German Lessons

So week five of lessons we finally learned the German alphabet. Suddenly I understand why I find German so confusing. The a makes a short o sound, the e makes a long a sound and the i makes the long e sound. No wonder I am so confused!

Wordless Wednesday - Snowy Castle

Wordless Wednesday - Somewhere in Spain (or maybe France)

Pictures by Dakota

Yuck!

I never tire of watching it snow. Seriously no matter what I should be doing, snow falling means that I have a cup of something hot (tea, decaf, gluhwien, cider, cocoa, whatever!) and am curled up on the couch watching the snow flakes drift about completely ignoring all responsibility. I just love the snow. I know I have complained unendingly about being cold so this is crazy, but falling snow is beautiful. Especially if I am inside all warm and toasty.

Last night when I went to bed it was snowing, big beautiful flakes drifting quietly in the lights outside. I woke up this morning, and just like the kids raced to the window, yanked the curtain open expecting to see lovely clean white snow. What did I see? Rain! Cold nasty rain. It is perhaps a degree above freezing. Just warm enough that my dreams of snow are melting away in mud puddles along with last night's snow.

Wordless Wednesday--Fashion Plate

DInner Conversation

We sit down at the dinner table together each night.  It is an important part of our family life.  It is a time to sit together and enjoy (or complain about) our meal.  Unlike times gone by we encourage our children to be seen and heard. Lately Alonzo has been asking about the etymology  of words.  He wants to know why trees are called trees and forks called forks not the other way around. How do you answer a question like, why is that called a chair? David makes up wild tales by way of explanation.  

Tonight the boy wanted to know why butter is called butter.  Dad asked Alonzo what he thought.  Alonzo said a butterfly landed on the first ever butter so they named it after the butterfly.  Nice story, I like it!

Dad replied not bad but said the real story involved a fat man who tripped and sat in a vat of cream.  His butt got stuck tightly and no matter how he wiggled or danced about the container of cream stayed stuck tight.  By the time someone came to his aid and pulled it off the cream had been churned into butter.  When the men saw the floating mass of yellow butter they thought the man had an accident and yelled out BUTT TURD!   

At this point my jaw fell open and I thought surely I had heard wrong but one glance at four boys all nearly hysterical with glee confirmed that I had heard correctly and my husband had obviously lost all of his good manners and common sense somewhere along the line.  Just in case I missed what Dave said a second later Colin nearly fell out of his chair laughing as he asked me to pass the butt turd.  

As I glared in his direction David did amend the story to say that the fat man's mother wouldn't let him call it butt turd so he changed it to butter to make his mother happy.  If my four boys want to keep me happy (oh and trust me they do) they will remember not to call it butt turd! 

Wordless Wednesday - Who is that?

FINALLY!!!

This morning was pretty warm, in fact this whole week has been pretty warm considering the snow we had a few weeks ago.  The duck pond that had ice skaters gliding across it just over a week ago, today has little patches of water along the edges. So instead of going sledding today we planned to go hiking.  As we loaded up the car with the jogging stroller, snacks, and coats the kids begged us to load the sleds just in case, so in went the sleds.  Boy was that a good call on the kids part.  After a good bit more begging from the kids we decided to head up high into Taunus to look for snow before we went hiking at lower elevations.  It didn't take long to realize we were going sledding.  Once we started climbing uphill we hit snow pretty quickly.

It was almost a very short lived sledding trip. On the first run down the hill in the saucer Alonzo managed to crash into a small tree (really large shrub) and bang his head.


See the bright yellow coat in the center of the picture? That's Alonzo, he is headed straight for that patch of trees right at the bottom of the hill. He never even slowed down before he hit. It was a very scary moment.

Dad to the rescue!

David had been waiting to take Grayson downhill on the wooden sled but instead he handed Grayson to me and headed down alone to make sure Alonzo was OK.


By the time David got down there Alonzo had climbed out of the bushes and walked over to where David slid to a stop. He had a bump on the head, but was otherwise fine. Good thing he has a hard head, takes after his daddy he does!


David gave him a ride back to the top of the hill. Isn't he a nice guy? He would have had to walk if it had been Mom to the rescue. I could barely pull Grayson up the hill much less Alonzo.

The rest of the time passed (mostly) uneventfully, well there was the time Cody (also on the saucer) plowed through three boys like a bowling ball. It was a strike, he knocked all three down but all were unhurt and went on sledding. Alonzo was back on the sled and flying downhill in less than five minutes. What a fun afternoon. I can't wait to go again.

Pine Wood Derby

Alonzo and Colin participated in their first Cub Scout Pine Wood Derby today.  Each had to construct a car from a block of wood.  Our pack allow for family members to race as well, so Grayson added wheels and paint to his block of wood and called it done.  Here they are waiting impatiently to check in. Each car was weighed and measured to make sure it complied with the rules.


The cars are raced on a slanted track, gravity alone powers the cars.  In this video Colin, Grayson, and two other cars are racing. The races go very quickly, which is a good thing becuase each car runs multiple heats to determine the winners.
 


At the end of the day Alonzo took third from the Wolves, Colin took first place from the Tiger cubs (in all fairness he was the only Tiger participating), and Grayson took 3rd place in the siblings race and was the runner up in the most original design category. Unfortunately they only gave medals to the cub scouts (funding issues). Grayson doesn't understand this and was very sad he didn't get a medal. His brothers are going to try to make a medal for him, I can't wait to see what they come up with.

The winning cars.

Proud cub scouts showing off their medals.

What if we all did this?

I am an NPR junkie, yes it is true, I am addicted. For those of you unfamiliar that is National Public Radio. Now that I don't live in the states I listen by streaming audio over the computer or via podcast.  This morning as I was setting bread to rise I was listening to This I Believe, a program that allows people to share the personal beliefs by which they live their lives.  The program I listened to this morning originally aired on January 12th.  It is a very powerful statement about diplomacy on a personal level.  So powerful in fact, that as soon as it ended I pushed the button on the ipod to make it repeat so I could listen to it again paying better attention this time. Here is the program summary from the NPR website: 

Every Sunday for 30 years, Jim Haynes has welcomed complete strangers into his Paris home for dinner. By introducing people to each other and encouraging them to make personal connections, Haynes believes he can foster greater tolerance in the world.

Please take five minutes to listen to Jim Haynes as he talks about inviting the world to dinner. How different would the world be if we all participated in something like this? How could there be wars if we all sat down to dinner with people from all over the world. How could prejudice exist if we took the time to break bread with friends not yet met?  This is one man doing his part to make a better world.   You can read the program transcript or listen to the audio by clicking here.

In the spirit of reaching out let us know if you will be in the Frankfurt area and would like to stop by for dinner. Just leave a comment or send us an e-mail. 

Things Kids Say

This morning Grayson was looking at a book about space. He had it open to the page showing an illustration of the solar system. Pointing to Saturn he announced, "That is the big mommy planet and that (pointing to Neptune) is it's little baby sister." A few moments later I showed him Earth and told him that was the planet where we live to which he replied, "We don't Live on a planet, we live in GERMANY."

Wordless Wednesday--Watching History

Will You Be Watching?

Will you be watching tonight when Barrack Obama is sworn in as the 44th President of the United States?

This is an historic event, as indeed is each inauguration. It really doesn't matter who you voted for. If you are an American, Barrack Obama will be your President for the next four years. It doesn't even matter really if you are American, one of the things I have learned living overseas is the world is watching. Some of the people I know who are most pleased with Obama's election are not American. This election has been covered just as heavily in the foreign media as in our own. I am watching the BBC Breakfast right now, they are interviewing Trinny and Susannah (from What Not To Wear and Trinny and Susannah: Meet Their Match) and having finished plugging their new show the talk has turned to the inauguration. Being Trinny and Suzanna they are most concerned about what Michelle Obama will be wearing, but still the inauguration is THE topic on all channels this morning.  

My kids have been very aware of the election proceedings this last year. I am not sure if this is because we are living overseas during an election year, or if it is just this election in particular seemed to take over everything. It could be argued that really this is the first election that Alonzo and Colin are old enough to really be interested, and of course this is true. However Cody, at 16, is old enough to remember a couple of previous elections and this is certainly the first in which he showed any interest at all. Perhaps it is partly the kids feel a strange kinship with Obama since they lived in Jakarta for two years where he also spent part of his childhood. I suspect that it is a combination of all these factors and more.

Tonight I will read Arthur Meets The President to the kids, talk about when they met George W. Bush, then we will watch as the President elect becomes, finally, the President. For my kids this is a bit of a treat since we have a firm "NO TV on school nights" rule.

I hope where ever you are you take a moment to observe the changing of the guard and if you have children involve them in this moment.  Regardless of your political views take a moment so share, celebrate, educate and look to the future. 

Arrrgh!

So again we have come to the weekend with great plans to go sledding. Friday morning found Colin sick in bed with a 102 fever and body aches. Poor baby. His fever lasted through Saturday so no sledding yesterday since we thought it would be cruel to leave him behind while all his brothers went off to have fun. Today he feels much better. The weather, however, is not cooperating. This morning it is 5 celsius (41 fahrenheit) and RAINING. You can actually see the snow melting away. I am sure there will be no trace of snow left by this afternoon. Oh well. There is snow in the forecast later this week. Fingers crossed for mountain sledding next weekend. I am so very glad that I dragged the sled to to the duck pond so the kids could sled on the little hill there a few weeks ago. It is beginning to look like that may be the only sledding they get this year.

Snaggletooth

Alonzo has been shedding teeth right and left. He lost a top front tooth just before Christmas, the second top front tooth the day after Christmas. He just missed having to sing "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth..."

January 2nd he lost one of his bottom teeth (he lost the two middle bottom teeth in Indonesia). Now he has another wiggly tooth. I am not sure how he is going to eat with so many loose or missing teeth, but he sure does look cute!