Night Night

BEDDING. Even from Germany to Denmark the bedding is different. Pillows, mattresses, duvets, sheets...

We have a multi-cultural bedding household.
Sierra's bed is Danish, her duvet is Danish, her pillow is American.
Scotty's bed is Danish, his duvet is Canadian, his pillow is German.
Andrea's crib is Danish, her duvet is German, her two pillows are American and German.
Michaela's bed is American, her duvet is Danish, her pillow is American.
Happy and my bed is German, our American mattress has a Danish duvet and we have German AND American pillows. :)

Buying new sheets and bedding is a difficult task because they are all different sizes. THIS, Ingrid, is why I don't have extra sheets. :)


Head - German pillow
Belly - American pillow
Feet - Danish pillow

PAPER: is not the same size either: ...AND the holes are in silly spots.

PAPER HOLES: A sheet of lined notebook paper. Here you either get two holes in the middle or four along the entire edge. I think this is seriously just dumb. Three holes in a piece of paper makes perfect sense; one on each side and one in the middle. Two holes makes the paper wiggle all over and four holes... I don't know.

Another paper complaint while I'm at it. They make the kids use graph paper for math. Not just graph work, but for any math. They aren't supposed to write numbers in each of the squares either. I have no idea why. Denmark did it too. Writing on graph paper is hard because there are lines going everywhere... it's called graph paper for a reason. (Psst. It's used for GRAPHS!)

ENVELOPES: I have to fold my American standard business envelopes over a half an inch and tape it or else I pay five times as much. I finally bought German envelopes though because they scowled at me when I taped it right in front of them. (Of course Germans scowl at me all day long..)

Autum is here... oops I mean Spring

Everyone else on the street gets green trees for Spring. Everyone else in the world for that matter... Spring is when green leaves come and make trees bright and happy. Autumn is when red and brown leaves come. For some reason my house is currently surrounded by red leaved trees... and to call them red is a stretch, they mostly look a dull maroon, like my couch :) or even brown. Yuck. I don't understand. They are not red maple trees as my Canadian Husband thought, although the red one in the backyard looks maple leaf-y. They are just red ugly trees... that drop a zillion small pokey balls that open up revealing a small seed that grew baby trees all over the yard. Sierra called them "books, bo in Danish (bog)" she said they were in Denmark. My mom and I wondered if they would turn green. No Mom, they show little hope of becoming pretty and green. :( But you can't see the houses across the street anymore.



Here is my yard. I took these pictures from the kitchen window on our first floor since we are living the skyrise life and have no ground floor. The owner of the house lives on the bottom floor. She is great. She called the DMV for me yesterday and acted as my translator saving me a trip to that awful place.


Here are my rhododendron bushes Ingrid. :) They had a few white flowers and with this last week of semi-warm weather some purple and pinks flowers have been popping up. The homeowner said this year isn't a good year for the flowers and that usually the bushes are FULL of flowers. :) I think this is what California plants in the middle of divided freeways. Big giant bushes that make flowers. :) (Did I mention I miss California?)

ipod

This is Scotty, the coolest four year old in school. :) He sat down this morning and pulled out his ipod touch and within nine seconds he had this group of older boys over his shoulder. :) HILARIOUS!

This school is so great. I LOVE it! Scotty runs in and runs to his seat and sits nicely and does his work. :) A normal school with something to amuse the kids so they don't just run wild until the class officially starts. I miss Denmark but I do not miss the school there. I predict it will be a parking lot in two years...

I forgot

I forgot I had a blog. Oops.

Friday just Scotty was out of school. We played at home because that is what he wanted to do. His normal school days are pretty long (8:30 - 3:00), and they are full of activities so I figured the boy could have a day of Wii. :) I did manage to force him to help me make cookies. He was impressed with the electric mixer and even more impressed when the oatmeal he thought was yucky tasted okay when mixed with sugar, butter and chocolate chips. :)

Saturday we did nothing. Michaela was at a sleep over party. We went to breakfast at a bakery we found. I took Andrea and Scotty grocery shopping. Sierra and Happy spent the day at IKEA. :) They bought a new red leather couch and chair to replace the old red couch we had. :) The new red is more maroon-y, the old red was bright red.

My thoughts on the color red: It's not a fun color anymore because it's WAY too common. Red may as well be beige. I liked red before because it was different and fun. Now everyone has red in their kitchens. We had red kitchen chairs and I felt like I was being different. Now I'm just boring. I think we will get lime green chairs, or purple... maybe yellow or orange. Red is blah.

All that said about red, I do like our new couch much better than the old one... Which, by the way, was new too. We are good at changing our minds and returning things. We've probably returned a 1000 euros worth of things because we "changed our mind". :) Oh well, I like our green couch in the kids' living room and our new maroon-y one in the grownups' living room. :) The orange couch we have, I dislike it a great deal. (I would even go as far as to say I hate it, but Scotty doesn't not allow anyone in the house to say hate.) The orange couch is in the quest room and turns into a pretty handy bed so it will have to stay... for now.

Another product of Saturday's IKEA-thon was a bed for Happy and me!! For the last few months we have been sleeping on a mattress which was lying on the floor. :) It was fun for a while because it was fun to play on with the kids. :) I would have been happy a mattress on the floor because let's face it, at the end of the day I'd be happy with sleeping on a tile floor, I didn't care. ...but now that we have a real bed, the first real bed we've had since leaving the States, it's more comfy to go to sleep. I like it too.

It was a rare IKEA trip that went well since the bed was 70% off for a broken box and the maroon-y couch was discounted too AND the couch was even delivered the SAME DAY. The IKEA gods were smiling on us...

Sunday. I took Sierra out for lunch. Every other week I take Michaela or Sierra out for breakfast or lunch for some "Mommy Time". Secretly it's my time away from that small little Poozie Monster too. :) Then Happy takes the three big ones away while Andrea naps so I have some alone time. This Sunday Andrea slept for an entire 35 minutes and was woken up by the POURING rain and thunder.

Monday. No school again. I have absolutely no idea why. May is littered with random holidays. I can't even think of what we did. Maybe this was the day Happy took the kids for ice cream. I can't remember and I don't think it really matters. :)

Perhaps tomorrow I'll have something of interest to write about. I do actually, I took a picture of it with my phone today. :) It will have to wait though, I don't feel like getting up to get the phone. :)

me

Grammer, or lack of...

Why doesn't the German language capitalize the first letter of a sentence? It looks so weird to get a letter in the mail that has capital letters on words that are in the middle of sentences. I feel like giving it to Sierra to correct for extra English homework. I think the rule is they capitalize every noun. Odd.

here is what a german Sentence would look like. (maybe) i think It is silly. why does Everyone have to be so different? why can't We all just agree to do It the same?

Of course... in Spanish you put an upside down question mark at the beginning of the question. :) This seems perfectly normal to me since I've grown up with it. ¿What do you think?

I also think that 'these are not quotation marks' like the British text books say... I say, "Michaela, use the REAL quotation marks, they are better".

AND why does Europe switch the comma and the dot in numbers? I'm finally used to it and I don't notice it now... but for a while 24,95 DKK seemed like a lot of money for a loaf of bread!! It was also pretty tricky telling my bank how much to pay people because I'd have to type 1.500,75 DKK, and it just felt wrong.

Don't get me started on the dates being reversed. Obviously you need to know the month before the day... and the year is last. My birthday is 8/27/77, not 27/8/77. But at least I can figure that one out. What about 4/6/10. Is this June 4th or April 6th? Uh oh... When I look at 4/6/10 now I guess I see June 4th. That's kinda sad... :)

Happy Hotel

We had more visitors! :) I'm happy all my Denmark friends still love me!

We had two families visit with us this last weekend. One family is hopefully going to move here next year so that will make me very happy.

The other family, our friends from Poland, came to stay with us for the weekend... We took them around Hamburg, which was good for us to finally see too. We took the boat ferry up the river, went to the Planten Blomen park, saw some of they city... It was nice to see them again and have them stay with us.

The Happy Hotel is already booked for another weekend! YAY KERSTIN!!! She has reserved her room with the promise of a box of Cheerios. :) (I still think it's funny I'm importing food from Denmark.)

As for our weather... It's been cold and despite it's technically been warm I'm getting pretty tired of it really being cold. Not quite sure I can deal with this poopy weather much longer... I've decided that if the world voted, California would win for the best weather... but you are only allowed to vote if you have lived in California. :)

my TEETH.

Guess what? My teeth still feel funny. I still don't feel like I can bite apples or beef jerky. :) They don't really hurt, just feel weird and like they aren't fully healed. I use them to bite now, but they just feel wiggly even thought they aren't.

I went to a dentist last week to confirm they aren't dead. :) They seem to be fine, but I guess teeth that are smashed in by concrete take a while to heal. Here is the story... Reading it now makes me smile... :)

The bruises on my legs still hurt too... The bruises were from where my hands, which were still holding onto the pogo-stick, hit my legs. This is odd because the visible bruise isn't there, but if a kid leans on my leg it hurts still... I think I'm broken. Can a bruise last forever?

I was thinking about this because today Michaela stood on the edge of a cardboard box. I don't know why... but she jumped off but the box slipped and she fell, but caught herself with her hands and it was uneventful. After it happened I had to sit down. I was so scared that she was going to hurt herself like me! That second of fear made me sick to my stomach...

Of course, I still use my "experience" against the kids often. "Don't do that or else you might knock your teeth in and you'll get a teeth bandaid!!" ...works everytime!

Cup Of Corn

Dad, next time you visit you can have a cup too... :)

Last week we finally got a Cup of Corn!! Our first attempt was when my Dad was still here, but it didn't work out... We couldn't find the Cup of Corn Man. :( So Papa missed out.

Nana scored a yummy cup of corn though... and her life will never be the same. :) We even waited 15 minutes for it since the unprepared Cup of Corn Man was out of corn.

A Cup of Corn is just that... a cup that is full of whole corn kernals. They seem to be right off a cob and are drenched in liquid butter and salt. :) ...and they are hot!

The girls and I first discovered this butter and salt covered vegetable after a long train ride from Denmark to Hamburg when we first moved here. We arrived at the Hamburg Hauptbahnhof and we were starving and cold. Then we saw him... The Cup of Corn Man. People were leaving his yellow corn stand holding steaming cups of corn and they all looked so warm and happy. We wanted to be warm and happy too. :) ...so we bought some ...and we were.

Bye Mom!

My mom left today... On her Mother's Day she gets to travel for the entire 24 hours. Happy Mother's Day mom! I hope her journey is easy. I dropped her off on the train and instructed someone to help her with her H E A V Y suitcase. Geez... I wonder what she put in that thing? :)

I came home and went back to bed... since it was, after all, Mother's Day. :) I slept for a while and then realized everyone was waiting for me to wake up to eat breakfast. :) So I finally got up and ate the yummiest breakfast sandwich ever. It consisted of a english muffin with extra butter, a not too fried egg, extra crispy bacon, and a piece of kraft like processed cheese, and some Danish Hellman's MayonNaise. :) Oh, and a side of crispy fried potatoes. Might not have been the healthiest breakfast, but it sure was yummy!

Then they gave me presents... along with flowers and strawberry cake which we ate for lunch. :) I got some AMERICAN RED licorice and a nice yellow shirt and two necklaces! Although I would have been perfectly happy with handmade bead necklaces my new necklaces were nice ones. :) Thanks everyone.

...and the whole time my poor mom was traveling.... I secretly wish the volcano exploded again but I'm sure after all that time away from home she was ready to go back to sunny warm California.

Tie Dye Pirates

Scotty is special. :) See him sitting down in the bright yellow and green tie die shirt?

I love the little boy all the way to everything and back, but sometimes I just have to roll my eyes at him. His class had a "Spring Concert" at school. They wore their pirate hats and sang some pirate songs... very cute. :)

I was so excited to see Scotty sing... It was his first little concert thing like this and I was so happy! I woke Andrea up early from her nap and my mom and I showed up right on time and got a good seat. I saw Scotty before it started with his little pirate hat on and he waved to me and was so cute.

Then the song began...



THE BOY put his head down on the floor and remained there the entire time. He lifted his head up at the end of the song. Hmmm. Okay.

Maybe he'd do better the next song? The second song started and at this point I didn't care if he sang or did the hand motions... my standards quickly dropped. I just wanted him to keep his head up off the floor! He did... but my precious son stuck his fingers in his ears. Nice. Not sure which was worse... hiding on the floor or displaying his obvious dislike of the entire event by covering his ears!

He did sing the third and final goodbye song though. It was a 60 second chorus of "Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye". I took his picture and the concert was salvaged. Good job Scotty!!

:)

He really does love music and dancing, but he prefers Lady Gaga. You should see him imitate her dance moves... now that would be a good movie to post. :)

Scotty the Photographer

Scotty is the fastest picture taker ever. I took him on a three minute drive and he took 70 pictures with my iPhone. :) We finally gave him the digital camera to use... He takes 20 pictures of each thing... a cat, his bike, a rock, a bird, the inside of his mouth, his foot, the rug, the tv... Here are some of his pictures.

Planten Blomen

Super Cool Park. Everyone should go there. :)

Catching up.... again.

I've been hanging out with my mom so I haven't been sitting at my computer much. :)

Last week went by pretty quick... Paul was gone in Florida. My mom and I have been hanging out. I took her to IKEA... of course. :) We bought some things to make curtains for the zillion windows in my home. My mom taught me how to use the sewing machine I got the girls for Christmas. :) So we've made lots of curtains and I know how to thread a bobbin. :) I feel so domestic! Maybe we will try to make sense out of those one of those patterns we have from Denmark and try to make a stuffed rabbit.

May 1st was a holiday so everything was closed. I heard May 1st is similar to Labor Day in the States... May 1st was cold and rainy and windy, so on May 2nd we went to the Planten Blomen park. It is the coolest park ever, and we only walked through 2/3rds of it. They have a huge playground for the kids to play on. It's a really cool park and might turn into a regular activity for our family. It would be a great place spend an entire day... if the day was warm and sunny. :) Our day was pretty warm and sunny though. It felt nice to be warm.

Today my mom and I went shopping and I actually got to try on clothes and actually BUY some! :) Usually I try on things and they don't fit and a kid starts to complain or cry or yell or all of the above... and I have to leave. Today Andrea slept while my mom pushed her around in the stroller in the store and I got to try on different sizes until I found the right one...

Danke Mom. :) We also ate Chinese Food. We ended up taking the wrong order because they didn't speak any English... ...and we weren't quite sure what we ordered anyways. We confused the entire place and messed things up for everyone in the middle of their lunch rush. BUT whatever we ate was good, and sorry to whosoever it was. :)


Here are some completely unrelated pictures because I feel like I haven't put any up for a while.
Here is the front foyer of the kids school. This was a ceremony they had to celebrate the new building. I couldn't believe what the school did for this. Waiters, Hired Babysitters, Fully catered. It was crazy! :) I'm sitting there in the hall and waiters are offering me drinks and snacks... Scotty and Andrea are having hamburgers and ice cream served to them while they bounce in a bouncy house and people are making them balloon animals. Michaela and Sierra are sucking helium out of balloons.

So. Here is my parenting question... ...AND I know everyone has sucked helium from balloons at some point in life. ...I let the girls do it. I had a quick talk with them about things that are bad to suck and helium isn't a natural thing to breath so they have to be careful. Make sure they breathe in lots of fresh air too, stop if you feel dizzy or sick. HOWEVER, I didn't tell them not to do it. It's a thing all kids do so why not just teach my kids to do it safely. We all know they would have ran off with their friends and did it anyways of course. :) I can't control what they do, just make sure they do whatever it is that they are going to do safely. Hmmmm.... I guess it wasn't a question afterall... just me justifying why I allowed my kids to suck Helium. :)

Here is the stage at the school. It's a full stage with curtains and lights and microphones. Reminds me of High School Musical. :) Sierra is in the Choir and they sang a song at this event. Scotty also "sang" on this stage but I really need the pictures to tell that whole story... :) Later.


Here is Poozly by the flowers... with her floppy hair that she quickly yanks any hair clip out of. The flowers say I S H. International School of Hamburg. I just realized that in our last school's name, ISAa... the Aa stood for Aarhus. I always wondered why there was a big "A" and a little one. :)

So here is Scott Happy. SH. :) Get it? It's taken some time to make Scotty accept that he has both a middle name and last name. :) Now he likes his initials and writes them everywhere...

Kids at the zoo... way back on Easter. Three sisters. :)

Scotty eats this for breakfast. Cracks me up! We call it bornehaven bread... I was amazed when he ate just the bread with butter, but now he likes liverpaste on it AND CUCUMBERS! Our family just smiles at each other when we see him eat it. The bread is super healthy so I am trying to feed it to Andrea too... Michaela and Sierra say, "No way".