Ex Patria

The Gingerbread House 2010

So we made our traditional gingerbread house again.  I cheated some and did not make the gingerbread myself.  Instead I bought a ready-made (yummy!) package by Dr. Oetker - a famous German baking supply company that makes really good products.  It was much easier than last year and the kids had equal amounts of fun.  It came with the gingerbread parts and various candies and gummies for decoration.  We added some of our own but it was a really good kit --  3.99 Euros well spent!

Do you see this hand?  It's Jacob's.  I love his hands.  He has the most perfect, wonderfully formed hands.  I'm nuts about them.  I'm sure you wanted to know that.

Wacky David.  All those new teeth don't really fit into his mouth.  He better grows some bigger jaws soon, orthdontics are too expensive!

Yes, that's a black cat on the roof.  That's classy.

Guess what Leah did.  She helped by making the candy disappear.

Caught in the act.  Whoops.  (Those red cheeks are from the cold outside.   All my kids get these bright red cheeks when it's cold but it seems to fade with age.)

Because I don't want my stats to dip

... a few images of today.  We had a long walk in the woods (well, in and around the ruins of the Lichtenburg in Ostheim) and then we went to IKEA to buy shelving for the new study.  The kids were very patient with me and played along when I tried out a few poses.  Well, they were patient for about five minutes.  Heh - five minutes times four kids is twenty minutes of focusing.  That's just awesome.

Reading

Alan is reading really well, and he likes it.  He reads above grade level in English and slightly below grade level in German.  He is, at heart, a little American.  He does a Headsprout Reading Comprehension program right now which is geared towards grade three to four and he aces it.  He is also participating in an online book quiz portal with his class and is doing fine reading books and answering questions.

David, however, is a voracious reader.  He will read for hours.  Often, they will be in their room and David is sprawled on his bed with a book while Alan is building complicated and intricate Lego creations.  It delights my heart.  He even gets the red cheeks that I get when I am really diving into a book and read for hours and hours.  (Uh, that never happens anymore.  Those "hours and hours" just don't seem to exist somehow.)

Doug got the boys hooked on the Oz books.  I confess I never really got the entire Oz thing - maybe it's something you have to grow up with and as shocking as that may be to my dear American readers, Oz has never really made it in Germany.  Many Germans may have heard of The Wizard of Oz but mostly in connection with the movie.  It's not a rite of childhood to read those books, just as the Narnia books have never been a standard youth read, either.  So, I am vaguely aware of what is happening in the Oz books but not in detail.

So Doug read some Oz book with the kids.  I think he started with an Oz comic book.  Then he brought home books like "Ozma of Oz" and the like.

David devoured "Ozma of Oz" in a few days.  Then he went on to "Glinda of Oz" which has some 200 pages and 28 chapters.  He kept me informed about which chapter he was just reading, and he read fast and he read throroughly.  Where Alan likes to skip whole pages, David will read every. single. word.

He finished it yesterday and is very proud of himself.  And well he should be.

Now I have to find more Oz books but I really don't know anything about them.  I guess I have to wait until the husband reappears from the copperbelt of Zambia.  Yup, more things I didn't know existed.  It's what makes life so interesting, I suppose.

Say "cheese"!

One of my favorite photographers, Me Ra Koh, has a DVD called "Refuse to say 'cheese'".   Unfortunately, this catchy phrase doesn't handily translate into German, because certainly the phenomenon does.  People, adults and little ones alike, seem to assume that once you look at a camera, you have to smile.  There is no other right way.

Oh.  My best shots are not of smiles.  My best shots are of serious faces, distracted faces, faces looking somewhere else, angry faces.   My kids are beautiful in any situation and personally, I find if an image conveys their personality, it's a better shot than when they, you know, smile.  My cousin wanted pictures of her two girls for her living room wall.  She wanted smiley pictures but especially her oldest daughter just has a very goofy photo smile.  And while that is certainly worth capturing, it's not her normal self.  I got that shot of her own self after a half hour of continuous shooting, after she told me to go away and leave her be, and after she told me to come back and take a photo of this, and of that, and finally of her looking straight at the camera, with a little shy smile that she usually wears.  Her mother loves that picture, and it hangs right next to the one of her little sister with a serious expression. 

Leah has just started to smile at the camera.  I don't think I ever told her to "smile".  So why does she do it?  Vanity?  She does request to view her picture every time after I take one.  Vanity at the age of 2?  Well, she's a girl.  Things are certainly possible.  Still, it makes me wonder.

Do you always smile at the camera?  Because I know I do.

It's different when you're a mom - or, book recommendations for Kindergarteners

So, it was my birthday today.

At 7 am, Jacob came down the stairs, holding his stomach and complaining of a belly ache.  Seasoned mother that I am, I pulled to vomit bucket (yes, we have a dedicated vomit bucket) out just in time to... catch.

Tea, pretzel sticks, medication, more vomiting covered the next hours until noon or so, when he fell alseep and slept for three hours.  The rest of the they day he hung listlessly on the couch, watching TV or reading books.

Speaking of books and TV - here are the favorites of the day:

Flotsam by David Wiesner.  This has got to be my favorite of Wiesner's admittedly extraordinarily wonderful books.  It's magical, amusing, amazing and the best thing for a little boy who's sick on the couch.  Jacob got it for his fifth birthday from his Dad and he adores it.

Tuesday by David Wiesner.  You may see a trend here.  If you don't have any of Wiesner's books yet, go and buy them now.  Even if you don't have a child in your life. You will not regret it.

Best Rainy Day Book Ever by Richard Scarry. What can I say.  Ever since we got the Richard Scarry DVD trio from my friend Natalie, our kids have been hooked.  Scarry is family by now.  It was raining today, the kids were bored, so there.

Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson. A classic by now, isn't it?

Scranimals by Jack Prelutsky.  We also got this from Natalie (and since she's one of the three people reading this blog, I suppose that makes these recommendations somewhat superfluous).  It's great fun but take warning and practice reading it ahead of time.  Otherwise it will trip you up, especially when you're a non-native speaker.

And for TV, we have Here Comes Science by TMBG.  Oh, now, go and buy it.  It comes with a DVD and every song has a fabulous animation - my kids all have their favorites: Alan - Computer Assisted Design, David - I'm a paleontologist, Jacob - The Blood Mobile.   It's fabulous and better for your child than any other from of TV, and I do include the Mythbusters here.  And we are dedicated Mythbusters-afficionados, I will have you know.

No title

Yeah, I know, I missed a day.

We were invited to a party -- do you know Elephant and Piggie? Party! Party! Party! Party!

My cousin's little girl turned 2 and we ate cake and gave presents.  We came back and had to prepare dinner and deal with after-party wiggles.  No time for writing.  And today we spent the afternoon at my parents.  And when we came home we saw this beautiful sunset.  The End.

 

Finally I have a pattern

Little 'Abracadabra', originally uploaded by Bloom and Blossom.

Well, I don't HAVE it yet but I found it.

I've been meaning to make quilts for the kids with some of their baby clothes that I've kept in a box in the basement.  But I couldn't for the life of me decide which pattern to use. I'm not a quilter so I can't just up and do it myself.  I need a strong guidance here.   The problems was that any pattern I found was too... quilty. You know what I mean?   I like sleek looks, modern looks but most modern quilts are way, way beyond my skill set. Anything I could have done was boring and uninteresting or downright ugly.  All those super-busy patterns are just not for me.

So today I found this pattern by Bloom while browsing craft blogs (something I do more than I should, I know!)  I saw it and knew, that's it. This is the pattern I need. All those little shirts and blouses and dresses will look awfully cute this way.

Now only to find the time...

The fabric dollhouse

Remember I blogged a list of crafts I wanted to do one day?  Well, one was the fabric dollhouse by UK lass in US.  I had no intention of actually making one right away - I just wanted to try out the dimensions with the cutouts, then I had no plastic canvas and replaced it experimentally with cardboard, then I had to try the batting-and-wrapping...  and so one thing let to another and I ended up with a fabric dollhouse.  I want to make it a bit bigger for Leah and change some other minor stuff (like the closures - those elastics don't work for me, I don't know why), and so the niece will get this for her 2nd birthday tomorrow:

Sans the doll.  That  belongs to Leah.  They used to be mine, I got them in Greece when I was a girl.  They were the fad of the summer 19xx (oh, that's depressing) and came in little matchboxes.  I have maybe 20 or so.

Oh, and Jacob watched me and declared that he wanted the barn.  Heh.  I live to serve.

Before and after - Jacob 2010

I have very few images of Jacob as a newborn.  That is because two months after he was born, I dropped a cup of coffee onto my laptop.  Back-up copies?  Yeah, I'd made a backup.  Right before he was born.  Blech.

Five years ago, I liked snapping pictures but neither did I have a good camera (yet), nor did I know anything about photography.  I had no idea what I was doing.

A recent exercise that I came up with for myself is to take one random photo off my hard drive and edit it.  Some pictures are so bad, nothing can be done for them.  Some can be improved upon, some turn out to be treasures.

The following is one of the few pictures I have a Jacob at that age.  I could not turn it into a treasure - those highlights are just blown, baby.  I didn't even know what RAW was back then, and I remember I put this plush animal into his hands because someone gave it to us and I wanted them to see that he likes it.  Why, why?  Flash and white fake fur!  Not a good combination. And why the flash?  I have no idea what I was thinking.  Nothing, apparently.

For the photoshop pros:  I adjusted the color balance with curves, pulling it slightly into the magenta.  That took the flash induced waxiness and the blue color cast out of his skin.  I adjusted the hightlights, also with curves, and masked off everything but his face and the plush toy.  I sharpened the face with high pass, and masked off most of the skin, leaving the eyelashes and his mouth.  (Such a pouty mouth!  He still has those bee-stung lips.  Any woman would kill for those.)

While I don't love the picture (that toy!), and the compostion isn't wonderful, it's much better now, with just two or three minutes of editing.  Now I can look at it without cringing (too much).

Which is the day I turn to begging

Doug and I had the idea - kicked off by a desperate mom - to offer an English immersion class at the local elementary school.  What we were originally asked for was tutoring but we can't really do that - Doug's gone a lot and then I have very little time.  So we came up with the concept of language immersion - an hour or two a week, with games and songs, comic books and DVDs. 

We approached the school and they were delighted.  They offered us the use of a dedicated classroom, "and whatever you need".  Heh.  Can I have a camera?   Just kidding. 
They also asked us how much we'd charge.  That caught me by surprise because we never thought of this as a money making opportunity.  So I said brightly, "Oh, nothing, of course.  We just want to do something for the community."  Great, said the director.  We fixed a time - Fridays, after the nursery school/Kindergarten closes at 3 pm - and composed a letter to the parents, asking for sign-ups so that we would know if there was any interest at all, and how much.

I said to Doug, "You know, if it's only a few kids, we can just as well do this at home."

The letter went out yesterday.  So far, we have sixty kids signed up.  We'll have to make groups and offer more days.  Who'd knew this would be so wildly popular?

I need more material to decorate the classroom.  I have some ABC walls and other stuff but not as much anymore as I thought I had.  Most I gave to the little preschool that David went to in Armenia.  This is something we do on a volunteer basis, and as much as we don't charge for it, we can't very well invest lots of money (that we don't have). 

So, I'm begging of you:

If you have any pre-school and elementary school classroom deco that you don't need anymore, would you consider sending it to us?  Word walls, calendars, bulletin board stuff, ABCs, posters with colors and shapes and simple words (think pre-school, as these are kids who just start out with a new language), anything would be more than welcome. 

Also, if I order some stuff off Oriental Trading, would someone be willing to receive the package and send it on to Germany?

Thank you in advance!