Noah's School Fasching

Fasching:  a pre-Laten carnival, which is celebrated with the donning of wild and fancy costumes to chase away the evil spirits of winter in preparation for spring.

(AKA: Carnival, Mardi Gras, last party before Lent starts)

(ANYTHING to get rid of winter and bring in spring is good with me!)

Fasching is huge here in our neck of the woods.  Costumes are sold everywhere.  If I were on the ball I'd make my kids decide on their Halloween costumes now so that they would actually have a choice other than 'look in the tote and see what you can throw together'.  However, seeing that they change their minds 5 times in October alone, it would be a waste of effort and money. 

Noah had a Fasching party at school.  The kids wore their costumes to school and they played and ate a lot.  I had made Valentine cookies for the kids at school and they even saved the left over cookies (just 2 days) to include in their party.  [On a side note, Valentine's is kind of celebrated in Germany.  Nothing big.  You could find heart decorations and see signs that said "Valentinstag" but it isn't really a day celebrated in the schools.  According to my experience.  Noah and I like to "introduce" the Germans to our traditions, so Noah made cards for his friends and we took cookies to the class.]

Noah my cowboy.  He was even able to take a plastic gun to school without worries of being suspended!  He didn't really want a big costume, unsure about his first Fasching, so we went with a basic cowboy who wears "house shoes" and not boots in the school.

 

You can see his teacher, UTE (oo-TAH) in the background. She was wearing a traditional German dress that was off the shoulder and ill fitting. I laughed when I saw the off the shoulder shirt was off to about her elbows. Good thing the little kids really don't have a clue about it! Funny costume though.


This is a picture of Noah's friend Anya (with the black hair). She is an amazingly fluent in English, German, and French. She is also amazingly bossy and likes to tell me everything that Noah might do that is wrong. Usually something about playing with someone else and how her feelings were getting hurt. I've started just telling her that everyone needs to be nice with everyone and that she can just stop telling me about Noah.

Frankfurt Temple

After Darin got home from work on Friday we drove to Frankfurt to visit the temple.  It is about a 2 hour drive from our house.  The temple has "Guest Houses" available for rent.  They are apartment/hotel type rooms.  Ours had 4 sets of bunk beds, a table, and bathroom.  That is pretty much it.  You are responsible for bringing your own bedding, soaps, towels, and entertainment (movies).  They are connected to the temple and at 34 euro for our family, a super awesome set-up.

It was also the first time my feet have been HOT here in Germany.   Darin jokes that I will want to go to the temple in order to get warm.  Definately a draw.

Davis was too cool for a coat...dumb, but cool.

The building on the left is the temple.  The building on the right is the Guest house where we stayed.

Attending a foreign temple has been one of the most amazing and spiritual experiences for me.  I realized that, as I was surrounded by people speaking German, French, and Spanish, what a worldwide religion it is.  People all over the world are working hard to live good lives and want to return to live with our Heavenly Father too.  As I had people speaking both German and French to me (no English) I gained a testimony that in the end it is our own preparation that helps us return to our Heavenly Father.  We must do what we can here on earth to prepare ourselves.  I am grateful for the perspective I have gained. 

In the afternoon, we walked around the little village and found some kabobs and a Turkish market where I could pick up Turkish produce that my cooking had been missing for 4 years.  Another reason to love going to the temple.

Please Pass the Bowl

I have so many posts about wonderful things and places to put on here, but they will have to wait.  I have 5 kids with the flu.  How horrible is that!  I have been spending my days and nights doing laundry and emptying the "yucky" bowls.  (To be honest, Darin does a lot of the cleaning especially at night...I just can't do it.  I'd rather burn the bedding and toss out the bowls.  But I am awake.)  It seems to be fast moving, so I hope to de-germ the house and get my posts where they belong. 

On a up note, tomorrow is Stake Conference and I now have a reason to avoid wrestling the kids for 2 hours at church and instead put on a movie and wear jammies all day! 

Everyone's Valentine

Everyone in the house wants Anya to be their Valentine.

We love our Anya.

Calorie Free!

This is my creation, Valentine's Black Forest Cheese Cake.   Of course I made it without the "spirits" that the Germans put in their Black Forest anything.  Still good.

It is served without calories.  Anything made for a loved one on a holiday is "free" of calories.  It is served on a nice, yellow, plastic plate because Darin said that houses were smaller in Germany and all of my salad plates went into storage. Who would have guessed that I'd have 2 kitchens to put dishes in, but rather chose to put them all into storage. 

This is calorie free because I put my scale into storage as well.  Why would I do that?  I really can't remember thinking..."I'm sure I will have limited bathroom floor space. Storage." 

This is calorie free because we also put my tread mill into storage.  It was new and we weren't sure how it would run with a transformer.  I've been looking for a used one, but everyone is keeping theirs because we live in the land of endless cold and rain.  Who wants to run outside in that weather?  Oh, the Germans do.  I saw one crazy guy running while wearing what looked like spiked golf shoes so that he wouldn't slip on the ice in the negative temps.  I've been on an exercise "break."  It may be lasting for 3 years.  Then if it lasts for 3 years, I guess we could make it 10 without worry.   Who needs that tread mill anyway?  Oh, and people run theirs here on transformers all the time.   Although with the way that my mixers run with the crazy electricity in this old house (faster than the speed of sound) I doubt that I would've been able to prevent flinging myself into the basement wall.  Storage is the safest place for lots of reasons.

Can I Burn You Some Dinner?

This is my stove when set to a 1.  That is when 1 is low and 10 is high.  This old house is kind of quirky and has taken some adjustments to avoid burning everything I cook.  It is necessary to cook with half of the pot off of the burner and then just rotate it on a regular basis.  I end up with at least 1/2 an inch of soup stuck to the bottom of every pot of soup.   I can go from cold to burnt in about a minute, it isn't like I am ignoring the meal, (that doesn't produce great results either) but if I turn my head one second it is too late.
The other burners don't get hot enough.  It would take about 35 minutes to get water to boil, set to a 10, on the other burners.  I often get it started on "fireball" and then shift it over to the other one to maintain the heat without the burnt taste.  The one good thing about the hot burner is that Anya loves eggs!  I can scramble an egg in less time than it takes for the toast to pop up.  I can have the breakfast on a plate in about 3 minutes.  That is awesome.

The electricity in this house is crazy as well.  I have a 220v. hand mixer that is able to shoot food to the ceiling while starting to take off at the same time.  Even on its lowest speed it sounds like a C-130 (my boys aren't here and I don't even know if that is a real plane, but it sounds like it should be) revving up.  I've never turned it all the way up for fear of the splatter.  Splatter?...That reminds me of when I worked for 2 weeks at the Iceburg Shake Stand and every night I went home with clothes and body so covered in splattered ice cream that my shirt would stand up by itself and my arm hairs wouldn't even if it were freezing cold.  Not a surprise I only lasted 2 weeks.

You should hear the hair clippers when hooked up to the transformer!  Wow talk about loud.  The boys think that they are going to go deaf while getting a haircut.  The price of beauty is high around this house and everything is super charged.

Anything New?

Anything new here in this frozen piece of Europe?  Nothing much.  We have been sticking close to home because of too many kid activities coupled with the weather falling too many degrees below zero.

I don't know if the groundhog is looking for shadows and the signs of spring here in Germany.  I do know that if he did the poor groundhog was most likely stuck inside his hole buried under several inches of ice.  A couple of weeks ago we got a snowstorm and then the "Russian winds" (according to our neighbor) came and sat right on Germany.  It is so cold and everything is frozen.  The temps haven't spent much time in the double digits and even dropped to -4 F the other morning.  I was complaining about my nose freezing on the inside, and the boys didn't understand.  I told them that when it happened they'd know what I was talking about.  Next report, they were totally creeped out when the hairs inside their noses froze.  I think it had been 8 years since I may have had that happen.  8 years.  The snow isn't melting and we got more yesterday.  Noah informed me that he is "done with this snow" and "ready for warm sun."  This is his first winter ever and it only took 3 snows and 2 weeks of sub zero temps to make him dislike the season.




I should really try to get a decent shot with good lighting and maybe even action.

 Basketball.  Davis has been playing basketball 3 days a week, one of them being on Saturdays so we are sticking close to home and being supportive of his games. Still trying to convince myself that it is good to let the boys play sports.  I wish they would go on a "sports break" like little Jag has been on.  Actually, Davis is really fun to watch this year and his skills have improved greatly.  As much as I complain about practices and running around, I love to watch their games and to see them do well.

Anya has become our little parrot. The boys will sit for the longest time telling her to say something and then laughing as she repeats what they say.  I love it when she will say her own name.  However she is always saying book, draw, bite, boys and baby.  I can hear myself in her often...ugh.  She rarely just says "Noah" instead she growls "Noah, now."  She often says "Boys" as they are running or fighting.  It is kind of nice to have a little female help around here. 

The boys all got their report cards and managed to get As and A+s again.  I love to get after them if they get only an A.  That is tough love. Ha. 

Noah still enjoys his German school although it is like pulling teeth to get him to talk to me about it let alone speak German.  I think that he is understanding more, but his speaking skills are slower to come.  I know that is true for me.  I was picking him up one day and noticed that a little boy was teasing him repeatedly.  Noah turned and growled (repeatedly), "Nein.  Nein."  I was proud that he used his German words to solve his problems.  I laughed all the way home.

Christian had his pinewood derby and managed to not come in last place.  He didn't have his car jump the track or lose its wheels and that is success.  Glad it is his last, but alas we still have more boys to come.

Jag's biggest problem in life is that his hair is getting darker.  He is so bothered that his hair has darkened due to the lack of sunshine and outside time.  He wants me to dye his hair blond again.  Every time he walks past a mirror, he glances in and then laments for 5 minutes.  He complains whenever we have to leave the house and would prefer to stay in his PJs all day long.  He was a kid made for homeschooling.  He is actually a fantastic big help.  I love seeing him take the big brother role that he had so happily avoided while his brothers were around.  He is always willing to help me and especially loves his little sister.  One day, when the boys were being super nice to eachother, Noah said, "Jag you are my best friend."  Jag sat and thought for a minute then said, "Yeah, you're mine too."  Creating best friends is a hidden secret of homeschooling. 

See I managed to make nothing much into a long post about nothing much.  Until the weather warms up and the groundhog chips his way out of his hole there won't be anything exciting going on here.  Stay bundled and send the sun my way if you find it.