Remember When...

Five years ago today Tally and I were married for all time and eternity. It seems forever ago, but I remember certain things so well. I don't have time to post everything I feel and would want to say, but I feel so lucky to be married to such a hard working, loving, trustworthy, funny, family oriented man. He is my best friend and my other half. Here are a few pictures from our wedding that I love.

I'm getting excited to see you Grandma!

This post is especially for my mom. She's so excited to see Kelsey in a FEW DAYS!

Mom,
Kelsey's been going around the house making the "g" sound all week. We've been pointing to the picture of you and her at Christmas and saying "Grandma (we've been doing grandpa too)." Sometimes I'll say, "where's Grandma?" So far she just laughs at me. Where's Grandma, Kelsey?

The bubble swimsuit you got her


"Bye Grandma, kisses!"

First Steps

Tonight Kelsey officially took what I consider to be her first steps. Tal and I were cleaning up dinner and she was walking around the cabinets. I happened to look down to see her let go, take two steps out towards the middle of the room, stop, and then take two more steps before sitting down. I guess I gasped when I saw it because Tally turned around and saw it too. As I was doing the dishes, I didn't have time to run get the camera or I would have missed it completely. So, this grand occasion goes un-photographed. However, the moment was cemented in my mind. I picked her up and hugged her and seriously almost cried. I just felt grateful for her and grateful that Tal and I could be there to witness a milestone in her life. In another sense, I felt like my little baby was growing up too fast! It was so cute to see her little steady but yet unsteady body and her nonchalant look as if to say, "I do it all the time when you're not looking." I'll get a pic of it soon I'm sure.

Going Home on the Boat

After my German lesson this week, Tal met Kelsey and me for a walk around Zurich. It was a cold summer day so I was grateful for the sweater and beanie from Kelsey's aunt Mary Jane. I'm so glad she got to wear it because it's so cute. We walked by the boats and the one to our town was about to leave so Kels & I jumped on and had a great time. We met a family from Brazil and they just loved Kelsey. Luckily they spoke some English and Spanish so we were able to communicate. It reminded me why I love the latin culture.

Our 10 Month Old

Our little Moogle is growing up so fast! We are loving this stage. She does so many fun, cute things that just make our hearts melt. I've listed several things that she's been up to below.

She says mom really cute. It sounds more like "mam."

Everything is "dada." She'll point to something and say, "da." Which also means "there" in German. When Tally comes home from work though it is a real "dad" or "daddy." Sometimes she'll also say "baba." We're working on "grama."

She has become way more mobile. She took 3 steps on Monday night! It was just from the coffee table to the couch and funny enough, Tally and I both saw it and were on the phone with my mom. One day she climbed up and started walking along the walls and she hasn't stopped since. It gives her so much more freedom.

She can finally do "more" in sign language. We work on a few and I should have known it would be that one first. She LOVES food.

She's pretty obedient. I feel like I'm having to say, "take that out of your mouth and give it to mom" quite often but she usually takes it right out and hands it to me.

She's still waking up once in the night to eat so I am going back to rice cereal. The one night this week that I remembered to give her that before bedtime, she slept like a dream. So I think I'll be doing that a lot more. However, wouldn't you wake up cranky if you fell asleep like this?

Or This? I think her arm is turning blue beneath her.

A few of her favorite things:

Brushing Her Teeth

Now that she has two little front bottom teeth, it's time to learn how to take care of them! These pics were from our first time brushing her teeth.

Mmm...toothpaste!

Playtime with Daddy

Our little boy, Kelso...I found these PJ's at H&M and I couldn't resist. Normally I'm not in love with character prints on clothes, but Tally loved Tigger as a kid and I thought it would be cute.

Where's Kelsey? Playing peek-a-boo with dad

New Highchair

It took a day or two of getting used to but now she loves her highchair. It means FOOD! She tried blueberries for the first time and LOVES them. It's fun now that she's getting old enough to have all sorts of food, to see what she likes. She's still breast feeding too.

She also loves to push it around the kitchen.

Binkis

Sometimes I put several in her crib so she's less likely to scream for one at night. And sometimes she has all three of them and still cries, not wanting to sleep in her own crib. This is the face of absolute adoration she gets when she sees Tally.

Peek-A-Boo

Pulling out all the baby dishes, napkins, pans and anything she can reach in the cabinets

Water Bottles

Especially when they're her own size. She does great with a Sippy cup too. She also picked up how to drink through a straw right away when she saw my chocolate milk carton.

Books

She loves books and being read to. Now that she can get around by herself, I often see her in her room with all the books off the shelf, looking through a book (upside down doesn't matter to her). Kelsey wants me to tell Great Grandma Lang "Danke" for this book as it's one of her favorites. She loves watching the eyes move.

Going Outside

Switzerland is green for a reason. It rains. Not all the time and like I've said before, we've had great weather. However, on those rainy days, Kelsey wishes we were outside.

Playdates & Parties

She is very social. I should have known. I remember as a kid, going to the grocery store with my mom, and people telling my mom their whole life stories in line and my mom sympathizing with them. By the time my mom checked out, she had the person's phone number in hand and they were friends. I remember it taking us so long. Now, I can't get through the store with at least 7 people stopping us to talk to Kelsey and telling me how "herzlich" she is (lovely, adorable). She loves the attention and gives everyone a flirty, melt when you see this one, kind of smile. Thus, we make a lot of friends at the store now too. She also loves to be around other kids, big or small. This picture was taken at the lake/beach the other day. As soon as I walked away to get my camera, all these 10-12 year old Swiss girls flocked and she loved it. I love the way her feet are in this picture, like women stand when they get together to talk.

Little Miss Lady

I just love this little outfit. It's Janie & Jack and it makes her look like a little lady! We took her to a dinner party and our Swiss friends got a kick out of it.

So did their kids...guess she needed her hair brushed! The Birchler boys were so cute with her.

Playing with her boyfriend Matthew at the beach

What happens when mom takes the diaper off

What a mug! I've never seen her make that face before. I guess she wasn't so sure about Brooke!

Coop

This is one of our two grocery stores nearby. When we used to have aerobics every Tuesday morning, I would do the week's grocery shopping afterwards. This time, Jennifer and Emily came with. Both girls love riding in the front of the cart.

Pretty in pink and her new sandals. We put Kelsey and Emily inside the cart and let them play when we went to the mall.

Abram teaching Kelsey her letters and numbers

Are you talkin to me?

Slovenia, Croatia, Italy

Over the July 4th weekend, we drove down through Italy to Slovenia & Croatia. The Bergs and the Pettys let us stay in Italy a night on the way there and back so our drive wasn't so long and we enjoyed our time in Italy with them. Kelsey has been a little champ on all of our long car rides...it's fun to see the things she does to keep herself entertained.

PoRToRoz, SLoVEniA

Our hotel and topless women in the background. We loved the beaches in Portoroz but it's very different than the beaches I'm used to. They don't have sand unless it's imported (very few) and it's all rocks and sidewalk. It's beautiful though.

Our hotel by night. It was very nice and in a perfect location. We'd stay there again but I don't think we'll be in the area again.

Shipyard along the waterfront walkway


Sunset at Portoroz
Here I am keeping Kelsey distracted while waiting for dinner. There was a dog at the table next to us and she would have stayed right next to it the entire time if she had her way! We found the food in Slovenia to be very bland. With everything we tried we kept saying, "this needs more flavor." One night we bought gelato and ended up throwing it out and buying new ones!
Authentic Slovenian food. It wasn't bad, just lacked flavor. Kelsey enjoyed walking along this gate. At one point, Tal and I were just talking and when we looked up, Kelsey was gone! We looked all the way at the end of the fence and there she was about to put a cork in her mouth. She's loving her new found freedom and I'm thinking it's going to be a lot of work!

What do these two things have in common?
Despite the huge difference in price, they get you from point A to point B with the Mclaren/Maclaren name.


PuLA, cROaTiA

After spending a day in Slovenia we decided to head to the Istria peninsula in Croatia, so we drove an hour south of Portoroz to Pula. It was HOT, but we really enjoyed the ancient Roman Amphitheater and the fortress at the center of the city. The FX rate is about 7 Kuna to 1 Euro so the price of things seemed astronomically high even though it was pretty cheap compared to the rest of Europe.





The Amphitheater

Ancient ruins just lying around.

ROvInJ, crOaTIA

Rovinj is only about 20 minutes North of Pula and the old town is built on a hill that is surrounded by the Adriatic Sea on three sides. This picturesque little town was mine and Tal's favorite of the trip and we fell in love with the marble stone streets, beautiful views, and colorful culture.

pORec, CrOATia

The little market on the peninsula at Porec was fun to walk through and I even found the perfect little blue and white sailing shirt for our upcoming cruise. Porec is known for it's mosaics so we checked those out at the basilica and then finished up the day at a colorful little restaurant at the harbor. All in all, except for the heat we had a picture perfect day in Croatia.

What's wrong with the picture above?

PiRAn, SlOvEnIa

After spending another day in Portoroz we headed back to Italy, but we decided to visit the near by town of Piran before leaving. We enjoyed a leisurely stroll along the boardwalk to a lighthouse at tip of the peninsula and then found a little sea front restaurant on the way back. The water was a beautiful blue and it contrasted beautifully with the white rocks used to fortify the boardwalk. It was fun walking through the narrow walkways of Piran and finding so many kids kick playing in the car free streets.

Italy
On the way home from Slovenia, we passed through Triste, Italy. Once at the Petty's, we were able to visit a walled city called Cittadella. It was beautiful. We also got some pics of the corn fields, and the sunset at the Petty's house.

Kelsey playing with Abram...or trying to pull his hair. He refers to her as "Kelsey - pull hair." She's creating a name for herself!