Welcome to Grouchland

A Weekend of Scrapping & a Reminder

2012-01-30T11:00:00.000+01:00

Literally from Saturday Morning to Sunday Evening. The weather is bad, Georgia still felt sick, and I felt queasy on Saturday as well. So yes, I scrapped. I should really stop and thank my family for letting me!

First up, a blast from the past. In a few more weeks this will be exactly four years ago:

That's right, I'm four (and more!) years behind. That was a scraplift of a template, so I will only take credit for the pictures, but I love it and that's what matters.

And this one is from a couple weeks ago when we were playing with Sven's enviro-battery. I'm pretty sure I blogged that with the Instagram Pictures. Now it's scrapped:

I really really love combining Anna and Krista's products. They are well-matched to mix up the Traditional with a bit of the Artsy. Love it.

This next one is two years ago, but scrapped last week on Thursday:

If you were curious, the first layout is purely traditional, the 2nd layout mixes traditional with Artsy (ArtsyTraditional) and the last is Artsy. I used to do only traditional and thumbed my nose at Artsy. Then I got bored and started experimenting. That's when ArtsyTraditional appeared, and in the past few months, I've branched out and let myself get downright Artsy and not worried that it was something that could not be replicated with paper, because where's the fun in working digitally, if you don't experiment?

One last thing: Feb. 1st starts a new set of classes at Masterful Scrapbook Design and I'll be guest-teaching all about Motifs. If you are interested, go sign-up. It's a steal for only $12.50 a month and you can cancel your subscription at any time, although I'd strongly suggest hanging in there for March as well, since the topic is typography and Anna will be guest-teaching!

That's all from me. Happy Monday!

ArtPlay(ing) - with Rudolph, Georgia & Anna

2012-01-27T15:51:00.002+01:00

Last week, one of my fellow AnnaTeamers wrote a very informative and fun post on Anna's Blog about using Transfers as Masks. Brilliant, really. I read it at the time and thought: wow, she's so clever...Then I puttered about my usual way and didn't think of it again. Until Today.

I woke up to a beautiful new ArtPlay in my inbox. Anna's creativity endures and blossoms weekly. Seriously. Anyway, most of the current Scrapbooking Kits releasing right now are Valentine's Day related, which makes sense, but honestly? Bleh. I don't like all the pink and hearts much. So I was pleasantly surprised to see Anna's take on a girlie Valentine's Day Kit called Girl Craze (I'm secretly hoping for a boy-related artplay in the near future...). Yes, it's got hearts and it has a lot of pink, but it's not all pink and it's not all hearts. It has enough non-valentine themed items to make it a perfectly universal kit.

What in the world does this have to do with Fiona's tutorial on Anna's blog, you ask? After about three hours of starting, staring, dragging layers on, moving them around, taking them off again and then throwing everything out and starting over again, i went back to the tutorial and read it again. And then I started to use it, and expand on it, and play. I played a lot. And this is what I made:

Rudolph is clipped to a transfer just like Fiona explains, I mean exactly, except for the polka-erasing. I didn't bother with that. The Blue polkas? That's the same Transfer layer (from Artplay Palette Sophistica) but with a blue paper clipped to it and put on blend mode: SCREEN. What a pleasant surprise that was - instead of black and white dots, I suddenly had blue and white! The striped transfer from Artplay Palette Fotographie was originally a dark blue tone that didn't match at all. I clipped a yellow paper to it and changed the blend mode and opacity.

With ArtPlay, it really is all about playing, and having fun! I did! And now I have to go clean the kitchen...

Sick on a Wednesday

2012-01-25T15:01:00.001+01:00

Up all night with her head in the toilet:

Poor thing. Of course, that meant someone else was up most of the night as well...I certainly wasn't against her staying home, although Wednesday is a long day when I have lots of time to work. With G staying home, D. is too. I didn't want to make him go and then have to pick him up later...have since discovered that at least one other kid i the group has the stomach bug. Glad both kids stayed home after all! and the girl? been on the couch all day and eaten nothing but rice cakes and fennel tea...yikes.

Snow - Sledding - Rain

2012-01-23T12:00:00.000+01:00

Friday night, on my way to bed, I looked out the window and saw the snow falling:

It was lovely, and quiet. Peaceful.

Woke up in the morning to this:

Before the sun could get all the way up however, it was swallowed by clouds!

The kids were clamouring to go sledding and so we headed out to meet with friends. We walked for a good thirty minutes before we finally found the 'wee' hill Sylvie told us about! The walk might not have been bad, if the wind hadn't been blowing snow in our faces the whole way! And had the ways still been snowed and iced over (Sven got the fun job of pulling both kids on the one sled - we need a 2nd sled!).

The snowfall was so bad, I even had to take off my glasses and walk blind as I could not get them clear enough to see! In all the pictures, you can see the snow falling and the water spots on the camera lens because it never stopped! Not once! And eventually, it turned to rain.

she kept losing her hat on the way down...

Ella & Dean going down on the bum sledges together!

Climbing back up the hill after sledding down - they always insisted on climbing back up the slope they slid down. We could not convince them to walk up along the side where the snow was less packed together!

Sylvie and Ella going down together.

Walking up the hill again...

a bum sledge tends to tip you over and send you rolling over and over. By the time you land, you just have to stop and collect yourself, even if it means lying flat in the snow...

She really likes to eat snow...so every time she face planted she licked the ground. Yum.
'

Mouthful?

Sweet Sylvie let me slide down on one of their bum sledges. Which meant I got to climb up the hill too. And roll over. And face plant. It was great fun!

Sven caught me race right between the kids and Sylvie, you can control those things a little!

Threesome, getting ready to slide! The other kids showed up so much later, by then I had put the camera away (it was pretty wet) and was sledding myself. So That's why there are no pics of the boys!

Well, except for this one. They went down to rescue our Sled, which had been abandoned by one of the kids.

and I'll leave you with one more video...!

Christmas Eve

2012-01-22T12:00:00.000+01:00

Sorry, but it has to be posted because I just got another glimpse at the photos that ARE uploaded to Flickr and the plethora of Reds & Whites from our trip to Molbaks just made me happy.

So this is mostly a picture-post. I haven't had much opportunity for photos recently, so let's dwell on pretty ones from last month...

A Family Photo - yay! Thank-you Grandma. And check out how well we color-coordinated (except maybe for Sven's shoes!)

haven't seen many of these this year:

had to drag the kids away from this:

so we could get the (last) annual photo at the Poinsettia Tree:
Georgia, ever willing. Dean...not so much.

So she leaned over and pulled up his cheeks, trying to make him smile. This was his reaction:

attack of the little brother!

So if little brother won't cooperate, we'll just do shots of big sis alone:

The idea behind this series, was to get the three girls. We didn't even ask grumpy Dean, since he was refusing before, but he also refused to be left out of the photo-taking.

Thanks to him, we got some pretty great pics. I love that one above, for his very non-posed-ness!

Wish I could keep plants alive...I'd have these in every free space in the house all year long!

No idea where Kylene got off to. It would have been excellent, if she'd jumped in with us for these.

Not actually a hat...

but what the heck?

such a grumpy little bump:

Home again, home again! Let's put out some Luminarias! Almost everyone pitched in. Only one lazy grump hid away and ignored the fun. He'll come out later when there is nothing holiday-related going on and it's all about Golf...

Thanks to Sven for picking up the camera (UNASKED!!!) and recording this for me.

The kids got the sand-filling job, or rather, both volunteered:

After the Luminarias were finished and the sand swept up (thanks to G), Mr. G re-appeared and there was some golfing of sorts:

That one really should have had on a jacket. He was quite sick and came in freezing and had to be warmed up with a rice bag and a few blankets.

And the sun went down:

It was a very Merry Christmas Eve.

December 23rd (quick Recap!)

2012-01-21T14:00:00.000+01:00

Thought I should try and finish with the Christmas Updating. You remember the photo of the day was a bowling-enthused Georgia? Because yes, we went bowling:

(click on the pics for the supply list details)

Scrapbooking and blogging. They go hand-in-hand. Because either I write the story on the blog and grab it later when I'm scrapping it, or I scrap the pics and write the story and can then just plop them into the blog. Either way is a win-win. You, dear family (and friends?) get the pictures and the story, and my kids get the stories with the pictures too. Some day. If I ever bother to print anything. If my hard drives don't die on me and dump everything I own into oblivion....!

Hey, a thought. Georgia learns to read next year (I hope!). Wonder how long before she might be interested in reading the stories that go with the pictures....wonder if she'll be able to read English at all?

Sahlin Studio Freebie

2012-01-20T08:00:00.000+01:00

This is not just a recap of a day in December, this is also a big fat HEAD'S UP! If you haven't already, check out the Sahlin Studio Facebook Page. Krista has created a really cute mini kit and is offering it for free to her FB fans. I used it to create this cute layout of Kylene's bud and her darling darling little girl:

*edit! I have been informed that I spelled her name wrong. Sorry about that! Will fix it later!**

They came to visit when we were in town and my goodness, the only thing holding me back from eating those cheek, were the other women pouncing on those cheeks...well, that and the fact she is at that age where she doesn't really want total strangers attacking her cheeks...total cutie, at the BEST age, just learning to walk and toddling all over on her unsteady little feets. I think that's my favorite stage. too bad you have to go through all the other stages and the whole pregnancy crap to get to this stage again!

Anyway. 'nuff said. This kit is pretty awesome. Go get it. Play. Tell your story. Have Fun!

I really hate january

2012-01-19T14:00:00.000+01:00

Someone kick me out of this slump? I don't love snow, but I do love that first snowfall, when you wake up and the whole world is white and silent? It's the silence I love. I also love the sound of snow falling. I do NOT love the blizzardy snowfall that is ugly and doesn't stick and just makes it miserable to go outside. We've had the latter. No first snowfall. No wintery white silence.

Walking the kids to Kiga yesterday morning, the sun was coming up and the sky was the most beautiful color. I did not have any sort of camera on me, good or bad and by the time I had them dropped off and was walking home, the colors had vanished. I spent the rest of the day on the verge of tears.

So I played with some summer photos:

taken summer of 2010 at the SeaLion Caves along Hwy 1.

And these were taken the very same day a mile hike across the

Oregon Dunes from the Overlook N. of Reedsport.

I am kind of wishing my favorite designers would throw winter out the window and ply me with fun new summer kits so that I could finally sit down and record the memories from that RoadTrip down the coast. I'm inspired, a bit.

I think I promised announcements? Well first: Anna Aspnes has implemented a Guest AnnaTeam gig. She's picking lucky ArtPlayers to join her team for two week stints, check out her Announcement for the details!

And the second announcement: I'm actually excited to tell you that I will be Guest Teaching about Scrapbooking Motifs at Masterful Scrapbook Design next month (which is like a few weeks away!). I have recently been laughingly dubbed "the queen of doo-dads" and was surprised to realize that a doo-dad can also be called a motif, and I'm kinda good at them. So if you are a scrapbooker and interested, go sign up. You can sign up for just the one month, or for a few months or heck, a few years - ha!

And on that note, I'm history. Off to dream of sunshiny days gone by, and hopefully a good long summer of them to come!

Memories...of Christmas Past

2012-01-18T06:50:00.000+01:00

Okay, so maybe I haven't taken any new pictures since Christmas and I tend to lean towards the most current pictures when I scrap. So maybe all my recent pages are from this past holiday. And maybe they'll continue to be!

Amy Wolff had a new o'clock series out at The Lilypad last week. the colors inspired me to use this picture of Kylene, and use it as big as possible:

Orange and purple. Yum!

And Krista Sahlin of Sahlin Studios also brought out a new kit called Vintage Poinsettia (how could I not use Christmas Photos with a kit by that name?):

And of course Anna had a new kit out last week as well, and even though it is called "Sweet Baby", I managed to use it to scrap Holiday Photos. I want to share them with you because they are previously unseen photos on the blog of our trip to Build-a-Bear the day we saw Santa:

I'm not sure if clicking on it will allow you to see it full-sized, please give it a try!

Hm. Tomorrow is Thursday already? Come back for more! Either new ArtSale products, or an announcement, or a recap of something? Just come again!

Bad Blogger...My Excuse!

2012-01-17T06:44:00.000+01:00

Of course returning to Germany after a three week stint in the States brings a big dose of jet-lag with it, along with the annual gloom of being back here, so far from family, but this year a nice little cold came slipping in on the tails of 'ol Jet Lag and left me flat for a week. I apologize, but maybe you were expecting this? I think I have a pretty terrible track record for the winter months, feel free to prove me right by checking old archives for the months of Jan-oh, July?!

Let me take this much-too-early Tuesday morning to say hello again, and ease back into it...or try.

Going back a bit, Jan. 8th was my birthday, Andrea cooked for me and baked a cake:

There were candles and family, except Sven who had to work from Jan. 3rd (remember we arrived back in Germany on the 2nd) straight through to January 9th:

Then there was that week of miserable sick. I hate those weeks. I got work requirements taken care of, but was in bed by 6pm most of the week. The only plus to being sick was when it meant missing the EBR meeting I had been dreading...

Some of the work I did:

Anna brought her ToothFairy Collection back this month!

Anna's weekly ArtSale included some fun stuff that I played with (this particular sale is over, but look for a new one starting tomorrow!). Psst, take a look at those photos. Sven took all but one with my Nikon. One was taken with my iTouch and then posted to FB on the spot. The quality of my iTouch's camera is so disappointing!

And on Sunday, I finally just sat down and played with some fun Kits from the O:

Still recovering at the weekend, we didn't do much (it is also cold and a bit snowy) but Sven finally had a chance to pull out a Christmas Gift: the EnviroBattery and play:

Making a potato battery. It managed to power up a teeny digital clock. Pretty cool. Potato Power!

despite appearances, this one was actually an attempt to power up a light-bulb using water. It did not work, though we are not sure if that is due to a faulty light-bulb, or lacking minerals in the water. Sven then tried adding vinegar and salt to the mix, but still couldn't get the bulb to light up. He did get the clock to run though.

And now a new week has started and I am going to keep up! There are some exciting scrapbooking-related announcements to make, freebies to grab and sales you don't want to miss!

December 28th: the Market

2012-01-09T07:00:00.000+01:00

Or a little peek at least, as I was unable to fit all my photos on this one layout. We did go to the Market, Starbucks (though not the first, as it was way too full of people - lines going out the door) the gum wall, the carousel and the Gingerbread Village all by 2pm...but here is a smattering of photos just from the market:

Supply Lists can be seen at The Lilypad or at Oscraps.

A Bit of Snow

2012-01-08T12:00:00.000+01:00

Friday (a holiday that we did not observe as Sven was forced to work) boasted continual storming and the introduction of snow. My kids kept insisting that winter had finally come (I'm sure they meant snow...) and wanted nothing more than to go outside. It took them the whole day however, to actually put on clothes and go out. Once there, they proceeded to make snow angels (so G. claimed) and snowmen:

Funny little lumpy snowmen, but snowmen nonetheless. This was possibly the best day since we've been back. Kids got out in the fresh air and gave me about an hour to myself. Wonderful.

December 24th oops!

2012-01-07T21:25:00.004+01:00

Better late than never? I think so. Guess that probably would have been the Photo of the Day on the 24th. Seems like once the 24th hits, it is impossible to actually sit down and edit photos, esp. as I take so many on the 24th. the 25th boasts less pictures, but also even less time to get on a computer. I mean, who has time? We're busy doing family stuff, like opening presents and yelling at each other...! And hey, since I am still in denial about the holidays being over and me being back in this miserable place, not having done the last few days of the project means I CAN stretch out the holidays a bit longer. So yay.

December 24th: Molbaks. And lots of cooking. And baking. And Luminarias (it didn't start raining until Christmas Day, so we got to do them). So I guess I've got a lot of photos to share. Stick around. I just might do it because pssssst, I have this stinking FAST new PC and processing photos has suddenly become a breeze. The only difficult thing left? Choosing which pics to keep and how to edit them. Yay for the possibility of more regular blogging this year...!

Happy New Year!

2012-01-04T19:38:00.001+01:00

This is a super-quick catch-up because I am jet lagged and it is time to hit the hay! We made it back home safe and sound (if a little sleepy) Monday afternoon:

Yup, that would be someone sleeping (with eyes open) on a table at the airport in Frankfurt while waiting for the connecting flight that would take us to our FINAL destination.

The kids were over tired from staying up late the night before (it WAS New Year's Eve, after all!):

Grandma read them their last bedtime story. Georgia chose a long one. Dean didn't quite make it:

And early the next morning, we were off.

Catching up a bit, here are a few photos, all these photos were taken with my iTouch, which is a fabulous Christmas Present, as it allows me to do Face Time with family, and that's like 1000 times better than skype, or the telephone (and it's free), but the quality of the camera is immensely disappointing. As you can see by these pictures, the camera is well...it's sad. I just did some research and it turns out, the back camera is only .6 megapixels. POINT SIX. So please forgive the terrible quality. Bad pictures are still better than no pictures. And in light of that, I'd like to invite you to follow me on instagram for instant photo gratification. Username is zaubera.

at the gum wall in Seattle (look for a full post on this later this month)

waiting for Pho (a first time experience that we did as take out, we should have stayed in!)

Like I said, home now, getting used to stuff here (kids won't go back until next week), new stuff, old stuff, work etc. Missing family. Missing my home country and language (totally hermit-ting here so I don't have to hear/speak German quite yet) and just trying to readjust. Until then...

December 26th

2011-12-27T03:01:00.000+01:00

(at the fountain in Alderwood Mall, having just dropped in a penny):

"I wished for a broken arrow."

This is a step up, he has been wishing for a Pfeil u. Bogen, now we just have to learn Bow and Arrow (and candy CANE instead of candy CAN!)

Oops. Missed a few days. Sort of. We celebrated Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with non-stop activity. Well actually, we did today too. This morning, all the adults were awake by 6:30am because we thought we'd head over to Molbaks for the Christmas Deco Sale that started at 8am. We made it to the store by 8:55am or so. While driving down the road in Woodinville, Mom says: Wow, it's empty out here today. Then we drove past the parking lot of Molbaks and she said: "oh. everyone is at Molbaks, I hope we find parking..."

Turns out, there was a line of people going around the corner and down the street at 7am this morning (the store opened at 8am). We did not get the exact thing we had hoped for, but from the same artist (Patience Brewster, such cool stuff) and Mom got three dolls from Woof & Poof. She was happy.

Then we popped into Target to see if we could get a red camera lens (turns out the store ONLY carries white) and then on to Alderwood for some exchanges (poor Sven) where the kids got to play on the playground, make wishes in fountains, eat at the food places, have coffee and just had to do a little bit of waiting on boring exchange stuff.

A Semi-quick trip to REdmond Town Center and now we're reheating Christmas Dinner. As for me, I have been gifted a means to use Instagram from Mom. Found it under the tree yesterday morning. That could mean blogging more often...and more quick candid photos, if not the prettiest.

Merry Christmas!

December Photo Project Day 23

2011-12-24T09:02:00.004+01:00

I am getting tired...but I'm hanging in there! Only two more days to go, much better than last year, eh?!

We took the kids bowling today, for the first time, EVER! (Imagine a little 6 year old voice emphasizing the "ever").

She totally kicked butt...though she and Dean played with bumpers. Speaking of those bumpers? Whatever. Dean managed to throw his ball into the gutter OVER the bumpers at one point (we were lucky he didn't toss it into the next lane!)

And Sven? He threw two different gutter-balls, but his ball leaped out of the gutter and smashed down pins anyway...We also had a crazy messed-up lane. It kept malfunctioning.

Georgia had the BEST time, though. That's what matters. After one game, we headed home and then bowled on the Wii, cheaper and SO much easier!

December 23rd - 2010

2011-12-23T21:00:00.000+01:00

Country Village & Wight's

2011-12-23T20:00:00.000+01:00

Georgia said: I want to stay home and play today, but tomorrow I want to do something. I said: how about going to Country Village for a Tea Party?

Georgia said: oh YES!

Later that night, Grandma and I checked out the Tea and Eatery place at Country Village only to discover the reason we haven't had tea more often, it's a bit out of our budgets...So we suggested to Georgia that we go to Country Village and look around (maybe we can ride a train!) and have our own tea party at home with Grandma's beautiful collection of cups and saucers. Thankfully, she agreed.

Upon arrival, we checked out the Keepsake Cottage Fabrics Shop, where G and D immediately picked up on the game they had been playing last year when we visited. Yes, a whole year earlier! Then we went into the Weed Patch. We wandered down the road, and stopped just outside the Village Bean because there is a play house outside that the kids wanted to play in (again, memories from last year). While they were playing, I discovered a funny Christmas Tree:

How swee...wait, what?

And a Door to Nowhere:

Off to find an awesome carousel...

Well, awesome for kids, maybe less-so for Grandmas who had to push...

PUSH, Grandma!

Saying hello to the Rooster on the way to lunch:

We went back to The Village Bean for lunch, where we paid for the kids to go in the play area while we ate lunch. Too bad for G., the place was literally chalk-full of boys. She decided to eat her lunch very slowly and not join in the masses. Thankfully, she got to play before we ate, which was early enough that it hadn't filled up too much yet...

As it turns out, the train was $3.50 a person, and it was just a bunch of cars that drove around Country Village, which we did last year, so we skipped it this year. The kids played on a pirate ship for a bit instead, before we headed back out of the Village:

Arrrrrrr!

We did have to do some Christmas Shopping, and the kids did whine. However, we ended the trip with a stop at Wight's Nursery, which was awesome. Even the kids enjoyed it. Check it:

Candy Land!

Ice Cream!

Upside down Tree? Sure, why not?

Santa Greetings:

And the Awesome Nativity in the Window:

Home again, Home again!

A Quiet Evening

2011-12-23T07:00:00.000+01:00

Since I never did get around to sharing the finished Christmas Tree...Here it is:

Until last night (when I was up until 1am wrapping presents with Mom), there were no presents under the tree, just a comfy, rumpled tree skirt. It was the perfect place for a grumpy cat to hang out and snooze...

And the reason for these photos, was my attempt to capture starlight, without a tripod...impossible. This one was taken with the camera balanced on a box of candles for stability:

It features our one kid who has never spent an actual Christmas with us.

There is something so peaceful about a lit Christmas Tree in the evenings. The only question left to ask is: why am I downstairs in the cold basement right now, instead of enjoying the lit tree?

December Photo Project Day 22

2011-12-23T05:13:00.002+01:00

Daddy finally arrived today...

The kids are waiting (it seemed like forever to them, but we timed it so we only waited about twenty mins tops):

"I see him! I see Daddy!!!"

Happy Reunion:

December Photo Project Day 21

2011-12-23T01:45:00.000+01:00

Tons of photos from Country Village and Wight's Nursery, but due to present-wrapping until 1am last night, I got nothing done...here's a fun shot on a carousel at Country Village:

December Photo Project Day 20

2011-12-21T08:50:00.001+01:00

We had kept this day free for friends but they came down with the flu, so Georgia and Dean got their 2nd wish: to stay home and PLAY. Both were bored by Lunchtime...ha! So we took them along on a trip to the grocery store and then Dean and I baked snickerdoodles right when Grandma had wanted to start dinner (oops...) and started a 500 piece Christmas Puzzle (yikes, it's hard!).

After dinner, we drove into Bellevue to see Snowflake Lane. The first time we saw it, it was really snowing, in fact, it was the night the big snowstorm started that kept us snowed in the rest of our trip. Tonight though, it was just bubble-snow falling from the sky...

And crowds. SO many PEOPLE! D and I lost G and Grandma pretty quickly and there was no finding them again until the crowds cleared, which sucked for D., he needed a toilet almost as soon as the soliders started drumming...

I tried to get photos and video, but having lost the other two, I was having to watch out for the little one and so up he went onto my shoulders, where he proceeded to sit like a sack of potatoes, slipping this way and that. I think I dumped him at some point, but still had hold of his arm for the video, so it's all one-handed jostled videoing:

30 mins before it started, kids bored at the water, we should have stayed RIGHT THERE, but Georgia wanted to go up.

There were snapped quickly before it started, in between ever-increasing crowd bumps...

After tossing Dean down to the ground (he was too heavy for my shoulders and needed the toilet, so carrying him was impossible as he was dancing and kicking like crazy), I tried to snap a few photos of the action:

Took this one right before deciding the dancing, drumming, toy soldiers really needed to be captured on video...

While uploading my video I found a few other videos of Snowflake Lane, including one of the Snowflakes. Here's the thing: where were standing, I could SEE the snowflakes rocking on a stage, but I could not see what they were playing.

I think we need to go back again:

Steel Drums?! And I missed it?!

December 20th - 2010

2011-12-20T16:00:00.000+01:00

A year ago today, we met up with Audrey and Ian and Michelle, and we were planning on meeting up with them exactly a year later today, but Audrey go the flu. Georgia is devastated, but what can you do? It's the flu. Hoping Audrey gets well quickly and Michelle and Ian don't come down with it in time for Christmas Eve!!!

December Photo Project Day 19

2011-12-20T08:06:00.000+01:00

I am already getting behind! Haven't finished editing yesterday's photos or even LOOKED at all of today's! Thought I would just let myself be featured on a daily photo. I didn't technically take it, though I did compose the shot, shutter speed aperture etc., before handing the camera off to my Mom and having her click. And I was the one who did the editing...So.

Met up with a friend for lunch. Haven't seen her since HS, when we didn't really know each other and weren't friends, what a difference a "few" years makes! I could have talked to her for hours!

We had an unfortunate cancelation for tomorrow's plans, so I might be able to get caught up...

School

2011-12-19T16:50:00.000+01:00

Though I should expand on Fridays POD, especially for Sylvie! I have been visiting my Mom's school classes for years, way back when, I'd go in and talk to the kids about Germany and do some German words for them, answer questions they had etc (most memorable year was when a little boy named Charlie asked me the German name for every possible exotic animal he could think of, animals I didn't even know in English, let alone German!). Back then, we got to walk around and talk to the kids, join them in their silent reading (one year, a boy was reading Holes, and that was my first introduction to that book). This all seems like yesterday and it's a bit shocking to realize just how long ago it was, that Charlie befuddled me with animals and another little boy introduced me to Holes...

Anyway, when Georgia was born, she was just a wee thing at Christmastime and Mom didn't have us come in to her class. So many of her sweet kids were disappointed (as well as faculty and parents) so she did a shindig here at home, a "Meet Georgia" do where she opened up the house to anyone who wanted to come for a few hours.

After that, we visited with a toddling G, who delighted the kids with her baby antics. Eventually though, she got old enough to start being scared of the big kids and unfortunately, two years ago, the kids were so excited to see her, they converged on her (and a two-year old Dean) and terrified them. The past two years, Grandma has had to sweet-talk G into coming back.

Friday? Friday was awesome. G went in quietly and was met with presents. Seriously, one kid's mom had bought both my kids Christmas Presents! After opening a Barbie with Salon (sheesh!), she was plied with hot cocoa and cookies and then the kids wheedled, begged and eventually convinced both Georgia And Dean *who really just did whatever G did) to come over and play with dominoes.

While they were busy building, knocking down and being awned upon, a few other kids were making paper wallets for them i all colors of the rainbow and then praising them up the sky for how smart, cute and amazing their (G) handwriting was...

In other words, they quite succesfully won my kids over completely.

When we arrived, the lights were off so the kids could see the fire crackling on the screen...

G enthralled with those big girls.

The one time the dominoes got built all the way and G was allowed to knock them down. She was so surprised: I didn't know they would DO that! I never did that before!

attempting to build them up again, they never did manage.

decorating the wallets that the kids made him:

Sitting down right in the midst of all those kids, no qualms whatsoever. Dean didn't even freak out that he couldn't sit by Georgia and held his own when the boys started teasing him.

After the big kids left, we had to stick around and help with clean-up. G and D got the mike from Grandma and happily yelled and sang and played with the boys next door until their Mom packed them up and headed home. We followed soon after and Georgia has been asking ever since: when can I see those children again?

December 19th 2010

2011-12-19T16:00:00.000+01:00

This was the day we went to see Dear 'ol Santa Claus!

Make sure to click on the image to view Full Size, and for those interested, the supply list can be found HERE.

December Photo Project Day 18

2011-12-19T05:09:00.002+01:00

The kids saw Santa today, and told them their greatest wishes for Christmas...

He had some trouble hearing Dean (who asked for: A Dragon and a Ritter and a Sword and a Pfeil und Bogen) and so leaned in to hear better. I took advantage of the moment.

December 18th - 2010

2011-12-18T12:00:00.000+01:00

please click on the photo to view it at full size!

Products used: Artplay Palette Weihnachtsbaum & Artplay Palette Xmas ,

MultiFoto Double Template 12 by Anna Aspnes

December Photo Project: Day 17

2011-12-18T06:00:00.002+01:00

It is slightly terrifying, how quickly the days are disappearing. It's already Day 17?!

Well, let's feature the evil cat:

Isis does not like to be: pet, scratched, played with, held, cuddled looked at, or talked to. Imagine the disastrous combination of this cat with a 6 year old who loves cats more than anything...

See what happens? Look closely at her face. The result: sobbing tears and a scratched up face.

Today, Auntie Kylene hung out with us. G & D got shoes to wear tomorrow when we visit Santa, I got some sorely needed new running shoes, we had coffee, we had lunch, we looked at nice cats, the kids got Christmas presents for each other (Georgia was very forceful about it) and then we came home and Kylene taught the kids how to play the dreidel game. It's never too early to learn how to gamble, right?

oh yes, that's sunshine you see, it was a gorgeous day!

We're off to see Santa tomorrow and the kids are EXCITED. Dean has a long list of things he says he will ask for (we'll see) and all are things within Santa's magic. Georgia has only a few things and none of them are easily obtained, not even with Santa's magic...I hope this isn't a disappointing Christmas for her!

December 17th - 2010

2011-12-17T08:30:00.000+01:00

December Photo Project Day 16

2011-12-17T07:13:00.002+01:00

We went to school today. The 4th and 5th graders seduced my kids with hot chocolate, cookies, an amazing present (each) and best of all: dominoes.

What a difference from two years ago when the same age kids (same split) terrified them. Georgia left asking when she could see the kids again.

December Photo Project, Day 15: Music!

2011-12-15T21:00:00.000+01:00

That's right, today's DPP is brought to you by the word: Music! And the photo introduces hands again (remember day 1?) This time it's the girl's hands:

We went to visit Auntie Kylene during her free period, which basically meant the kids could run around and bang on all the percussion instruments they could find and the only person telling them to STOP or BE CAREFUL was their Granddad, and their Auntie said: whatever! That was so nice to hear. I imagine my kids weren't any rougher with the instruments than the 100's of school kids that filter through on a daily basis! So thank-you Auntie Kylene, for the uninhibited fun today!

They stated with the metalophones, moved to the xylophones shortly and stayed pretty long, and quite happily on the glockenspiels.

Of course, the minute I started to make a video, Grandad pounded on the drums and they both stopped. As soon as I turned off the video, they both banged away like professionals...

on the xylophone:

Auntie Kylene had taken off all the "bad notes" in preparation for her kids. The idea being: no matter what they played, it would all sound good... G & D took that as an invitation to remove ALL the keys...!

s

two of each, perfect. there was no fighting.

a bit of piano...

They went through every cubby and tried every last instrument:

Thanks to Musikschule, G was familiar with quite a few of the instruments and I think might have impressed her Auntie a teeny bit, maybe.

Hey Kylene, I need a refresher, what was this one called again?

The kids ended their trip by racing around Great Granddad in a circle, scarves flying like superheros, until they both fell exhausted to the ground and Great Granddad had to move out of the way (probably from dizziness). The P.E. teacher tried t convince them they wanted to play in the gym. I guess someone should have told him today was a music day, not a P.E. day!

This evening, we continued with music and went to see the Canyon Creek, park? Kids sing their Holiday concert at the performing arts center. Let me just say, I felt old. There was no performing arts center when I went to school in the district. We sang in the gym and the audience sat on bleachers...! And me? I spent the reception chatting in German. Go figure. Too bad Sven wasn't there!

Tomorrow we are off to Grandma's classroom for cookies and hot cocoa...

***
What, are you still here? Oh okay, good. I have a surprise:

The kids were reading to themselves this morning. Winnie the Pooh. In German. No, neither of them can read yet, the stories were made up from the pictures. Crack me up.

The Flight: Short Recap!

2011-12-15T09:00:00.000+01:00

As you (should) know, I flew across the atlantic and Northern America (we're talking Greenland and then the very N. of Canada) last week on Friday. Yup, we've been here nearly a week and since I am waiting on laundry and the kids are playing fairly peacefully downstairs with me, I thought I'd try a quick recap of the trip...

As it turns out, taking pictures in the airport isn't nearly as difficult as I'd imagined, not when I'm the one carrying my camera (I usually give that job to Sven, which means I have no access to it!).

It went like this: Thursday Day was spent socializing with Andrea (I know, I should have been packing and cleaning, I did a little) and Thursday Evening was spent drinking Lumumbas with Sylvie and well, socializing. Hey, gotta get our good-byes in! The packing will happen! And who says no to a Lumumba when it is brought to your door? Yah, not me!

Thursday morning, I think I was up at 3:30am, things really started. We arrived at the airport just after 6am and thanks to online check-in, we were through the lines in less than 10 minutes, and because I don't have a working watch and had to turn off the cell, I had no idea how freaking TOO EARLY we were. And then security was a breeze. We all walked through, no beeps, no bag-searching, NOTHING!

We stopped in one of the DutyFree Shops, for what seemed like forever while the kids looked at all the toys. Thing is, our gate was just beyond that shop. We didn't have to do any walking! So we found seats at the gate next to ours (ours was full of the flight that was about to leave) and the kids said: we want to PLAY!

Playing lasted oh, 10 mins max? Then they both started to get bored, so Georgia pulled out paper and started to draw. She was content, but Dean was bored bored bored and started whining. So I suggested (seeing the clock and how much TIME we had) that we go look for a pretzel. That's when we discovered the complementary hot chocolate, yay for Terminal 2!

Not only that, there was a whole area of tables and chairs connected to a small food-area. Score. Tables to draw, hot chocolate to drink and pretzels to buy!

oh yah, and the tables were decorated for Christmas:

No, it's not an attractive face, but it is a typical look when I try to get photos (see Tanja, why there are so few of him?!)

I was doing my best to be calm, patient and keep things interesting, in other words: no plain pretzels. I got pumpkin seed and sesame. Dean claimed the sesame:

I finally caved and got a cappuccino. I was abstaining due to toilet breaks and not knowing how easy they'd be, or how often we could take them. But it was just taking too long!

The only reason he removed these newly found gems:

was because in literal moments after snapping this picture, he knocked his hot chocolate over and it went all over the gloves, his chair, the table and G's backpack (which she carried the whole trip!).

still drawing...

Finally time to board. We did not get special treatment, we had to wait in line with everyone else. Ah well! The flight was SO short. We played a fun memory game that the flight attendent gave us and had no trouble until we hit the turbulence in Frankfurt am Main. By the time we had finally landed, Dean was screaming and I could do nothing but hug him and try not to scream myself. I thought I was going to lose it!

Frankfurt was again, TOO EASY! we got off the plane, had a relatively short walk to our new gate, Passkontrole was uneventful and there was no new security to go through! We had a shortish wait (would have been shorter if we'd had any farther to walk or trouble with passports!) and then were allowed to board, AHEAD of everyone else. Yay for special treatment with kids!

Yes, the flight was long. And yes, there were no good kid movies for entertainment. G watched the same five Disney Cartoons for ten hours (old school Disney). Dean slept at the beginning for about twenty mins, D slept in the middle for about twenty mins, the woman in front of Dean fussed at me and told me to make him stop kicking her seat *ha*. We got our special meals ahead of the reg. meals, the kids insisted on toilet breaks when the aisles were blocked and our trays were full of food (esp. difficult with the seats in front of us pushed ALL THE WAY BACK THE WHOLE TIME, how are you NOT supposed to bump and kick when you have NO SPACE?). Generally though, it was smooth sailing and I am grateful!!

On landing in Seattle, we had to have our suitcases x-rayed at customs, but I really didn't have anything more than a butt-load of chocolate, so they let us through without further incident. We walked out of customs and right onto the train, no waiting. Grandma was there, our luggage was there and all the elevators were open and waiting for us.

Seriously perfect trip!

December Photo Project: Day 14

2011-12-14T21:00:00.000+01:00

Meet Snap d'Dragon:

We went to check out this year's Garden d'Lights tonight because it is one of the last free admission nights. So glad we did too, because we walked through in less than 20 minutes...Basically, on entering, the woman gave us a map of animals to find and told Dean to look for the dragon. Dean is dragon-CRAZY. He excitedly looked at the first few things and then started pushing to see the dragon. He had to find the DRAGON and he wouldn't let up. He whined his leg hurt, his stomach hurt, he was thirsty, he was hungry (we'd only just eaten) etc.

Of course Snap was the last thing before the waterfalls at the end, the VERY END...

So thanks to his impatience and G wanting to see everything all at once, we finished up and were driving out of the parking lot exactly an hour after we'd entered (after figuring in walking distances to and from, we really didn't spend more than 20 mins looking at lights...).

December 14th - 2010

2011-12-14T12:00:00.000+01:00

The day before we flew out to Seattle last year, Georgia got the Golden Nut from the Kindergarten Advent Calendar:

Oscraps 12 Days of Christmas & Holiday Cheer: Day 11

Artsy Template No. 38 by Anna Aspnes, as well as her Magical Tutorial, fun photo effects, especially helpful with grainy and blurry photos - a characteristic of both these photos! The Tutorial first appeared in Anna's AnnaNews from November 19th, and she very kindly allowed me to use it on the 11th Day of December at Oscraps.

On another note, my kids both got the golden nut this year by chance, Georgia on the first, Dean on the 2nd. The gift was a little snow globe. Dean dropped his and broke it immediately. Tears. Teacher pulled one out of another unclaimed sack and gave him a new one. Whew. However, in all the tears, we forgot to cut down the Mommy/Daddy gift from the Fish Post! and I forgot to take a single picture. Oh dear.

December Photo Project 2011: Day 13

2011-12-13T20:00:00.000+01:00

Today, they watched Rudolph. And When the movie was over, they made up their own pretend reindeer game. This is when G actually gives her Rudolph to D and she takes one of the old pom-pom reindeer girls and pretends she is Clarice...

Trying very hard to get good shots of Mr. D for you, Tanja!

This game lasts for a short while and then they are galloping through the living room again...

No one is quite sure what this game is about, not exactly, except maybe the two of them. They gallop around the room, Dean pulls some scary faces, one of them always has the binoculars and then they fall to the ground...

Grandad trying to get them to stand still so I can get a photo...just ended up in a rather posed shot:

The thing that cracks everyone up the most is how Dean gallops. He has to hang on to the front and back of his stick horse because he doesn't like it flapping around behind him...

Also, he rarely stops talking all day long...

more photos here.

December Photo Project 2011 - Day 12

2011-12-12T08:00:00.000+01:00

Today we made the Gingerbread Train, Grandma had to work and my cold got the upper hand.

The gingerbread train was surprising. The kids decorated the whole thing and ran out of candy. They didn't run out of candy because they were too busy eating it either, they didn't eat one single piece! They didn't even ask if they could eat it, and that is a first in their world of gingerbread-creations! Nope, they ran out because they went decoration-crazy! Thankfully, there was plenty of leftover Halloween Candy at Grandma's house, so we broke into some of that so they could finish up. I think they liked squeezing the bags of frosting best.

Two little hand busy sticking on candy. The picture is so indicative of the activity, it had to become the photo of the day, although the next three were all up for consideration:

Dean singing while he worked.

a framed shot

And this one is possibly my favorite shot. She is just ridiculously photogenic and the light...

however, since I had a comment about the lack of Dean Photos, I decided against putting G up for the photo of the day again. She's just so willing and he runs. I don't put up just any photo you know, I take 50 at the least and then go through each one and choose one that is either the best example of the day, or just plain stops me in my tracks.

So Dean hasn't been well-represented. Perhaps he'll eventually slow down enough for me to get a decent shot...but don't count on it!

Here he is concentrating:

talking:

squeezing:

G Concentrating:

The nearly finished Train:

The finished train has a candy cane on top, but my picture kind of sucked, so I'll leave it at that. Happy Day 12!

December Photo Project 2011: Day 11

2011-12-11T19:30:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, we got the tree, today we decorated. Before that, and again and again throughout, G had to take time out to manhandle the cat (at least, you'd think that's what she was doing from the sounds coming from the cat...)

As for tree-decorating, G has been suffering from jet-lag more than any of us and was awake around 4am crying because she wanted to decorate the tree and no one was up yet...and then it took a long time to get started. I mean, we had to eat breakfast and get dressed and move furniture and then get the tree in the house and in its stand and oh no, we still had to put lights on before she and D could have at it! She literally gave up and asked for the iPad, as long as we promised to tell her when it was time to decorate.

Dean was a tad bit more patient and actually put up more ornaments than G., who got bored and eventually insisted she was only putting up the most beautiful ornaments (which to her, are the ones that have glitter and sparkle).

(stockings)

this one was a VERY close 2nd for photo of the day:

she could reach so high this year, and when she couldn't, she made me lift her (yikes!).

And Dean announced that he was doing the star this year, and since G did do it last year, he was allowed this year. It all took so long, he eventually decided he did NOT want to do the star, but after taking a break and eating lunch, he was ready to do it after all:

This should be the spot for the finished photo of the Christmas Tree, but I never got around to taking one. at least, once it got dark enough to make a nice lighted photo, I didn't have the camera ready because I was busy editing the above photos. oh well!

The tree is up, the cat survived, the kids are in bed and Grandma has to work tomorrow. Good night!

December 11th - 2010

2011-12-11T09:30:00.000+01:00

Making Ornaments with Salt-based dough, paint and glitter! The best project I ever did with the kids - to date!

December Photo Project 2011 - Day 10

2011-12-10T20:30:00.000+01:00

We went on a fairly quick trip to Sleighbells Christmas Trees in Monroe to cut down our Christmas Tree. Unfortunately, we chose a pretty cold late morning to go and the minute we got outside, the kids started whining...no way was it as cold here, as if often is at home, where they rarely (if ever) whine...they did not want to look at all. Let's just cut one and go HOME so we can PLAY....

Too bad really, as it was a very large farm with many trees to look at and choose from...

no, we did not end up with this one, but the frozen spiderwebs were fascinating...

Rushed, we ended up with just a tree, not the perfect tree. it'll be fine, but i would have liked to look around longer... Georgia let herself be parked in front of the tree we ended up choosing simply because she didn't want to walk anymore!

When it came time to finally cut down the tree we'd been forced to choose, she jumped right in, she couldn't wait to get down there and saw herself. We were given a piece of cardboard so we wouldn't have to kneel in the mud, but well, that just wasn't big enough for Georgia, she plopped right down, full-length i the mud in order to really have at it!

a tractor pulled us to the trees and came back for us after we'd cut our tree down.

And then we got the tree baled but had to tie it onto the car ourselves and we were there without any help this year, so I had to tie the tree onto the car (at least, I jumped in as i have a few feet over Mom in height) and then spent the entire ride home terrified that the tree was going to fly off the car!

Decorating tomorrow...

December Photo Project - Day 9

2011-12-09T18:00:00.000+01:00

I know, I'm late, forgive me, it's jetlag...hoping to post more later, like with a bit of text and the rest of the photos I took at the airport...

Georgia, enjoying a complementary cup of hot cocoa (which she did NOT spill...) at the airport. We were a wee bit early...thank goodness for Terminal 2 and free cups of cocoa!

December 8th 2010 - The Layout!

2011-12-09T10:00:00.000+01:00

Using new BYOC Products from the Lilypad by Amy Wolff and Sahlin Studio, available today, at the Lilypad!

December Photo Project - Day 8

2011-12-08T19:11:00.001+01:00

Making a List and checking it twice....thrice and then starting all over again!

December 8th - 2010

2011-12-08T05:00:00.000+01:00

Oh no! No photo! Actually, I do. I have the layout completed, but I wasn't thinking when I created it, that I was using product that won't be available until Friday, so. This is a note to say:

From here on out, the Scrapbooking of DPP Photos from 2010 will be randomly scattered. You'll have to check in now and again and be surprised because no, I did not manage to scrap all 25 days from last year (you didn't really think I'd make it, did you?!) but I did get a few and will continue to share them. Check back on Friday, for the December 8th 2010 Layout!

DPP 2011 - Day 7

2011-12-07T20:07:00.001+01:00

My head and heart aren't in it tonight...the photos were not inspiring, possibly because the project was horrible...

G, trying to paint a porcelain mug with paint markers. EBR gift. Each member gives a cup to their kid, has them color it, someone bakes them all together in the oven and then they'll be filled with sweeties for the teachers at Christmas. We're jumping the gun due to flying on Friday and all...I just have to say: whoever had this idea? No. I won't say it. But the whole thing was a disaster. Georgia tried to color and everything turned into a smeary blobby mess. and then dean had his turn and ended up running paint all over Georgia's side of the mug. We were pressed for time and both of them really just wanted to play after a LONG day at Kindergarten.

So. Sorry in advance to Frau Schermer for the rather messy mug...

The Gingerbread House was also a disaster. NEVER AGAIN will I buy one from Ikea. It didn't come with instructions or deco, just some walls and a roof. My sugar was a mess, nothing would stick, the bag popped and there was lumpy, clumpy sugar all over. Honestly. My head is elsewhere, it doesn't seem to be here nor there and it certainly wasn't in the Holiday Spirit for the DPP photo today...

One more day to go.

December 7th - 2010

2011-12-07T06:00:00.000+01:00

I realize that this was the photo of the day, and that we took may more that day, including the building of the Gingerbread house, but since I shared those pictures on Nov. 18th, I don't really need to again.

DPP Day 6

2011-12-06T15:30:00.000+01:00

Happy Nikolaustag! I know, you thought today's photo of the day would be somehow related to Nikolaus, right? Sorry to disappoint.

One of G's (I still think of her as G's teacher, not Dean's) is retiring, like in a few weeks. G loves her and will miss her greatly, though she hasn't quite grasped the fact that this was the last day she will see her. Anyway, because she has overtime to work off, she won't be back the rest of this week and because we are leaving on Friday, this was goodbye for Georgia (and Dean). We brought her a Christmas Gift and card, but no goodbye gift, as that is being done as a group effort amongst the whole class. When I came back to pick the kids up, I asked Frau Schermer for a photo. So. That's today's photo. As you can see, Dean could care less, I did in fact, not plan on taking a photo with him, but F. Schermer pulled him in. Probably a good thing, as he might have cried had we left him out. Might have.

Shhh, don't tell that i had to photoshop a focused shot of Dean, because in the one photo where he was IN focus, the other two weren't, in all the other photos, he was blurry and they were sharp. Dean and photos. Not fun.

Before Kindergarten and goodbyes however, we were visited by Nikolaus...

yes, we hang stockings, and yes, he does fill them. Very nice of him, really!

Because today was a Kindergarten-Day, I made the kids get up and get dressed before they could look at their gifts. It was quite the incentive for G., Dean took some coaxing...

Surprisingly enough, they were both quite excited about their super-soft bathrobes. Whew.

And now it's back to work for me...

12 Days at Oscraps

2011-12-06T14:55:00.003+01:00

Today is Day Two of my contributions to the O's 12 Days of Christmas and Holiday Cheer. Please go take a look. There is an amazing sale and a fun Challenge - with prizes!!

I'll be back in a bit with today's Photo of the Day, it's taken, edited and uploaded, I just have to insert it into a blog post!

December 6th 2010

2011-12-06T06:00:00.000+01:00

click on the photo to get it full-sized.

This was the Nikolaus Party in Kindergarten last year. Parents were invited because it was supposed to be in the woods, but then the weather was so bad (icy, slushy snow) that we all got crammed into the Dinozimmer...

December Photo Project: Day 5

2011-12-05T11:02:00.001+01:00

Today's photo is honor of a wonderfully special birthday girl who lives too far away. We'll celebrate together (for the first time in 16 years) in another five days!!!

Mom, I put the outtakes up on Flickr as well if you want to go take a look.

December 5th - 2010

2011-12-05T06:00:00.000+01:00

A Trip to the Weihnachtsmarkt am Chinesischen Turm with Tanja, Markus & Tristan.

DPP - December 4th

2011-12-04T20:52:00.001+01:00

For real this time, it really is the fourth, and even better, I got the year right, it's 2011 people!

She's taking a short break in the process of sticking oranges with cloves, but this is jumping ahead of our wonderfully exciting, ahem, day.

Well, some things were exciting, like Mommy staying up until 1am just so we could eat these for breakfast:

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls - they are sinfully sweet. Decadent. Insane. They make your tummy ache just looking at them...

Dean said: oh YUM, THANK-you Mommy! I want then another one when I finish this one.

He didn't make it through his first!

After our insanely sweet breakfast, the kids got a bath and I turned the kitchen into a disaster zone as I did a little hybrid magic before Sven came storming in to start fixing schwarzwurzel and I thought I'd better clear stuff out and help, or we'd just be eating schwarzwurzel and nothing else - ha!

After lunch, the kids decorated oranges with cloves. Been wanting to do this for a few years now and never finding the time to remember to buy oranges...ha! They smell insane! Love it.

Oh, you think he's concentrating? Really? How about non-stop talking:

Mommy, this is a party. This guy is late. And this is the nachbar mommy and the nachbar daddy. and the teacher wouldn't let them come and it's a christmas tree party...

every little clove had a story. He talked so much, I eventually tuned out. Oops.

Well, if Dean was having a Christmas Tree party, then Georgia's orange was having a birthday party...though she was obviously too old for that game and actually made a smiley face with hair on the other side of her orange...

After all that clove-sticking and party-talk, they took off. The oranges are just on a paper plate in the living room and right when you walk in, the smell just hits you in the nose. Wonderful. However, while I was looking in the one Christmas Deco box I'd brought up for something to put them on that was NOT a paper plate, I pulled out the kid's stockings for Nikolaus and they decided to pull EVERYthing out of the box. I came back to find they had decorated the Money Tree with the salzteig ornaments from last year...maybe pictures tomorrow...

I was busy finishing up teacher gifts. How nice will it be when there are just two teachers?! However, we are down to only six this year!!

In progress, the milk cartons from Kaye Winiecki (so cool) are printed, cut and glued, the Spicy Cinnamon Roasted Almonds are bagged, the Peppermint Bark is wrapped in plastic, the Snowmen GiftTagz are printed, cut, punched and labeled, the Christmas Cards have been printed (only six of them, on my printer. I ran out of time to get them printed in bulk at the printers so I don't have them to give out this year) and everything is in the process of being packed up and tied.

Finishing up the Teacher Christmas Gifts was not the end of my hybrid play today though, nope. I had volunteered to make the goodbye card for Frau Schermer as well. I volunteered well over a month ago when I had plenty of time and no stress...yup. I procrastinated until oh, today. She retires by the end of December and we'll actually be seeing her for the last time on Tuesday. Oops, realized this card needed to get made quickly!

I re-used a card I made for a friend's move this past year because it was well-received and a bit of fun. I'm telling you now, the ideas all came from other places. I saw the spinning wheel at Designer Digitals & I took the design from a Pagemap Cardmap. All I did to make it original? I added a brad and made the spinning wheel literally spin...

The inside has the goodbye-sentiment from the kids with space for them all to sign their names:

On a side note, my kids have already signed the card, which I will hand off tomorrow. Please note Dean's signature - real letters! I only helped him with the 'N'.

I could not help myself with the little picture-frame. Those hedgehogs are too cute not to use whenever I have the chance...so I played around and created a little scene with supplies from Valerie Wibbens, Kelly Schmidt and Anna Aspnes. I framed it so that I didn't have to get too creative with the scissors and then glued it into the card.

Frau Schermer is a teacher of the hedgehog group, you see?

Georgia was kind enough to hold the inside of the card for me, but she doesn't really look happy, does she?

That's all for today ! See you tomorrow...

December 4th - A Year Ago

2011-12-04T05:00:00.000+01:00

At the Christmas Display in PEP.

12 Days of Christmas & Holiday Cheer

2011-12-03T20:36:00.001+01:00

Is a nice promotion going on over at Oscraps.com. For the next twelve days, there are a number of sales, tutorials, freebies and challenges, as well as fun information every day. As I am involved in the Events Team at Oscraps, I took three of the twelve days and today was my first post. Head on over to see what I talked about today, and grab my freebie if you are so inclined!

12 Days of Christmas & Holiday Cheer: Day 3

DPP Day 3

2011-12-03T20:30:00.000+01:00

Today was meant to be spent working on Teacher-Gifts. Only I threw a few too many fits when the computer refused to cooperate and all I was doing? All I was doing was looking for caramel recipes! After screaming and nearly bashing my head into the wall, I gave in to the fact that I was too late for caramels, esp., as it would mean making my own freaking corn syrup and looked for alternatives. however, by this time, Sven was fed up with my fits and made us drive all the way to the closest big shopping center (yes, P.E.P.).

Our goal, or his rather, was Saturn. The minute the kids saw us heading for that particular store however, they started whining (no, I can't blame them) and so we let Sven go in without us and we meandered through the way-too-crowded-2nd-weekend-of-advent halls and looked at the Christmas decorations. Sadly, sadly lacking in creativity this year. They were the exact same (but a bit more run down) as last year. Christmas in the Woods.

I suppose that could be why Georgia looks so sad...I also nearly choked when I saw the photo and realized just how dirty her jacket is...oh dear.

Then we wandered to the other end of the 'mall' and saw them seeting up the stage for a Kasperl-Theater. Dean insisted on watching it..

and they did, but not for another hour and a half. We had something to eat first.

And then Starbucks and home again. An absolute waste of a shopping-type day as Saturn left Sven empty-handed!

Yum. Kinder-Cappuccinos.

December 3rd - A Year Ago

2011-12-03T05:00:00.000+01:00

December 3rd found me exasperated by the mess that this room is continually in. Dean had a free morning, but he did NOT help.

December 2nd: DPP

2011-12-03T00:06:00.001+01:00

Delicious food with friends: what better way to spend an evening?

December 2nd: A Year Ago

2011-12-02T06:00:00.000+01:00

A year go today, we were meeting up with Sara & Luca for the first time in six months. We'd last seen them in California on our summer road trip. And although these pictures do not contain last year's DPP for Dec. 2nd, they were taken at the same time. :)

DPP - Day 1

2011-12-01T18:57:00.001+01:00

The morning started with special advent calendars. I even wrapped them this year.

FotoBoost Frames No. 02, by Anna Aspnes

It's also boasted the definite fact that the fixed 30mm lens is broken and the Auto Focus no longer works. I ended up with a lot of blurry, awful photos. Thank goodness for PS actions.

I'd like to point out the biggest difference this year: it could have been a spring day it was so warm, as compared to last year's snow, snow, snow!

What we did: The kids woke up (I had to throw G out of bed as usual) got dressed and then saw their wrapped advent calendars. They had however, forgotten about Advent Calendars and didn't know why there were presents on the table. Georgia got hers open first and still didn't know what it was: Another Playmobil Princess Castle?

Eventually got it through her head that it was a calendar full of doors. One to open each day. Both kids got a playmobil person this morning. Off to Kindergarten with them, no easy task with new toys to play with.

Kindergarten was crazy interesting: new girl, new girl! And she's Greek! Georgia's ears grew ten times bigger when she heard F. Lide speaking English with the parents.

Pick-up: Georgia, Dean and Anna. My kids took so long, We only made it halfway before Anna's Mom arrived to get her!

Lunch prep, including a huge clean-up and a total zusammenbruch on my part. I screamed. I cried. I ate too much.

Leon arrived. We ate. Took G to Anna's so she could play and bake cookies. L, D and I returned home, Andrea arrived, afternoon wasted. Got nothing done, and no additional photos as by the time I pulled out the camera to have another attempt, Leon fell out of the bunk bed...

I hope your first day of December was a better, much more enjoyable first than mine! Until tomorrow!

December 1st - 2010

2011-12-01T06:00:00.000+01:00

December first is easy, right? I always start strong, and I know I shared the DPP last year. And this is what I did with those pictures:

(full supply list located at Oscraps, please click on the link to view)

Come back later today for the 2011 DPP!

December Daily/DPP Memories...

2011-11-30T07:00:00.000+01:00

So I had a ridiculous idea regarding December. My thought is this: I never posted all the Christmas Photos from December 2010 (though I took them every. single. day.) and I also never scrapped them. So my thought was to scrap them this year, and share a page a day throughout December 2011, in addition to this year's DPP. That's a lofty goal that I would love to achieve. Wish me luck, because by doing so, you get a month's worth of double blogging to make up for all that missed blogging...but I make no promises!

It starts tomorrow!

Christkindlmarkt Putzbrunn

2011-11-29T05:00:00.000+01:00

The first weekend of Advent marks the Christkindlmarkt in Putzbrunn, just two days, every year. I think, in the past 8 years, I've only missed it once, the year Dean was born and I was violently ill with a stomach flu...

before going however, we took advantage of the bier table, still standing in the living room and had Thanksgiving leftovers...

And because it was so sunny, and because we were eating at 3pm, to be ready for the market by 5, and because we were in the living room, picture-taking opportunities abounded:

The conversation:

G: Can I have some more chicken?

Me: Nope, I don't have ANY chicken on the table.

G: äääähhhhhhhhhhh, Hühnchen?

S: Gobble Gobble!

G: Can you tell me the first letter?

D: The first letter is Gobble, gobble!

Me: T

G: ääähhhhhh??? Can you tell me the first sound?

S: you know what it is, Georgia!

Me: Turrrrrrrrr

G: TURKEY!

Then basically the same thing again in German, and once she'd gotten 'Truthahn' she insisted she'd forgotten turkey again. Sven no longer liked her game...eventually she got more turkey!

And he ate mostly nothing but cranberry sauce, until he bit a clove and lost his appetite, which now explains (to me) why he was so hungry when we got to the market! At the time, I was so full, I couldn't understand how he could be hungry!

We finished eating, Sven loaded up the borrowed benches and table and returned them (coming home with pickled aubergine, DELICIOUS) and we headed down town.

Upon arrival, our first stop was the Elementary School Stand, where Marion was hard at work selling hot chocolate, Lamoombas (or something like that) and Männerhalbe, the plätzchen were already sold out by then!

Kids got Hot chocolate:

although it wasn't actually cold at that point...

Squished over to the living nativity, where the singing and recorder-playing was in full-force for WAY too long, I hate Dean on my shoulders for the entire thing because he refused to squish up to the fence like G did, and we had to wait for Nikolaus.

Nikolaus had to wait too, he arrived just in time for the singing:

Nice of him to look at the camera, eh? I had Dean on my shoulders, remember? it was tricky to photograph with a manual DSLR, a kid on my shoulders and a crazy crowd of people, including a pair of grandparents who refused to step back for smaller people...

Honestly? It's tedious when they aren't the Christmas Carols you grew up with...

we were too late to get much footage of the living nativity this year:

G and Annabel were friends that evening. Probably because Lena went home...

But eventually, Malky went and hauled her away. Here she is bonding with Ella:

and Malky took care of G most of the evening, we didn't even see them!

My own little Nikolaus:

and we'll end with the star photo of the evening:

Seriously, what a gem this one is! The camera was acting up in the low light and I had to turn it to manual focus to get any pictures at all, and this came out! Love it!

After Bier, Hot chocolate, french fries (or chips, as dean insists on calling them), cotton candy and hot chocolate with rum, we finally headed home again. Another Christkindlmarkt is come and gone!

Thanksgiving Catch-Up!

2011-11-28T05:00:00.000+01:00

I know! What with Advent already being here and the whole world turning toward Christmas, Thanksgiving is old hat. However, this year Tom pulled the short feather, it's not his fault that the Christmas Season started so early this year, and I'd like to share our evening, because it was FANTASTIC. Exactly what I wished for, minus one family who couldn't make it!

What did I wish for? A Happy, relaxed, bursting at the seams, crazy-loud cozy kind of feast!

And this is what I got!

We Celebrated on Saturday, as the actual day is not a holiday in Germany (obviously). On Friday, I started prepping. I cooked from dawn til dusk!

Holiday Cranberry Sauce
Pumpkin Pie
Salted Caramel Apple Pie
(both with homemade miracle baking powder pie crusts)
Wild Mushroom Stuffing
Maple Roasted Sweet Potatoes
Amazingly Good Eggnog (it was really amazing, I mean, sinfully delicious. The non-alcoholic version for the kids lasted about 10 minutes, I should have made them a bigger batch, as they liked it more than the adults. Only Sven, Sylvie and I really drank it...)

Some TG prep:

Cranberries...yum!

The finished Salted Caramel Apple Pie (which was nearly a disaster when the first batch of caramel sauce burnt and I didn't realize it until after I'd dumped it on the apples IN the pie crust and finally decided to taste it...oops!) The kids helped with the star-cut crust.

Getting the room set up for 12 people:

We were lucky, as Sylvie and John own a Biertisch & Bänke. They let us borrow them for the feast. Looked pretty funny all set up in the living room, quite out of place!

Tom, a 5+ Kilo bird fresh from the farm, ordered on Wed., slaughtered on Thurs., picked up on Friday, roasted on Saturday. Although admittedly, he (she?) wasn't that easy to roast. A fresh bird means an attached neck, and that was too much for me...

The spread which included (in addition to the previous list):

Parsley Smashed New Potatoes
Garlicky Green Beans
Winter Fruit Salad
Blaukraut (no link or recipe as this was a lovely dish brought by Sylvie, she made with pears and dates - delicious!)
Apple & Shallot Roasted Turkey

And after Andrea, Agron, Leon, Georgia and Dean went out for a walk in the woods to gather greenery for the advent wreaths, and after Sylvie, Jamie, Malcom and Ella had arrived, we ate!

and ate...

and ate some more!

And yes, after two days of nonstop cooking, everyone was done in under fifteen minutes time! However, just about the time we all finished, John finally arrived (he had to work) and he made it all worthwhile by eating three plates of food. Seriously BEST compliment!

And after food and after pie, the six kids took off and played happily, leaving the adults to natter on and on. It was wonderful! Well, I thought it was!

Andrea

Sylvie

John

Sven

Agron

and some kids kept coming back for more...

had to try both pies, you know! and after playing for a bit, one can get hungry again!

Very multicultural group: 3 Germans, 1 Scot, 1 American and 1 Kosovan. Love that, amongst all the laughter, chatter and noise, there were three different languages being spoken.

Ah, but all good things come to an end, such as when the wee ones just can't handle any more fun and start falling over!

So home they all went, leaving us with a bit of washing up, a delicious batch of homemade shortbread and a bag of sweet walnuts, dried apples and fresh apples, that John had picked from the trees he was trimming (well, not the dried apples, but you know!).

I'd say it's just what I wanted, wouldn't you?!

And the next day, when Sven returned the table and benches, he came away with a homemade Aubergine-Pickle. Can't wait to eat that!

Christmas Market Pictures tomorrow!

Advent, Advent, ein Lichtlein Brennt...

2011-11-27T21:47:00.001+01:00

erst eins:

Yup. Today is (was) the first day of Advent 2011. We've not even managed to get TG behind us, the fridge is bursting at the seams and we are stuffed (unlike our turkey, which was roasted with only a few shallots and an apple), but Advent has started, Christmas is marching on and in two weeks we'll be flying out of Germany. Time is RACING past.

Happy First Advent!

Schloss Linderhof (extremely picture-heavy!)

2011-11-22T07:03:00.001+01:00

This castle is by far, my favorite of Ludwig's Castles. maybe my favorite at all, ever. When we decided to spend the 3rd visiting (Holiday in Germany) and told Georgia we were going to a castle, she was only somewhat excited (she wanted to stay home and play). When we arrived and she saw it, her reaction was: that's not a castle. Ah yes, Linderhof does not look like a princess castle, it has no turrets, no Rapunzel tower, no waving flags, no drawbridge, no moat, it isn't perched on top of a mountain proclaiming to all: I am HERE! It is nestled in amongst the mountains and exudes a quiet, subtle beauty. Perhaps too subtle for a princess-loving little girl. But how could you not fall in love with this place?

Some come on a walk with us to the castle (but not inside, no pictures allowed) and around the grounds. It was an amazingly beautiful Fall day, warm enough for short sleeves!

Seriously wonder: will he someday ask us why he was always so unhappy? I think he'd fallen asleep in the car and was mad at having to walk from the parking lot to the grounds entrance, and then, you still weren't actually AT the castle, we had to walk (and in his eyes: walk and walk and walk) before we got there.

But isn't it worth it when you see this?

Water it's a magnet:

but completely understandable when you wait long enough and see this:

If you are standing in front of this (the front of the castle):

and looking down past that fountain, you see this:

Focusing on the (Fall)ing Leaves (can you see them in the picture this small?):

The zoomed out (and somewhat crooked view) - are you in love yet?:

After viewing the castle inside, we walked around the back (even more beautiful than the front, see the first photo of this post) and on to the Venus Grotto.

Walking up the grounds to the Venus Grotto:

Inside the Venus Grotto (for some reason, pictures ARE allowed):

After exiting the Venus Grotto, we walked on to The Moorish Kiosk

They are looking up at this:

and then on to Hunding's Hut which is a "living scene from a play". It was a house made to replicate the first scene from the Opera Walküre by Wagner. The idea was to dress up and re-enact the scene...

and from there we passed this little chapel:

and came back out by the music pavillion, looking back down the other way to the castle front.

(Photo by Opa - thank-you, I was there too!)

And we headed back out to the parking lot - we couldn't linger that day, there was a demonstration planned that would shut down all the roads out...we needed to be gone before it started:

So did I win you over? Linderhof is amazing, no? And that wasn't even every photo I took, this post has enough, it might take hours for some people to even load!!! Hope to be back later this week, until then: ciao! Oh - and Happy Thanksgiving!

Jolie - a Pinafore Dress

2011-11-21T15:29:00.001+01:00

What's that? I'm neglecting my blog, Jessica? I thought I'd done fairly well the past week. Of course, most regular readers (like you!) didn't realze I'd come back, so most of those went unread, didn't they? Well, here I am again. happy (sunny) Monday morning. Well, as happy as can be. G is sick with an earache. kept me up a bit of the night, and the other bit of the night I was busy fighting Ottobre 6/2009 # 32: Jolie Pinafore Dress. That's right, today is current photos and we're all going to ignore (yet again) the backlog. Ahem.

So I resized this pattern (original starts at 128) to a 122 back in August, oh dear...and then traced it and cut it out as a first-day-of-school dress. Well. Now it's become a Thanksgiving Dress instead! Go ahead say it, I am a slacker.

So the dress? I actually think it's quite fun, which is why I went to the trouble to resize it, but it gave me so much pain last night, Sven ran for cover as I was literally screaming in frustration. Actually, he tried to help me figure out the problem, with no luck. See, it's a fully-lined dress, which I thought was a good thing, it would make it a bit warmer, right? Well, no one ever told me that lining a dress would be such an issue. I followed the instructions to a T, I thought. That zipper got sewed in and taken out three times, four?, because everytime I sewed in the zipper, it became impossible to turn the dress right-side out and it became a twisted mess. After hours of this frustration, a lot of yelling, throwing the dress on the floor and all but stamping on it like Rumpelstiltskin, I ripped all the zipper seams open again and threw out the instructions. As you can see, this worked, though it wasn't a quick process, as doing it without required a lot of trial and error.

Major issues: the neckline is too low, which might have to do with my resizing technique, and the straps are too loose, rather like Mom's Dirndl, which Sven wants to know: did she wear it on Halloween?

I discovered the problems this morning when G tried the dress on and then refused to take it back off again in order to let me spend the day attempting to fix it. I'll get it back tonight and see what I can do. I suppose if I can manage to shorten the straps, the neckline will rise up a bit. Otherwise, I've no idea how to fix that and maybe she'll just have to grow into it. It's a bit too long anyway (when compared with the photograph of the finished dress on the model). Hopefully it'll be ready-to-go (and clean!) by Saturday when we hope to celebrate TG with a rather small turkey that is in the freezer right now. Ooh, that reminds me I need to confirm our guests and beg for sides and beer benches!

The fabric I used is from Stoff u. Stil. They were having a fabulous sale back in September. I also really loved the shape of the lining and facings and was thinking of creating a dress just out of those - problem being: the too-low neckline. Hmmmm.

And no fears that the boy is coming up too short, his Christmas Pants are finished (skipped some stuff on those, made them a quick-sew and preferred fit for a smallish boy) and his wool jacket is half-way done!

I have to go - work! Now!

Pumpkins and Scenic View

2011-11-19T06:00:00.000+01:00

In the first week of October, in between birthday party madness, and on the last nice day, Georgia, Dean, Opa and I took a walk to the pumpkin patch, or rather, we walked to the side of the road where the pumpkins are sold:

I see that the journaling is truly illegible at this size, so here ya go:

We walked all the way to Aldi and through the round-about to the little pocket on the side of the road that sells pumpkins every year. I mean, we've been going there since Georgia was 1, and each year it's gotten a bit fancier, a bit more fun to visit. This year however, it was a pile of rotting pumpkins. Literally. The seller's house was shut up and closed, there were no flowers, or blooming artichokes, just piles of pumpkins rotting away. Disappointed, we turned around and went back to the literal side of the street across from that gas station by Aldi (if you've been to visit me, you'll know exactly where I am talking about) and there, we got both pictures, and pumpkins. The outing was saved.

and another one, because I loved the Artplay Palette: Pumpkin Patch that Anna created:

Back in mid-October, the day after Sven's birthday in fact, we went on an outing to a place called: Scenic View (no joke). a week later, Digidare #249 went up and the challenge was to scrap something with a Mondrian inspired design. I ended up using the pictures from our visit to 'Scenic View' for the challenge:

Now I know that this has been a week of layouts, layouts, layouts, but most of them feature current pictures that have not been seen on the blog, because I've been too busy, stressed or distracted to blog them. So that is a bit of an October-catch-up/catch-all! Let's not even discuss the fact that I have yet to finish editing Dean's birthday party, nor have I shared a single picture or video from either kid's birthday...please. Don't remind me. For in twenty days, Georgia, Dean and I will be boarding a plane to Seattle via Frankfurt a. Main and the amount of things to do before then...are like a big hole ready to swallow me up.

However, as a quick aside: I do plan on doing the December Photo Project this year, I personally, will do my darndest to not only TAKE the photos every day starting Dec.1st, but also to SHARE them this year. I know I have slacked the last couple years, but since Sven himself will not be with us for most of December, due to working, I MUST keep the blog updated with photos from December. Right? Or is it worse, to see what you are missing out on?!

Hoping to catch up on Linderhof and birthday pictures in the next week, but I can make no promises. Also have Christmas Outfits to sew....

Kitschy Christmas

2011-11-18T12:00:00.000+01:00

It's Froggy Friday at TLP, which means new products from Sahlin Studio, and new layouts from me, and these are fun (I think). This new kit is called 'Kitschy Christmas' and I swear, the colors and textures took me back to our childhood Christmas decorations. I had to (HAD to) scrap a photo of myself at Christmas. Lucky that I actually had one, and didn't have to bug mom - though if she'd like to send some more my way, I'd be SO happy!

and then I scrapped some modern day pics, but gave them a great Lomo-effect (the lighting and coloring was terrible, must have been dark that day):

Superset? Come back tomorrow for belated pumpkin pictures (in layout-form).

D(ecember)P(hoto)P(roject) - it's official!!!

2011-11-18T05:00:00.000+01:00

That's right - I've been thinking about it all week and just saw the official announcement for the DPP on tredways.org, so I'm getting it up here for my own sake. I need it official! Thankfully, the DPP is on FB this year, so that should make it easier for me! However, Sven isn't on FB, so I'd probably better make sure and keep the blog updated as well.

Yippee! I love the DPP! I love December!

Guest Blogging: ArtsyTraditional

2011-11-17T08:39:00.001+01:00

Psssst, for more from me (and a sneak peak of the Pumpkin Pictures coming this weekend) head over to Anna's blog, where I am the guest blogger today: ArtsyTraditional | Working with Templates.

Scrapping Inspiration + Photos!

2011-11-17T07:15:00.000+01:00

Back to Scrapping, as I am meant to be keeping my blog updated with layouts now that I have joined Sahlin Studio, as well as now being a Cheery-O at Oscraps. Yup, an old acquaintance that I bumped into over at Oscraps (we grew up down the street from each other) talked me into applying when Oscraps was having a team call last month. I went ahead and threw my name in the pot and got lucky:

I am joining the Events Team, which means I get to do fun stuff like planning parties, holidays, collaborations, etc.

Also, a few weeks ago, I participated in a Challenge at One Story Down . Well, two actually. I contributed example layouts to Girl vs. Scrap and then participated in a scraplift/template challenge (I love those).

The first challenge was: All I want for _____________ is...

Oops, I need to post this somewhere with credits!!

The template challenge was pure fun. The layout served a double purpose as well, it ended up being the

December Page for my Gift Calendars (shh, sneak peak for those getting one!):

Last Friday, Anna Aspnes brought a fun new Artplay to her store called Sophistica. I'm not looking all that sophisticated in this picture, but I had fun with it. I had bats swooping around my head on Halloween!

Every month at The Lily-pad, the designers put together a selection of products that coordinate together. It is called BYOC (build-your-own-collection). Krista did some amazingly fun stuff for the November BYOC:

and then two weekends ago (the one when Tanja and Tristan came to visit), it was iDSD (international Digital Scrapbooking Day) and there were sales going on EVERYWHERE. Krista had some new products out for the sale. I love that she does themed stuff in interesting and unexpected colors. The iDSD stuff was all 'Autumn' but could have been summer or spring. I used Fall pics that look like summer, it was just so warm that day:

Those butterfly pictures were taken in the palace gardens at Linderhof.

(click on the layout for fully linked supply list)

And yah okay, this is the back of Linderhof, not the front, but that way you get some of both. And speaking of Linderhof, that's another blog post that's missing!!! Hm. Maybe look for that in the next week, those picture are edited, just need to upload!

Come back tomorrow for some Christmas inspiration!

11.11.11 (belated!)

2011-11-16T12:59:00.001+01:00

Oh help me get back into the swing of blogging regularly! Or just to figure out time management? I mean seriously, how do people keep up? I'm too much of a perfectionist.

Let me update from 11.11.11, which was the St. Martin's Day Umzug in Kindergarten, the one where the Kindergarten wanted to split me in half, literally. Half my kids went one place, the other half stayed at Kindergarten and I needed to be both places at once. I was seriously angry at Kiga for a while there, causing this problem and not giving me a solution. On the way to help set things up:

love fall leaves...

It's like this: The Vorschulkinder leave Kindergarten and march to the Lebenshilfe. Once there, they finish their parade by doing a rather large round through the playground and woods with the residents from the Lebenshilfe. It ends with kinderpunsch and a fire. The younger kids do a smaller march around the Kindergarten with a bonfire and kinderpunsch at the end. In both cases, the Kindergarten is not responsible for the kids, the parents are. So one of us had to be there. Sven is never home by five, and needed to be at Kindergarten by five for Dean.

Waiting for everything to start (we helped with setting up):

" i want you to stay here! i don't want to go with Georgia. I don't want YOU to go with Georgia...."

so bored. already helped set up for the parade, none of her friends are there yet....

In the end, Kindergarten suggested I bring Dean with to the Vorschul-umzug. I would have, but didn't want to. There is no way he could have handled all that walking, and none of his friends would have been there...In the end, I waited around with Dean until his teacher arrived and begged her to watch over Dean until Sven got there, and that ended up being fine, as long as Sven got there by the time the parade was over. So I left Dean with F. Schermer and ended up walking WITH the vorschul-kids all the way to the Lebenshilfe (instead of meeting them there like the other parents did).

Got pictures that way:

Anna & Georgia leading the Igel-Group:

Thirty-One Schlaufüchse, all in a line...

After a very long march, they had a quick (length of a song) break where they got to sit in a pavillion and sing:

this is the only time they sat:

The very last stop and song:

The Igel Girls are a very tight-knit group...

If you knew where one was, you knew where they all were...

the fire:

After homemade baked geese, kinderpunsch and a lot of silliness, we walked home. Dean and Sven arrived shortly after, no pictures from his parade, Sven's phone doesn't work in the dark...

Remember When...

2011-11-11T20:40:00.001+01:00

So I was taking a short walk down Memory Lane this afternoon (had to kill time before heading off to Kindergarten for the St. Martin's Umzug, so no time to start anything major) and I stumbled upon this picture:

It was exactly the picture I needed for the layout I had in mind (a 'remember when' layout) but the picture was taken under such terrible lighting, there were so many messy distractions in the background and the exposure was terrible. Plus, the colors did not match the scrapbooking kit I wanted to use...so I decided to convert it to black and white.

At first, that seemed to work, but as I got scrapping, I was unhappy to notice that the kit papers and elements had more of a sepia tone to them, and the pure black and white photo was a bit off. I was going to just turn it into a sepia photo, but when I played with my actions, I got this:

Totally Rad actions: Awesome Black and White + Itty Bitty 52 Action Set: Crossing Over 5

and fell in love. Cropped out the distractions and had the perfect photo. The layout:

which was created for the Template Challenge over at The Lilypad.

Fall Lingers...

2011-11-08T21:40:00.000+01:00

here in S. Germany. For that, I am thankful, especially after a seriously drear summer.

I however, am exhausted. Too tired to link a blog post full of pictures, even though I edited and uploaded them. So I'll quickly say the following: we had a spontaneous visit from Tanja & Tristan this weekend. So we visited Ostpark and Poing and enjoyed the Fön coming off the Alps. Tanja wrote a wonderfully long post about her visit, if you are a german speaker and want to read it, head over to Dived and Survived.
If you just want to see some pictures from the weekend, then head over to Flickr. I made the photos public for a change, so anyone can see them...
And now back to work....

Halloween 2011

2011-11-03T09:52:00.000+01:00

was a busy day, and please forgive me, for throwing Halloween in before catching up on Birthday-Madness. I think I got BURNED OUT.

We made spooky treats to share with friends:

Caramel apples, which I attempted to make without a thermometer. I know it is possible, if one is versed in the language of candy ball-making stages...but one also has to know that firm-ball stage is too hard for apples, I should have done soft...so the apples were a bit well, firm...

witch's fingers & popcorn balls

we carved pumpkins and that included two exciting firsts:

Dean scooped out the guts for the first time.

Georgia carved her own face for the first time.

Digging, pushing, peeking, carving, goofing off...

(Georgia stole my costume for the pumpkin-carving)

and both of them clamored for SCARY pumpkins this year.

After pumpkins, we painted G's face and then took a plate of spooky treats to her best bud's house because well, she's G's best friend and because she lent us the face paints! We were returning the paints with treats. Aren't we nice?

G actually wanted to be something scary for Halloween (sigh) but I convinced her that Halloween is for being ANYTHING at all you want and she finally agreed to be a butterfly (since I had already made the wings) as long as i painted her face. This is why we borrowed the face paints...

I documented the experience here:

In costume with Face Painted:

And even after telling me she would NOT smile for pictures, she couldn't help herself...

close-up of her face-paint job (patting self on back):

spider-man finally joins the party:

watcha got in there?

Posing while spider-man bats at the pumpkin like a cat...

and then after they'd so kindly posed for costumed pictures, I let them each have a popcorn ball...

(g's pumpkin)

and then I asked G to take a picture of me...I'm a little bit batty...

Maybe a whole LOT of batty?

With no time to spare, we were out the door to take G to her Halloween Party. She was a lovely little butterfly amongst a coven of witches and ghosts...however, she was just as black as the rest of them!

head witch:

Leaving her to it, we drove on to the get-together we'd been invited to. Chaos reigned supreme (I love that) and goblins and scary skeletons ran from room to room, scaring Dean and trying to scare Ella (no luck there!). Eventually, we rounded up all the monsters (and spider-man) as well as a witchy Sylvie and batty me, and we went trick-or-treating.

Dean had NO idea what was going on. At first, he walked next to me, gripping my hand, tagging along behind the bigger kids. It took about three, maybe four, houses before he realized just exactly what was going on. After that, he was walking around with one hand on each bag strap, holding it wide open in front of him, and doing his best to stay in FRONT of the big kids. He was not missing out on a single treat-opportunity if he could help it! I do have my doubts as to whether he actually said either 'süsses oder saueres', 'trick-or-treat' OR 'danke', but he came home with a load of candy and was quite pleased.

The night was frigid, but we sat comfortably around a very hot bonfire and sipped the best pumpkin soup, while the kids roasted bacon and bratwurst on bamboo sticks, cut right from the bush in the yard. Sven picked up G in time for her to join in on the eating and playing and when the kids were falling asleep on their feet, we finally made it home. The only casualty was G's pumpkin, which she left, full to the brim of sweets from her trick-or-treating run, in the Nobis yard. We swung by the next morning and rescued it.

Happy Halloween!

A Tradionalist goes Artsy...

2011-10-19T21:51:00.002+02:00

Where have i been? Buried under Birthdays. I'm not re-appearing tonight, the internet connection is way too slow for that. However, if you've missed my blogging, I did do a blog post over at aA (which stands for Anna Aspnes, not what you're thinking!). So if you are interested, go have a peak at ArtPlay Meets Traditional. I've almost caught up on Fall Photos today, so maybe there will be some blog updates in the coming week? Maybe!

Frog & Rock Climbing

2011-09-17T05:54:00.000+02:00

I mentioned in yesterday's post, that the kids enjoyed rock-climbing, right? Well, whereas that was a story-telling post, this is a scrapbooking-related post because I am going to rave about Anna Aspnes for a bit, and bring in pictures from yesterday's post as well.

Firstly, if you have been to her store, you'll have seen that she is seriously trend-setting in the digi-scene. She has a style like no one else, and it may at first be intimidating. What do you do with all those brushes? How do you use an Artplay Palette? What are those masks and transfers and blendz for? If you are like me, you might run away in terror and not even attempt to work with any of it! Don't!

Anna has some very helpful and informational blog posts about how to use her Artplays. Definitely check them out. She has also come out with a very cool new product; AnnaSampler No. 01 hit the store yesterday. This is a brilliant idea, she has taken choice elements from her products and combined them into one Set. She mentions on her own blog, how creating a layout with the AnnaSampler took her a literal five minutes. Excellent!

Creating a layout from her sampler took me closer to twenty, because I couldn't leave it at one photo. I'm a multi-foto gal, what can I say?!

The Sampler contains one Fotoblendz, one brush, one bit of stitching, one background paper, one FotoFlare, a LoopDaLoop, a Clockhand and one word transfer (gosh, that's a lot!). Use everything, use only some of it, use everything multiple times. There are such possibilities!

As you can see above, I chose to use most of the things three times (I love threes). To get a multifoto layout, I just duplicated the Fotoblendz twice, and to make different sized photos, or to just vary the look of the Fotoblendz, i stretched them out, or up, or shrunk them down. It's all about playing until you are happy.

I duplicated the Fotoflares & the Brush twice (like I said, three of everything!), changing the opacity and/or blending modes & colors, played around with the layering, added the rest of the elements and some journaling and called it done. It was quick, it was easy and it was fun.

If you are interested, make sure and check out Anna's Blog Post with the other AnnaTeam sample layouts to see the different ways you can use the AnnaSampler, from simple to intricate.

I had so much fun with that layout, it was so easy and done so quickly, that I decided, for the first time, to really play with the Fotoblendz. Anna has a set of new Abstract Fotoblendz in the store as of yesterday, and I thought I'd see how I could blend and layer them together with Georgia and her Frog:

Honestly, the Fotoblendz part was easy. That was done within minutes. The hard part came when adding the brushes. I shouldn't say hard, I should say time-consuming, simply because I like to play. Most of the elements and brushes are from Artplay Palette: SeaFoam, one of my favorites. I love the subtle colors and texture of the papers, and they matched the lake water of these photos pretty darn well!

Rib-bit!

Aachensee

2011-09-16T06:45:00.000+02:00

On the way home from the Geisterklamm, Sven joked about stopping at a hotel and spending the night. We should have done, because on Sunday, exhausted though we were, the good weather beckoned us back into the Austrian Alps, this time we went to Aachensee and rode the Rofanseilbahn up the mountain...

The drive was very long, and we did not stop at the lake, much to Georgia's disappointment, but drove on to the gondola and up the mountain we went. First stop was lunch (of course) and then the kids loosened up enough to start exploring the area.

There were rocks, big big rocks you could climb on!

Even better? There were rock walls to climb. This was so much fun that someone completely ignored that niggling bladder feeling. She's going to hate me in the years to come when she sees the barn pics...but what can you do? I didn't notice it until later!

So, rock walls:

Meet our Mountain Goat. Or Gams. We call him: Dean-Head:

If it is there, he will climb it. among the rocks, he is a goat, on a playground he is a monkey and if it's an almost sheer bouncy house, he is without doubt, spider-man...but those pictures and that story are for the BayernPark post later on...

She's not that unlike a goat herself, and was first to the top. Love that shot of the flag against the blue sky:

To exhaust a kid: make her hike. To exhaust Mommy & Daddy: climb the rocks, run back down, climb up, repeat. Repeat. repeat, repeat!

Scenery from the first short hike up to the fourth Gastätte, no Hütte? They didn't have ice cream anyway!

There was a warning NOT to feed the birds:

I was enjoying watching this particular bird glide on air currents in a dip very close to the ground.

Watching the cows:

Aha, that's why it smelled, it wasn't the cows at all!

A very short hike...

which we spent looking for new and interesting wildflowers. Woud love to know their names:

There were neat, they look like big daisies but they have no stem. They grow right next to the ground:

Time to go. We squished into the Rofanseilbahn with way to omany other people and proceeded to listen to Georgia bed and whine and beg and whine to go to the lake...

We drove the full length of the lake looking for a place to park. Every single parking lot was a pay-lot and the timing was awful. From 8-6 you had to pay. It was 5:30! So we finally found a spot for free, but in the meantime, Georgia had whined us all into a terrible mood and there was a lot of snapping going on..

We did find a nice little spot where we had to climb over a rock wall to reach the water and what did we discover. frogs! Tons of frogs! A chorus of frogs! Georgia was thrilled:

No, really! She was telling me that she could NOT show me her frog, or it would jump out of her hands...

Turns out, it didn't. Probably too scared:

Dean enjoyed the frogs too, he wanted to squish them...what is it with boys anyway?

You can probably guess that she did not stay nicely knee-deep in that water...that she left soaked from head to foot...

Courtesy of Georgia:

Home again, home again! Stay tuned, I have scrapped the frog-story, just forgot to go back and fix some journaling errors. Will post later today or tomorrow! Still to come: Feuerwehr-Bürgerfest in Ottobrunn (terrible) and Bayernpark...