St. Nicholas Day

I'm a little late with this... St. Nicholas Day is a holiday here which is on December 6th. I just downloaded the picture from my phone though... :)

The day before St. Nicholas day the kids are supposed to put their shoes outside and St. Nicholas will come by and put gifts and clementines (tiny oranges) into them. Not sure why, but it is cute.

Many of the shopping centers also participate by having kids come before the 6th and drop off one of their shoes. Then on the 6th you go back and find your shoe, which is in one of the store windows within that shopping area.

My friend did it, but I learned about it too late and I was also a little scared that I'd never see their shoe again. :) We'll do it next year though because it was cute to see all the store windows lined with little kids boots and shoes. :)

In Scotty's Kindergarten class the kids put their shoes by the window on Friday December 3rd, and then when they showed up on Monday the 6th they found their indoor shoes filled with clementines and a bag of candy.

Scotty's shoes are the brown ones. :)

Merry Christmas!!!

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Saturday Thanksgiving...

This year we got together with three other American families and had a giant dinner. :) 9 adults and 12 kids... ages: 12, 10, 8, 6, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2.

I like the part where there are four two-year olds. :) We should have taken a group picture... :(

It was actually a pretty calm event thanks to some movies, fun toys to play with and a few iPhones.

...and no holiday is complete without a sick child. Poor Scotty was up this year. He didn't feel well in the morning and we thought we would skip the entire event but towards the afternoon he perked up and went about the rest of the day/weekend without any "yuckies".

Here is Andrea eating chips out of his "yucky" bowl. :) Good thing he didn't use it... it was also her hat earlier in the day.
It was good to have a bunch of Americans to hang out and have fun with. I'm thankful I'm not alone in this big crazy foreign country. :)

Hey Grandma! I almost forgot to put the evaporated milk in the pumpkin pie!!!

Lanterns!

In Germany, November 11th is St. Martins Day.

For St. Martins Day there is a story about a rich guy who was going somewhere and gave his coat to a cold, poor guy. It's a way more involved story than that of course... and I'm not even really sure how a Lantern fits in the storey, but the kids all make lanterns in school before hand and that night they take their lanterns and walk around outside with them. I think there is supposed to be a horse involved and a band.

UGH.... hold on....

here.... I hate wikipedia for unknown reasons... but here you can read ALL about it because I'm not doing the holiday justice.

So Scotty made a lantern at school. His wonderful mommy came in to school to help him while Andrea screamed in the background. :) It's a see through paper wrapped into a cylinder shape. It has a bottom and a hole on top. A stick attaches to the top and a little light hangs down into the middle of the cylinder and it lights up the "Lantern".

Back in the day people used candles and I'm sure some still do. No qualms about giving fire to kids here... I still remember the play group Scotty went to in Denmark where they gave each child a FLAMING candle to carry across the room to place on the windowsill. All. By. Themselves. I stress when my kid has a full cup of juice.

So all the kids met at school at night but it was too windy and rainy to go outside so they walked around the school with the lights off. : /

It was loud and chaotic and next year I'll do it with just my kids or a small group, but it was a fun little tradition. The lantern was cuter when it was outside and glowing. ...and I think there are songs involved too.

I tried to be a slacker parent and just buy a lantern for Andrea, but they don't sell them on Lantern Day. You have to buy them in advance. Whatever. This reminded me of not being able to buy a pumpkin on Halloween. I had these two incidents in mind when I bought three turkeys at the store today. Buy it when you see it. That's the new rule.


This is Scotty's best friend. They are both crazy... :)

Halloween

This Halloween was much better than last halloween

...and way back in 2008, I hated Europe because I didn't get a Halloween at all.

This year was finally the perfect Europe Halloween. ...for me anyways, some of my friends had some of my 2008 experiences... That said, 2008 was my first Halloween away from home... sometimes the first holidays away are just miserable and you have to just learn how to make them better... or just lower your standards. :) I think it takes about two years for you to forget what it is supposed to be like.

Anyways... My teeth weren't smashed in this Halloween so it was AWESOME! WHOO HOO.

Who did what:
Michaela went to a party at the school with all the 7th graders. Then groups of kids went out trick or treating. She had fun and dressed up like a Dracula-lett. (Girl Dracula with a cape, black skirt, black leggings, and a white icky face that scared Andrea)

Sierra went to a class party at a friends house and then they went out trick or treating. With the exception of the scary haunted house, she too had fun and dressed up like a "Halloween Freak". It was a matching outfit that her and her friends wore together. She put the entire outfit together herself so I can't complain.

Scotty had a Halloween/Birthday party and then another Halloween party. Afterwards we took him and Andrea trick or treating. I'll have to write about his second Halloween party later because it reminded me we are hanging out with Germany's privileged... :) WOW.

Anyways...

My new favorite colors are blue and pink. :)

For some reason Scotty was insisting on being a blue crayon. I guess it was my fault though... I was showing him pictures online of things he could be and I promoted the crayon when I saw a kid with a T-shirt on and the word "crayola" written on it... how easy would that be!

Easy, but when it came down to it, it just wasn't good enough for my little brown eyed boy!!!

...and if my little boy was going to be a blue crayon it made perfect sense for my little girl to be a pink crayon. Twas' the night before Halloween and Mommy stayed up waaaaayyy too late making crayon costumes...

These costumes were actually easy to make. They required minimal sewing and quite a bit of glue. :) Daddy made the hats. :)

Cute huh? This was the first real costume that Scotty has been willing to put on and keep on.

Andrea hated her costume at first ...but then she realized she got candy when she put it on and then she liked it. See the bag of candy in her little monstery paw? :)

SO.

The big girls went to their parties and Paul and I took the little kids trick or treating. Our first stop was the house across the street. Trick or treating in our neighborhood is difficult of course because you have to be buzzed into the gates at the end of the driveways. :) So we decided to head to the apartments where many international people live and the doors are three feet from each other. It is a well-lit, dead-end street... our new trick or treating spot.

Scotty loved it and Andrea quickly figured out the drill. Scotty pushes the button, someone opens the door, Scotty and Mommy yell trick-or-treat, and a bowl of candy appears. Score!

However, sometimes a bowl of candy doesn't appear. Sometimes the German people just stare at you and wonder what the heck you are doing there. We had some awkward moments when we were confused for a minute and didn't know what to do other than to repeat "trick-or-treat??", "trick-or-treat bitte?", but in the end the kids always got candy and hence I was happy.



PUMPKINS




We also carved pumpkins. :) The lady who lives downstairs really liked them. I don't think she had ever done it before so she was happy to see them glowing with a candle inside and she took several pictures. That made me happy. I think we'll invite her to our Thursday Thanksgiving so she can eat some sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top... that would really surprise her. :)


Little note for me for next year. Buy pumpkins early... because on October 28th they ALL disappear! Everyone pumpkin in town... GONE. Even the green ones, even the moldy ones... I was lucky to find a few the day before Halloweenand pay WAY too much for them. It's all about lowering your standards... no more roaming through fields looking for the roundest, smoothest, prettiest pumpkin. Kinda orange and has a stem that isn't too soggy. I'll take it!!