Musings of Amy

Saturday night the girls left out a comfy blanket for the Easter bunny to take a nap on, and a plate with a carrot on it for his snack.  We also have them leave their baskets out in the hallway, empty, so the Bunny can fill them.  In the morning, there were excited shrieks as they discovered that he really had eaten some of the carrot! The baskets are the same ones they received from my mom when we spent Easter with her before Alexandra was born.  They always talk about that visit every year when we pull out the baskets.  I am always amazed, because they were all pretty young, but apparently it made a big impression on them.

I made our traditional fruit bouquet for breakfast, which is always a festive, and healthy start to the day. The girls were happy to finally have their dirndls finished, we had picked out the fabric together way back last summer in Austria!  Thankfully, the shirts we bought to go with them still fit.They could be slightly more tailored, but I sewed them a bit loose, along with side seams and hems, so that they could be let out and worn for a while.  I will happily sew them new ones later on, but I wanted a few years to enjoy these.  I will say that this was my first time sewing with silk and it was a bit tricky!  Think I will avoid that in the future.

When we got home from church, we found more Easter treats left for us by our neighbor, Maya B.She sewed this adorable fabric basket and filled it with sweets, and also baked a pie. It was kind of a sweet quiche, cheesecake thing.  Nicholas loved it, and ate most of it by himself. 🙂

We invited the missionaries over for our traditional Easter dinner, and had a great visit with them.  They always bring such a special spirit into our home, and are pretty much the only dinner guests Chris and Nick aren’t bothered by. 🙂 I am so grateful for our knowledge of the resurrection and the peace this brings to our lives.  This is not all there is, and it most definitely gets better. Hallelujah!

Saturday afternoon we had our family Easter egg hunt.  It was a cold, rainy day, so instead of going to the park/school yard, we hid them in the house.  We sent all the kids to Alexandra’s room and shut the door so we could hide the eggs without any peeking. To spice things up a bit now that the kids are all getting older, I put money in several of the plastic eggs, along with the candy.  I think it was about 30 Swiss francs total, all in 1 and 2 franc coins, with one egg that contained a 5 franc coin. It worked really well, in that everyone was excited and interested in the hunt, no matter their age.  We also hid the eggs all over the house and in some pretty difficult places.  Chris is always super creative when it comes to this kind of stuff, and likes to give the kids, especially Nick, a real challenge.  In years past eggs have been hidden inside coat pockets,  in shoes in the cabinet, inside cupboard doors, and really high up on the fireplace. Of course, there are also some slightly easier ones for little Lexi. It is always funny to see how often they will walk past a real egg hidden among the Easter decorations.  It just becomes part of the landscape, I guess and they don’t see it.  Yes, those are the girls Easter dresses on the ironing board.  I finished them completely later that night,  but no matching ties for the boys. I just ran out of time. 🙁  Those dresses weren’t hard to sew, but they were definitely time consuming.  The boys so didn’t care, glad I went to bed instead of staying up all night sewing them.

Anyway, back to the hunt. We apparently hid the eggs REALLY well, because the kids took a long time to find them all.  Naturally, I hid one so well, no one found it, and I couldn’t remember where I had put it!Eventually I remembered that it was inside one of the ceramic egg-shaped candy dishes on the table.  Whew!  It was a real egg, and that would not have been pleasant after a while.  When all the eggs were accounted for, the kids got together and sorted out their loot.Between this egg hunt, the one with friends, and the stuff the Easter bunny brought the next day, the kids had enough sugar to last quite a while.  In fact, just about a week ago we finally threw away some of Sophie’s and Nick’s Easter candy.  You know, in time for Halloween. haha!

In my eagerness to get a move on with this blog, I kind of skipped over a few fun happenings during the kids’ second week of ski/sport vacation.  My friend Rochelle brought over her adorable little baby, Liza, and the girls’ had their first try at babysitting while her parents went sledding down Mount Rigi.  Sophie discovered she has a real talent and love for it, and Sarah decided it was only fun for short periods of time, definitely not all day. 🙂  Still, they both enjoyed earning a bit of pocket money, and playing with such a sweet baby. Yes, they did indulge in quite a bit of dress up with their living doll, wouldn’t you?

I promise, despite the evidence to the contrary here, Eliza did not spend the entire day crying, and was really happy most of the time. 😉

Oh, those cheeks!  I confess, I did nibble on them a time or two.  It would have been a crime not to, they are so perfect!

Alexandra and Sophie also spent most of one day playing with a Shrinky Dink jewelry kit I had picked up at Migros.  It had lots of pre-printed designs that you could color in and then shrink down to attach to the included earings, necklaces or bracelets.  Sophie made a pair of earrings, to save for when she has pierced ears, and both girls made themselves bracelets.  It was a great investment, as there are still enough pieces leftover for them to make more things as gifts for friends.

This year the kids had Thursday through Monday off for the Easter holiday.  It is always so nice to have some down time to just enjoy the kids and of course, we celebrate such an important event in history.  Chris and I took turns reading scriptures every night that corresponded with events during Christ’ last week of mortal life.  This was in addition to our normal Book of Mormon reading,  but it didn’t take that much longer.  I think it helped us all keep our focus at least somewhat on the true meaning of the holiday, despite all the fun, merriment and sugar we were surrounded by.

On Thursday, since the kids were home from school, we colored eggs for our family hunt.  I had bought a special coloring kit that required the eggs to still be warm for it to work.  But timing it so that the eggs are warm enough for the marbling to stick, but cool enough for the kids to actually hold in their hands is a bit tricky.  I ended up having to apply most of the marbling for them, although the older ones did manage to do a couple alone.

We used plastic bags, instead of gloves, because it was easier to get hands in and out of them quickly.

Noah decided to go with the much easier water paints.  The little contraption it comes with holds the egg in place nicely, and you can easily turn it to reach the entire egg. Some of the best money I’ve ever spent.

Alexandra likes to use one as well.  Sophie always takes lots of time drawing on her eggs with crayons, making intricate designs that show up when she dyes the eggs.  It always seems like such a shame to peel her eggs, they are works of art.  Even though I boiled 3 dozen eggs, it goes pretty quickly when you divide them up amongst 5 kids.  I know they would love to decorate more, but good gracious, we could never eat them all!

We all had a great time, and the kids couldn’t wait for our family hunt the next day when they would all get hidden.

This year my friend Tanya organized the friends Easter egg hunt.  She invited several of her local friends, and did it in her local park.  It is a gorgeous setting, with lots of room to hide treats.  And the playground is sort of screened off with trees, so it’s easy to trap the kids in there while the other moms do the hiding.  I forgot my camera, grrr, but my friend, Rochelle took some photos for me.  Hurray!

This is always such a fun event because there are tons of kids to interact with, and LOTS of candy and treats to find.  As well as homemade goodies to snack on for the moms. 🙂  Sadly, this year Alexandra was sick with a fever and had to stay home under Nick’s care.  But Sarah offered to carry her basket around and filled it with plenty of goodies.  In fact, she kept almost nothing for herself, but kept putting all the good treats in Alexandra’s basket.  Such a good big sister.

The only problem with holding a giant egg hunt in a public park, is that occasionally you will get children who aren’t part of the group watching from the sidelines with sad little faces.  There was so much candy we were hiding, that I went over to the two kids I saw and handed them some treats right out of my bag.  I think a couple of the other moms did as well.  It’s not like our kids need ALL the sugar for themselves, right?

See, seriously huge park.  And this was only one section of it.  Even so, towards the end, some of us moms were just dropping the candy directly on the grass, not even trying to hide it.  There was just so much, and apparently we aren’t that creative. 🙂

All the kids ended up happy with their haul, I think. Once again, Tanya made some special eggs for the kids to find.  She cleaned out real egg shells, filled them with confetti, and then closed the holes up with tissue paper.  In a few special eggs there was also glitter.  Here she is explaining the rules of the eggs. First, if some kids found a bunch of confetti eggs, and others had none, we asked them to share the wealth.  Second everyone chose an egg and held it in their hand at the same time.  Then they broke it open by smashing it on someone’s head, or their own. Depending on what color glitter the lucky few found inside their egg, they received a prize; chocolate bunnies of varying sizes!  My kids didn’t win one, but that’s okay.  Because in just a few short days we would have our family egg hunt where they would get even more treats. Not to mention a certain bunny.   Yikes.

Thank you, Tanya for organizing such a great hunt, and for all the moms and their kids who participated so nicely.  It’s always fun to hang out with such great people.

On Saturday, a week before Easter, we were invited up to Alexandra’s Kindergarten for an Easter Brunch.  The parents all signed up to bring different breakfast things, and the teacher taught the kids a few very cute spring songs.  Naturally, the males  stayed home, but I brought the girls up to the school and enjoyed the beautiful songs and adorable outfits.The kids made the hats themselves, and were supposed to wear green shirts to complete the look.  We didn’t have anything bright green, so pastel mint had to do.  She didn’t mind, the only other option was to wear a shirt of Noah’s, which she did NOT want to do. 🙂Alexandra doesn’t speak in Kindergarten, at all.  So I was very happy to see her singing along to the songs.  Apparently German that has been set to music isn’t nearly so scary.

After the entertainment, we went inside for the delicious brunch.  I had planned on just dropping the kids off, and heading straight over to the church for the Relief Society brunch being held on the same day, and then leaving my thing a bit early to pick them up.  Well, I forgot that we were supposed to bring our own plates, utensils and cups for the brunch.  So I had to go home, pack that all up for the kids, go back to the school to drop it off, and then drive over to the church.  I hate when I cause myself stress like that.  I left the camera with the girls, so they could document the occasion.  This meant I had to wade through a few silly pictures to get ones that were blog appropriate. haha

This may just look like an ordinary flower in a pot, but the dirt is really chocolate cake!  The girls thought that was super cool.

These bunnies were part of the decorations.  The kids cut them out of wood with handheld saws, and then painted them.  Frau Meier drew on the faces, but the kids did everything else.  Alexandra brought hers home after Easter was over, and I happily added it to our box of Easter decorations.  So cute!

My brunch was also lovely and delicious.  There are some wonderful cooks in our ward.  My friend is the counselor in charge of activities, and my other good friend is the president, so I absolutely wanted to come support them. Even if it meant a bit of running around.  There were some very fun trivia games on past Relief Society presidents of the church, and a few word games as well.  It was well thought out and everyone seemed to have a very good time.

Sarah had her cell phone with her and gave me a call when they were ready to be picked up.  So I did have to leave a bit abruptly.  I always feel a bit guilty about not staying to help and clean up.  But I just couldn’t this time.  We all agreed that it was a lovely morning, and we were so glad we had gone.

After one day off to rest and recuperate, I took the kids back up the ski resort on Friday to try out their new skills.  Nicholas did not want to “waste” his last vacation day skiing, which I was happy to hear as it meant I could use his skis myself. 🙂  I love to ski, but have not really had the opportunity since before my mission, more than 20 years ago.  Sad, but it just wasn’t a priority.  Spending that money on stuff like groceries and clothes for the kids seemed like a more responsible choice.  Anyway, I was super excited and a little nervous to hit the slopes again.  What if I forgot how to do it all?

Fortunately, the kids are still learning, so they didn’t want to try out the tow rope, and instead stuck to the hill with the magic carpet.  It was perfect for me as well. 🙂 Unfortunately, the fantastic weather we had enjoyed the first of the week was gone.  It was overcast, snowy, and COLD!  So, so, so cold! But I hoped that as we got skiing we would warm up and still have a good time.

Lexi was a bit nervous to go on the “big” hill, so I promised to stay right with her.  After one run down, she didn’t need me anymore.  Also, she discovered that going fast is super fun and going fast over bumps is even better.  Little adrenalin junkie.

It’s hard to see her, but that is her picking up speed just before the bump!

Sarah ended up going clear to the top for most of the day.  It was a bit more difficult to get up there because the paths in between the magic carpets were icy and hard to climb, but she liked having a longer solid run to ski.  She will definitely be ready for more intensive skiing next winter.  I am pushing for a week in Austria, so the kids can ski all day, every day, but we shall see.

Sophie went up to the very top a few times, but then contented herself with 3/4 of the way up the rest of the time.  She is also very confident on her skis, and only needs to conquer her fear of the tow rope to do even harder runs.

Poor little Noah was freezing the entire time.  He was dressed as warmly as the other kids, but maybe since he has so little body fat he felt the cold more?  In any case, I could only manage to talk him into skiing for a couple of hours, and then he went and waited in the car. I went to check on him a couple times and he was always snuggled up under his jacket, happily reading a book.  At least he got in a little more practice, and should also do fine next year.  I am seriously impressed with how much they learned in just three short days.  What a testament to their fantastic teacher and their willingness to learn.  Good job, kids!

The hardest part of the whole day was getting home.  It had been lightly snowing all day, and really started to pick up as we were finishing.  Driving down slick, snowy, twisty alpine roads is definitely an experience I hope not to repeat.  I told the kids to pray silently for me, turned off the radio so I could concentrate and drove in a lower gear with my foot on the brake pretty much the whole way.  Fortunately we made it safely, with no crashing being done by us or to us.

There was a crash in the parking lot the second day, that we were sort of involved in, but not really.  We were driving down the small little road, with cars parked all along one side, and there were two other cars trying to drive towards us.  But they had to back up to let me pass, and one backed up faster than the other and ran into him.  Ouch! Usually I am the one ramming into stuff, so I was extra thankful for once to just be a witness, not a perpetrator!

Since I couldn’t go up with the big kids, I asked Sarah to take some photos using the camera on her phone.  I was very curious to see what they got up to all day long, and what conditions were like way up there on the mountain.

It was definitely not as sunny and beautiful as down in the valley.  Which is a bit strange, usually you go up the mountain to find the sun.

No pictures of Sarah since she was the one holding the camera, but she did manage to get a least one of everybody else.  She also clearly thought the little signs along the magic carpet were worthy of several photos.  They are quite cute.

I especially was worried about them getting enough to eat, of food they liked, since they can be picky sometimes. They all assured me that there was plenty of food, and that most of it tasted really good.  The restaurant also had bathrooms, which meant they didn’t need to worry about making any snow yellow! 🙂

At the end of the second day, Nicholas told me all about his crazy fall and subsequent crashing into the fence along the course.  He didn’t get hurt, but it was apparently quite a spectacular crash.  He even managed to leave evidence of his presence with a hole in the netting. That hole, right there! 🙂

After 13 previous winters in Switzerland, we decided it was finally time to get our kids some ski lessons.  1) They were finally all old enough, and 2) we finally had enough money.  Cuz like everything else in Switzerland, it’s gorgeous and fantastic and expensive. 🙂  (There are actually some smaller resorts that are actually rather budget friendly, but you have to know how to already ski to take advantage of them. )

The first part of the plan was getting them all skis to use for the week.  We went to one of the local ski shops in the next town over.  They were really great about helping all the kids individually and really taking their time to make sure everything fit and was comfortable.  It took quite a while until everyone was satisfied.  In fact, in the time it took the girl to help all of us, the other guy waited on 3 other folks. 🙂

Finally the first week of sport vacation arrived.  We had signed the older kids up for full day lessons Monday through Wednesday, and Alexandra for half day lessons starting after lunch.  This meant that we all had to get up much earlier than we were used to during vacation to make the long drive to Engleberg before the 9 am start time.  Unfortunately, even though I called extra to make sure that the way to the ski school was clearly marked from the road, so that someone who had no idea where they were going would be able to find it, “oh yes, oh yes, big clear signs, no problem”, this was not the case.

There was a large sign pointing out a parking lot, but it was not clear which mountain/ ski area went with the parking lot, and certainly no mention of a ski school. So I drove into town to ask for directions.  The guy at the train station pointed in a vague direction to either “that ski school over there” or the “other one over there”, neither of which bore the name of the ski school I was asking about. sigh

So after walking around the tiny town aimlessly for a while, I called Chris to get the phone number of the ski school so I could get clearer directions.  She directed me back to the giant parking lot and then into this huge building filled with ski shops and ticket lines.  And there, mounted low down on the ski shop counter, hidden behind all the people paying for things was a tiny sign for the ski school.  Are you freaking kidding me?  This was the “impossible to miss” sign she was talking about?

Yeah, so we finally got the kids lift tickets and ran to find their teacher, now that it was after nine and they were late.  Talk about organized chaos!  In fact, it was so hectic, these pictures were actually taken on the second day.  I was too stressed to bother with getting out the camera that first morning. 🙂 This is the brave students with their teacher, Manuela.She did a great job dealing with their fears, their frustrations, and their physical limitations.  They all loved learning to ski, and were so glad we forced them to go.  Just look at those smiles!

It was a little scary letting them go that first day.  They were going way up to the top of the mountain, and I couldn’t follow them because Alexandra’s class was on the other side of the village.  So we just waved as they slowly made their way up and up and up.

Then Alexandra and I went back to the car and had some special together time.  I had brought yummy snacks and lunch, games to play and books to read aloud.  We also took a few little walks through the village, and even had lunch at a nice Italian restaurant one day.  She loved that. 🙂 And her manners and behavior were impeccable.  whew!

Then it was time for her lessons to start.  Thankfully I was able to have a front row seat for all the action.  This made us both feel much better about the whole thing.  Doesn’t she look adorable? The backdrop wasn’t too shabby either.

I was very relieved to see that Alexandra figured out how to get on and off the magic carpet almost immediately.  You never want your kid to be “that kid” holding up the rest of the group. Alexandra was not so sure at first if having a man teacher was going to be a good thing, but he was so good with the kids, she warmed right up to him.  It was adorable watching this big guy skiing with all these teeny kids in tow.

A big highlight was when the ski school mascot, Snowli stopped by for a visit.  Alexandra was the only one who got to shake his hand, even though she was too shy to actually speak to him.

The class stopped halfway through for a little drink break.  The teacher brought out cups and drink for the kids, and they had a nice rest for a few minutes.  Then it was back on the skis for more lessons.  Alexandra readily admitted that her favorite part of class was at the very end, when they got to ride in the giant crocodile like a sled!

The boys love to take walks together.  In all kinds of weather, and for quite a long time.  And when they discover really cool stuff, or an especially pretty trail, they like to show the rest of us.  So one Sunday afternoon, Chris and I set out with Nick and Noah as our fearless leaders to go on one of “their” hikes.  It’s nice having kids who are old enough that you can do this sort of thing.  Really, really nice. 🙂

We set off up the hill behind our house that leads around the edge of the forest.  Of course, the boys quickly veered off the trail so we could forge our own path.  So much more fun that way, especially in the snow.  It was definitely gorgeous.

A lot of the fun also involves finding sticks, hitting other objects that you see with those sticks and generally making everything into a sword fight somehow. 🙂

At first, our little foray into the wild was very nice, and the going was easy.  We even met up with another trail again and everything was lovely.  And then the boys veered off again.

This picture doesn’t show the steepness I was faced with quite as accurately as I would have hoped.  It was kind of scary, but I told myself that if Noah could do it, so could I.  I really do love that we have such beautiful surroundings right outside our door.

As we traveled along, we saw lots of funny footprints in the snow.  It was also fun trying to guess what was under all the strange mounds along the way.

We had been walking pretty steadily for quite a while, when the boys decided to liven things up a bit. 🙂

I think at this point, it was a light saber, and he was trying to melt through all the snow…

We finally got near to the hill they wanted to show us the top of.  But first we had to blaze a trail through some very deep snow in the field.I got lucky and just walked in the boys’ footsteps.  Poor Noah had to lift his feet up really high to clear the snow.  I think a lot of it ended up inside his boots. 🙁

And then we climbed straight up to the top.  It’s funny, because we have been walking past this hill for years, always speculating on what caused it.  Maybe it was a pile of old tires covered by dirt, maybe it was a pile of bodies, maybe it was  a giant compost pile, on and on it went.  Turns out during social studies Nick learned that it was caused when the top of Aeugsterberg slid down and landed on the side of the mountain.  Oh, well, that’s nice to know, but I think our theories were much more interesting. 🙂

Hmm, this makes the previous bit of steepness look flat as a pancake.  But onwards and upwards, yeah? And what do you know, we all made it! And then more silliness ensued.Well, Noah silliness, anyway.  The climb was definitely worth it.  What a gorgeous view.  Thank you, boys, for sharing with us.

On the way back to the house, I got a silly idea of my own…

And then I made a snow angel, and it looked so fun, others wanted to join me.

I was completely covered in snow, as was Noah, but it was definitely good to completely act like a kid again.