Plums

Well, we survived the week without Dylan. I know it's really silly to even be concerned about just one week alone, but for us, it's uncommon, so it was a bit difficult, but nothing we couldn't handle!

One of the fun things we did while Dylan was gone was make jam. We have a plum tree in our backyard, and my experience with it last year was not very positive. We didn't realize the plums were ripe until they were quite ripe, and most of them had been infested with worms. I decided to give them a second chance this year, and I'm really glad I did! We caught the plums just at the right time before they got too ripe, and they're really tart and delicious. On Friday we picked enough to make a few big jars of plummy jam.

These pictures are the of the finished jar of jam, and James' peanut butter and jam sandwich!

Day 2

So far, so good. The boys went to sleep all on their own last night ,and tonight (after a bit of coaxing). It seems like the money jars are really working.

We're still missing Daddy. David cried quite a bit at bedtime tonight, and kept saying "Dadda come home now." But aside from that I think they were mostly happy and had a good day. We made a fall tree craft that I had seen on pinterest (cutting and gluing anyone?!), and we spent the afternoon at the playground with some friends, which was really nice.

I gave the boys each 5 coins this morning, totaling 16 cents. James asked if we could go to the store and buy something. I told him we could, but he would probably only be able to buy something like a carrot, or maybe a few grapes. He decided he'd rather save his money up until he has enough to buy a toy or a candy. I tried to take a picture of the boys showing off their new money jars, but they kept goofing around, so this is the best one I could get. At least you can tell how excited they are!

Home alone

Dylan is gone to conference this week, so the boys and I are home alone. He's only an hour away, but it it will be the longest we've ever been without him in Germany. I miss him a little bit already. There's something so comforting about knowing no matter what my day is like, at the end of the day he'll be there.

We've had a good time of it so far though.We had a very laid back, almost relaxing day. We did a little bit of shopping, an art project, some laundry, skyping, and some home made pizzas. We're trying something new for bedtime tonight. I always sit in the room with the boys while they go to sleep, but I remember something my mom did when my younger siblings were kids and it inspired an idea. I've told them if they stay in their beds by themselves until they fall asleep, I will give them some money in the morning that they can put into a jar and save up until they have enough to buy something. We're talking pennies, so it may as well be beans or buttons, but they don't know the difference, and they're excited about it, at least for now. We'll see how it goes!

I'm trying to put my free evening to somewhat good use. I discovered that I can watch German tv without being completely lost and am thinking it might be a good way for me to somewhat passively keep up on/improve my german skills. I subscribed to a 30 day trial of the German version of Netflix. There aren't a lot of options for goos shows, but they have all 7 seasons of the Gilmore girls, which is a show I knew and loved back in college. So far I've watched about 5 minutes of it. They talk really, really fast. I only know what's going on because I've watched the show before. I think I'll give it another 10 minutes, and if I still can't understand anything, switch to something else. Who knew that a characteristic that made a show zany and fun in my own language makes it's totally ridiculous when trying to understand it in a foreign language.