited to get our hot little hands on some a couple of months ago. Much to the joy of Elke, they've been lying on the floor stacked up against the wall ever since. It wasn't until we had an extra pair of man-hands on board that we could actually put the damn things up. So a big shout out to Kim and his man-hands. Now, off the fill up the rest of the shelves. (Hi ho, hi ho) It's off to Ebay we go.

I had my first 'God' conversation with Oli on Tuesday. We were coming home after dropping Chess, Kim and Eli off at the airport. It was about 10pm (I know, I know and on a school night as well. Tsk, tsk.) and we had just jumped off the train when we were approached by two Korean students wanting to talk about 'our mother in heaven'. Apparently God isn't flying solo. Who knew? Anyway, we politely excused ourselves and started our short journey home. But that was it. Oli was intrigued and with that came the questions. O - "Who is God?" Me - "Well some people believe..." O - "Where does he live?" Me - "Well some people believe..." O - "What language does he speak?" The funniest was when he asked what God looked like to which I answered I didn't really know. He thought about it for a few seconds, screwed up his little nose and said, "I think he might look like Obi-Wan Kenobi". Yes Ola, a Jedi master - he's quite nifty with a lightsaber, knows a thing or two about the ways of the force and can perform some pretty mean Jedi mind tricks. What can I say? That boy loves Star Wars.

xxx