Amelia is a US Citizen...

...well, almost.

We had our appointment at the US Consulate in Munich today at 10am. We leave the house at 7am, giving us 3 hours for a 2 hour drive. Thank goodness we had that hour leeway! There was a horrid wreck on the A93 south of Schwandorf, which added an extra half hour to the drive. A semi decided it wanted to try to break through to the other side...it was great that I wasn't driving so that I could be a full fledged rubber-necker. It looked pretty bad, but it also looked as if no one was dead, so that is a positive thing...the middle railings...well, they were really bad off and would have to be replaced. Then there was road construction galore, which we totally expected though.

In the car with all the paperwork (the paperwork that I thought was full and correct that is!)

But, alas, we make it to the consulate at about 9:30. We make it through security...no phones or cameras, but that was expected. They also took Amelia's musical elephant...that was not expected. She was cool with it though.

Walking over to the consulate

The amazingly beautiful US Consulate in Munich...I hope you notice the sarcasm!

About to go in...no cameras are allowed inside, so this is the last that I was able to take...plus, the batteries died about 2 seconds later...

Then the waiting game starts. Luckily, now, for all services, you have to have an appointment. You still have to wait, but it isn't AS long as before. After about 20 or 30 minutes, we get called to a window to hand over all our documents so that they can start processing all this stuff. At the same time, Amelia decides that she is starving. Luckily, this mommy was smart and pumped the day before, so I had about 3 ounces of mommy goodness. Markus went to warm it up under running water and fed her while I delt with the paperwork.

I come to find out two things are wrong. WTF!! I checked everything roughly 9 million times to be sure it was all correct! Well, turns out, we had the wrong type of birth certificate...oops. And then I didn't have enough paperwork to prove my citizenship! Again, WTF? I have my passport, what more do they need? Well, they need proof that I lived in the US for 5 years. Dude...that was no where on your little checklist that is on the website. It just says that I need to bring something to prove that I lived in the US, they didn't specify the length of time I needed to prove. No worries though, I can mail all this in and we don't have to make another trip down to Munich.

The officer that helps us out is nice and so that is good. Markus made a comment that they imported everything from the US...the doors, the chairs, the weird movie that they had playing. It was cool...It was also Amelia's first trip to the US (sort of :)...).

So, now all I have to do is pop all this in the mail and in a few weeks, we should have all of Amelia's US citizenship stuff (passport, Consular Report of Birth Certificate, social security card). It was a pretty successful trip to Munich I must say...oh, and we had enough time to run to a Starbucks for a half caf caramel macciato and a blueberry muffin...just a little taste of home...even if the guy behind the counter looked at me like I was retarted when I wanted a half caffinated haf decaffinated coffee. Whatever.

Oh, and on the ride home, I made some smart ass comment that Amelia hasn't pooped since Friday and that she's just waiting for a chance to have her daddy change that one...yeah, she pooed roughly 5 minutes AFTER Markus left again for work...thanks Amelia!

UPDATE: My friend Tammy explained the reasoning behind proving you lived in the US for 5 years...You have to live in the US for 4 years as an adult citizen in order to pass on US citizenship to your children. So miss Amelia, looks like you'll be living in the US for 5 years at some point in time in your life! :)

Amelia has a Boyfriend!

We were at our friend's house for his birthday dinner the other night. It was the normal people there, Hias and Ramona (the hosts), Fischi and Katl, Gonso and Claudia with their two sons, Moritz and Jonas, and Stefan. It was loads of fun. Hias and Ramona made some really awesome lasagne, and this wonderful Italian layer cake thing...kind of like a tiramisu minus the coffee and with lemon zest in the marscapone cheese...quite good. Amelia slept for the first couple of hours, which rocked so that I could eat with two hands instead of one :). Thank you little girl! I finally decided to wake her up so that our friends could see that yes, she is sometimes awake (most of the times that we've seen them, she's just slept)...and I also decided to wake her up becuase my boobs hurt.

Well, after she was well fed and burped, she got passed around to all the ladies and one little man in particular...Moritz. Moritz was absolutely smitten with Amelia. It was too adorable, and I am so happy that I had my camera so that I could snap some pics of the adorableness! Enjoy!

Moritz and Amelia
"Go give her a kiss on the cheek Moritz!" "OK!"
He kept going up to her to give her a hug or a kiss on the cheek...too cute!!!

A big smile!

Amelia has been smiling for the past week or so, but every time I went for the camera, she was more mesmerized by the camera and stopped smiling. However, tonight, Markus was making her smile, so I was able to snap some cute pics...and one of a really big smile :)

Ok, Daddy...do something funny!


Daddy is so silly isn't he! :)

Amelia's new trick

Amelia has a new trick and it is lifting her head! YAY! She really only does it when she's on our chest...she hasn't gotten the hand of it while she's on the floor, but I sense a breakthrough with that coming sometime soon. Markus was able to catch a couple pictures of the big event last night, so enjoy!

Sugar and Spice Pecans

These are incredibly good and super easy to make. Be careful though...you can't eat just one.

1 pound of pecans
3/4 tea. salt
1 tea. cinnamon
1 cup sugar
1 egg white
1 tbs. water

1. Beat egg white and water together until frothy but not super stiff
2. mix in sugar, salt and cinnamon
3. Add in pecans and stir well until completely coated
4. Spread nuts on a large baking sheet and bake at 200 F (95 C ) for 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes.
5. Remove from oven when dry and toasted.
6. When cool, store in an air tight container.

One thing that I did do a bit differently...I baked these at about 125 C...they came out just fine.

These keep for a while, but they won't last that long because you seriously can't eat just one...these things are addictive!

Pumpkin Cheesecake

The other day I made a pumpkin cheesecake for the pumpkin carving party. It was quite a hit with not only the adults, but the kids as well. And hey, who doesn't love pumpkin cheesecake? Yeah, that's right...no one! So, here's the recipe...

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
5 tbs. butter melted
1 tbs sugar
1 cup sugar
3 8oz. (226 g.) packages of cream cheese
1 tea. vanilla
1 cup canned pumpkin
3 eggs
1 tea. cinnamon
1/4 tea. nutmeg
1/4 tea. allspice

1. preheat oven to 350 F or 175 C
2. For the crust: combine graham cracker crumbs with melted butter and 1 tbs. sugar in a medium bowl and combine until it makes a crumbly paste. Press the crumbs into bottom of springform and 2/3 way up the sides. Bake for 5 minutes and set aside
3. For the filling: Combine the cream cheese, 1 cup sugar and vanilla. Mix together until smooth.
4. Add pumpkin, eggs, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice. Continue beating until smooth and creamy.
5. Pour over the crust.
6. Bake for 60-70 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.
7. Turn off oven and have the door slightly open and allow to cool like this for an hour or so.
8. Store it in the fridge until ready to serve...it should keep for a few days, but it really won't last that long (i.e. it will be eaten before then).

Now, this past time that I made it, I had to bastardize my lovely recipe here...For starters, I used the Philidelphia Jogurt (yogurt) cream cheese with only 13% fat. I thought I would cut down on the calories a bit. I have done this before and it doesn't change the taste or texture at all...but I wouldn't go any lower than 13% fat. Also, because I rock at the conversions, I didn't get enough cream cheese. I was about 150 grams short...damn. It really didn't matter though...I just added a bit more pumpkin. I also used a teaspoon and a half of pumpkin pie spice from Penzey's. Oh, and here in Germany, you've only got Leibnitz that are roughly close to graham crackers (that I've found at least), so to the crumbs, I added a bit of the pumpkin pie spice mix as well.

Let me know if you make this and what you think of it! :)

After the pumpkin party

After the pumpkin carving party, we went over to our friend's, Matthias and Claudia, house. Amelia was so pooped after the excitement at the pumpkin carving party, that she basically just passed out in their son's bed. It was way too cute. We kept telling Moritz (who's 2 and a half), that there is a frog asleep in his bed. He thought that was funny. :)