Papa’s favorite place in Germany.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber has captured my dad’s heart from the first night we spent there  when Parker was exactly one week old.  He made a return visit on his second trip last fall and this year he and Mom got to go spend a night there, just the two of them, on their way to Garmisch.  Matt and I also really like Rothenburg and have a forever-tie to it:  we got our 2011 Christmas Ornament there.

I sent dad armed with my Nikon D50 and he had a blast taking pictures of the place he enjoys so much.

This is a picture of the square in Rothenburg where they hold the Christmas Market. We bought our 2011 Christmas Ornament from a stand that was placed near where red and white stand is located in this picture.

Standing near where the picture of the square was taken, dad turned around and took picture of the gasthaus they stayed in (and that we had stayed in 2 years ago). It’s the green one with red and white shutters.

Looking out their window toward the right you can see the square.

Zoomed in a bit at the square.

(All photos taken by T.D. Hyatt.)

New Week, New Family

Reblogged from :

Good morning, all! Let’s get this party started. This is such a fun video to start your Monday with. Everybody, say hello to the Braniff family. They’re adopting a baby boy from the DRC. Mom, Angela, is traveling likely next month and will be staying for 6 weeks! Let’s see if we can help out with that.  Ok, you know what to do.

Read more… 22 more words

Matt and I have always had a heart for adoption. We are not feeling called to do so at this point in our lives but THIS, we can do! Please read here the story of a friend of a friend from CHARLOTTE, NC!! :) (Their personal website is http://www.thebranifffamily.blogspot.de/ )

Nana and Papa enjoy the view.

While my parents were here the Joneses had us over for dinner.  Before we ate her fabulous enchiladas, Aimee took us to the monastery that is situated, literally, above her house.  The views from the top of the hill were breathtaking.

 

Hayden’s Birthday Party

The little man who made me a mom turned 11 this month.  He was born on a Friday and the Monday-Thursday of that week was EOGs for my students.  I had given the tests for my 4th graders and distinctly remember standing around chatting with my fellow teachers after the last test about the fact that it was finally okay for me to have that baby.  Now that the students had all been tested I was free to deliver!  I remember jumping gently and saying, “Come on, Baby!”

I had an appointment with my midwife that afternoon and she put me on bed rest.  I was actually happy about this because I was going to get to stay home and rest until the baby came.  The previous few months I had experienced a special form of nesting which made me feel homesick for my house.  I loved my job, but all I wanted was to be at home.  Even though I didn’t have a baby to be home with just yet, I wanted to be there.  Bed rest was a good enough excuse!

Before I went home from the doctor’s office, I stopped back by the school and wrote a note to my students on the white board.  I then went home and tended to my very small flower bed before finally settling myself on my couch, officially beginning my bed rest.

I don’t remember much of that evening because I thought it was just an ordinary night.  Just another night of waiting for the big event.  I had no clue that it was my last night to keep that little baby safe and warm inside me… no clue that Matt and I were spending our last night as a family of two and about to welcome our son into the world.  In fact, had you asked us what we thought the gender of the baby was, we would have said girl.  We were both surprised that “she” was a “he” and that our “Camden” was really a “Hayden.”  (The reason we didn’t know the gender is because he would not reveal this information during the one and only ultrasound I was given during that pregnancy.)

I went to bed that night and woke around 2:30 am feeling something.  To be honest, it felt like I had just started my period but within seconds, I felt a gush and there was no question that my water had broken.  I tapped Matt and woke him up, saying that it was definitely time.  I had him get a towel so I could walk down the hallway to the bathroom.  I broke the rules and took a shower, standing there amazed at what was happening.
I needed another towel to get me to the car, and thankfully, while I was in the shower, Matt layered a few trash bags and towels in my seat in the car.  I leaked a LOT!

We broke another rule and stopped at Bojangles in Shelby for biscuits.  When I got to the hospital I was still not feeling regular contractions, as far as I can remember.  I had to laugh when they did a test on my “fluid” to make sure I wasn’t just peeing on myself.  If they only knew the quantity of fluids I had lost over the past hour they would have taken my word for it!

I ended up needing pitocin and fell in love with the anesthesiologist who gave me relief from that pitocin.  His name was Edwin. I’ll never forget that.

The hospital waiting room was filled to the brim with friends and family and friends who are family (I have those people all over the world, it seems!).  I remember vividly seeing the joy on their faces when holding Hayden.  He brings this joy to the world every day and I remind myself of this now as we enter the preteen years!  I’m excited to watch him become a man of God and am so very proud of the glimpses of the man I can already see.

Here is Hayden’s 11th birthday cake.  I sent a picture of Hayden’s gift (Jonathan Park Communicator Watches) to the SugarBee and she created this.  The time is 5:04 which represents May 4th and the channel was 01, representing 2001.

Here are the watches that we are still waiting on as they shipped parcel post.  (One thing I will not miss about living overseas.  I paid the extra $30 for express shipping but because another item in the shipment was large, the whole package was sent parcel.  Estimated arrival time: 6 weeks.  Poor birthday boy.)

While the fancy cake was very delicious, we knew it wasn’t large enough to serve our entire party.  In our family, we often have a pretty cake and a homemade cake.  Note that these are never one and the same as we don’t have the skills to make a pretty, homemade cake!  This year,  Hayden had an extra special time making his cake because Nana was able to assist him with it.  Nana made the cakes, Hayden did the decorating!

Hayden was given so many wonderful gifts.  He also got a lot of cash which he put in his savings account because he wants to purchase an iPad.  He’s been working hard and, along with a lot of birthday money, has $95 saved up already!

Our party was full of boys so when I saw saw these three little beauties walking so sweetly I melted.

I wrote this on Hayden’s 11th birthday.

I wrote this on Hayden’s 10th birthday.

We had a ball!

Last night was the annual 66th Military Intelligence Ball and we really enjoyed ourselves.

I wrote yesterday about how grumpy I’ve been lately and I was really thankful that I was able to fit into the dress I had picked out.  Before I got that dress on, however, I got home from a completely unrelated dress-shopping experience to find the power out all over my area of Wiesbaden.  I had 3 hours from that point until we were supposed to leave for the ball and had no way to shower and do my hair.

Fortunately it came back in in time for me to do my 30 Day Shred AND get ready!

Here are pictures from our evening.

On our way!

It was drizzling when Matt dropped me off at the door steps at the Kurhaus.

This is the closest thing I got to a full-length shot of my dress.

Outside waiting for the festivities to begin.

Centerpiece

Me and my best friend.

Inside the Kurhaus reception hall.

My favorite part of the entire meal, the appetizer.

Roast beef, potatoes, and veggies.

Unwinding.

It’s been a fantastic 24 days of travel and spending time with people we love.  We saw St. Neots, London, Scotland, Stonehenge, Dover Castle, Trier, Luxembourg, Dachau, Münich, Austria, Garmisch, the Zugspitze, and Matt did a recon to France.  That’s a lot of ground to cover in just over three weeks!

Yesterday we woke up and said our good-byes to Nana and Papa.  It was exciting knowing (or at least we think we know) that the next time we visit with them we’ll all be in the Carolinas.  Papa gave the boys each $10 to spend so as we left the airport the boys and I headed to the toy store to purchase goodies.  While there we ran into friends and decided to join them for lunch.  Nothing like a BUNCH of kids eating lunch together to help ease the pain of Nana and Papa leaving. (Pretty exciting news: My friend is expecting her fourth baby in less than two weeks, and then there’ll be 8 kids between the two of us!)

We went straight from MK to Homeschool PE where the kids got to play outside on the playground with Coach R.  The weather was nice and Parker had tons of fun and got into trouble a few times.  He wanted to sneak into a fence that was blocking off a dangerous area… thrill seeker.

From there we went straight home where we all crashed.  I got in the bed and slept for an hour, thankful dinner was a Stouffers Lasagna which required very little work from me.  I could tell I was in the post vacay funk, the one that just needed some alone time to work through.

The funk also had to do with the fact that I am miserable with myself.  I haven’t run/exercised in these past three weeks and have gained weight.  I know it’s my fault that I’ve ridden the roller coaster back up so I’m not only unhappy with the weight gain but more so very angry at myself for letting it happen.  After dinner I spent a while trying on ball gowns, happy to see that, even with what I’ve gained since December, I can still fit in the one I bought as a surprise for Matt.  (Remember when we were planning on going to the huge ball in Austria and decided that a just-the-two-of-us trip to Dublin sounded like more fun?  Yep.  That dress.)

Today I woke up feeling a little better, half-excited about shopping for a dress of our annual family photo session with Jessica Ceason.  (Only half excited because of the reason I mentioned in the above paragraph, but also because I simply do not like shopping.)

This has been a lazy morning.  The boys are playing with toys they received either from Nana and Papa, as birthday gifts, or from the recent AWANA store.  I think a run is in order for today.  My parents have arrived safely in the states and I hope they’re sleeping right now.

Here’s a picture of my melancholy little boy who misses his Nana and Papa.

Several times yesterday and today (a lot more often than normal) he has come to sit on my lap and says, “Hug.”  I think he’s feeling the way I am… poor little guy.

The big reveal… and a big mess.

I received my Mother’s Day gift when we returned to Wiesbaden after a fantastic vacation to Garmisch.

It was in a huge box, proudly announcing its contents.

I was very excited to receive this gift, especially as I got a killer deal on it!  (Thanks, Amazon!)

I spent about 30 minutes online looking for a recipe that I could whip up to give the machine a test run.  I found one that sounded heavenly, “Chocolate Cream Cheese Cupcakes” and got to work.

Now that I look back I can see my error. They were 3/4 full until I put the “dollop” of cream cheese filling on top.

I’m not ashamed to show my baking ignorance.  (Actually, my mom was here and witnessed it so I really can’t pretend this atrocity didn’t occur.  Not only were these hideously ugly, they tasted horrible.  Maybe someone likes their cupcakes to taste like straight-up Hershey’s Cocoa, but I certainly don’t.)

Yes, I filled the cups too full.  Yes, the batter dripped all down onto the floor of my oven, resulting in a delightful burning smell throughout my house the next three times I preheated my oven.  No, it was not really fun cleaning the mess up.  No, it was not fun throwing out inedible cupcakes but yes, it was pretty fun watching that KitchenAid Stand Mixer in action!

Now, for an all-call for recipes.

I want to use my new mixer but I need recipes that real people like.  (Please, none that result in a dessert that tastes like a spoonful of powdered cocoa.)

What is your favorite recipe that you love to make in your KitchenAid?

What is the one meal/recipe you just won’t make if you don’t have access to a KitchenAid?

I’d like to get around 50 recipes so I can make one a week for a year.  It all comes down to this: I got a new toy and I really just want to use it!!!

So there you go.  Email the recipes to me and I’ll give them a shot!  (And I will try bread recipes but I don’t like nuts.  So, I will only try those recipes if I can leave the nuts out.)

England 2012 – From Dover to Home

After our crazy GPS mishap, we woke up well rested and had a large breakfast at the hotel.  Our first stop of the day was the Dover Castle.  Last year the Hills and Hamricks had seen this castle and had explored the main parts of the castle.  There was a section of the underground tunnels that were not open at the time so our number one priority was to see this.  The Operation Dynamo tour was wonderful except that I had totally expected to be able to look through the window at the water, standing where Prime Minister Winston Churchill had stood during WWII.

This is a computer generated image that depicts what I think I have seen in the past.  I can’t find an original image of this anywhere, so I’m wondering if I meshed some images in my mind from years ago and thought this was real.

This may be one of the images I combined in my mind.

The Prime Minister Winston Churchill studies reports of the action that day with Vice Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, Flag Officer Comanding Dover, on 28 August 1940. © Imperial War Museum

The tour had blocked this window completely and I was disappointed.  Other than that, the tour was awesome.

Here are my bigs leaving the tunnels.  They LOVED running down this hill toward me.

Parker rode happily on Matt’s back in Christy’s Ergo… THANK YOU SO MUCH!  I’m half-tempted to buy one (or borrow one for a few years from someone in-between babies).

While exploring Dover Castle Aimee took this picture of the fog rolling in.

After seeing a few more areas around the castle we boarded our minibus to drive down to the ferry.

These are some pictures of the castle we had just left situated on the Cliffs of Dover.  (Photo by Aimee or Cory… I can’t remember which one took this.)

We arrived on time and drove straight onto the boat.  On the way to England we had stopped in a long line of other cars getting on the ferry and picnicked right there.  On the way back we were sent directly onto the ship so we took our lunch onboard and had a picnic there.  The babies fell asleep and we finally got in a partial game of Hill Rummy, as the water was much calmer this time around.

As we pulled off the ferry and got into our driving-on-the-right-side groove we soon found ourselves in traffic.  Four hours worth of traffic.  I am still completely impressed with how well the kids did with being in the car for so long.  I didn’t anticipate such good behavior and the drive was so much better than I expect. We arrived home around 2:00 a.m. or so, and got in the bed only five hours before we were to go pick my parents up from the airport!

The trip to England was fun and it was great to see our friends again.  London is the only ‘touristy’ city I’ve seen twice and of all the ones I’ve been to, it’s the one I would most like to go back to again and again!  (And I would love to see it at night.)

England 2012 – GPS Mishap

As a farewell from England the HHJ group went to lunch at a nearby restaurant called The Weeping Ash.  Fish and Chips all around for the Hamricks.

Kayla put the table menu thing on her head and wore it as a hat for the longest time.  She wasn’t trying to be funny… she really thought it was a hat!

It was sad to say goodbye to our friends, but we have a September visit from the Hills penciled in which made the hugs a little easier.

After a quick stop at the Tesco (a Wal-Mart-type store) we plugged in the coordinates to the hotel, which was about two-and-a-half hours away.

We had another beautiful, restful drive to our destination.  When we were just over a mile  away from our destination one of the boys needed to go to the bathroom. I told them that they would need to wait, as we were close to our hotel.  Matt then said, “Um, honey… I don’t think we’re as close as the GPS says we are.”

This is what we saw:

No Cliffs of Dover, no water, no ferries.  Nothing familiar.  Just a small, back, English road that our van fully consumed.

Kayla, the potty-training toddler, had to potty, so Aimee got her out of the car and set up on her portable potty, while Cory, Matt, and I tried to figure out where we were.  I used my iPhone to find out some details and when I said the name of the town we were in Cory said, “We’re near Stonehenge!”

That was really cool, especially as we were still two-and-a-half hours away from our destination!  We checked the closing times of Stonehenge and realized we’d have thirty minutes to see it, and we took off!  (After getting Kayla buckled back in her seat, of course.)  I was thrilled to see Stonehenge and thrilled that there was something to redeem the huge mistake I (along with the hotel’s incorrect coordinates) had made.  To make this even more exciting, the boys and I will be studying Stonehenge in a few weeks in our history.  It was a definite God-thing that we ended up there, and I’m glad our fellow travelers were happy about the surprise destination as well.

After we closed down the centuries-old site, we loaded up the van and drove toward our real destination, having ensured that the GPS was actually taking us to the hotel.

We arrived too tired to play a game of cards, something we had been looking forward to, but put it on our list of things to do tomorrow.

England 2012 – Mexican

So, as a quick recap, Wednesday we drove from Wiesbaden, Germany to St. Neots, England.  Thursday we rode a train to London and explored, getting back to the Hill house very late.  Friday we took the bigs to Cadbury World, allowing them the chance to do something specifically for them.  By Saturday we were excited to stay home with nowhere to go.  We got to stay in PJs all day and had high expectations of sitting around and having coffee together, chatting the day away.

But when the men left us for Scotland they took the sunshine with them. Though it had rained the day before, that was fine because we went to Cadbury World, giving the seven children a chance to run and play.  But on the second day of Mancation, cabin fever began to settle in.  I played a game of dice with the bigs and gave Jessica and Aimee some time to catch up.  Later, Jessica played another game with them while I cooked and Aimee watched the babies.  The Wii did its job of entertaining the boys while simultaneously driving the moms nuts.  All three babies napped at the same time, making our lives a little bit easier.  We had a scrumptious Spaghetti dinner, combining Jessica’s and Aimee’s recipes.

Here you can see six of the seven kids.  Connor in his high chair, then Parker, Kayla, Carson, Bailey, and Owen.  

Aimee had her camera out for a bit and caught some cute shots of the kids.  I’m glad she did, as I was too lazy to get mine out!

Those EYES!

I LOVE this picture!  

The third day of Mancation was the day the moms had been looking forward to for a long time:  GIRLS’ NIGHT OUT!

We had planned a night for us to go to dinner, just the three of us, for the night the men returned from Scotland.  We sort of felt bad for leaving them with seven children suffering from a severe case of cabin fever, but not bad enough to stay home.  We enjoyed our dinner and drinks and chatted, happy to be able to complete a sentence without someone interrupting us.

The men brought the sun back with them and the kids were able to play outside for a while, running off a little of their pent-up energy.

We returned in the middle of a scuff between two of the boys and almost turned around and went back out for coffee… only problem with that was that here in Europe coffee shops close at 7:00 and it was way past that!

There were a few issues that the boys had to work through, not used to being in the same room with three other boys plus three babies for 72 hours.  They slept in the same room and were cooped up altogether while it rained, with nowhere to run off excess energy.  It was an ideal situation for melt-downs, which happened a few times.  With that said, I think the kids did a great job and it was so nice to get to see our friends.  We wish it weren’t so hard to get together with them… silly English Channel (and many, many miles of land) between us.