A Christmas To Remember

Once upon a time, there were two brothers. Jayden Ryberg, the oldest brother and Jayce Ryberg, the youngest brother. One Christmas the two brothers were surprised to find that one of their many presents were two bean bag chairs. They loved these bean bag chairs because it gave them nice, comfy places to sit while watching their favorite movies in their playroom.

Jayden and Jayce love snow. The snow only stayed for 3 days this Christmas season. The two brothers don't understand why it only stayed for 3 days, but are hopeful that it will return. They wake up every morning, waiting for their beloved snow.

Three days after Christmas, Jayden and Jayce were playing in their playroom when they discovered that their bean bag chairs have zippers. They ponder for a bit and then decide that they better see what these zippers open up to. To their amazment, they have something in them that looks like the one thing they've been missing for so many weeks, snow!

It was almost dinner time that night, so Daddy Ryberg went down stair to bring his sons up from their playroom to the dinner table. When he got to the playroom door he said with great disbelief, "What the!!!" Mommy Ryberg heard this and rushed downstairs and just before she reached her husband, she heard, "Look Daddy, it's snowing in the playroom!" "Oh, no!" she thought. Sure enough, it was snowing in the playroom and their two sons were covered in it!

I'm not sure we'll ever own another bean bag chair! We did manage to vaccum it all up. I'm not even sure how long it took, but we had to get the boys wiped off and moved to another location first. We then vaccumed out what was in the tent and then wiped of each individual toy and put it in the tent. Man, those suckers cling to everything! They even managed to find their way down Jayce's diaper and were all over his little peepee. Jayden was concerned for Jayce because they weren't coming off right away. (Sigh) Jaysen did say he didn't think bean bag chairs were a good idea for this very reason, but because I wanted them so badly he went a head a got them. He even managed to keep his cool when he discovered what the boys had done. He couldn't help but laugh because Jayden kept saying, "Look Daddy, it's snowing in the playroom." We are still finding snow in different rooms of our house.

Jolly Old St. Nick

The boys were really excited about having their picture taken with Santa. We got this taken at the Graf PX about 2 weeks ago.

Christmas Day Thus Far

We would like to say thank you to all our loved ones for all the nice Christmas presents! We love you all and hope that your day is enjoyed as much as ours has been.

Christmas Morning

T'was The Night Before Christmas

Here is our Christmas tree. Isn't it perty. This was just before Santa ate his Pfefernusse cookies.

Movie Quality

I apologize for how dark the first 2 movies are. They were taken at night and the lighting here in Germany STINKS!

New Game

This is a new favorite game they play together. Not sure how it came about, but they do it atleast 3 times a day.

Our Little Artist

Jayden has just discovered that he can draw! He figured it out all by himself. This is his first creation.

So Happy, We Scream!

So, my Dad wanted to know if the boys like to eat meals together. I think they enjoy it too much!! They enjoy it sooo much that I need to take a Tylenol after each meal. (Sigh)

Playing In The Leaves

This is just one of many trips to the park with the girls, but the only outing that I brought my camera. It won't be the last. Left to Right; Becca, Jayce, Sara and Jayden.

Caught Talking To Himself :0)

Hurray! He's Walking!

He finally realized he can walk! It's only a few steps at a time, but he tries to walk when ever he can. We are so relieved.

Arriving at Edelweise Lodge in Garmisch

We recently attended an Army sponsored marriage retreat in Garmisch. It took us about 3 hours to get here and thats with driving on the autobahn. The overall trip was good. We stopped at a Burger King along the way to get some lunch and so the boys could stretch. They were both really good travelers, thank goodness. I was a little worried about how Jayce would be since he hasn't been on a long trip since he was a baby, but he was a good passenger with just on occassional whine here and there and he either wanted a snack or he would whine right before he fell asleep. I didn't even have to bring out the portable dvd player!

Once we arrived, which was around 1:45pm, we checked in and didn't have to be down to dinner until 5pm. That time went by fast with all the unloading and talking to everyone else about the itenerary and trying to find the Child Development Center. The lecture started at 6pm. We had to eat dinner and drive to have the boys checked in to the CDC and back in time for the lecture. Wheeeew. It took a little while to check the boys in, but it was nice in the end because neither of them cried when we left. Jayden even said, "Bye mommy, bye daddy" and he was off to explore all their toys. The lecture was over at 8pm and we had till 9pm to pick them up.
The first session we learned about different personality types. The Lion, the Otter, the Golden Retreiver and the Beaver. I'm gonna try to sum up each type; the Lion is a take charge kind of person and a leader and a decision maker. The Otter is outgoing, care free, life of the party, has a lot of friends, but couldn't tell you their names. The Golden Retreiver is loyal, caring, nurturing, and a peace maker. The Beaver always does things right the first time, is very organized and by the book. We learned that Jaysen is a Lion/Beaver and I am a Golden Retreiver/Otter. The chaplin had a clip with a guy who explained them all and how they may interact together. It was pretty funny.

After the session we went straight to pick up the boys. Jayce was still wide awake and Jayden didn't want to leave. It was nice to see they had fun. When we got back to the room, we gave them a bath and put them in bed. Jayce was in his pack n play and Jayden got to sleep on a queen sized bed all to himself. We had our own of course. They weren't really tired so we turned on the portable dvd player and they watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. It got to be 10:30pm and they STILL were not asleep, so we decided we should go to bed and turn off all the lights and tv. They went to sleep right away.

Saturday was an early day. We had to be up, ready, have eaten and drop the boys off all before 9am! We managed to do all that and have 15min to spare. The second session was about love languages, conflicts and resolutions. This was from 9am till noon. Wheeew. We learned a lot from this as well. I think the main thing was to try to be aware of what love language your partner is speaking and to show them you're listening AND to let each other know you appreciate them by saying thank you when they do things like help put the kids to bed or remember to pick up a couple grocceries, ect. Oh, the love laguages are; Words of Affermation, Gifts, Acts of Service and Physical Touch. In case you're wondering. We didn't have to pick up the boys until 2pm so we went and had lunch with another couple. We ate at an asian place called the Princess Garden. It was nice and quiet and they gave you huge helpings of food! We didn't wait till 2 to pick up the boys because we had to go eat dinner with the commander at 5 and Jayden REALLY wanted to go to the pool! We don't have pics of that because we had Jayce in the pool too. They both had a blast!!

Dinner at the Alpinehof

Saturday night, we had dinner with Jaysen's comander along with all the other senior officers. He wanted to get together to thank everyone for all their hard work since soon there will be a change of command. It was at a nice little place called the Alpinehof in downtown Garmisch. The only problem was that the directions were not clear and it was in a walking shopping area so there was no parking allowed. We must have walked around for 15 to 20mins in the cold rain before we got good directions! I was NOT happy. The place was nice and we had a nice closed off area with a really nice waiter and the food was good, so it almost makes up for having to show up soaking wet.

Our First Family Photo!

This is our first family of 4 photo. We took this after we were checking out and Jayden just wasn't in the mood. Oh well, atleast the rest of us look good. Stinker.

The boys had fun on our trip, but were ready to head home.

Leaving Garmisch

The Austrian border was only 14k away from the Edelweise Lodge, so on our way home we thought we'd cross the border to say we've been to Austria. The river pics are in Garmisch. We took them on our way back from Austria. We wanted to stop and explore a bit, but it was raining! We are definitly coming back.

He loved watching the remote control tanks and especially loved riding in the kiddie helicopter! Poor Jayce was wiped out from helping mommy and fell asleep in the stroller.