Happy New Year

The end of the year has this year for obvious reasons been very very different. With both Julia and Kerstin returning home from hospital only a few hours after giving birth everything at home was focused on the newcomer. Jakob has grown up big time during the past weeks and welcomed his sister just like a big brother does - full of love and care - grandma Heidi helped us handling both Julia and Jakob as well as our lives and Markus tried to as well to relieve Kerstin from any work apart from feeding and took care of lots of admin stuff as well. All that sounds absolutely normal when a family is growing and it was very similar when Jakob was born 2,5 years ago.

Julia's main activity: sleeping!

After our first visit to the paediatrician on the 30th and a visit from Markus' parents & sister on the 31st however it got really obvious that this year is different. While seemingly the whole world was preparing for a big party for the year end our evening was just like any other evening - playing, having dinner, getting ready for bed. There was not much feeling and excitement about the changeover from 2011 to 2012 and it was the first time since being a child that both Kerstin and Markus were in bed when the fireworks outdoors welcomed the New Year. The good thing however was that both Julia and Jakob had a very peaceful sleep and not only were not disturbed by the noise of the fireworks but also slept long and thus we all had a lie-in on January 1st.

Julia, Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

Hi, my name is Julia!

After first examinations by the pediatritian we are soon setting off home in order to meet Jakob and grandma Heidi who are waiting at home and are very keen to meet the young one already.

Shortly after entering the delivery room at the Ignaz Semmelweisklinik in Vienna and after around three hours of labor our beatiful daughter Julia has been born at 11:17. Given she stayed six extra days in her mobile home she had plenty of time to arrive absolutely ripe and well developed. With her size of 53 cm she is as large as her brother but with both her weight of 3760 g and the amount of hair she outpaces her brother Jakob already.

Julia, Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

We have just entered the Hall of Fame....

Tim Taylor instead of Cinderella

Christmas was very different this year as we spent it for the first time NOT in Vorarlberg with Kerstin's enlarged family but instead celebrated this special day in Vienna together with Markus' parents and sister. It was however not only due to the premiere of celebrating Christmas in Vienna a very different feeling this year round, but also due to the fact that we did not really know whether we can follow our master plan for the day or need to quickly re-adjust everything in case our daughter decided to join us. With her calculated due date of December 22nd it really could kick off any day and thus planning was very tricky and when Markus' sister turned sick the night before Christmas Eve the whole situation did not really get any less complicated. As a consequence it was only his parents who arrived in Vienna late morning. After lunch they went for a long walk with Jakob who after awhile fell asleep and slept peacefully in his push chair providing Markus and Kerstin with plenty of time to finish the last preparations. When they came back home our sunshine was (not surprisingly after a long sleep) in very good form and we had coffee, cocoa and cookies in Jakob's room, played a lot got Jakob into festive outfit and waited for the ominous pinging of a little bell.

The last time Jakob saw the tree it was only a green tree...

By the time the dusk set in we suddenly could hear that special sound and all out of a sudden Jakob was very anxious and nervous about what would happen now. Slowly we made our way upstairs and four ourself in front of a beautifully decorated and illuminated christmas tree. Jakob's eyes were all shining and he was truly impressed by what he saw and it took a fews minutes until he dared touching any of the presents underneath the tree. What followed was a very uncommon behavior for a child as Jakob started to pick up the presents from one side of the tree and made his way present by present to the other side. While he claimed each present for himself - pretending he can perfectly well read already - he accepted our objections when it was not the case but helped the respective person unpacking. Once Jakob has unwrapped one of his presents he took his time examining and watching (like the books or hard hat & safety goggles he received), trying (like the ski boots or his skis) or playing with them (like the puzzle he received) and as a consequence the whole procedure took about 1 hour. Only at the very end our junior tackled the largest present which also unraveled the mystery of the hard hat, ear protector and safety glasses - a Bosch mini Work station perfectly fitting the tool box he already has. Tim Taylor and "Tool time" is on now in our flat every day and no more screw is safe. 

"No rushing - I test it all before we can move on!"

As Markus parent's had to go back home right after dinner due to Ines being sick we agreed with Kerstin's mom to travel to Vienna early and so she arrived i the late afternoon on Christmas Day in order to be available to look after Jakob when things are getting serious. So far our princess however is taking her time and seems not to be willing to join us. While Jakob was born on the 5th day after the due date there are no such signs for the second one yet. We are still waiting.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

Waiting for ...

The advent season 2011 is a very special one for us for several reasons. Firstly, it’s the first time Jakob is undergoing the lead time to Christmas (almost) fully aware of the meaning of it as both in the kindergarten as well as at home he is learning why we are celebrating this special time and he also made the first acquaintance with the Nikolaus last week Tuesday. On the past weekend the three of us tackled the project "Christmas cookies" with Jakob both rolling out the dough as well as cutting out the shapes. Not surprisingly his endurance is still rather limited and thus we focussed on cutting and baking the gingerbread cookies as well as preparing the short crust on Saturday afternoon. Sunday morning Anja joined us to bake the short crust cookies and Jakob was all happy to play around with dough, flour, his rolling pin and the cookie cutters and even more glad he was about "tasting" the dough before reaching the oven as well as the finished cookies as soon as they came out of the oven and have cooled off a bit

Making cookies is big fun and tasty!

As this Christmas we are not only awaiting the arrival of the birth of Jesus the advent time is lived by us in real. Any day our daughter could join us, whereas currently everything is calm still. Obviously we are a little bit nervous and also curious as to whether she is going to be born on the estimated date (December 22nd) or whether she will be a real "christkind" born on December 24th. In any case - we are ready and prepared - on the weekend the boys finished the last necessary bit and assembled - and whenever she is ready she can come. Let’s see when that is going to be the case - we are looking forward to her.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

St Martin's Day

On Friday late afternoon Jakob had his first big event at the kindergarten – the annual lantern festival marking the celebrations of StMartin’s Day. Following the tinkering of the lantern a few weeks ago the three of us made our way towards a park nearby our son’s kindergarten together with the lantern at dusk. We arrived shortly before 1630, had the candle in the lantern lit by one of Jakob’s educationists and soon after we strolled through the park altogether. The older children were singing the classical songs “Laterne, Laterne, Sonne, Mond und Sterne” and “Ich geh mit meiner Laterne” while the Rookies like our sunshine were rather just walking along and looking around what was going on there. It must have been even more funny to watch from outside than it was for us being part of the ceremony.

This is serious stuff!!

After a round in the park the oldest group of children performed a play in English language telling the story of Holy Martin who was a soldier and helped out an old homeless man with half his coat on a cold and snowy night. The children did an excellent job as it is already a challenge at that age to perform a play in generally, but even more so in English (especially as none of them is an English native speaker). The play was followed with one more song before the warm tea, croissant and open sandwiches were served. On our way home Jakob insisted on having the candle lit all the way long and thus Markus had to lighten-up the candle over and over again. That evening Jakob also could only fall asleep with the lantern, sitting on the window board, lit.


Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

A feast with Gruffalo

Sunday afternoon Jakob was invited to his friend Serik's 3rd birthday party. Serik, Fritz & Jade's son, has picked the offices of the Astria Kids Academy as location for his party with 15 of his friends. As usually Jakob was rather shy and quiet in the beginning and it took him a while before he joined into the musical programme the team of the kids academy has prepared. But once the hand puppets have disappeared - our sunshine is not very much into anything that is in disguise - and real instruments as well as balls came into play Jakob was all fired up and enthusiastic and danced, played piano and jumped around.

 Jakob and music go along well

Later on a few parent s performed a little play and we were prepared already to leave the room with our junior as all the characters were disguised. Some more. Some less. Interestingly Jakob was all fine to stay, even when the terrible, terrible Gruffalo - Fritz portrayed him almost perfectly - appeared. Most likely the fact that the Gruffalo was afraid of the "mighty" mouse took away a lot of its scare.

Jakob was respectful, but not scared of Gruffalo

After the performance it was time for pizza and cake and Jakob obviously was all excited about that, taking the seat right next to Serik and sharing a piece of cake with mom and two slices of pizza with dad before playing with the other children (aged between 2 and 6 years) on the slide, improving further his piano skills and collecting the sweets and mars bars that were raining over the children (alongside lots of confetti) from paper buckets as grande finale for the party.

Finally - Food also for the children!

When we reached home at 1800 Viki and Stefan as well as Marina and Fabio were already waiting for us and they joined us for cold dinner and gave Jakob the opportunity to continue playing with a friend in a however more  calm way than at the birthday party and thus conclude a very nice and exciting Sunday.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

Tinkering a lantern

Thursday started like a normal day for our little sunshine when went to the kindergarten as every weekday with mom and continued as usual with being picked up again after lunch and a nap around 1400. He was however somewhat confused when Markus was back home and in the later afternoon Jakob, Kerstin and Markus at 1600 got dressed and left for the kindergarten again. Never before has Jakob been to the kindergarten in the afternoon and never before dad was coming and staying there. The afternoon got even weirder when Jakob realised that all his group-mates were there as well and all of them had one or two of their parents with them - he has never seen the room so full. The reason for this get-together was easily explained however: It was time for the annual tinkering of lantern for the upcoming "Laternenfest" - Jakob's first big group event in the kindergarten.

I have a job to do! Don't disturb!

We joined the other kids and parents handcrafting, painting and stamping and Jakob had lots of fun applying the colours on the stamps, the paper and bottom of the lantern as well as himself and once the colours have all dried Markus had the honourable duty to assemble all parts together and finish the lantern. By that time Jakob had forgotten that is was late afternoon and a rather uncommon time to be in the kindergarten. He had already eaten 5 slices of supplied cake as the handcrafting obviously was exhausting and he played with his friends just like every morning. Our sunshine was also very proud to show us parents around in the room and present us with all the features - toilets and washing basins in the right height for children, the cupboards for their dishes and the loads of toys the little ones are playing every day. It seemed that he really enjoyed his time with mom and dad in the kindergarten but was very happy when we left for home at 1800 again. After all it was dinner-time!

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

O'zapft is...

The Oktoberfest in Munich is an institution since 1810 and attracts millions of people each year to come to the Wiesn for singing, dancing and drinking loads of Maß-Beer. This year also Vienna is hosting first time something similar: The Wiener Wiesn on the Kaiserwiese just by the Riesenrad has opened its doors on September 23rd and offers until October 2nd  a similar programme like its big brother in Munich: food, music and lots of beer.

The boys are ready for the Wiesn

As Peter invited us for an afternoon in one of the four tents and so we had a perfect opportunity to get our Lederhosen out of the closet and get dressed up. For Jakob it was the first time ever to wear his leather trousers and after initial doubts he very soon started to like it. Both boys looked almost Bavarian in their outfit when we got on the way to the other side of the Prater. Both Anna and Jakob were initially a little bit scared (or were they overwhelmed) by the larger number of people out- and inside the tent, but after a while they started to enjoy themselves, enjoyed the (sometimes awful) music, danced, chased each other and had a lot of fun.

What a cool ride home!

Several hours and a few Maß beer later we left the Kaiser-Zelt and got on the giant ferris wheel. Even though Jakob has not yet enjoyed this Viennese landmark he was less impressed with the great view over the city but he was more fascinated by the roller-coasters next to the giant ferris wheel. Once we touched ground again his first way led him closer to these roller-coasters and it became pretty obvious to us, that fairly soon our little dare-devil will be going on one of these. We rounded the nice late-summer afternoon up with another premiere: we rode the Liliputbahn ratehr tah  walking the whoel 1,5 km home. Both Anna and Jakob loved it, waved to the people nearby, laughed a lot and were smiling all over. The perfect end to a lovely Sunday afternoon.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

Jakob's main summer activity: jump around

Since yesterday, when Markus returned to work again, our honeymoon is officially history.During the past two weeks however we probably have seen the best of the best of this summer in Austria: sunshine and warm weather returned just before our wedding ceremony started and remained with us until past Saturday afternoon when it cooled off with a heavy thunderstorm. In between we had almost countless days of ideal weather for the beach or outdoor pool with temperatures reaching up to 39 degrees and very mild (not to say hot) nights. As a consequence we spent almost every day a few hours by the water - be it in the nearby Stadionbad, the Neusiedler See or the St. Martins Therme in Frauenkirchen. Who needs to fly away for honeymoon if tropical weather comes and visits you?

What would we do without the waterslide?

Our junior not only loved the fact that both mom and dad were available for him but also enjoyed the hours we spent outdoors in and by the water. We could quite clearly recognize a certain preference towards pools where he can jump into the water rather than poools or lakes where one has to walk into the water. His enthusiasm about jumping around has been there for a long time - since months Jakob is jumping around at home on and off our sofa like on a trampoline - and this enthusiasm was further fueled by trampolines in the Stadionbad, in Weiden/Neusiedler See as well as in Geri, Lissi & Emma's backyard. Our sunshine used all these occasions to jump around like a rubber ball that seemed to never get tired.

Falling over on the trampoline is sooo much fun!

As mentioned earlier Jakob loves to jump into the water and that was his major exercise at the baby-pool in the first week of our holiday. Over time that was not exciting enough anymore for him and so in the next step he looked out for higher jumps and urged us permanently to join the queue with him for the 3m diving board in the Stadionbad. Not only that the diving pool was massively overcrowded and none of us really ken to jump of the 3m board on our own we clearly vetoed his wish. We had however to strike a deal with him and agreed on a compromise: the starting block 50m pool which is also used for official swim competitions. This block offers a ca. 1m jump into 2,5 m deep water and was just enough for our little crazy water-rat:

While this year the 3m board definitely is a no-go, we are somehow curious and worried about next summer as we are not sure if we can keep him away from that beast in summer 2012.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus