4 Years And 5 Months Old

Howdy y'all,
Hallo,
Moin Moin,
Allright me ducks!


I really kept my parents busy this month, but then again, if they had gotten their act together before christmas, they would have had a relaxing month instead. Not my fault, right?



First off was the playscape. Santa did his part and delivered it before christmas but his little elves, aka my Mum and Dad were too busy with the toy store to get it done. Mum tried her old trick of inviting people round for dinner in the hope that they would all pitch in and build it - but they're wising up. CJ and Jon Pfau came over and cooked out-of-this world spaghetti, sausages and meatballs for 16 people that never turned up. Jon got us going with the playscape and the rest was a team effort - Mum sourced materials, Dad built it and I directed and product tested. We had beautiful sunshine, country music on the radio, power tools and a bag of donuts - a perfect weekend! We also had spaghetti and sauce for dinner every day for 2 weeks! The playscape is pretty cool and has a club house for me and my friends to meet and have snacks, swings, rock climbing wall, rope steps slide and a tire swing. It's been up now for 4 weeks and it's still standing - just need the rain and the cold weather to go away now so that I can actually play on it instead of just looking out at it from the living room window.

The next project was my bedroom. When we bought the house, my room had a beige carpet, beige walls, beige ceiling - boring! I told Omi all about it and how I missed the clouds I used to have in our old house. So Omi spoke to Santa and told him what I had to put up with and what kind of room I would like and Santa made it happen. He ordered Mum and Dad to paint my walls light blue and the ceiling dark blue, he sent me a new ceiling fan with planets and space ships on it and a planet earth night light and then the nice guy from UPS brought me a big box with the coolest ever 'glow-in-the-dark' stars, planets, space ships and comets to stick on the ceiling. Hundreds of them - even tiny stars and planet stickers for the doors that you can't see during the day. I thought the room was almost done but then the UPS man came with a box of sheets, pillows and comforters covered in stars and planets - just like the ceiling!
But the best was yet to come. My teacher, Miss Cat, is really good at art so she came over to add the clouds to the sky blue walls. I told her that I also really wanted a rocket ship and a flying saucer and aliens but my Mum told her that that would be too much. So what did Miss Cat do? She painted clouds that looked like a rocket ship and a flying saucer with aliens waving out the window. She even gave the aliens glow-in-the-dark eyes and smiley faces so that I can still see the aliens when the lights are out.
So now I get to go to sleep in the clouds, surrounded by stars and floating in space - this is the coolest room ever and I'm having the sweetest dreams ever. Danke Omi!

I also had a chance to check out Georgetown's Library this month - absolutely exceptional! Great selection of books and DVD's and they even send me an email when it's time to return everything.
The rest of the month was spent socializing. Emily, Ron and Remi stayed over one weekend and we went to a car show. It was absolutely freezing but the cars were hot! My girlfriend Caley came over on Superbowl Sunday, then her Mum and Dad and a few others came over later to watch the game. I'm not too sure who won because we spent most of the evening playing with my Cuboro set. This is a marble run from Switzerland that really makes you think. Each wooden block is different with holes, half-holes or grooves in them. The idea is to build a tower but making sure that all those holes and grooves line up just right so that you can drop a marble in the top and have it come at again at the bottom. It sounds easy but if the marble gets stuck somewhere, you need to figure out why. I added a video to my pictures this month to show you our winning design of the evening.

So here's this month's slideshow and pictures. Also, take a look at my latest 'Country from the back seat' and 'How to dance without a t-shirt' videos.

See you all next month!
Hugs and Kisses
Carl

4 Years and 4 Months Old

Howdy y'all,
Hallo,Moin Moin,

y'allright me ducks!

Happy New Year everybody! - I know, I'm about 4 weeks too late with that but that's the problem with not being able to write yet - I have to wait until some else gets around to giving me 5 minutes of their time so that I can dictate my blog to them.

I had a fantastic christmas! Aunty Angela, Uncle Andy and Cuz Russ made it to our house and we all had a great time playing pool, eating and drinking too much. On Boxing Day we went to Christine's house, our English neighbour which was nice, they live just around the corner from us and are lots of fun.

I had lots of great presents but the best presents were things that I used to have in our old house that I really missed since we moved - a new playscape for the garden from my Mum and Dad and clouds from my Omi. Santa didn't quite get the job done though. The swings and slides arrived in 5 boxes and were sat in the driveway for 2 weeks and the clouds were supposed to be painted on my ceiling but he couldn't do that christmas eve because that might have woke me up. The playscape is built and my room is almost finished but I'll update you all on my next blog.

I also got a skate board and helmet. Santa also sent me elbow and knee protectors which I thought were a little girly, but now that I've skateboarded a couple of times, all I can say is 'Thanks Santa, Love the protectors!

Santa delivered on almost everything on my list - he did forget the DVD game but I forgive him because he gave me something on my list that my Mum told me I was never going to get - a piece of plastic from China called a Nerf Gun. It's yellow and black, it's big and it has 2 settings - single fire and rapid fire - do I need to say more? My Mum is not happy - but I sure am. Dad got a lamp for his pool table and Mum was really happy about her new necklace and ear rings but neither of them got a Nerf Gun.

We spent New Years Eve at home this year but a bunch of people came over with food, drinks, kids and fireworks so it was a great evening and a good start to the new decade.

My toy store, Carl & Me, did really well over the holiday season and I need to get Dad to re-stock the warehouse. After all the stress of the holidays we're back to business as usual. Mum and Dad are crazy busy (I think they have yet another business idea but more about that next month), I'm back at school and have just finished a swimming course at our local recreation center. According to my teacher, I am an excellent frog swimmer so all I need to do now is wait for summer so that I can swim in our pool. Texas has been really cold for the past 2 months and I really miss the sunshine.

So here's this month's slideshow or click on this link to see the pictures. There a few of me playing in our Georgetown playscape which I love. A couple of months ago, we met a lady that makes animal puzzles and she was able to make a puzzle of the Carl & Me logo, how cool is that!

Have a great 2010 everybody and I'll write again soon.

Hugs and Kisses
Carl

4 Years and 3 Months old

Howdy y'all,
Hallo,Moin Moin,

y'allright me ducks!

Remember this time last year? I wrote in my blog that my parents are christmas crazy and really embarrasing - well nothing has changed. More silly christmas hats and blowups and you just know that Dad had to go all out on the garden lights again. He sold all the old lights and bought in LED ones. All of our lights, decorations and inflatables had to be up and running by the first advent which was the sunday after thanksgiving, so my parents had the briliant idea of inviting friends over for thanksgiving dinner. We enjoyed a Barbeque Turkey in true Texas style and then we sent them out to the garden, pumpkin pie in one hand and strings of lights in the other. I bet they'll turn down the invitation next year.

As you all can imagine, I've been crazy busy with Carl & Me this month but me and Dad managed to to get everyone's toys out in time for christmas. After being global for 2 years, we went local this year too. For those of you that have not visited me yet, Georgetown has a beautiful old town square, with a court house in the middle and shops all around. My toys are now in a little gift store called 'His & Her Treasures' and I love having a place to show off my toys.

Talking of Georgetown, I love living here! We have great neighbours and friends and I LOVE school. At the beginning of December, there was a party downtown and then all the christmas lights were turned on in the square. They even had really happy, smiley faced people singing songs that Mum calls Carols - Well Carol can keep them, I'll stick to country music I think.
Our Chevy was part of the downtown Christmas parade and I got to put on my christmas hat and shout into the microphone that Dad put in the Chevy. I wished everyone a merry christmas and warned the kids to stay good and not to get Santa mad. They set up a Bethlehem town and a Hooville and even Santa came by on his Harley! I didn't see Rudolf anywhere but I don't think he could have been very happy about being replaced by a motorcycle, even if it was a Harley.

For most of this month I've been trying my best to keep off of Santa's naughty list. It has proven to be quite a challenge but I did spend some time baking cookies and mince pies and helping around the house. I think I'm pretty safe though because I went down to our local Blue Santa and donated some of the handmade toys that we have. They needed toys for 2000 children - even I don't have that many toys but I think I gave them enough for 25 children.

My Uncle Andy, Aunty Angela and Cousin Russ are coming from Missouri for christmas. I've been practising my guitar all year and can't wait to show Russ some of the new stuff I've been working on.

So that's it for now, I need to dash because I still have to make some cookies for Santa and peel some carrots for the reindeers. Here's this months slideshow or click on this link to see the pictures. I've added a couple of christmas melodies this time and of course it would not be christmas without our traditional Soeffker Family Christmas Video!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!
Frohe Weihnachten und Guten Rutsch an Euch alle!

Hugs and Kisses
Carl