10 things you probably didn´t know about me

1. I can´t sleep without a blanket. Not.ever.
Not even when it´s 30°C outside. I still need a sheet or something that I can roll myself up in like a burrito.

2. I love music. I played the trumpet for 10 years, then started singing in my church´s band. Music was my main subject in school and when it comes to classical music I absolutely adore Bach, he´s my favorite classical composer, hands down.

3. I wanna seem like I have it all together but I really sometimes don´t. Especially with my photography I have to constantly remind myself that it´s a learning curve and that I am getting there!

4. I don´t think I have ever said no to a piece of chocolate, a chocolate muffin or a chocolate cake. If so, I must have been sick. I love, love, LOVE chocolate in all it´s forms. And Nutella... Hmmm....

5. I hate beer. There, I said it. That probably makes me a very bad German. But to me it tastes like - I wanna say vomit but that may be too harsh. It´s true though.

6. My kids make me laugh. They say the funniest things. Like when Josiah told us that his friend had pushed him until he fell on his bum. My husband replied that that wasn´t nice and Josiah says: "Yes, maybe he was stressed!?"
Or when I said to Noa" Mama is a woman, Daddy is a man, Josiah is a boy and Noa is ..." and she goes "A PRINCESS!" My heart want´s to melt!

7. I have a very weird humor that only certain people understand (sometimes not even my husband).

8. They took my appendix out when I was 4 years old.

9. Until I was 13 I had straight hair. Then it kind of exploded and I looked like a white african with a big afro (no joke!). After two pregancies the afro is gone again and I´m left with some fuzzy-frizzy-not-curls-not-straight-hair-hairstyle. I should actually show you pictures. When I find them I will.

10. This post was originally called "20 things you probably didn´t know about me". I don´t know why I wrote such a high number. There might be a "Part two" some time. :p

My definition of friendship

A couple of months ago my husband asked me who my best friend is. (Apart from him, obviously.)
I thought about it for a while but I couldn´t say. I thought about it for days, then weeks and realized that I couldn´t even tell what my definition of friendship looked like.
I mean of course we all have friends that we like, that we feel comfortable with and that we wanna be with because they enrich our lives and sometimes because they are a bit like the person we wanna become. I have many of those friends and I treasure them dearly and don´t wanna miss any of them in my life.
But what distinguishes your good friends from your BEST friend? Is your best friend the one that knows the most about you? Or is it the one friend that you´re spending most time with? Or is your best friend the friend you share a hobby with?
None of these characteristics of friendship lead me to any conclusion about my BEST friend.
Until I knew.
For me, my best friend must ALWAYS have an open ear. I need to have the feeling that my thoughts, feelings and problems count. That my friend wants to listen and that I could call WHENEVER and he/she would be there. And vice versa. That there is a connection of hearts.
Now from a spiritual perspective that to me is Jesus, no question.
But here, in this world, my best friend is my Mom. As much as we´ve argued and as many tears as she probably shed when I was a teenager going through all of THIS she has always been there for me. Even in the darkest of times I knew I could ALWYAYS call her and always count on her.
I talk to her when I have exciting news, and also when I doubt myself or feel down.
I appreciate everything she has done in my life and I am deeply thankful for who she is.
I think it´s safe to say that without her I wouldn´t be where I am today, because she invested in me from when I was a little girl and she always believed in me! <3

Danke, Mama!

10 fingers and 10 toes...

The other day I went to this family that I knew from church to take pictures of their newborn son, Noah.
His Mom, Aleksandra, originally is from Poland and she has a knack for old furniture. She has various pieces of antique furniture in her home that she restored herself and gave them a nice new modern-ish look by painting them in bright colours.
If you love old furniture as much as I do you would have loved that house! 
Plus, they speak polish at home which sounded like music to me ears!
And Noah is just the sweetest baby. He slept almost the entire photoshoot and he´s just perfect with those tiny fingers and tiny toes and that cute little bubble nose... 

There were supposed to be two...

When Sophie´s parents Julia and Daniel found out that she was pregnant with twins, they were just a little bit shocked but extremely thrilled about the double blessing.
Julia experienced a very uncomplicated pregnancy and there was no indication of anything not going "according to plan".
When she was 29 weeks pregnant she went to the doctor for a routine check and found out that her sons heart had stopped beating.
No one who hasn´t lived through something like this will understand the unbelievable strength it takes to know in advance that when the day comes, there will be only one baby in her arms.
Despite the unbearable pain, Julia still remains an optimist, knowing that by God´s grace alone she was able to carry Sophie through to her 34th week of pregnancy.
And by God´s grace alone Sophie was strong enough to breath and drink by herself and leave the hospital after only a week.
Capturing these moments made me really emotional and editing them as a "normal" newborn photoshoot while I had prepared for a twin photoshoot made me realize that something was truly missing from these pictures.
Sophie´s brother, whom they call "Little Star".

Meet our niece!

In August, Dannys sister and her husband had a baby. But since they are living in England we only got to see our cute little niece SAVANNAH via skype.
With two siblings in South Africa and two in England, Danny doesn´t get to see them very often anyway.
So when Maggie and Raf, the two "english" siblings came to visit us with their loved ones shortly after Chritmas, we were thrilled.
We went on sunny walks, climbed up a watch tower, had gigantic steaks with them for lunch in the beautiful but unfortunately rainy town of Freiburg and as a highlight for everyone we went to Europa Park.
I loved looking at the lights and all the beautiful little houses and towns they created there and really enjoyed to hear the kids laughing and delighting in all the beautiful things to see. The ONE (!!!) roller coaster ride I went on with Josiah was enough for me as I am not a big fan of roller coasters.
I don´t know why, maybe the two pregnancies have made me slightly more sensitive towards that but I can hardly sit on a swing without getting nauseous. So roller coasters are not for me. :D
But everything else was lots of fun and we had an awesome time together.
But now I am getting a little carried away, as I actually wanted to show you pics of our gorgeous little nice.
So here you go!

 And then one night, she discovered her feet!

Happy NEW YEAR!

It is 2014, people. I can hardly believe that. It seems like the older I get, the faster the months and years just run by and I feel like I am supposed to keep running to keep up with time.

It seems like only a couple of weeks ago that it was march 2013 and I was looking forward to what summer and the rest of the year would have in store for me and then it came and went and now we already started a new year.
2014.
I have not made any new years resolutions as I really don´t like them. When I was younger I would have these big things I wanted to change in that year to come only to be disappointed by myself only a couple of weeks later.
It sort of felt like after messing up my New Years resolution the new year could only go downhill from there.
Believing that your New Years resolutions will change everything makes for incredible discouragement, because you have these big expectations and then you may find yourself failing.
At least that´s how it used to be for me.

Today I firmly believe that you get a fresh start not only on the 1st of January.
I believe that you get a fresh start every morning and can make resolutions for the day EVERY MORNING.
This means that you can choose to be better and do things differently every morning and you will be able to see things change that very same day. Not in the near or not so near future. You make the resolution for the day. And then maybe a different one for the next day or maybe the same. Doesn´t matter. But you can choose to live differently every day.
For me that works much better, to live life in little steps and not pay too much attention to that BIG step at the beginning of the year. Because truly, the 1st of January is just another day of the week, the only thing that´s different is that you write 2014 now instead of 2013.

Have you made and New Years resolutions for this year? How does it work for you and what are they?