In Sisak - week one of our trip to Croatia

Finally i am posting some pics from our trip to Croatia. we have been home for almost 2 weeks but i just did not have much tie to do this. as you can see i am posting pictures from our first week while in Sisak and there is 150 pictures in this slideshow. I picked and picked but these are all the one to capture all the important moments. I have pit captions under the pics so you can more easily follow.
First week we were in Sisak and spent with mom and dad and mateja's fam. my uncle from berlin came to visit also because we celebrated my dad's 60th b-day. It was fun to see everyone and especially Stric Blaz from germany. I learned some of his story from growing up in an orphanage and also learned some stuff about dad. It was crazy with the kids but looking back at photos we had a good time and kids had a blast! My parents did too:
I will post week 2 tomorrow hopefully:)

Summer Pool Fun at Ed & Ginny's

As soon as the hot days start we are headed to the pool. We are blessed that our good friends Ed & Ginny let us use their pool any time we want. Our neighborhood doesn't have a pool so this is great! Girls both love the water and swimming and all the pool fun. Emma always wants to be very independent and do all that big kids are doing.Nora just love splashing and jumping. I am the one always taking photos so i am not in any of the pictures:(

Girls Birthday!

June 26 (Nora's actual birthday) we celebrated Nora's 1st and Emma's 3rd b-day (June 27th). Our "theme" this year was Hello Kitty per Emma's request. She wanted a Hello Kitty cake so i made a big one for her and a little one for Nora. Nora did not have a preference-she was just going along to whatever we did. We invited our closest friends (Clarks & Davis' we are sad you could not be there with us this year) and had a good time. Emma was so excited that all of the "big" kids came-because she tells me Mom,they are my friends:)This was the first year Emma understood things and what will happen and was so excited a week in advance about the b-day. She was also excited about all the gifts and opening everything. Nora had a good time even thought by 7pm she was ready to have her "alone" time. I think she had enough of people and just wanted me to put her in her room and leave her by herself. I thought she would crash and go to sleep but i heard her just talking to herself and giggling-happy to finally have some peace of her own. Funny! We don't have tons of pictures but here are some to give you an idea of what was going on. Thank you browns, Pickrens, Gumbrills, Remigailos, Herreros, Boys, Sue & MeMe for coming and spoiling the girls with fun gifts.

Memorial Day

Most holidays we are in town (unlike many of our friends) so we usually try to get together with any of our friends who stay in town too. We were grilling for lunch and Clarks and Davis' came over for the monring of fun. It was a rainy morning and i was bummed that we will not be able to be inside and thinking kids will be bored and cramped inside the house. But as the morning was passing clouds cleared up and we even saw some sunshine. As soon as the rain stopped everybody was ready for the pool to open:) The bigger kids had so much fun. Ty was so happy to be able to open the water so the hose that was attached to the tail will spray water. Elliott was a bit hesitant at first but quickly joined in the fun. Emma of course already knew all the tricks and was excited like always. I love the picture with all of them and how serious they look. Its funny. Unfortunately i did not take any pictures of the adults or Nora and little Charlotte. There is always next time i guess.

Beads/Perlice

Grandma was in town to visit us for the week and she gave us 2 boxes with beads. I mentioned that i think Emma would love that and since i am off on Fridays i always try to do something fun with her like that during Nora's morning nap. She just could not wait for me to get her some thread so we can get going. She was so proud of her products-she made some braceletes for herself and nora and wore them the whole day.















Emma thinking about what she should do?














So proud of her work!

Fun with Pedro!

Emma's old pool broke so she got a new one and loves it. It has a special feature with the sprinkler in the giraffes tail. Emma has used the pool earlier but that afternoon she and Pedro decided to have some fun with the sprinkler. They would put their faces under the water and then run circles in our backyard eventually totally soaking themselves in the pool. They just had too much fun for us to tell them not to get their clothes wet. Hopefully Pedro's parents were fine with that too-they went to mexico the next morning so we still don't know:)

 
 
 
 

Swim season has began and pool is open!

We opened our home pool this sunday. It was hot and humid and Chris gave Emma a great idea she gladly accepted about opening the pool. The water was cold but we added some warm and she was good to go. Nora was not sharing in the enthusiasm of swimming in cold water. She did warm up to the idea after watching Emma for a bit but only to soak her feet.