Ex Patria

Leah in the news!

Sweet Leah in the newspaper -- it's a report about the newly introduced "little one's" group at the local kindergarten/nursery/daycare.  In Germany, kids usually to to "Kindergarten" from age 3 on to 6, when kids start school at first grade.  Anything below the age of three usually attends a daycare.  Here in Fladungen, we don't have a daycare, so they've extended the Kindergarten to ages 1 and up.  Leah doesn't look too happy in those pictures but in reality, she adores her teachers and her friends.  She loves going there and has loads of fun.  She also learns a lot which is pretty amazing.  The teachers are fabulous, super-patient and loving and just all around wonderful.  

The article is cut off both for copyright reasons (what do I know about copyright is next to nothing) and because it was too large for my scanner.   And really important are the pictures, right?

Do you think I need to cut her hair again??

Homeschooling

The older boys are at home and we do class work at the kitchen table.  And because I'm a nerd, I cannot help but quickly create some visual reminders for the days of the week and the months of the year, and lists with words like "fish" and "fireman".  I think I will just send them back to school tomorrow or I will never get that laundry done...

Sick day

I woke up with a sore throat this morning.  Nevertheless, I told myself, I get up and when everybody is out of the house, I can rest.

Good plan!

Only the two school children also woke up with sore throats and yucky lesions on their tonsils, so here we are, the three of us.  Nobody is sick enough to lie listlessly in bed, so we are doing school work, practice reading and spelling words, and do crafts.

It's snowing, so the world is a dreary black-and-white washout.  We needed a splash of color! I turned to my favoritest craft blog, Skip to my Lou, and found a nice Valentine's craft that comes courtesy of Martha Stewart.  First, the boys were not interested at all.  But then they saw that it involved an iron, and the lure of that was too great to resist.  It kept them busy for half an hour which in my house counts as a huge success.

And the prettiness on the window makes me happy:

Next, we want to try our hands at felting a solar system.  And if you think that sounds strange, I'm right there with you.

Aaaahhhhhhhh....

My parents took a trip to Bamberg today and on the way back they stopped in Schweinfurt.  This is what they brought me back:

(Yes, yes, so I ate a piece before taking the picture. So, what?)

And after:

 

It was very yummy and I'm very happy.  Danke, Mama und Papa!

Reading

All our kids love books.  That's not to say that they are early and voracious readers.  Both Doug and I remember reading lots more than our kids do at their ages of 7 and 6.  Well, Doug's a bit of an exception since he started reading at age 4 or so.

Alan is definitely past his grade level in English, and about on grade level in German.  (Which is kind of odd since German is much easier to read -- however, the words are longer and he has much more sight words in English, so maybe it's not so odd.)  David is usually balking at everything that Alan does well, and so it is with reading (not with math, though).   We started using flash cards with him and that seems to do the trick.  It's different enough to be special to him, so now he's picking up nicely.  Somewhat to our surprise, Jacob is learning to read.  Slowly, but he enjoys it. 

But all that notwithstanding,  the kids love books.  We have lots and lots of books in our house, and there are some really fabulous kids' books out there.  All of them will pick up books (mostly those with lots of pictures in them) and "read" them.  Yesterday, Alan walked upstairs while (word) reading a book.  That seemed very familiar.  They all love their bedtime stories and Leah will shlep books around, insisting on sitting on someone's lap and flipping through the books.  She'll pick up pretty much anything that lies around (and lots does), even photo books:

We have four designated book areas -- the study, which has five room-height shelves with books, the master bedroom with one big bookcase for Doug and I respectively, and some shelves on the wall, the big bookcase in Alan and David's room which consists of twenty cubes, and the two bookcases in Jacob and Leah's room.  Then there is the pile in the living room, the piles on our nighttables, the books under the beds, the books in the beds, the books under the couch, the books in the bathrooms, the books... you get the idea.  When we fantasize about a bigger house, we always include a big library.  For the adult books, as the kids pointed out they want to keep their books close by.  I'm game.

One problem we have is that we tend to read a few books and forget about the awesomeness that is in the back of the shelves.  I have been sorting the books according to subject but that doesn't really work in a house of slobs.  The kids' books are all smooshed into the shelves more or less at random - backwards, upside down, with missing slipcovers or missing pages (I'm looking at you, Amazing Spiderman) and definitely not according to subject.  That makes it really difficult to find a particular book.  I bought "We're going on a bear hunt" recently.  The book has effectively disappeared.  I know where I saw it last, it's not there, I can't find it in any of the book shelves unless I take all the books out and re-sort them.  That seems a waste of time considering the state of entropy that our older boys' room is in. 

Here's what I want:

Isn't this just the coolest?  Display shelves like this are completely unkown in Germany - at least, I have no clue what to look for.  I could ask the library lady if she knows of those.  But then, surely one can build that oneself?

Doug and I built a bench over the long low radiator in our living room, out of lumber from the lumber yard and some IKEA table legs:

My parents gave us this amazing tool box for Christmas, with an electric drill/screw driver that is just fabulous.  The bench cost us less than 20 Euros for the materials -- not including the legs which I bought two years ago.  So surely we would be able to build a display bookcase similar to that for not so much money?  It takes up no space at all once it's done...

And speaking of cool furniture and design, how freaking awesome is this? I know our kids would totally love it. Just don't think about all the accidents they could have.  Think more along the lines of how much fun it would be if it could accommodate your behind as well...

Oh, the wild excitement

Life here in the countryside is really quiet.  There is not much in the way of excitement and the most salacious gossip is about the neighbors separating.  The weather forecast for last weekend predicted a heavy snow storm which turned out to be mild winds and 2 inches of snow.  These people here, theyhave no idea what a sheltered life they live. I think that, often.  Everything is easy and predictable.  Electricity never fails, neither does water.  The snowy streets get plowed at 5 am.  The supermarket never runs out of staples.  The kids have to take their recess inside because, golly! it's below freezing.  I was tempted to send them the note about schools in Alaska...

So, not much that disrupts our daily schedules.  That's why blogging is rather light.  There is not much to talk about -- no exploding radiators, no mountains of snow in the driveway, no shortages of milk.  It's just not that interesting.

The two newsworthy facts of the day:

I finished another project for Leah.  My sister-in-law had sent Jacob a really cute pair of pajamas for his birthday in October.  He loves them a lot.  Then Leah ran out of pajamas and you know, they are expensive!  And always pink.  So I dug out that supersoft plaid flannel I had bought a little while back and sewed up these pants:

The pattern is from Lotta Jansdotter's book Simple Sewing for Baby and it's so ridiculously easy that I made those pants in 20 minutes.  That includes disruptions by various kids.  I altered it just a tiny bit at the waist band.  I read somewhere that rubber bands don't twist if you sew the waist band along both sides (top and bottom) and I found this to be true.  So all my pants include a double-sewn waist band but that adds maybe a minute to the project.   The top is a simple H&M top for 3 Euros with a whale applique:

My seams are definitely getting better!  Now Jacob wants one, too.  I live to serve.

Then, as I wanted to go outside to take a photo of the pants, I saw this guy:

We took our Christmas tree outside on Sunday.  It had begun to shed needles with a vengeance and it had to go.  I thought it would be nice to put it up on the terrace, and decorate it with bird food.  We have tons of visitors, like the little European tits, bullfinches, greenfinches, sparrows, blackbirds, robins.  We knew that the woodpecker lived in our backyard but we've never seen it that close.  I also had no idea that they go for bird food.  Handsome little guy, isn't he?  Maybe we can now attract partridges too?  (My parents have partridges in their garden - however, they are not in the pear tree.  They prefer the roses.)

See, I told you our life is not very exciting.  But it has its moments.

Pants!

Oh, yes, I sewed pants for Leah before.  But they were always simple baby pants - today I made my first "real" pair of pants.  These are the real deal.  They have pockets.  Real ones, not only pretend.  On the other hand, the zipper is pretend and that's just fine because really, who needs zippers on toddler pants?

The pattern is from Farbenmix, once again.  I love their patterns because they are fun, easy to sew up, and if you get stuck, you can always check the very detailed photo instructions on their web page.  That is awesome service, if you ask me. 

The pattern is called "Dortje" and as always with Farbenmix, there are countless ways to spruce the pattern up or tone it down.  I made the very simple version without the gathered knee parts, without pleats or other embellishments.  I did make the pocket inserts in a different pattern because I ran out of fabric.  I went slowly because I can't yet read patterns and now exactly what I need to do, but it didn't take all that much time.  I sewed them up while Leah was napping.  Mostly. (The husband points out that someone watched the other kids in the meantime.  I wonder who?)

Aren't they cute?  They sit under her little gorilla baby belly.

If you peek closely, you can see the false zipper part.  Very fun.

Also nice with extra mittens:

The fabric is a soft corduroy, so she can wear these pants even now, and there's room to grow.  The pattern comes in sizes 80/86 (about 12-18 months) to size 128/134 (size 8).  I predict many more "Dortjes" in our future -- Jacob wants one, too. 

Our new house

Jacob shares a room that is quite small with his little sister.  The little sister is now a toddler who likes to get involved with whatever her brothers are doing and this is not necessarily met with approval.  Especially when she pulls the train tracks apart that Jacob just spent half an hour putting together.

So he decided we need a new house.  This new house has the following rooms:

A room for Leah, downstairs. An extra playroom for Leah, also downstairs. One room for Jacob, and one for Mommy and Daddy, the latter downstairs. We also get an extra room for grown-up books, and a photo room for Mommy.

Alan and David still have to share a room but all the boys have one big playroom upstairs.

"In the Erde" (in the soil), meaning in the basement, are all the other rooms: Living room, kitchen, bathroom.

I have to say, apart from the placement of kitchen, bathroom and living room, I like this house!

Last vacation days

Hanging out at home.

Concentrating on...

... cool new Space Police creations.

Staying in pajamas and socks until afternoon.

Goofing around.

Reading "Meanwhile".

Going outside in the biting cold.

And eating pizza.  Sorry, no picture of the pizza - I was too busy making and eating it.

Tomorrow is Epiphany, or "Three Kings' Day" as we call it here.  It's a holiday in Bavaria, that's why the boys have their Christmas break until tomorrow.  On Thursday, school resumes.  I'm of two minds about that: the boys have started sleeping late (or what counts for "late" in that age) and I could sleep in until 8 or so almost every morning.  Starting with the school, it's 6 am again.  On the other hand, there will be a few quiet hours in the morning. Hmmmm...

So, you know:  Happy Three Kings' Day.  If I don't forget, I'll take a picture of the Starsingers and tell you about them tomorrow.

Changes, plans, dreams

Hello, New Year!  What do you have in store for me, I wonder? Maybe it's better if I don't know...

What do I have planned?  Not much. I have no resolutions, just plans and a few changes. And a dream or two.

First off, a new blog design - I didn't change much but I increased the width of the blog so I can display my pictures better (or rather, bigger).  I also have a new banner but it's not the final one - I'm still tinkering around.  It's amazingly difficult to find five or six representative pictures that also go well together.  

Second, I'm working on a big project.  It's still mostly secret but if it comes together the way I plan it, then I will owe Ange from Adobe about $1,000.  And that's a good thing because that would mean I make some money off my pictures.  Watch this space.

Speaking of photography, I would love to do a photography workshop.  That's really more of a dream than a plan.  I'm at the point where I need more than just books and ideally that would be someone to tell me what I do wrong and how to do it better.  I'd love to participate in one of Me Ra Koh's workshops, so  I went to her website to check things out. (I forgot how expensive they are!) That's when I read about the SOAR competition and got all excited -- although I never ever win anything (it's like a universal law or something), I was already gearing up...  and then I discovered that I was about a week late for entry.  Oh, well.  That's another form of not winning, isn't it?

I want to get back into running three times a week.  It was amazingly good for me and every time I see a runner in the snow and cold I feel like a chicken.  Hm.  You know, it's really cold out there...

But I have cute kids!