This morning when I got up at 6 am to take Amelie for a walk I took a quick glance at the digital thermometer in the kitchen to see how cold it was outside. The thermometer said 4 degrees, but I figured it had to be wrong because it was colder than that yesterday afternoon. It turns out that it wasn't wrong, I just misread it; it was negative 4 degrees. Everything outside was covered in frost, and the mud in the field was frozen. It was so sparkly and pretty! Yesterday morning when I walked Amelie we broke through the 1/4 inch thick ice that had formed on top of all of the puddles in the field, and by 2:30 in the afternoon many of them had refrozen, or at least turned into slush. This morning the ice was at least 1/2 an inch thick, and at 3 this afternoon it was -0.5 degrees outside. We're supposed to get snow this weekend, and I can't even tell you how excited I am!

Today was also the last day of my language course until next year. We spent the first half of the class going over verbs and stuff, and the second half we just sat around drinking coffee and eating pastries while we talked about whatever. I took some muffins that I baked yesterday evening, and they were delicious. It's a recipe that Ron sent me for muffins that they serve at Mimi's Cafe, but I tweaked it a little bit (both in order to make stupid American volume measurements correspond to standard metric weights and to make it spicier). Esther has asked me to make them again for Maria's Christmas party this Thursday, so I'll probably do that tomorrow. She also wants me to make more of my candied yams because she just can't stop thinking about them. Anyway, I asked my course instructor what his thoughts were in terms of which course I should go into next semester (since things were all screwed up with me not being in the proper course because of when it was offered) and, even though I'm not technically "allowed" to skip the next section (Level A2.2) he said he doesn't see any reason that I can't go ahead to Level B1. That's good, because now I can catch up to where I should be, and when that course ends in April I can jump right into the next one. I'm going to buy the coursebook for the class that I'm skipping just to make sure I don't look like an idiot in January.

The music box that my mom sent for the family (for the second time) arrived today, and it's beautiful. Esther was so happy when she saw it working, and she said that they don't really have such things here in Germany (which is weird, considering that cuckoo clocks were invented here, and the world famous Glockenspiel is in Munich). The kids absolutely love it, and they're both so happy to just sit there and watch the lights and the ice skaters inside. I'm really glad that they get to enjoy it before Christmas.

I feel like almost every day I'm getting closer and closer to the kids. Gustav has started resting his head on my arm during dinner when he gets tired, and they both seem more open (although sometimes still a little reluctant) to accepting my help instead of always needing Esther. I've also heard both of them refer to me as "meine Mandy" which is funny, because they've never heard anyone call me Mandy before. Gustav is also asking me more and more frequently how to say certain things in English. Whereas before he refused to listen to me and didn't want to hear me say anything if it wasn't in German, now he's actually taking the initiative to learn English on his own. Esther told me tonight at dinner that this is the first time ever that someone other than family has been so important to Gustav.

As far as health goes, I'm finally doing better. I can breathe without any trouble, my face doesn't hurt from my sinuses, and my eyes aren't gooey anymore. Right now I look a little sick because the color from my scarf rubbed off on my neck today and now I'm slightly green, but I feel great.

Oh, and Pauline just got 2 new teeth! She was actually the first one to notice them and she pointed them out to Esther last night. She was feeling around inside of her mouth with her tongue, and then she stuck her finger in her mouth to double check before she said, "Mama, sie sind rausgekommt!" (Mama, they came out!) It was really cute, and actually kind of impressive. I've never known a child, especially so young, that was able to recognize that they had new teeth without having first been told so. Today Esther was talking to Olaf on speaker phone with Pauline in her lap, and she asked Pauline "Was ist in dein Mund passiert?" (What happened in your mouth?) Pauline's response, of course, was "ein Penis!" I almost died, and so did Olaf. I swear, she uses that word at least 20 times more frequently than Gustav. Too freaking funny.