During March Madness, we called a moratorium on the “no screens during the schoolweek” rule so Little Brother could get his fix of basketball games. It wouldn’t be fair to let one brother get screens but not the other. And it wouldn’t be fair to only allow screen time for sports (Nate likes to “play sports, not watch it”). So during March Madness, it looks like Nate gets to enjoy extra TV, movies and video games during the week. Lucky for him!

Watching Netflix on the iPad

A typical Monday afternoon for Lincoln does not include time for homework. Kindergartners at our school get homework on Wednesday and turn them in by Monday so Mondays are typically free and clear. Today, however, was a special Monday. Today this little guy had some very – VERY – important homework to attend to.

Time to fill out his BRACKETS!
Anyone who knows my youngest son knows that he is OBSESSED with sports. Basketball in particular. So March Madness is totally, completely, absolutely right up his alley. He knows all the teams, their stats, their key players. It took him no time to fill out his brackets; he knows exactly who he thinks will win.

His final pick:

And a little interview with the kid. You can hear his thoughts on the teams for yourself.

As expected, both boys came home from school armed with loads of Valentines. The sugary sort.

I have nothing against candy, sweets, and goodies. (Just check my pantry, you’ll see your fair share of Sour Patch Twists and Haribo Gummi bears living there). But since I knew the kids would be getting loads of goodies today, I opted to send the kids to school with non-edible Valentines this year.

This little crayon craft has been floating around Internetsville for a while now. It’s been bookmarked for ages and recently, I graduated to pinning things and so, I pinned this little activity on my Pinterest page*. It was the perfect craft for my boys’ interest level in crafting. (In other words, it was easy and quick.)

Here’s the pin below:

Switching gears here for a second: Here’s a pick of my oldest with a really good friend of his. Perhaps 90+ years from now, these two kiddos will be celebrating Valentines Day together, looking like this. (Nate’s class had to dress up as if they were 100 years old on the 100th day of school. These two are great friends and at times, they act like an old married couple. It cracks us moms up!)

Hope you had a fun day!

Here’s a quick peek at a few things I picked up at the local drugstore today. And judging by the near-empty shelves on the “cold/allergy remedies aisle”, I think a lot of you were out there stocking up as well.

Summer flew by and was crazy busy at expense of the blog. This tiny little blip on the world wide web was neglected, unfortunately. Boo.

We had a great summer and there were so many things I had intended to blog. But alas … the life of a busy, working mom caught up to me. So here I am, realizing that summer is practically gone and the soccer season is already upon us.

Here’s my little guy in action. (It was a bit confusing for the guys today as both teams had the same jersey and just looked like one big team. I have to admit they did better than expected!)

Silly boys, silly faces.

Just got this in the mail yesterday. I can see how this sort of advertising might make sense for some people/businesses but I just don’t see me driving around town with this sticker on my car window. Do you?? LOL …

So this trip to Germany is our first family vacation that included some full fledged sightseeing. The kind of sightseeing you hated as a little child. The kind where you visited museums, waited in lines, followed tour guides who spewed out information you couldn’t relate to, pleaded with your parents to move faster. The kind of sightseeing where you weren’t allowed to talk loudly, run around or touch anything. Yeah … as a kid, that sort of sightseeing wasn’t all that fun.

Well, now that I’m on the other side… Now that I’m the *parent* of said children being dragged out to sightsee, let me just state for the record: sightseeing with you kids isn’t exactly a bowl of cherries for us, either! In fact, it is, at times, downright painful. The town of Würzburg was beautiful and touring the Würzburg Residence seemed like it would be a great idea. Unfortunately, I pretty much walked away from our tour with no additional insight as to the historical significance of the architectural beauty.

It’s not because the site wasn’t interesting or historically important. It is.

It’s not because we couldn’t see or hear the english speaking tour guide. We could.

It’s because I spent the majority of the time FREAKED OUT that the kids were going to knock over some eighteenth century artifact or bust into a ‘do not enter’ zone during a game of hide & seek or start running around and playing tag at totally inappropriate times. Because of this, I think I only heard about 10% of what our tour guide had to say. {sigh} That’s ok, though. I was still able to take in the sights visually (but no photos inside) and I can supplement my knowledge with what wikipedia tells me about the Würzburg Residence.

So, some photos …

Before our tour, we had some time to cruise around the palace grounds. We hung out in the courtyard for a while letting the kids play hide & seek with Uncle Joni.

We adults agreed that Jon looked like a ridiculously bad cat burglar – something straight out of Pink Panther – as he was pretending to search for the kids. Jon, we meant it in the nicest way … I swear!

Remember I mentioned in the previous post that we were like the paparazzi? Doesn’t this pic say it all? The kids are just playing, having a good time. Colin’s on the left with his camera. Jon’s on the right with his. And I’m not too far from those guys taking photos of those guys as well!

We enjoyed a nice afternoon walk in the gardens. It was nice to see the sun for a change!

Our attempt at capturing a cheesy pic, trying to make the tree look like a hat. Hmmmm, jury’s out on this one.

I had fun getting creative and capturing this shot. Remember this pic… I’ll try to come back to it later (in a separate post) to discuss the technical settings and the thought process behind them.

A beautiful, light & airy church on our walk around town.

Downtown Würzburg.

Playing with black and white again. (For those who pay attention to this sort of stuff, the conversion method used is different than the previous post’s. Still experimenting …)

After a long day of sightseeing, a tasty dinner in town, we returned to our apartment. For a mean game of Guess Who.

I may be in Germany right now, but I’m happy to report that I’m back.

I’m back on the blog (after a three week hiatus thanks to a hectic and crazy holiday schedule).
I’m back in my role of mommy (the kind that actually pays attention to her kids and sits down to play games, do puzzles and draw).
I’m back as a wife (the kind who is nice and happy and not super cranky, overly stressed and dropping balls all the time. My husband is most thankful for her return, I’m sure!)

The last three weeks were definitely the busiest I’ve been in a long time. With the holiday crunch, the last minute photo sessions, the orders to fulfill, the Christmas presents to buy, the long lists of organizational/packing to-do lists in preparation for our 4.5 week trip to Germany, I was operating on fumes (and lots of caffeine). But the lack of sleep, chaos and whirlwind of activity was well worth the effort. I was so fortunate to have such AWESOME clients to attend to in 2009 and extremely lucky to have this European trip to look forward to. I may have been tired, but I was happy.

Fast forward to today. Today, my family finds itself relaxed and cozied up (probably not a real word but exactly how I feel – snuggly and cozy) in the cutest little German village called Wertheim. It’s a bit off the beaten path but not too far from Frankfurt and Wurzburg. We’re here to keep my husband company as he frequently travels back and forth to this little town for work. Instead of being apart during another business trip, we decided to tag along this time. Linc and Nate are young enough (3 and 5) that missing school is no big deal and since I work for myself, I was able to create my own vacation schedule. It seemed like the perfect opportunity for us Zimmermanns to undertake this mini move.

I’ll be blogging and posting photos throughout our stay. So definitely stay tuned and check back often for more photos from Germany.

For now, I’ll blog some photos of the things the boys and I have been most excited about since our arrival: SNOW!

On our first morning here, the boys were delighted to awake to falling snow. I loved that Linc declared that it must be Christmas since, according to his various storybooks, it snows on Christmas Day. (Repeat news to my Facebook friends, sorry!)

The boys were being silly, sticking their chins in the snow and pretending they had white beards like Santa.

More goofin’ around on our walk to find the local castle. (I *love* that a casual spur-of-the-moment outing consists of finding the local castle.) The snow really brought out their silliness and excitement. I loved their shrieks of delight as they romped around in the snow. This is definitely something we don’t see everyday.

Finding a little hill to “sled” down. Seeing how much fun they found with this little driveway, I can only imagine how much the boys will love the experience when Erich and I take ‘em out on a real sledding adventure.

Nate slides down while Linky (as you can see) runs back up for another go.

Nate picked up a bit too much speed and ended up sliding right underneath my legs.

Clearly, we are from Southern California where it doesn’t snow. There is barely any snow in this spot yet the boys saw the untouched snow and thought it would be the perfect place to make snow angels, something they’d had on their to-do lists for a mighty long time.

Note: One of the things Wertheim is known for is its wine. Those are vineyards up on the top of the hill across the way.

This is the church right next door to our home.

And a few pics of some flowers and snow. It’s fun to have such different things and landscapes to photograph. I’m looking forward to challenging myself and finding creative ways to document our trip through my lens. I’ll be back in the next day or so to post some photos of our little village.

I try hard to stay balanced, I really do. But lately, I’ve been so busy that the scales have definitely been tipped in favor of work. Recognizing that fact, I’m pausing for a moment to recharge and spend the better part of this holiday weekend with those whom I am most thankful for. So if I owe you an email or a phone call, know that I haven’t forgotten about you. I’ve just consciously decided to take a break and enjoy a fun-filled weekend with my family (both nuclear and extended).

Off to join my husband in the kitchen as we prepare our dishes/pies for Thanksgiving feast #1 of 2.

Hope you enjoy a fun and festive Thanksgiving with family and friends. I will be spending mine with these little guys.