Carter is Three!

Carter turned 3 today. It's amazing how quickly these three years have gone by. Yet, at the same time, I can't imagine life without him. As you can see, Carter got a train table and train set for his birthday. He pretty much bounced from one end of the house to the other while Daddy assembled the whole thing. Juliane, our neighbor and babysitter, came over. She gave him the Lightning McQueen pillow. It was just a quiet celebration. In lieu of a birthday cake, I put candles in some homemade banana bread...and then spread Nutella all over it.

Today at school Carter got to wear a crown during circle time and he got to choose all the songs they sang. The school doesn't let us bring in cupcakes or cookies for birthdays (as they contain sugar! ah..the horror), so we brought in cheese sticks and fruit kabobs.

The big party will be this Saturday. During the celebration we'll be packing up all of Carter's pacifiers into a box and "sending" them off to little boys and girls who still need them. So far he seems OK with the idea...we'll see how it actually pans out on Saturday night when he tries to go to bed without one. I'm actually quite worried that he might give up naps if he doesn't get a paci.

The answer to a question we never thought to ask

Carter has been really into names lately, especially middle names. I am Daddy Robert Gale these days. The other day he asked about Corky's middle name. We didn't even know Corky had a middle name, so Carter told us. Evidently it's Corky Pluto Gale.

Break-in update

It's now almost 12 hours since the burglary. The bad guys broke in using a crowbar to pry the door open. The also got our ex-landlord/neighbor, Mr. Tree. He lost the same kind of stuff as we did, including his keys.

We are in full recovery mode here. All credit cards are canceled with replacements on the way. Our locks have been changed and we now have a new car. Quite a nice coincidence that we were scheduled for a new lease car today. I brought the old one in and explained that one key was stolen and the Ford garage took it with no problems. Mr. Tree had a good laugh about that - he thought it was funny that we have our keys stolen and then immediately get a new car. He asked if we could get one for him too!

We are relieved that only replaceable stuff was taken. It's interesting thinking about what they didn't take. Carla's laptop, my nice watch, our car, our neighbors BMW???? I cant figure why they would take the car keys and not the cars. Maybe they are planning to come back? It's easy to understand why people own guns.

Next step is to go to the Polizei station to give them a full list of what was stolen and pictures of the big stuff. Tomorrow we go to apply for new licenses. Ugh.

BURGLARY!!!!

Do not be alarmed, Corky is fine. In fact, no kitties were harmed in the making of this blog post. The sad fact is that somebody, indeed, broke into our place this morning at the unkind time of 3:45 am. There were some loud noises that woke me up. Once I decided that it was not the usual Corky trouble that often comes this early in the morning, I decided to check it out. Once downstairs I found the front door open and then noticed the car keys missing. The car was still there so I did some more checking. My wallet and watch were gone. I got Carla up and we called the police. While we waited for them, I called the credit card companies and our bank. The burglars clearly did not come far into the house since Carla's laptop was still on the kitchen table. The police arrived and pointed out where the robbers had pried the door open. Then we gave them the full list of stolen stuff:

1. Car keys - we get a new car today so not a big deal
2. House & garage keys - time to move!
3. Ben's wallet - ouch
4. Carla's purse - ouch, big time, that was Italian leather
5. Change jar - around 50 Euros, those two dollar coins really accumulate
6. Carter's school bag - not much more than some dirty underwear in there
7. Ben's watch - they took the Citizen and left the Tag Heuer - idiots
8. Our camera - had all our Paris pics and several of Carter in his underwear

The police collected our bank account number and took statements. They also want a picture of my watch. Carla suggested they just look for somebody carrying an L.L. Bean bag embroidered with "Carter"

So, we are left with essentially no cash and no way to easily get money from our account. Looks like we are going to spend today getting new ID's and changing the locks. We are going back and forth between relief and anger. It's 5:30 am as I type this and we are mostly thankful that Carter slept through the entire thing.

It's Official

The eviction notice came today. We have until the end of November to be out. The new house search starts Monday. Our plan is to be finished much sooner though. We just want to put this behind us and get settled into our new place, wherever that may be.

Kids Say the Craziest Things...

Carter finished using the potty and Ben said, "Carter let's put your underwear back on."

Carter replied, "No, my penis is too big."