Deutsch Dienstag

(German Tuesday- but that isn't an alliteration) 

A collection of strange, interesting, or different things about Germany that I want to remember.

Boiled Eggs

Boiled eggs sold at every store and bakery.  They are always dyed beautiful colors and you can find them all the time.  Colored eggs-Not just an Easter thing here in Germany.  Beautiful convience!

It took asking a bakery lady to figure these out.  Coming from Texas where beautiful colored eggs are sold in stores AND filled with confetti, we didn't just assume they were boiled.

Somedays I Want to be Darin

Darin has been having fun without me.  I really isn't fair!

On Friday he had a "Staff Ride"  which I prefer to call Field trip, to Bastogne, Belgium, it was a Battle of the Bulge (Band of Brothers) tour.  He took Davis and Christian and they left for a day of looking at battlefields and talking about strategy.  Darin works with a man who has really studied the area and gave the office an amazing tour.  The lover of all things WWII, just couldn't get enough. 

I sat at home and had a normal day with the rest of the kids.

Everyone with an American WWII vet that they ran into while at a Belgium museum.

The boys in a foxhole.

At a German cemetary.  Each headstone is for 5-6 men.

So that was what Darin did on Friday. 

On Saturday he went with Davis and the scouts to bike along the Rhine River.  They went from Mainz to Rudesheim, about 23-28 miles (or maybe it was kilometers, I don't know).  It was long enough that by lunch time the boys were having troubles sitting and Davis thought our chairs were too hard that night.

Davis and his buddies Carter and Ridge.

I went shopping and cleaned the house.  Errands.

I'm Starving My Kid

I'm dealing with the issue of guilt right now.

 My little Noah is the biggest stinker when it comes to food.  He won't eat most things and he refuses to even try something new.  When he was younger, I actually sat on him and forced him to try cookie dough, because EVERYONE should love cookie dough.  He does love it now, but that method doesn't work for his dinners.  Darin tries and Noah defiantly spits the food out, at which point Darin starts to fume, and Noah leaves the table and launches his own hunger strike.

Now the guilt.  Because Noah is so stubborn he won't even budge to "take 5 bites" or even a smell on most nights.  He ends up going hungry.  I don't give in. I always offer to heat up his dinner, but he'd rather starve.  Sometime in the middle of the night I start to worry about my little guy and wish I would have just given him a yogurt or toast before bed. 

Most dinners I make, I know that Noah will have issues over.  I think I am feeling especially guilty now because Noah hasn't eaten much dinner the entire week.  He usually ends up eating last around 4 because I don't want him to spoil his dinner (as if he doesn't think it is already spoiled).  Then he holds out until breakfast.

As if a parent needs anything else to feel guilty over...add starvation to my list.  (As a side note:  It doesn't help my self esteem any to have someone spitting  food all over the table rather than swallow.)

The Rotten Jones'

I've never really been one to try to "keep up with the Jones'."  I didn't care what the Jones' had.  I may have looked at the Jones' house, clothes, or perfect hair and briefly desired, but it wasn't anything that I really dwelt on.  However, the Traveling Jones', are just killing me.  I am unable to go anywhere without listening to those around me talk about their travels and cruises and planned trips.  I just get antsy and green with envy.  I am traveling, but I can't help but want all of the trips that I hear about.  Church is torture.  I went to a RS meeting this week and sitting at my table there were 2 people going to the Netherlands, one going to Spain, one to Prague and Poland, and one to London and Stonehenge.  To hear all the upcoming plans gets me squirming and complaining to Darin.  Poor guy.  He has to hear my constant whine. 
Seriously even if it is somewhere I have been or didn't really care about going, as soon as I hear someone talk about a trip, I want it.  I have a problem.  I think that the only cure will be to get out and go (and maybe wear earplugs to church.)

French Bread

Saturday we had to stick around because Davis was gone to a scouting thing.  We did, however, have plenty of time to drive to France, go to a grocery store, and buy some bread.  It was a fun little adventure and just another reason that it is so awesome to live so close to these other countries.  Europe is amazingly small, especially after living in the massive state of Texas where we could drive all day and still be in Texas. 

We wandered around the store looking at everything until the kiddos started to revolt and cry starvation.  We loaded up on a variety of breads, pastries and a few tarts (treats not ladies, you'd never know in France without the explanation).  Then we headed to the van to feed the troops before continuing our adventures for the day.  Great Bread!

I am eating a massive chocolate filled pastry with chocolate sprinkles on top.  Delicious.



Another funny foreign language moment. 
I don't speak French, but I can sound out the name of this tire company.  Ha.







5 Things I Love About Noah

1.  Noah is a super big brother!  Anya LOVES her Noah.  His name is one of the cutest things that she says all the time.  He is always helpful with her and always willing to find a binkie and wrap up a dolly.  He isn't always a super little brother and will still totally knock one of his brothers down if he isn't happy with them (he is pretty tough).  I guess that is what happens when you are the youngest of 4 boys.

2.  Noah is going to be rich one day.  He will be taking over the sappy greeting card business.  He is the funniest, sappiest, most Casanova...?  (I don't know) kid around.  At 3 in the morning, when I am tucking him back into bed he will reach up and rub my cheek while telling me that I am the most beautiful mom in the world. I just laugh and think the kid is blind and must be dreaming.  He must tell me dozens of times a day how beautiful I am and how much he loves me and on and on with a rub of the cheek and a gaze into my eyes.  "The best part of my day is holding your hand."  " I just love you so very much."  "We should hold hands forever."  He is a natural charmer.  Halmark couldn't say it better.   It is, however, like the boy who cried wolf...I just don't believe him, but as long as he believes it I am OK with that. 

3.  Noah thanks me for dinner even when he doesn't eat it without gaging and crying.  He is extremely picky and usually hates everything he is served.  Although when he hears someone else thank me, he always follows suit. 

4. He gives the best monkey hugs in which he wraps his little legs and arms around you and you KNOW you have been hugged.

5.  He is the best shopping companion.  He loves to go into stores and never complains about one more errand.  Even when he was little he would want to go to one more store.   He could out shop me.  Toss him a fruit snack and he is good for hours.  I've always  loved to shop with this kid.

Noah Turns 5!

Noah turned 5 the end of February.  It was actually one of the harder birthday's for me.   I also think that having only one more "little one" in the house is sad.  I am not ready for my little Noah to grow up yet.

With our travels right before his birthday, I was kind of unprepared for the actual party of the day.  I wasn't going to have a party for him, but because it is likely that his brothers will have one, I didn't want him crying unfair later on.  However, I had a dilemma, he would want to invite his 2 American friends from school (Germans OK), but I just can't spend that much time with them.  They drive me CRAZY in just the few interactions that I have daily.  So, how to have a party without letting Noah and the obnoxious Americans know?  I planned it with our nearest friends from church.  They are in the same class, and I like them which is all that really matters.  So I just didn't tell Noah until after he had come home from school that he had friends coming for a party.  He totally enjoyed it and so did I.  We didn't miss a few extra Americans at all.

Davis told me that I had just thrown the party together last minute.  He didn't think my lack of advanced planning was good.  I explained that this was my third dinosaur party and I knew what I was doing.  He still stated that he wanted plans made at least a week and a half before his birthday.  Funny guy!  Thinks he'll actually get a birthday after that comment.

Truth is, that I did just throw it together.  I was scrambling up until the last minute.   I kept reminding myself that they were little and really with cake and candy, who really cares? 

My Birthday Guy!

Every party is awesome with a pinata!  Jag was taking the pictures and I was holding the pinata on the end of a broom.  I was positive that I was about to lose a knee cap before the stupid thing broke.  I was going to make a pinata dinosaur egg (balloon shaped of course), but Fasching got in the way of the drying process.  I bought this from the BX and it was made of cardboard.  It refused to break.  Good: Kids got plenty of tries at breaking it.  Bad:  Kids got plenty of tries at breaking it.  Finally Jag cracked it and I shook out the contents.

Cupcakes for the party so we could save his cake to share with the brothers and Darin.

Noah's cake was a disappointment.  I just couldn't get it to come together.  I'd already made 3 dozen cupcakes with army guys for the Kindergarten and a dozen dinosaur cupcakes for the party.  But the cake was just ugly.   Then when I was growling, Jag tried to cheer me up.  "Mom, it's supposed to be a dinosaur cake.  It is perfect because it looks like a dinosaur stepped on it."   However, when Noah saw it he said it was "the best cake he'd ever seen."

The lava makes it look like Noah is turning 15 and not 5.  Then I'd be really sad.

What crazy mom would buy a voice changing megaphone?  The same one that would let the dad buy him a whoopie cushion.  Must be a birthday.

 So fun to be able to sing and blow out candles with grandpa and grandma on Skype.  Got to love technology!

We sure love our Noah!

Definitely Not Noah’s Fasching Party

We decided to check out the Fasching Parade in Mainz.  It was one of the biggest in Germany, what were we thinking?  We decided to try out the trains today as well, once again what were we thinking?  It all seemed like a fun and great idea, and it kind of was, but I know I wasn’t fully prepared for all that we encountered.  This was an experience that we will always remember.  First of all we were catching a train at 9 am, on a German holiday so I didn’t expect the crowds.  As we stepped onto the train we were instantly surrounded by crazy costumes and drunken passengers, at 9 AM!  They were singing and toasting and drinking and drinking and drinking.  They were willing to share their bottle, but not their seat.  I ended up holding Anya while standing and wearing a coat, scarf, and watching to make sure that none of the boys were lost.  It was HOT and crowded and loud and a LONG 2 hours.  (I couldn’t raise my arms the day after because they were so stiff and sore from holding her)  Darin was too far away from me to make a switch.  Anya was hungry and tired and added crying to the drunken singing.  A nice drunk bumble bee shared some chocolate cake and that quieted her down for a little bit (yes, I was so desperate that I let my daughter share cake with a strange, drunk, bumblebee on the train).

We went with our friends from church.  They have 6 children (all match up with ours except their oldest).  I have to think that only straight-laced mormons would take 11 children to the craziest parade of the year.

Here are some pictures from the parade.  They throw out tons of stuff and so the kids like it bunches.  Funniest is that they will chuck candy bars and if you aren't paying attention you get a good smack in the face.  I laughed when I saw large, as in dictionary large, books being tossed in the general direction of someones head.  Even though we didn't get to the parade early enough to get a front row.  The Germans, in our experience, are fine with letting the kids come up to the front and gather the candy.  They don't sit during the parades and so everyone is basically moving and shifting throughout anyway. 

Fawcett's and the Barney's

I thought that this was a hysterical costume.  I wanted my friend to sneakily take my picture with her in the background.  No, he said, "This is fasching, no sneaky pictures."  As soon as she realized that he was taking her picture she started shaking her back side while some passing men hooted.  I quickly slid across the street so as to avoid being associated with him!  I think my grandma should do this costume next Halloween.

Jag trying to eat the confetti falling from the sky.

Back of Christian's head.  The first kid to make it to the front lines!

Everyone carried their own bottle, at least one.

I think this guy in the front is a spy.  He wins the creepiest costume at the parade award.

We were hoping that the train ride home would be a little less packed and include seats for all.  Not so much.  However when the ticket checker man came by, a bunch of the ticket-less teens jumped off and we were able to take their seats.  We ran into another family from church on the ride home.  Between the 3 families we had 17 children, we took up most of the car.

We had a debriefing with our kiddos over dinner once we were at home.  We talked about the lessons learned.  You know the ones that include drinking so much that you fall on your face and people step over you to take your seat on the train.  Jag quickly grabbed his scriptures and shared a few that fasching reminded him of.  Mainly Laban getting so drunk that Nephi was able to cut off his head.  We all agreed that would be bad. 

We had a great time with our friends and really experienced a German Fasching, but we won't be going back.