Friends we miss...

Madi was so excited to get to see all of her friends from home! In fact, EVERY night after I tuck her into bed she says, " Maybe we can see Lisie, Avery, Eden, Ian, Baby Zane and Baby Chloe soon. And then she adds, "AND Nora even though I didn't get to see her at Christmas." Yikes! What a heartbreaker! Although she has friends here, it's just not quite the same...we miss you all!

Christmas in February?!

Could it have been Santa's enormous venires that freaked Drew out??!!

Let's see, the last post was Thanksgiving...hmmm only 3 months ago! Well, for those of you who hung in there with me through my extended hiatus, I am all set to recap the last few month's events. With Brad off skiing in the Alps for 3 days with friends (errrr!), I have plenty of time at night to catch up.

First of all, I had an amazing time in the the US for about 6 weeks! It was so great to see family and friends and I loved taking advantage of all of the conveniences that I miss over here. As for Christmas, Santa hit both Brad and my family's houses hard this year and the gifts just kept on coming! The kids loved it and it was so wonderful until we had to bring it all back with us....(I will save that story for a future post. The trip back REALLY does deserve a post all it's own!)

The Dunbar Christmas:

Madi did not play this year while opening presents...she was on a mission!

Drew was just chillin' in the wrapping paper...what more can you ask for?!

Madi's signal that she's tired is putting her hand on her cheek. She says that it relaxes her - ha! Here she is snuggling with Nana.

Again "relaxing" with Pawpaw.

Drew with Mimi xoxox

Aunt Amy with the babies and the rocking sheep that Mimi and Pawpaw brought Drew which is currently on its way from the US to Switzerland!

Sweet pic of Uncle Chris and Drew

WE LOVE YOU Mimi , Pawpaw, Nana, Uncle Chris, Aunt Amy and of course LuLu! Thanks so much for a wonderful time and all of the Christmas loot!

The Sipkowski Christmas:Believe it or not, Madi was 100% convinced that this was Santa! (Thanks Dad, we owe you :o)

Seriously, what's not to love!

The magic of Noni!

Noni and Papa

Boogie and Sissy xoxox


After the kids go to bed... ;o)

Madi's BFF Lisse

Dado and Cutsie-pie Lisse

Aunt Jean :)

1 month old baby Zane and his brave mommy Corrie - thanks so much for making the trip!

Madi said that she wants another baby....ahh - not quite!

With 11 adults and 4 kids, under the age of 3, all staying at my parent's house for Christmas it's amazing we survived, but we all had a blast and I can't wait to do it again next year! Love you Mom, Dad, Boogie, Sissy, Aunt Jean, Uncle Steve, Daniel, Cor-Cor, Keith, Lisse and Baby Zane!

Thankful for.....imported turkey!

I realize that Christmas is just around the corner and that Thanksgiving is ancient history, but I thought - a late post is better than no post at all....right??!

OK, it's no secret that Brad and I desperately long for US food - the mexcian variety in particular! In fact, with the help of our families/friends, we pretty much have every meal planned out for our entire visit home. We have embraced the food over here, but surprisingly, there isn't a lot of variety so we just get really bored of it. That being said, when we got the invite to have Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of fellow US expats from Brad's work, we were pumped to say the least. The food was de-lish and the turkey was smuggled over from Russia which made it taste oh-so-good!

The kids had a great time and were smothered with attention. (f.y.i. the swiss don't smother quite like a bunch of southerners do!) Drew got some extra special attention from this little Russian girl named Kylie. She just pet him and kissed him and talked to him the whole time...so cute!

Madi entertained us all with a bit of unexpected OCD behavior. She has always been a big fan of walking up and down steps. At a park she will quickly bypass a slide or a swing for a set of stairs...wierd, I know. Anyway, she really outdid herself that day when she literally walked up and down the spiral staircase almost the entire time that we were there (3 hours). She did take a few bites of turkey and threw on a princess gown with the other girls, but it wasn't long until she was mastering the stairs again. No doubt there were many jokes made on her behalf that day, but I would be lying if I said that I wasn't proud of her for being her own independent little self - completely oblivious of the pull to follow the crowd. Could she be anymore like her Daddy??!!

HALLOWEEN!!! Well, sort of...

Once again Brad and I made the mistake of assuming that US practices had saturated the entire world and that celebrating Halloween was no exception. We asked around to see if the holiday was embraced in CH and we were given mixed messages. In the end, we felt that it was in the best interest of our little girl's happiness to give it a go....ok it may have had a little to do with the fact that I wanted to dress her up in her super cute fairy costume :) So...against all odds Brad and Madi set out in 10 degree C temp to search for a trick-or-treating posse of Swiss kids to follow around. As you have probably guessed by now, they were unsucessful. However, Brad was clever enough to drive her around to all of our friends houses and slip them some candy to give her if they didn't have any. By the end of the night, Madi was thrilled and thought that she had hit the candy jackpot - so I would say that it was all worth it.

Drew on the other hand, was fortunate enough to get to stay nice and warm at home with me. After Brad put his foot down ;) we decided to spare Drew the torture of being dressed up in Madi's last year's baby chick costume. I'm sure that he will thank us later!

We hope that you all had a great Halloween in the States and will be enjoying your enormous candy loot for many months to come. We miss you!!!

Our Crazy Diamonds

While Brad, Drew and I had an amazing time in Paris, Madi had a blast hanging out with her Mimi and Paw Paw who came to visit. Since then, things have been a little hectic with Drew getting a pretty bad case of bronchitus and Madi starting school. We recently bought a car so pics of future weekend trips should resume again soon. In the meantime, I can't help but give a quick update of my sweet bebes.

Drew still smiles and laughs at pretty much anything, especially Madi and Brad. He's commando crawling and he loves to stand (with help). He is a big eater and thanks to his Mimi's very large package containing loads of Gerber babyfood, he is the only one in the family who is enjoying much missed US food! He is still a mama's boy and I swear if I could carry him in the Baby Bjorn for years to come he would be completely content!

Madi is an absolute trip!! Contrary to popular belief, I think the "terrible twos" should be renamed the "hilarious twos." Madi says and does the funniest things and adores the attention that it brings. Although there is no doubt that she takes after me in many ways, she is also clearly her daddy's child. For example, currently one of her favorite movies is 'Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land'. For those of you who aren't familiar with this old time classic, it's about Donald traveling back in time to ancient Greece to better understand Pythagorus and the Pythagorium Theorem. Now in our defense, this movie was sent to us from Disney Movie Club by mistake. Another movie that she asks for quite frequently is what she calls "Man Singing" or David Gilmour Meltdown Concert. She makes her Pink Floyd lovin', "master of the calculator" daddy beam with pride!