Christmas Joy

Christmas has come and gone and the memories remain fresh.

We started our Christmas eve with some silly selfies while getting all dolled up. Its hilarious to me how much kids love seeing their picture being taken.

Before we went to Oma and Opa's house, I asked the kids to pose for a picture in their specially chosen Christmas outfits. PJ chose both his outfit and his sister's dress. Bean heavily and proudly accessorized.

Both kids wanted their baby doll in the picture, so we got a special chair for him and then posed. Hilariously, when I posed this adorable picture online, more than a handful of people thought it was a pregnancy announcement.

That would be one big fat nope.

Later in the evening, Bean got another accessory.

Thanks to the wonders of a selfie-stick, we managed to get a picture of the entire Steinbach clan on Christmas eve. Good looking family.
 

The next day, we celebrated American Christmas.


Bean got a doll she can dress, feed, and cuddle. She was thrilled and still sleeps with "mein Baby!" almost every night. She and PJ take turns caring for Baby and take their responsibilities seriously.
 

 

Little man got a horrifically un-photogenic Transformer as well as an extremely complex Lego set he put together patiently over a couple of hours with some help from me. I am fascinated how removing him from a negative, stressful situation has freed him up to concentrate on more complex, challenging tasks. Another sign that we made the right decision for him.

 

 

Then we took a walk in the surprisingly warm Christmas Day.

Like my sweater? Bean chose it for me at H&M. Someone please invite me to an Ugly Sweater Party.
 

 

We wrapped up our day with a fun puzzle from Granny and Granpa.

What a wonderful Christmas celebration.
 

XO

What Love Sometimes Looks Like

Without going into unnecessary detail, 2015 has been rocky. Health has been a real treat (on a side note, I read that sarcasm is a sign of high-intelligence. My intelligence in 2015 has sky rocketed.) The topic of being a working mother has been even more difficult than I imagined in 2013. In fact, when I read my blogs about being a working mom in Germany, I'm actually somewhat amused at how innocent I was; how I thought I'd 'really' experienced the crushing judgement and loneliness of being a career-interested woman with children in Germany...and I hadn't even gotten past the tippy-top of the iceberg.

But I digress. We've had to all take time to heal-up, strengthen-up, step outside the norm, be true to ourselves. Do stuff we wouldn't usually do or ever want to do because that's what a family member needs.

Stuff like watch BBC's Pride & Prejudice with the one and only true Mr. Darcy while holding your wife's hand and not complaining out loud.

Sometimes that is what love looks like. 

XO