Mail from Germany

The kids found each an envelope in our mailbox with a yummy delicious smelling and tasting content. GINGERBREAD HEARTS from OMA!

Danke Oma.

Of course they start picking of the frosting first to munch on. LOL

Pins and Needles and LOTS of cupcakes

Sunday was PARTY TIME for a bunch of 9 year olds and two little ones and one little brother.

Last minute we got everything ready for another crazy afternoon at our house, decorated with garlands in the kitchen. The table was set with Lillibi plates and napkins - an adorable little mouse you find all over Germany and England, too. Lots of cupcakes and Amerikaner freshly baked and even cheesecake and chocolate cake.

Even the Amerikaner were set on the high counter, Soren was truly a cake thief all morning long, trying more or less successful getting his hands on these yummy cookies until he ended in jail. I meant bed a la crib.

The house did get crazy when the little party guests arrived, my kids went NUTS. Soren was excused still napping and waking up just in time to get the last spot on the coffee table for singing Happy Birthday after all the girls already got their faces painted with swirly swirls on one side and of course a chocolate cupcake on the other cheek.

Bella did have to work hard to blow out all her candles. Just wait until you get to the double digits next year.

While setting up for our little sewing project they were running outside busy with a game and happy to cool off back in the house to start sewing little cupcakes out of felt. And YES, these girls did their own sewing, from threding the needle with tiny holes, to sew a button on top of the icing adding sprinkles ala beads to the icing and a ribbon to the cupcake, the sewed all the pieces togetehr by hand, stuffed it with some batting and did an AWESOME job.

So if these 9 and 7 year old girls can sew little cupcakes in an hour, don't you think you couldsew, too?

THANK YOU Brandi and Heidi for giving the girls and me a hand. It did help out a lot.

Potty Training: STEP ONE ?!?!

I would love to potty train Soren.

Someday.

Perhabs we can start today?

And count is as day one with success or NOT?!?!

I took Soren's wet diaper off and sent him to get a new one. Butt naked. He did not come back right away. Fine.

Chiara went to change in PJs and calls loudly, "Mama, Soren is going peepee on the potty!"

Me:"Great."

Chiara:"MAMA."

Me:"Chiara, is he actually sitting on his potty and peeing in it?"

Chiara: "NO. He is standing and peeing in the BIG potty!"

So I did have to get up and see it. And believe me, I got something to see.

Soren standing on top of the CLOSED BIG POTTY and having peed, holding his little penis covered.

At least it happened it the bathroom.

P.S. We do have a little potty for him in each bathroom just in case he wants to use it someday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Bella!

My big girl already turned NINE on Saturday.

Can you believe it? 9?

Of course she was all excited. She kept all the cards and packages that came in the mail from Germany unopened til her birthday - this girls does have patience - sometimes. So she hardly could wait in the morning and was up EARLY. For me, too early after I didn't finish her birthday present til late in the night/early morning for her. Soren had his eyes set on her "unlucky" birthday cake, Chiara and I made the evening before and got a little bit "dark" in the oven, but was still eaten up quick. Bella loved the books she got, especially the ones Daddy sent, but she truly missed him on her special day after he is gone the third year in a row on her birthday.

After cake for breakfast and Bella opening her presents, we had to convince Chiara that she will have fun going to play soccer. Chiara didn't want to go, but it was the first day of the Itty Biddy Soccer Team.


Soren found his way faster onto the soccer field as Chiara and he loved it until he got just plain fussy and grumpy. But wanted to be with her.



So, our little sports girls who didn't want to go at all had a blast "training soccer". She would love to go everyday. But it has to wait until Saturday morning again. I guess we do need to find a pump to get some more air in our soccer ball here.



I finished it - almost in time - Bella's birthday present. She wanted a messenger bag for school and I just didn't like any I saw at the stores, so I decided making her one and started really late with it. It has pockets in the front and a large one in the back, plus a small zipper pocket inside for her bus pass. It closes with a big zipper on top and a magnet snap on the flap. I never used those snaps before and that alone was an adventure.



Bella got her bag wrapped Saturday morning, but I still had to close up the seam inside in the lining which is now finished, too. After she stayed home today it will be tested for school tomorrow. Now Soren might need his own bag, because he keeps insisting taking one, too, out of the house, but Chiara's pink princess bag would really not be Daddy's choice. We will see. lol

She just found the pocket in the back this morning. LOL

rainy weekend in colors

It was pouring down this weekend. So the kids were stuck inside after it just did not stop raining at all. Soren was all into the foam stickers while Isabell and me got the sewing machines out and lots of colorful fabric.


We cut out lots of triangles to make two long garlands - fabric banners. Chiara helped sewing, too, for a short little while, while Soren kept being nosy. Last night we did the last stitches and just for testing we hung one up in the middle of the kitchen.

Each of the kids picked one fabric for themselves and has one triangle in each banner, the rest are all all crazy fabric we had in our stash. It is nice being able to work on project without going shopping. lol. If I find everything in my chaos.

This is just a snippet of our two long banners each about five yards long.

These are the supplies I gathered about two weeks ago. Besides the flower fabric I had it all already thanks to an inherited box of zippers from my grandmother's sister a long time ago. But it took til this morning until I finally got started with this project which is supposed to be done by Friday evening. I did part of it. Amazingly. But I can't tell you more yet. I hope I did not get myself in more as I can chew of.

Butterfly Scrap Quilt - finished

The top finally got a flannel backing, it is quilted and the binding is done.

Voila.

The baby quilt is done. Not absolutely perfectly. Grrr. But the front looks fine. The back almost.

Now I want some chocolate. But there is none in the house. Mmm. Perhabs I should leave the house more as once a week? And that was purely for grocery shopping and I still didn't get any chocolate.

school - books - potato

You might have been wondering why there was no new post until now?

No, we didn't loose electricity or internet.

But truly it would not even have mattered.

My nose was stuck in books for days and nights.

Happens once a while.

And if I had to stop reading we were busy with just everyday life so blogging and sewing and even taking pictures did not really happen. Let's see what was going on before ...

Sunday before school start the kids were pretty surprised to find out that you can use potatoes for something else besides cooking and eating. We used them for making stamps and printing. And now we have a whole collection of decorated paperbags. - I might now get in trouble when I try to use them as trashbags as usual.

Afterwards a mini splash in our mini pool on the patio to cool off and too wash the rest of the left over paint off. At least from Soren. He fits perfectly well in the pool. It was truly the only pool it was possible to find in any of all the stores in the towns here after we came back. The girls fit in and didn't complain yet.

The next morning

- First day of school - 2009 -

The girls are excited, nervous, happy and can't wait to go to school.



Soren is missing his sisters during the day, so he got his own little cave built in the corner of the living room which he is sharing with our black cat who thinks that is a perfect spot to take a nap.


Now the house is still loud, full of kids not ready to sleep, but all wired up
that's what you get from unplanned sleep overs.


But soon it will get quieter ... hopefully.