Musings of Amy

Even though some of the kids are starting to get older, they still wake up early Christmas morning, full of excitement and wonder.  I can always hear them out in the living room, giggling and gasping and trying to whisper, and no matter how late I stayed up the night before, I have to get up and experience their exuberance first hand.  As per family tradition, stockings are fair game and can be opened and examined as soon as they wake up.  They often have candy for breakfast on Christmas morning, but isn’t that how you’re supposed to do it?

Papa slept in longer than I did, but finally we roused him and we being opening all those mysterious packages under the tree!  My favorite types of gifts are things that are handmade.  I know how hard the kids work on it to make it nice for me, and they thought of me the whole time they were making it.  And for someone to gift you a part of their life, well that is pretty special.  So I loved the birdhouse Alexandra made for me.We still have only one person open one present at a time, which means that each gift gets appreciated and admired.  But it also means that sometimes you have LOTS of people crowding around you trying to help you open it!

Some of the highlights of this year were; Alexandra getting her very own Swiffer, and Sophie getting a fancy schmancy phone.  Alexandra was loudly overjoyed, and Sophie was stunned into silence. 🙂

We finally finished in time for a late lunch, and then the rest of the day was spent playing, skyping with family and relaxing.  But just for a quick minute… Later I was able to talk with some of my family, including my mom.  It was another perfect Christmas!

Christmas Eve day, which is a thing by the way, is usually spent getting ready for the evening’s festivities.  We bring up all the bits of fabric that are used as costumes for the nativity play, the kids go through the dress up box and our closets to supplement them.  There are discussions as to who will be which character, they check to be sure their stocking is hanging for the 1500th time, they each take turns asking me if I have saved some cookies for Santa, they count the presents under the tree, trying to guess the contents of each one as they do so, and of course, they play with their stuffed animals in the tree. Yes, you read that right.

I believe this tradition started with Nicholas when he was very small, but it has continued on through the years.  Everyone still participates, and it is a great way, in my opinion, to spend some of the exciting hours before the big event.  I am usually busy in the kitchen, or in my room wrapping presents, so I don’t know exactly WHAT they are playing.  But it always involves stuffed animals and the tree.

This year we started a new tradition, Chris helped me cook the meal!  He really wanted homemade raviolis like his mom would make, but they are so.much.work, and pretty much none of the children likes them.  Which means I end up cooking two meals. Um, no. But he promised he would help cook, and we tried out 3 different fillings, trying to find something the kids would like.  It was actually very fun hanging out in the kitchen together, although I don’t think it ended up being any faster. And even though more of the children ate the ravioli than in years’ past, it still wasn’t a huge hit. But Chris and I thought they were delicious, and at least they stayed together in one piece this year!

Sophie always helps me set such a lovely table.  We both like to have things match and be just so.  No matter whose turn it is to actually set the table, she always volunteers on holidays!

After dinner was cleaned up it was time for the play!  It’s such a simple thing, but it really helps us all remember what we are celebrating, and brings the right spirit into our home.  That feeling of thankfulness for the Savior’s sacrifice carries over to being thankful for any, and every, thing they receive the next morning.

When the play was finished, we put away the costumes, turned off all the lights, and sat in a circle around the tree.  The beautiful glow of the tiny bulbs reflected off all our faces, as we sang carols to our King.  It sounds perfect, and for a small moment, it truly was heaven on earth.  And then of course, someone bumped into someone else because they were swaying too hard, and a skerfuffle ensued, thereby ending the evening.  See, we’re normal, too. 🙂

They put out milk and cookies for Santa, a carrot for the reindeer, and made sure we would blow out all the candles before we went to bed.  They didn’t want to risk Santa getting burned! Chris and I stayed up a little while longer, wrapping a few presents and watching “Elf”.  Then we went to bed to await Santa’s arrival and all the excitement of the next day.

It isn’t Christmas unless I am baking up a storm.  I absolutely love every aspect of it; searching which recipes to make, buying the ingredients, and whipping up batch after batch of sugary goodness while Christmas carols blast from the stereo.  I even love decorating all the buckets I use to hand out the treats.  It just makes me happy.  And even more so when I find out friends look forward to their “buckets of sugar” every year!  I also take a big tray of goodies up to the school for the teachers, and then make something special for my neighbors.  Since these have less far to travel, I can be more adventurous with the presentation.

I bought these graduating star cookie cutters several years ago, with the intention of making these cookie trees, but didn’t get around to it until this year.  There was always something else I ended up making instead.  They were super fun to make and assemble, and the neighbors raved over them.  The only thing I would do different is add a little card that said what the different layers were.  Oh, and not forgot the entire batch of cookies I had stored in the cookie jar!  I knew my trees were supposed to be taller!  Oh well, the kids enjoyed eating them instead.  Usually I make up cards just for the neighbors, different from the ones I send out to family and friends, but this year I decided to use all the leftover cards from past years.  They were starting to add up, and this way I didn’t have to feel guilty about “wasting” them.  We really do have such great neighbors, and I figure a little good will helps them forgive us for any unintentional slights throughout the year.

I just loved my little cookie tree forest, and am already planning which cookie varieties I will include this year! 🙂

So, as you have noticed, I am woefully behind on my blog.  And so I am trying to keep the posts shorter, in order to write them faster.  I am even leaving some events out.  Like the ladies weekend trip I took to Italy in October.  It was fabulous, and so much fun, but since my family didn’t come along, I left it out.  Well that, and I didn’t bring my camera.  And if I don’t have photos, it didn’t happen. 🙂  And in November I hosted a bridal shower for a wonderful girl in our ward, which was a lot of fun, but also quite a bit of prep work.  In other words, the year 2013 was simply so awesome and packed full of so much fun, I didn’t have much time to write any of it down!

I thought about just skipping ahead and doing this year, but my children love this blog and read it faithfully.  Aside from their first year scrapbooks, and yeah, the youngest two are still waiting on theirs, this is the only documentation of their lives that I make.  So it is important to me that it be as accurate as possible.  I appreciate your patience as I struggle to get caught up and hope that my long absences haven’t put you off reading it all together.  I enjoy providing an update on our lives this way, especially as we have so many family members we are trying to connect with.  I promise I am working hard and even through all the holiday madness, I will try my best to keep plugging away.  Thank you for your understanding!

Alexandra’s kindergarten class was in charge of making one of the Advent windows for our town.  On December 18, we all headed up to the school for some Christmas caroling, treats and the official unveiling.

We have many musically gifted teachers in our school, and we are also blessed with Herr Stuckert, who recently retired as the church organist.  He is always willing to come to the school and accompany the children when they want to sing, and he always waves to them as he walks his tiny dog through the village. Lots of people came, as it was talked up in the school, and an event indoors during winter is always well received.  We sang quite a few carols together and Alexandra’s class sang a few songs alone.  And, of course, we ended by singing “Silent Night”.  It’s always surprising to me how beautiful a group of enthusiastic, but unrehearsed, people can sound.

Afterwards we went outside to enjoy the beautiful handiwork of the children.  Alexandra is standing in front of the candle she helped make.  I believe she said two other children did it with her, but I may be mistaken.And this is what the whole display looked like.  They did a great job, I think!

This year for our anniversary, I felt like doing something with the whole family.  It seemed right to celebrate our marriage with the fruits of our union.  The younger kids were already going to be riding on the Maerlitram in Zurich that night, so we planned to have Nick and Chris meet up with us and have a night on the town.  I parked the car, and ran with the kids down to the Maerlitram stop, just in time to have them hop on.  Then we went back to where we had parked the car, to meet the big boys.  Only the parking garage had two entrances and they went to the other one.  We eventually found them, just in time to race back and pick up the kids as they got off the tram.  (The whole ride is only 20 minutes, which seems really long when you are standing around outside freezing, but really short when you are running all over the place. 🙂  )

Alexandra was so excited to show us her nose covered in angel dust!

To make the evening more festive and special, I had brought along a thermos full of hot chocolate, along with whipped cream and mugs.  We enjoyed a little hot chocolate party right there in the city center. Sarah got a little crazy with the whipped cream…And then Chris had to squirt some straight into his mouth!  ((shudder))) We decided to just walk around the main shopping area to look at all the beautiful Christmas displays in the store windows and admire the gorgeous lights.  Along the way we stopped to take a selfie with all of us squeezed in.  Good thing Chris’ arm is so long! It was one of those magical nights where everyone was in a good mood, and we spent the evening laughing and joking and being silly together.  We had an especially good time looking in the shop windows of a particular store that sold rather unusual items.  There were things made from animal skins, fur, rocks and feathers, put together in bizarre combinations.  I am sure some folks think they are the height of fashion, but the more we looked in the windows, the harder we were laughing.  Fortunately they were closed, so no one could hear us mocking them.

I have finally decided to embrace the inconvenience of an anniversary so close to Christmas.  It certainly makes for gorgeous surroundings

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Eventually, we were getting too silly, a sign that we were tired, so we headed back to the car. It was a lovely night, and to top it off, Chris bought me a wonderful surprise.  A beautiful silver necklace with a single pearl that he picked out all by himself.  Love!!

Last year, it seemed like building gingerbread houses was a bit rushed, done just before Christmas.  To combat that, I made sure to have everything we needed and ready to go the first week of December.  On Samichlaustag, Dec. 6, we spent a fun evening devouring sugar and decorating our houses.  I almost caved this year and bought the pre-baked houses from Ikea, but I just love the smell of the gingerbread baking, and my kids love eating the scraps, so I went ahead and baked them myself.  Just like I do every year. 🙂

We don’t really go for artistic masterpieces, but all the kids do have a basic plan they stick to.  For some that plan is a nice, orderly house with a garden.

Others go for a “more is better” approach, stockpiling their favorite candy as if it was the End of Days rather than Christmastime.

And then there is the kid who doesn’t really like candy that much, but he does love sticking with tradition.  So he puts just enough on that he can say the house is decorated, and goes into the kitchen to eat more gingerbread scraps.  Cuz that is what he truly loves. 🙂

And now we have 5 adorable decorations for the sideboard!

Over the years of celebrating an American holiday in a foreign country, we have had to adapt to changing circumstances.  Nicholas’ school does not offer joker days, so we had been eating later in the day, when he comes home.  This year, however, he was able to be home earlier due to cancelled classes.  Hooray! And none of the missionaries serving in our ward are from America, so we stopped inviting them over.  But we did invite a friend and her family over instead.  Unfortunately, her husband had to work, but she and her adorable daughter came over to celebrate with us.

In order to have an enjoyable holiday without me being all stressed out and exhausted, I have learned to start prep really early.  I made the cranberry ice 5 days ahead of time.I cleaned the house for two days, and then  I baked the pies, peeled the potatoes, and boiled the eggs the day before.  And with eating later in the day, that leaves me lots of time to enjoy the day with my children and have fun letting them help me in the kitchen.  They also love to decorate and Sophie is awesome at setting a beautiful table.  As they have gotten older and are capable of doing more and more, our Thanksgivings have expanded and gotten fancier.

I think the kids’ favorite part of Thanksgiving, aside from all the desserts, is being at home playing when they know all their friends are still at school. 🙂

They had cleaned up the Playmobil area the Saturday before, which always makes it more fun to play in and mess up. haha.

Noah spent his free time reading.

Chris always gets excited watching the table slowly fill up with more and more food.  And thanks to our subscription to ESPN he can even have a football game on in the background!  Finally everything was finished and it was time to eat!

A new tradition we were introduced to this year was Thanksgiving pinatas!  Chris was a bit confused when Rochelle said her family always did a pinata on Thanksgiving.  “Wait, Rochelle is Mexican?” No, apparently her family just likes to hit things. 🙂  Her daughter, Liza, was so cute.  She was afraid of the turkey Rochelle had made, but then when we started whacking it, she got very sad that we were hurting it.

I hung it up on the nail we always use to secure the Christmas tree, but the kids got a little too aggressive and it came right out of the ceiling!They got in a few good swings before that happened, though.  Inside were some fun treats they could use to come off the pie sugar high slowly. 🙂

It was a very enjoyable Thanksgiving and I am so glad we could celebrate with friends.  We have been so richly blessed with all that truly matters in this life and it is nice to have a day to commemorate that.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

In mid-November, Sarah’s class had the opportunity to go to Bern for a field trip, but the teacher needed a few parents to go along to corral the herd. 🙂  Chris worked from home that day so that I could be one of them.  Going on field trips in Switzerland is always fun.  There are no big yellow school buses to ride, we just get on the normal city bus, hop on a train at the station and away we go!  Public transport is a beautiful thing. 🙂

We had to walk a bit through the city of Bern to get to the auditorium where the event we were attending took place.  Sarah’s teacher had heard about a special program where school classes could come up with a way to take care of the environment, submit it to a committee and then get a chance to attend a special event with the famous explorer and environmentalist Betrand Piccard.  Most of the classes had actually completed their projects by the time of the event, but he had only heard about it just before the deadline, so they got to attend even though their idea would be implemented in the future.

There was a beautiful fish pond in front of the building, and the kids just had to stop and admire them.  As we walked in the building, I turned around to make sure none of the kids were behind me.  And who did I see walking along but Alexandra Volz!!! One of my District Leaders on my mission.   He lives and works in Bern, and his employer was one of the organizers of this event. What a fun, fun surprise.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have much time to chat, as he was there for work, but we ended up on the same street car headed towards the train station afterwards, and I was able to have a nice catch up with him.  Such an awesome guy!

It was good I saw him near the entrance, because I never would have noticed him inside the huge auditorium.There were three levels and every seat was filled.  Hi Sarah!

The main attraction at this event was Bertrand Piccard. If you don’t know who that is, don’t worry, I didn’t either.  But google him, he’s amazing.  He gave a great speech to the kids about not giving up and always striving towards your goals, no matter how many people tell you it isn’t possible.  You may not achieve your ultimate goal, but you will accomplish so much more just by trying.

Each class selected one person to represent them on stage.  Sarah’s class chose Arno, and he was able to shake Bertrand’s hand and receive a certificate for being an environmental pioneer for their classroom.

One of the Bundesrat (Switzerland’s highest governing body) Doris Leuthard also came.  In fact, she was sitting just a couple rows in front of us during the presentation.  The thing I loved most about this event, was that all the speakers went from Swiss German, French, Italian and back with no problems at all.  It was a great live example of how this country functions with 4 national languages.

After all the certificates were handed out, which took a while,(those poor kids who got called up first had to wait a loooong time) there was entertainment for the kids.  A Swiss rapper/beatboxer named Knäckeboule put on quite an act for the kids.  He did some amazing stuff using just his mouth and a microphone, and then made up a rhyme on the spot, using words the kids yelled out from the audience. Very talented and entertaining.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay for the entire act, as we had a train home to catch.

The kids played silly games to entertain themselves, but never got too loud.  It was a fun day, and I am glad I was able to experience it with Sarah.

We started noticing Noah leaning forward and squinting any time he tried to see what time it was on the clock.  Talked to his teacher, and she mentioned he was squinting as well.  So I made an appointment with the pediatric eye doctor, but we had to wait several months as she is really booked up.  In the meantime, his squinting was getting worse and worse.  So it was definitely no surprise when she said he definitely needed glasses.  It helped that several other kids in his class also got glasses new this year, so he didn’t stick out or feel self-conscious about it.

I love the frames he picked out, and he is so good about taking good care of them.  Every night he carefully cleans them and puts them in a padded case until the morning.  And seeing Sarah AND Noah need glasses made Nicholas finally agree to get some himself.  We got the prescription several months ago, but he flat out refused to wear them. So that is finally taken care of as well.