Friends and Cheesecake :)

After a look into the mirror this morning, right after I got out of bed, I was sure the day was ruined. God had a great way of lifting my spirit though. A friend called me on skype and we had a chance to connect again. Even though we didn't touch base with each other much, except the occasional hello on Facebook or through reading each others blogs, it seemed as though we sat together just yesterday. It was such a sweet surprise to talk to her and her children. It made my day, though come to think of it, I am not so sure I made their day. I was not the most pleasant sight ....

After we stopped talking, she had to go because her husband had made pancakes and everyone sat down to eat. That got me hungry and I ventured into the kitchen, only find that I was too lazy to make something for breakfast, so I ate a gluten-free Christmas cookie for breakfast. If you'd like a recipe, look here.     

The kids had fun decorating cookies :)

and they are very good as well :)

When I finally got done with my shower and looked much more presentable, I decided to make the cheesecake I had planned for yesterday. It turned out sooo good! I did make some changes though, because the original recipe calls for pumpkin puree - I made the cheesecake several time like that, but we didn't feel like pumpkin today. So I substituted sour cream for pumpkin puree and lemon for cinnamon and pumpkin spice.  If you would like the recipe, you can click here.

It actually looks a bit darker than it is.

very moist and yummy :)

After all the baking and warming up the left overs from yesterday I cleaned the kitchen, dropped off one of my daughters at the mall - insert rolling eyes - took my little guy to Target to buy Lego Batman 2 for the Wii. It was sold out and so we went to Walmart where he found his long desired game, which he bought from his Christmas money from Oma and Opa. Thank you both, you made him very happy :) Then I dropped him off at home and went to pick up my child and two of her friends from the mall, brought them all to our house and tried to ignore loud laughing of three teenagers. Then I started working on my goals and organization for 2013. I think I deserved that piece of cheesecake. It was a good day :)

Merry Christmas to everyone!

We had a wonderful Christmas celebration. Last night we went to church for Christmas Eve. That was very nice. It had been too long since we were last at church on Christmas Eve. It made everything just so much more festive and thoughtful.
Today we talked to my parents in Germany for a long time. My sister is visiting them from Portugal and we skyped with her, too. It was so much fun to connect with them and be able to at least see them and talk as long as you like. I remember when I first moved to the US in 1985 all I had was the phone. Believe you me, it was EXPENSIVE! to call Germany, so I tried not to talk too long. Of course that made the distance seem so much more. Now, thanks to computers and Skype, we can talk and see each other as long and as often as we like and it doesn't cost anything. I just love it!
Then the kids played "Mexican Train" while I made our Christmas dinner. I really wanted to make goose, but at a price of $ 70 I decided against it. So we had marinated beef, with potato dumplings and red cabbage ( Sauerbraten mit Kloessen und Rotkohl). It was really delicious. For desert I had planned gluten free cheesecake, but since I talked to my parents for a really long time, I didn't have time for the cheesecake. So we will have Jesus' birthday cake tomorrow :)
After that the girls played with their new iPad for a while and then we snuggled onto the couch with gluten free cookies and watched 631 of 1060 pictures my parents had send me on a DVD. The kids were surprised that I was once a kid ;-)  Well, not really surprised but you just don't think of your parents as having been a baby once upon a time. So we had a few laughs of how Opa used to look before him and Oma were even married or when long sideburns were all the fashion.  We looked at baby pictures of me and pictures of me and my sister in the 70's, boy the style during that time was a serious fail :D
It was a good celebration of the birth of Christ. Thank you Jesus for everything you have done and still do for us. I know that His birthday is not in December, but I don't really care, because no one knows exactly when He was born. I am just more than happy and thankful that He was born and that is what we celebrate.

This is a German tradition "Bunte Teller"
everone gets a plate with Christmas
Candy. Actually there also should be
some nuts and oranges on there but
nobody wants that :-)

In the process of setting the table 

Christmas dinner is served :D

Nina is having a deep conversation with
"Siri"  ;-)

Midnight sledding.....

Well, actually it wasn't midnight, it was more like 9:30pm :)  Jamie had a friend over and all four of them went sledding. It was pretty cold and the snow had turned into mostly ice, I guess that thought was enticing for them. Luckily Nina has her license and I didn't have go out into the cold, though they used my van instead of Nina's car. To my dismay they put the wet sleds on the leather seats.......
It wasn't far from the house only about 5 min by car and they all had their phones and about 45 min later they were back and enjoying cups of hot chocolate with marshmallows. I have a good idea of how fast time goes by and so I enjoy every minute (most of the time) with the kids. The advise from a good friend was to do my best to live in the moment, thank you P. those are wise words. So now I try to live in the moment and don't get too frazzled. I try to remember to take time to listen to what they say after I ask them how they are. I will do my best to put my work down for moment to given them a hug or a smile while looking into their eyes. All too soon all of this will be a memory and they are living their own lives with their own children....

Nina and A.

looks like they are having fun

unfortunately we don't have a picture with Jamie
because she was behind the camera

doesn't the little guy look exhausted ?

I would have thought that it would work better if
 the smaller one sits on the lap of the bigger person?

 our crooked little Christmas tree 

I just had to show those totally adorable little snowmen.
Friends gave the to us last year for Christmas, thank you again
P. family!

18 !

We just had a milestone Birthday in the family. My oldest daughter turned 18 years old.
I have no idea where the time went! I doesn't seem that long ago that I watched her on the ultrasound and saw her feet kicking me. We brought her home in a Christmas stocking, she was just too cute and born too close to Christmas to pass this by ;-)   I remember her 6th Birthday, which was a princess birthday and all in pink and purple. We made cone hats and attached some pink and purple streamers to them and all the little girls had fun playing all the games my sister played with them. I remember many more Birthdays, some with tents in the living room others going to a Castle (Schloss Charlottenburg) and dressing up there and learning some dance from long ago.
I remember the first day at school. The first friends. The first overnight. The first piano lesson....
I always told her that she can quit taking piano lessons when she can play Franz Liszt for me. Now she can play Liszt and Chopin for me and she doesn't take piano lessons anymore. She just taught herself to pay Violin.... My dear, sweet Nina, I love you more than you can imagine. I am incredibly proud of you. Not only because I get to listen Liszt now, but because you keep fighting. When life has been less than kind and gentle with you, you keep hanging on to God and get up dust yourself off and keep going. That is one reason I am proud of you. You have a very big, loving heart and give everyone another chance. Sometimes it gets me upset because so often you get hurt, but more often I admire you for that. You are a wonderful young woman and I pray all of Gods abundant blessing on your life. Now you are legally an adult. That is kind of strange for both of us, I think. I thank God for you and am very curious to see what God will do in your life. I love you!

Jamie did a great job decorating the place :)

even the pooch was decorated......

the birthday presents...

the little brother gave her his present

her own coffee cup, so I can use mine and a gift card

I think she liked it  :D

the present from her sister, silver earrings. Very pretty! 

That was her dream birthday cake ;-)

Christmas decoration - done :)

The day after Thanksgiving was met with great excitement by my lovely daughters. Why? Well, they could get all the Christmas decoration out and have fun.
I enjoyed taking pictures and having some tea while the girls enjoyed themselves and decorated the house. Jamie put up all the lights on the windows, the Christmas tree and the garland in the kitchen. Nina decorated the rest. It looks beautiful and all the little light chains bathe the rooms in a beautiful, cozy, warm light. We enjoy sitting here and just taking in this wonderful atmosphere.

Jamie untangling the lights for the Christmas tree

draping the lights around the tree

the garland in the kitchen on one side

the other side

done :)

Isn't it beautiful?

Happy Thanksgiving

Today is Black Friday and I am at home, I have no desire to leave the house today. The kids are excited because today is the day we decorate for Christmas! We are almost done and I am taking a break to write this blog post. I hope everyone had a blessed Thanksgiving! We had a nice Thanksgiving. It was  our first Thanksgiving sitting at our really nice and new dinette set :) The food turned out really well. The turkey was great, I seasoned it and added some fresh rosemary and sage and then closed the bag and put the bird in the oven. We had potato dumplings, carrots with peas in a sour cream sauce with parsley, sweet corn, stuffing, coleslaw and a vegetarian turkey.  Jamie was happy that I had a vegetarian option for her :) For dessert we had mango jello with real whip cream. Though this is not the typical american meal for Thanksgiving, we really enjoyed and were very stuffed afterwards. We talked about being thankful for the many blessings we have in our lives and how blessed we are to even live in a part of the world where we have an abundance in everything. Even if we are 'poor', in comparison to the majority of the world we are still rich....
It was wonderful to be together and have time to talk and enjoy each others company. Somehow there seems to be so little time for that in everyday life. I wish we could change that.
Later we had some homemade pumpkin cheesecake, that with some coffee was delicious!
We watched the movie "Amish Grace" and talked about that for a long time. We had a good discussion about the amish and their faith and our faith. We concluded that we would not want to live like the amish, but we can certainly glean from them. Their lives a kept purposefully simple and maybe we should try to simplify a little bit. We talked a long time about forgiveness and how I realized last year, when I saw "Amish Grace" the first time, that forgiveness is not something you do once and then are done. You may have to do it over and over again. For some things it is impossible to forgive without God's help. One quote in the movie was " Forgiveness has to come from an open heart, or it won't come at all."  It was a good day. Thank you, Lord for all your providence!

stuffed turkey with rosemary and sage, so good :)

the new dinette set 

our very cute but simple Thanksgiving table setting

A new dinette set :)

When we moved to Minnesota, we were blessed with a dinette set. Which was really, really wonderful, we could sit at a table and eat versus holding our plates in our laps. Now, four years later the table has worked well for us, but was showing signs of age. For about a year we kept tightening the legs but after a few days the screws came loose again. I guess you could say I have - well, had, - some screws loose ;-)   Since the table top was tile, it was pretty heavy. I think that added to the wear of the table.
The other day I decided to finally get a new dinette set. So the kids and I went to Ikea :)  We it really like going there. I could find a LOT of beautiful things there - sigh.  So, we all went and looked at tables and chairs and finally decided on a table and found chairs which are very similar to the ones we had in Germany. That made us feel very good, kind of like getting our stuff, which is still in storage in Germany. When we got home it was late but Jamie and I build the table and Jamie with a little help from Jeremy put all the chairs together. We had our first breakfast on our new dinette set :)
The only thing we had to do with the chairs was finish them. So I went to Walmart and bought some spray finish. Jamie Sanded the seat down, so it would be smooth after sanding and then treated all four chairs. It was pretty hard to wait for 24 hours before we could use the chairs, but we did it and now have a beautiful table and chairs! Thank you Jamie for all of your hard work!!!!!  I love you !!!!

my Jamie - thank you Love!

still sanding the chair...

the left chair is before, the right chair is after sanding and spraying.

The "little" guy starts the Birthday parties...

Jeremy is the first of my three lovely children to start with Birthdays, which we will be celebrating once a months from now and end the last one in January. I have often wished that the kid's Birthdays would have been in the summer and we could have lovely garden parties, decorated gazebos and lovely warm breeze accompanied by lots of children's laughter. Do you remember Meat Loaf's song " Two out of three ain't bad" ?  Well, in this case it is more like one out of four ain't bad :)  We have parties and we have decorations and we have lots of children's laughter. Because we live in a rather small apartment, we have to 'outsource' the parties. This year my 'little' guy wanted to go to a Go-Cart place, which proved to be waaayyy too expensive. So he thought about Paintball - really???? In my mind I could see injured and crying kids and very upset moms. That didn't sound like a lot of laughter. Luckily he finally settled on a trampoline park. We had a part of the trampoline park just for us for 30 min. That was really great and the kids enjoyed themselves very much and bounced all over the place. They threw the balls and played some sort of trampoline-dodgeball. They were jumping and falling and bouncing and running and laughing. After the thirty minutes we had to leave that private court and join the public, which was much more crowed, as there were about three or four more Birthday parties at the same time. The kids jumped and played for another sixty minutes after which they were very hot and exhausted. I think they were kind of happy that they got to sit down and have pizza, something to drink and cupcakes. Jeremy had a great time and enjoyed the company of his siblings and friends. After we got home and he had a shower he fell exhausted and happy into his bed. We had a fun day celebrating his 11-th Birthday. Though to me the past 11 years seemed more like 11 months  :)

Siblings :)

trampoline-dodgeball

yeah, well, the camera didn't do well with kids in mid-air

Everyone is enjoying pizza and something to drink

Happy Birthday, mein kleiner Frosch :D 

Sickness in the house

For the last few days the kids have been sick with some sort of bug. They have headaches and feel dizzy and have stomach aches. It seems to get better - very slowly......
Needless to say that we had to take a break from school for now. I took the the chance to look some more into our schedules. I have heard so many good things about the "The Well Planned Day" that I decided to order it. It has many good schedules and encouraging articles and it said in the description that it can be used for up to four students. Well, at least that is what I understood....

Isn't this pretty? Just the thought of having all kinds of schedules in one book makes this homeschool mom's heart beat faster :)
They have a class schedule, daily schedule, grades and attendence schedules, semester goals and even a shopping list and Dinner menu schedule for the week along with these encouraging articles. I really, really like this set up!

Isn't this awesome? I really like it! So I was all enthusiastic to start using it. I thought that this would be great, since I have only three children there would be enough space to add all our subjects. So I started adding the information and our work and quickly realized that no matter how I try to squish it together, it is not going to work for us. Now that was very disappointing on at least two levels. One, I really, really like everything else about it and - two, I hate to spend the money and not use it. So I was wondering how to make this work for us. I think I spend a whole day looking at schedules all over the web and I didn't find anything I liked. I was getting pretty frustrated thinking that I couldn't use this otherwise marvelous book that combines everything a homeschool mom needs. Since I researched all kinds of schedules, I found what I don't like. However. what I wanted started to crystalize more and I finally set out to make my own schedule. When I was done, I was quite happy with a very simple yet very workable schedule that finally works for us. It was still upsetting that I thought I would have to print it all out and then put it in a folder which I then have to use somehow together with the Planner. Then I had a great thought. Why not combine the two! The question was just how to do that. I went through several possibilities in my mind and concluded that I would just print the needed sheets out and tape them with double sided tape in the Planner.
Here are some pictures of what I did. The letters in the boxes are the beginning letters of each child. This gives me enough space to briefly write what is to be done today. I have the lesson plan for each child and each subject in my teacher's binder. I wrote in greater detail in the lesson planner, so this is a great way for me to have all the assignments for all three kids together. I am surprised to see that the most simple template works the best. Maybe I am just strange, but I never had enough space for each subject we are doing. Now I am writing my own and I got every subject for every child together. This is a great way - for me - to continue to use this awesome Planner :)  If you are interested in a template, let me know and I will send it to you.

Now I better go and attend to my lovelies :)