Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

We had a wonderful Christmas, here again in Germany. It was great to see the kids excitment and watch them open up gifts. Brenne even got into opening gifts and was very enthusiastic with her toys. We thank all our friends and family who provided us with wonderful gifts. Each gift showed us your love and appreciation for our relationship.

My favorite memory this season was singing Christmas songs with the kids in the car. Jingle Bells, Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph were their favorites. Liam loved Feliz Navidad. We also enjoyed making festive crafts to decorate the house. It warmed my heart to hear them request the 'Christmas Story' of Jesus' birth be read almost every night before bed.

As the 2008 year ends, I am thankful and blessed for the many cherished and precious memories that have been created with Layne, Liam, and Brenne. I thank our family and friends who have kept in touch with us and shared their lives and happenings. With the new year, 2009 will bring us many new adventures and stories to share. So Happy New Year to all, cheers to a great one!!!

Brenne's First Birthday

Brenne had a great birthday celebration. Due to Mark's work schedule we had cake and sang 'Happy Birthday' on Wednesday. Then on her birthday, December 11th, we had more cake and opened up presents. Brenne was very much 'into' the birthday cake and loved opening gifts. She is a very happy girl who is very curious and energetic. She gets very excited when she interacts with Layne and Liam, as well as others she is comfortable with. She takes to unfamiliar people well and prefers to be walking whenever given the chance. She also loves to babble her own language and sounds. She loves to listen to music, move her body to the beat and will even sing. We are very blessed and thankful to have her in our family and that she is healthy and happy. She is currently 18 pounds and 28 inches tall.

Brenne is Walking

Brenne has really gotten a grasp of walking around and starting to speak her own babble language. She started out taking a few steps and of course figured it out with time. Here is a short video of her walking those steps in larger quantity. She also loves to hold her baby doll, so towards the end she is rocking it to a lullaby and giving her a 'love pat' hug.

Rothenburg Christmas Market

Our day was spent relaxing after Thanksgiving, but late afternoon we took a 2 1/2 hour drive to Rothenburg ob der Tauber to the famous Christmas Market and home of the Kathe Wolfahrt christmas oranaments/decoration store. The little market sparkled with lights and the half-timbered house/buildings were beautiful to see. We enjoyed walking around the store and seeing all the wonderful Christmas decorations that were made by various artists. We made a few purchases and explored a few more of the shops and vendors. It was well worth the trip and my Mom was very excited to have seen such a beautiful little town (so were the rest of us). We were so taken in by the market that we only captured one picture in front of the large nutcracker.

Happy Thanksgiving

The Sovereign Clan

Happy to be sitting in Grammy's lap

What a wonderful blessing and thankful gift to have my Mom be here to share the Thanksgiving holiday together. We worked on a traditional holiday feast preparing lots of Thanksgiving favorites. Before consumming our feast, we captured a few pictures. I think that they turned out great.

Wishing you all a lovely holiday season and saying 'thank you' to all our family and friends who have kept in touch, sharing their special moments with us as well. It is a treasure to have so many relationships and connections with not only family and friends in the States, but also with those who are currently living here in Germany. God bless each and every one of you.

Cute Kids

Just having some fun capturing photos of the kids. Layne, Liam, and Brenne love posing for the camera.

Brenne is sooo cute in her winter hat.

Liam and Layne have fun getting close and being silly.

Having fun on the couch behind the cushions.

Welcoming Winter

This past weekend started the colder temperatures and the arrival of our first snow. The kids enjoyed the small amount we did receive. Here are a couple of photos Mark captured.

Annweiler am Trifels--Town of Half-Timber Houses

My Mom and I went to Annweiler am Trifels, Brenne included, to see the beautiful half-timbered houses in the town. The Burg Trifels castle is currently closed for the season, but we drove up to the castle to capture a picture. Actually, most of the other tourist sites were closed for the season, and the half-timbered houses were just on one road basically, but it was a beautiful sunny day and we enjoyed walking around the town. There wasn't much open for grabbing a bit to eat, so we headed back to Ramstein. My GPS took us back another route and we ended taking a very curvy, winding road. Our appetites were thus minimized but we stopped at a local German restaurant and Brenne loved the bread, as well as gave me some cute poses.

Grammy is here!

My mom, Teresa Hocking, aka 'Grammy' to the kids is here for most of the month of November. We are all very excited to spend some quality time and just have fun together. Layne and Liam were very excited about her arrival. They even made a cute little video the morning of her arrival. Brenne has warmed up nicely to Grammy and enjoys playing with her.

We went to the indoor park, Yabadoo and Grammy really enjoyed playing with the kids and watching them have fun. She has also walked around the neighborhood with them and took them to the local park. She has also walked down to the bus stop with Layne every morning and a few times brought back yummy baked goods from the local bakery. Layne, Liam, and Brenne are just glad that Grammy is here to play games or do their favorite activities. Mark and I are glad to be able to have 'adult' time and conversations with her.

Happy Halloween

Layne learned all about Bats in her class during October. She was really fascinated by them and learning that they are mammals like us. Her class had a bat party on Thursday, Oct. 30 and the kids were asked to dress up as bats. I made the wings from a black t-shirt and sewed them on to a black sweater and made bat ears on a headband. She was excited about wearing the costume.


The kids had a good time going out dressed up in costume for safe 'trick-or-treating' on the very crowded Ramstein base. Most people commented on how cute Liam was with his Superman curl. I decided not to dress up Brenne this year, so we will look to do so next year.


Superman Liam and Angel Layne

New home in Steinbach am Glan, Germany

Well, we have been living in our new home for almost a month now. It feels good to be getting settled in and organized. There is still some work to be done, but this week is 'finalizing week' as my Mom will be coming to visit us for the month of November. The home is much easier to maintain and it fits our needs much better than the house before.

There is a local park that is within walking distance and the kids rode their bike/scooter, while I strolled Brenne and we played for a little while. There isn't much to the park, but the kids enjoyed it.

Our commute is a little bit longer and with the current construction that is happening in the town before us, Henschtal, we have a longer, but beautiful drive to get to autobahn. The following picture is the view of Leibstal and Quirnbach.

Liam's New Beginnings

Liam started pre-kindergarten at an American Montessori school called the C&K Children's House on September 29th. He was very excited to be there and going to 'school'. His neighbor friend (and son of one of Mark's co-workers), Sammy, also attends the school. This is a new beginning for Liam as he turned 4 years old on October 5th and welcomes his new age with enthusiasm and a strong desire for learning.

He spent his birthday celebration at the on-base bowling alley with friends who work with Mark. He was glad to have a 'real' party with friends. He is very happy to be a big 4 year old boy.

(He is wearing the same outfit in both pictures, but they were taken on different days).

Brenne's first word is....

"Bah-Bah" comes from the lips of Brenne after bye-bye was said to her when Layne and Liam were in bed saying good-night. She didn't say it until she was in her room as I was about to read to her. I immediately took her back to their room and she said 'bah-bah' after Liam said it and Layne said it. It was a great milestone to witness and it occurred on Wednesday October 8, just two days before turning 10 months. She hasn't said 'bah-bah' much since then, but we continue to encourage her.

Brenne is also keeping her balance longer, about 5 seconds and I bet will be taking her first steps this month.

Kid moments

We are just getting into our little routines and enjoying simple moments right now. Layne just loves to ride her 'borrowed' bike after school and Liam really loves to color in his coloring book. Brenne is just happy to be crawling around and pulling herself up where she can. She did climb a flight of stairs recently and loved it. Check out new pictures at our web album site.

Some new milestones

Well summer is over and new milestones are to be reported. Brenne is successfully pulling herself up into a standing position and will make this happen wherever possible. She also loves to roam around outside, of course trying out grass and dirt if she can.

Liam still enjoys all his moments inside, outside and will now be focusing on his writing skills and other pre-school basics. He is spelling his name out loud. His favorite word and color is R E D.

Layne is now a 1st grader and happy to be moving up into more learning skills. She is also excited about learning more german and already likes her new teacher Frau Trefftzs.

Singing to Brenne before born

Here is a video of Liam singing with me to Brenne just days before she is born. I thought it was too cute and I was able to download it for viewing. It is amazing that it has been eight months since Brenne was delivered to our family and how much Liam has changed in less than a year.

Happy Viewing!!

England Adventrue

What an exciting week we had in England. It was a treasure to be able to vacation with our friends and see some beautiful and fascinating sights of England. We stayed at a timeshare villa in Barham, just outside of Dover. The kids had a wonderful time playing with the many other kids that were staying that week in the enclosed courtyard. One hilarious happening was the daily visits from the door-to-door ducks looking to be fed. The kids loved providing the ducks with bread. They also enjoyed swimming and playing some tennis there as well.

The beautiful courtyard

Woods family feeds the ducks

In Canterbury, we walked through a charming little village park on our way to see the Cantebury Cathedral. We did enjoy seeing the "busyness" of the town. We did miss out on seeing the Cantebury Tales sights, but loved visiting the town.

The kids at the Canterbury Cathedral

In Dover, we first saw the White Cliffs of Dover, which were breathtaking to see, as well as walk along the paths. Brenne was exhausted and wanted to exercise her crawling skills, so Mommy didn't get to walk the cliffs. I did sit on a nice spot where I had a beautiful view of the cliffs and channel. Later in the week, we went to the Dover Castle, home of Henry VIII and the WWII secret wartime tunnels. The amount of history we discovered in our tours was very educational.

Layne and Liam at the White Cliffs of Dover

Our family at the Dover Castle

In London, we of course thoroughly enjoyed all the popular sites we could see in two days. We really enjoyed taking the Original Bus Tour so that we could see the heart of London. It was great to view the culture and experience the London Eye, see Big Ben, the London Bridge, Tower of London (which we didn't go inside), Westminister Abby, Buckingham Palace and the changing of the Guards. We even took the underground subway a couple of times. All adventures were enjoyed by all and the kids were great on the times when we had to walk long distances.

The popular red telephone booth

The Woods family (Andy, Kim, Gabe, and Gavin) were a great family to have along with us on our England adventure. This vacation will definitely be one we will cherish and we look forward to exploring more of England at another time.

Many more photos are available to be seen at our Web Album

Brussels with Paul Scherbel

Mark discovered that his high school friend, Paul Scherbel, currently resides in Brussels, Belgium. Paul is about to go stateside, so we made a short weekend trip up to Belgium to see him and explore a little of the area. We went downtown to the popular La Grande Place and saw the famous buildings in the square, along with the famous Manneken-Pis statue not too far away. We enjoyed some fried food, a belgian waffle, and got ourselves a box of Belgian chocolates at the Chocopolis. After a short little nap for some of us, and a few rain showers, the sun came out and we headed to a local park near his house in Overjise. Layne loved the fast zip-line and was on that whenever there wasn't a line. Liam loved being everywhere else and really enjoyed the large and fast slide. We then went to the pond and fed the ducks; but only had a few pieces of bread and by the time the flock came along, the bread was gone. Mark and Paul had a great time catching up on high school memories and viewing the high school year book. It was a great 'get away' visit to Belgium.

Dinosaur Park Fun Day

It took two days to enjoy this park, but we did have a great time at the Dinosaur Park in downtown Kaiserslautern at the well known Gartenschau, japanese garden park. It rained the first time we went, but we did get some mini golf in before it rained. At the next trip, it was a hot and sunny day, where the kids got to explore the bigger playground attractions. Brenne and I sat in the nice shade, so I didn't get as many pictures of Layne and Liam. We, of course, enjoyed our time with close friends and look forward to another warm day when we can explore it again.

Brenne-7 months

Brenne is getting around and enjoying playtime much more. She is now able to get herself into a sitting position when she is on her tummy. She also is scooting along on her tummy more and will most definitely be crawling around by months end. Brenne also has cut her left bottom tooth and her right tooth is coming in as well. She has discovered some food options and enjoys eating a variety of vegetables and fruits, as well as the bitter biscuits and juice.