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Just a couple of funny things the kids have said or done lately, that I want to write down before I forget. After the first big snowfall two weeks ago, we were encouraging the kids to go outside and sled. Yes, we sometimes have to convince our children that leaving the house can be a fun thing. They were actually quite enthusiastic until Nick looked out the window and noticed that our neighbor boy, Luca, and his friend were already outside. He told Chris he didn't want to go out as long as they were there in case they did something mean. Chris laughingly pointed out that they were all of 6 years old and probably posed no harm to his 11 year old self. To which Nick replied heatedly, "You don't know. Kindergarteners are really mean these days!" He eventually went out and had a great time.
Last year we were invited to a super fun New Year's Eve party, complete with fancy food, great company and games for the kids. I also crashed the car on the way there. :( This year we were happy to stay home in a boring, but safe, way and celebrate as just a family. I had bought a bunch of snacky food that we normally never eat; chips, pretzels, Ritz crackers, etc. I also made a couple of dips, and a veggie tray. We ate that for dinner, which the kids enjoyed and then let them watch a movie.
The kids were a bit disappointed that they couldn't stay up until midnight, but we had learned another lesson from last year. It doesn't matter how late our kids go to bed, they will.not.sleep.in! So, we broke open the bubbly at 9, wished them all Happy New Year and sent them to bed. :) They asked to be woken up for the fireworks at midnight, and I dutifully tried to rouse them, but they sleep like logs and even though I shook them a bit, they still didn't wake up. They were a bit ticked at me the next morning, since they missed all the fun but after hearing all the things I had tried, short of dousing them with cold water to wake them up, they forgave me. They did ask again, how old they would have to be before they could stay up all the way. Chris said 18, which was followed by loud howls of protest. I shook my head at his complete break with reality and told them that when they were 12, they could stay up until 12. That calmed them back down again.
We watched the new Star Trek film, for the second time. We saw it back in the summer, but I wanted to watch it again. It was so good! So Chris obliged. Such a fun movie, I can't wait for the next one to come out. We went to bed soon after it was over. A very quiet New Year's, that is for sure, but still enjoyable.
Our annual passes for Tierpark Goldau were expiring at the end of the year, so we decided to go for one last visit while Maddie was here. Since we already have the tradition of visiting the Zurich Zoo every New Year's Day, we wanted to have at least one day in between zoo visits. This meant, that even though it was drizzly and overcast, we still headed out for an adventure. Oh, and we left Chris home again, since part of his Christmas present was having some true downtime. No job, no kids, no noise in the house. I get downtime pretty regularly, Chris hardly ever. He said it was the perfect present. :)
It was drizzling and a bit chilly when we arrived at the park, but this worked to our advantage. We got a parking spot right next to the entrance! That never happens. We usually end up in the annex parking a half a mile away, so this was exciting stuff. There were quite a few animals out and about, despite the bad weather, but sadly no babies this time. The old bear enclosure was fun, you could even go into their hibernation cave. I was a bit nervous about some one falling into the water that used to separate the bears from the people. That was still there, and from the bear side, there isn't anything between you and a cold, slimy swim. Eventually, there were too many close calls and I hauled them all out of there.
The long slide was closed due to the weather, so we just went straight into the fun part of the zoo, where you get to walk around with the free roaming animals and feed them. We had three boxes of food between us, which was pretty good since I knew Alexandra, Noah and Nick don't actually like to feed the animals. They terrify the younger two, and Nick just thinks it's nasty that they actually like your hand. Blech! :) Maddie was a bit hesitant at first, but Sarah showed her the trick of holding your hand nice and flat for them to lick the pellets off of, and soon she was an old pro.
Sometimes when we have come, the zoo has been so crowded that the animals aren't really hungry and we take a long time to empty our feed boxes. Today, with the crowds being so thin, it was completely the opposite. The animals were starving and pretty much stampeded toward anyone with an outstretched hand. They are only deer and bighorn sheep, so it isn't like they can actually hurt you, but they do get quite demanding at times. In fact, we ended up having to have one person with food draw away the animals, and then the rest of us would scurry past to safer ground. I thought it was hilarious, Alexandra and Noah, not so much.
While we were in the Bartgeier (native vulture) exhibit, it really started raining hard. Torrential downpour would be an adequate description. So we decided to stay under cover and have our lunch next to the stuffed vulture! Fortunately, I had brought hot dogs that didn't need to be cooked, as Chris gently pointed out before I left the house that there probably wouldn't be a bonfire going in the fire pit due to the weather and I needed to plan on NOT grilling our lunch. ha! Seriously, how can I be in charge of five innocent little souls and still be so clueless sometimes? By the time the last crumbs of bread had disappeared, the skies had cleared and we had pretty much no more rain for the rest of the day. Still a bit cold though, so we kept our jackets on.
Just as we passed the bunny enclosure, Sophie showed me how loose her tooth was getting. She said she wasn't going to wiggle it anymore so it wouldn't fall out in the park. Famous last words. We hadn't gotten more than 100 feet, before she triumphantly held out her hand with the tooth inside!
Maddie was the only one brave enough to climb the ladder and go feed the miniature goats, but we did pass them some food through the fence. Apparently, it wasn't enough. :)
It was a fun day, if a bit damp, and Maddie entertained the kids with fun stories the whole way home.
As I've said before, one of our favorite things about having guests is the excuse to go do touristy stuff with them. Maddie was perfectly content to just hang out and play with the kids or talk to me, but also willing to go see whatever we suggested. In short, she was the perfect houseguest! :) The Tuesday after Christmas we decided to take her to see "the world's largest nativity scene" and invited our friends, Tanya, Max and Jasper along.
I have been to this display three times now, and every time I see some new detail I didn't catch before. The figures are all hand carved wood, and the backdrop was designed to look just like the area around Bethlehem at the time of Christ. I think it is my love of miniatures in general, that draws me in. The Wise Men and their entourage are very impressive, and they have servants setting out the boxes of treasure, waiting to present them to the newborn King. The tiny pearl necklaces and jewelry are so intricate and detailed. I could stare at them the whole time. But the kids are always pulling me to come look at something else! There is a continuous running dialogue that plays in the background but how the nativity scene was built, what it is constructed of, how many years it took and so forth. If you kindly ask the cashier, she will play it in your mother tongue as well. So even though most of us speak German, we still had her play it in English in case we missed anything. There is something just so comforting about hearing something that you know for sure you completely understand when you are in a foreign country. Yes, I do love it here, and feel at home here, but still, I have moments every day where I am wondering if they really said what I thought they said.
Anyway, the other visitor friendly feature is the step and hand rail they have built all along the walls where the nativity scene is displayed. This allows the children to actually see what the adults are all gawking at, and the hand rail ensures they have something to hold on to in case they start to fall off the step.
Afterward we walked a couple of blocks to the lebkuchen museum.
What I was most thankful for, though, was that the woman manning the store let the kids use the employee bathroom. Einsiedeln is a good 40 minute drive away, and by the time we got to the museum, they all needed a potty break. Perhaps it helped that they are all so adorable, I don't know. But I was just glad I didn't have to take any of them outside to find a tree!
After we had watched the little movie about the boy who wants to become a chocolatier, instead of a baker, in the upstairs part of the museum, we came back downstairs to choose our postcards and goodies. They sell two different kinds of cookie, and since they both looked so delicious, I bought a small bag of each. Good thing, because the kids were definitely ready for their afternoon snack. They munched on them as we walked up the slight incline to the edge of town where the famous monastery is.
It is an actual working monastery, and the monks live in a large dormitory connected to the side of the church. You can walk the grounds, visit the horses, and there is even a small playground for the visiting children. Since everything was covered with snow, though, we just stuck to the inside of the church. The ceilings are painted in very bright, cheerful colors, and the floors have these gorgeous mosaics. Sarah was fascinated by the pews with built in knee rests for when you pray during church. And of course, the dead bodies enshrined along the sides of the building are always a huge hit. My children love the macabre, what does that say about me as their mother?
By now it was getting kind of late, so we slowly headed back to the car. Good thing I had a few cookies left to ensure everyone had enough energy to make it. Nicholas gets a huge kick out of Tanya's little boy, Jasper. He loves to play silly games with him, generally resulting in Jasper getting totally riled up and a bit wild. I was trying to get Nick to leave him alone, but they were both laughing so much it didn't do much good. And then Jasper, who can talk like a 5 year old even though he is only 2 1/2, said the funniest thing which is now part of our families vocabulary. There were piles of snow everywhere, and he decided to climb up one. But, you know, he's 2 1/2 with typical short, chubby toddler legs, so this tiny mound of snow was actually pretty hard for him to scale. He persevered, though, and as he came down the other side he held out his arms and said "Victory!" So, now, anytime any of us does anything remotely difficult, we say "victory!" in imitation of Jasper.
It was a fun outing made better by good friends. Thanks for joining us, guys!
My poor, poor children. Do you know what their horrible mother made them do? Wait until the completely unbearable hour of 8:30 to open presents Christmas morning! Oh the agony! Oh the torture! Oh the complete and utter wretchedness of it all! But I was soooo tired, I just couldn't get out of bed any earlier. Believe you me, they tried their darndest to get me up, but it just wasn't happening. Finallly, finally, though that great, timeless motivator, Mother Guilt, got me out of bed and into the living room with a smile plastered on my face, ready to face all that unbridled little kid excitement.
In our family we have a time honored ritual of how we open presents. One person chooses a present from under the tree, any present, so long as it isn't intended for him/her, and gives it to the recipient. We all watch as that person opens the present and admires the contents inside. If it is a book, the person is even allowed time to flip through a few pages, read the back cover, etc. Then whoever opened the last present, chooses a new present for someone else to open. Factor in 8 people, overly generous parents, and a Santa who just had to reward all those good Charles children on his list, and it is easy to see why it took until 11:30 to finish opening all the gifts.
Chris was also very on top of things, grabbing a brand new garbage bag and placing it to the side of his chair just before the unwrapping started. The kids took off the paper and bows, he picked it up and put right in the bag. No clean up later necessary. Hurray!
I hadn't really planned on anything specific for breakfast, other than hot chocolate to drink out of the new mugs Sophie made everyone. So I took a poll, and decided on omelets, scrambled eggs, bread, juice, and of course, the hot chocolate. Everyone devoured their food, starving as they were, and then went off to play with all their new goodies. But now it was lunchtime, time for the big fancy Christmas feast, and not a single person was hungry. So we ate the homemade raviolis and ham for dinner instead. They were delicious, and my new ravioli tray from Tupperware worked great. Hurray!
We rounded out the day with lots of video chats to extended family around the globe. Technology is such a wonderful, amazing thing. My brother just sat the laptop on my parents' kitchen table, and it was like I was right there hanging out with all the rest of them. What a wonderful way to keep the homesickness at bay. Merry Christmas Everyone!
I decided to get a jump on the usual Christmas Eve gift-wrapping pandemonium that generally ensues right around 10:30 pm and goes on into the wee hours every year. I would be tricky and wrap up everything the night BEFORE the night before Christmas, so I could be wide awake and chipper for the big festivities. The natural result of this was that I learned I am much, much too old for a 2 am bedtime, I was groggy and fuzzy-headed all Christmas Eve, and I still didn't get all the presents wrapped because I ran out of paper, and my extra stash was in Alexandra's room where she was sleeping. Doh!
But it was still a pleasant day. I kept thinking we should do something "traditional"; watch a classic Christmas movie, or sing carols all day, I am not really sure what. The kids, however, just wanted to play with Maddie and work on their own Christmas presents. Sophie finished hers in my room, hiding behind our bed, so in case anyone walked in, they couldn't see what she was doing, and she would still have time to tell them to leave. When she was finished, Sarah wrapped her presents for everyone in there. Nick and I had worked on his presents the past two days, and then I finished them up in the morning and we wrapped them as well. I had an idea for Noah to make for everyone, but simply ran out of time this year. I cut out a lot of stuff I usually do for Christmas, but I was still always playing catch up this year. Very strange.
Growing up, my mom always made a big fancy Christmas Eve dinner, that we ate on her special china. I have tried to keep up that tradition through the years, but it doesn't always work. The main reason is because we have now adopted the European custom of eating our main meal at lunchtime, so no one wants a big, heavy meal at dinner. Then again, I was busy with the kids all day, which was more important and rewarding than spending hours in the kitchen preparing and cooking a feast. So, in the end, we had chicken enchiladas for lunch and used our nice dishes and Christmas place mats. And for dinner we again used the fancy places, but just had the usual bread and cheese and veggies for dinner.
But the one tradition we never skip, is the acting out of the original Christmas story. We were all excited to have an extra actor this year, as it made divvying up the parts easier. No one had to do double duty this time! My big plan was to film us for the special Christmas message I wanted to post here on my blog while we were doing the play. But the kids were having too much fun to settle down enough for a blog-worthy performance, and I didn't want to run the risk of getting frustrated and short-tempered with them, seeing as how it was Christmas Eve and all, so I just scratched it and decided we would still be celebrating Christmas 8 hours earlier than most of our family, I could just film something the next day. :)
The kids set out a plate of cookies and a giant mug of milk for Santa, and also made sure to blow out the candles that had been lit in the fireplace.
Of course, this is the first year that I did the bulk of the shopping as well. Usually, we make a list of what we want to get each child, then Chris goes off to ToysRUs and wherever else he needs to and buys it all. What he can't find in the store, he orders online. It has been really nice having him take over that responsibility, but for some reason this year, it didn't work out. Not really sure why. We still made the list as usual, discussing each purchase, weighing the pros and cons, but then I just ended up doing the shop instead. Perhaps because the kids are all older now , or still young enough to be clueless, so it was easier for me to get out and do it while they were at school. Next year, I may still be able to swing it since Alexandra will be in preschool at least one morning a week, but we will have to see. Oh, right, but my point was, that when Chris was in charge of the shopping he also always bought a little more than was on the list, because "it was so cute" "I knew they would just love it" and several other reasons. He is such a little softie when it comes to his kids. I love it!
At 2:30, the last of the wrapping was done and I crawled off to bed. Yes, I stayed up even later than the night before, making two nights of not enough sleep in a row. I am an old woman, I cannot function without at least 8 hours of sleep a night. I was exhausted come Christmas morning. In fact, I was so tired, that my poor children, some of whom had been up since 6, some of whom had obediently stayed in bed until 7, had to wait until 8:30 to start opening presents. Yes, I tortured them and SLEPT IN that long. They tried to get me up earlier, but I refused. I just could not do it. But I think they forgave me when they finally got a peek at what was inside all those wrapped packages. :)
The Tuesday before Christmas, we headed over to Basel to visit the Weihnachtsmarkt and the Doll Museum located nearby on the advice of some friends. The kids weren't excited about the long drive ahead, so I told them we could bring along the dvd players. Suddenly, they were all smiles and raring to go! My friend had sent me a link to a map detailing where we should park in Basel, exactly where the Doll Museum was, and lots of other handy information. But for some reason, that morning, although I searched and Chris searched, we couldn't find it anywhere in my inbox. So, we did our best with Googlemaps and hoped that Suzy, our GPS, would do the rest.
We got there all right, and even found the parking garage she had recommended. After that it all started to go downhill. I was under the impression that the parking garage was just a couple blocks away from the Doll Museum and market. And that being as these were kind of touristy sorts of things, there would be signs pointing the way. Ha! Ha! Ha! What a silly goose I am. So we resorted to the next best thing, stopping people on the street and asking them. But apparently, people in Basel have never heard of these strange things for tourists, have no desire to visit them, and no clue where they might possibly be located. (A few even pretended to not understand my German. WHATEVER!) Finally, after about 4 failed attempts, we found a nice older lady who knew what we were talking about. But the directions she gave us, although seemingly direct and clear, turned out to be not so concise. We ended up near a type of Christmas Market, but it was only selling food and had a couple small rides. Somehow, it didn't jive with the advertising photos I had seen on their website. (Yeah, this thing is big enough to have its own website, but no advertising anywhere in the actual city it is located at. So bizarre.) But it did have a clean restroom, which is what some of us were in dire need of at this point.
After that, we sort of wandered around the square a bit, thinking surely we would find some small sign with an arrow pointing the way, but no, nothing. We asked a couple more people, who again pretended not to understand my German. Seriously, when did Basel become French speaking? And then in desperation, I went to my fail safe and called Chris. He looked up where we were and guided us street by street to the Doll Museum. From there, we could see the Weihnachtsmarkt and all was well. Thanks, Honey!
In hindsight, we should have eaten first and then gone into the Doll Museum. But I didn't realize how much stuff there was inside to look at, since from the outside it is so small and unimposing looking. So, I thought we would just look around for an hour, tops, and then head over to the market. Wrong! This place was fantastic. It is worth the hour drive to go back and only visit this place. It is 4 floors of packed fluffy adorableness. We only made it through the top 2 floors in two 1/2 hours, and that was even skipping some stuff. There were dolls, teddy bears, miniatures, tin toys, and all set out in the most fabulous displays. Some of them even moved! There would be a button on the wall, you pushed it, and suddenly lights started going on, music would be playing, and things were spinning around. There was an entire carnival scene that came to life, a giant teddy bear car race, and a few others.
The kids were running all around, slightly overwhelmed, and not sure what they should look at first. I would hear "Mom, come here, you HAVE to see this!" I would walk through the different columns and aisles trying to find the exact source of the excitement, only to hear from another distant spot, "No way! Mom, come here! There is something I REALLY want to show you!" I finally said they should stay where they were and I would come to them in an orderly fashion, as I had things I wanted to look at as well. :) There were so many cute, fun things, but I think my hands down favorite was the entire village shopping street they had set up, on two different levels, with stores of all kinds, and people coming in and out, and children playing, beautiful landscaping, and all in miniature. There was a cheese shop, a bakery, a shoe store, a toy store and more. Gorgeous! I could have stood all afternoon just looking at that one display.
Finally, our hungry tummies were screaming louder than our happy eyes, so we left the museum and went over to the market to eat and do a little shopping. Nick and I chose pizza topped with potato and leeks, and the rest of the kids had hot dogs. The pizza was so good, I ended up letting him have half of my slice as well. The difference between crust baked in a stone oven, and a regular one is so huge! If we ever get to build our own house, I am definitely including a wood heated pizza/bread oven.
I had told the kids that I would by them something from the market as their Advent surprise for the day. We wandered around trying to find something appropriate, admiring all the beautiful scarves, wooden plaques, beautifully shaped candles and other wares that were for sale. Finally, we found it, a little house full of Christmas ornaments.
An HOUR, yes, you read that right, an HOUR later, we finally arrived at the parking garage with sore feet, but not too much grumbling, the kids could tell I was too worried to bother me with much whining of their own. We knew what the parking garage was called, we saw it on a map, but the map didn't tell us where WE were in relation to the parking garage. Then we saw a traffic sign with the name of the parking garage on it and an arrow, so we followed that for a while, but then the road curved one way, and the sidewalk we were on curved the opposite way and we would be lost again. It was a terrible, awful, horrible, no good, very bad thing. Why didn't I just call Chris? Oh, I did, over and over and over. But my cell phone wasn't working right, I couldn't dial out, I could only text to his Blackberry. Which he had turned off. He finally saw my list of frantic messages as we were walking through the door of the garage. I am afraid in my frustration and exhaustion, I just snapped at him that I didn't need him NOW and hung up. Not a good thing at all. I still feel bad about it, two weeks later.
Anyway, when we realized we were horribly off course, seeing as how we had left the downtown area completely, we asked a lady to help us find the parking garage. We said the name, and she said, "Oh! You are very far away! " She pointed down a long street, and told us to walk all the way to the end, and then turn left. We wearily followed her instructions, passing a train station along the way. At this point, I seriously considered hopping a train back home and letting Chris come find the car on his own the next day. I was that sick of it and that discouraged. But we preserved, only to discover at the end of this long street, that there was no way to turn left. It ended in a large shopping mall, and tram station. Great!
But, ta-ta-ta-dum! A very nice English man on a bike, heard us asking someone how to find the parking garage, stopped and gave us perfect, clear, concise, and CORRECT directions that led us right to the garage in a matter of a few minutes. Bless him. We were never so happy to see a large pile of concrete in all our lives. We all piled in the car, dying of thirst, to happily discover a partially full bottle of water in the car, that we all shared. Strangely enough, no one complained about germs this time. :) We made it home without further incident, but I think we will wait on returning back to Basel and the Doll Museum until the trauma has had more time to wear off. I told the kids, well, at least we got to see parts of Basel most tourists never even venture into! Oh, and did I mention I didn't bother bringing the stroller because Alexandra never sits in it for short walks and we weren't going very far anyway? Which meant
she walked for almost that whole, long, horrible hour. Without a single whimper of complaint. What a perfect baby.
It has now become tradition that every vacation, the kids build a fort under the eave in the playroom and hide out in there most of the day. Come evening time, they always ask if they can sleep in there as well. The first time we let them, when Amelia was here, kind of ended up being a disaster. Hardly anyone slept, there was lots of getting up and being told to lie back down, talking and general let's-do-everything-we-can-to-keep-each-other-awake antics. In fact, I think some of them ended up in their own beds before the night was over. But since it isn't such a new experience anymore, they are getting better at it.
Here they are in all their cute, cuddly glory.
The Sunday before Christmas, we had tons of beautiful snow. There was white everywhere you looked. Like this.
The kids were concerned that we were going "too far" and might get lost if we didn't turn back soon. But having jogged or biked this path before, we both knew it would eventually loop around and take us right back home again. As we got closer to the forest, we started to see some animal tracks in the snow. One of the kids' favorite books is called "Tracks in the Snow", so they all started guessing which animal it came from and made a game of following the same set of tracks for as long as they could. They forgot all about the cold, or the length of time we were outside and just enjoyed the beauty of the wilderness. Ah, that's a good parenting moment.
When we eventually made it back to the house, hot chocolate seemed more appropriate, but they still all wanted root beer floats. So that is what they had. They definitely hit the spot for these little snow children!
Thursday, the 17th was Nicholas' school Christmas concert. As in years past, it was held at the village church, which makes for a beautiful setting. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of seats available, as the population was even smaller 300 years ago when it was built, as it is now. We have been just right on time to previous concerts, resulting in us standing in the way back, or out in the foyer, able to hear but unable to see much of anything. I wanted this year to be different. So instead of dropping off Nick early for practice and coming back with the rest of the family later, I made sure everyone was ready to go when he was. Since I have never been there early before, though, I didn't realize we weren't allowed to enter the church until 10 minutes before the concert started. This meant that we were standing in the foyer, leaning up against the door for a good 15 minutes or so. That is an eternity to small children. It got worse as the crowd started to grow and press in on us. It was pretty cool to be the first ones in line, though! :)
Chris was surprised when I didn't head right for the front row, since we had our pick of seats. But I figured that it would be better to be prepared for a quick escape, so chose the fourth row back instead. This way, if we had to leave with a screaming toddler in tow, we would only have to walk past HALF the town. Alexandra turned out to be a perfect angel, as long as Papa held her in his arms, it was Noah that had to be threatened with bodily harm before he settled down and acted like a human rather than a monkey.
The choir consisted of the fourth, fifth and sixth graders, and they did a great job. Pascal, a boy in Nick's class who played the drums at the circus performance, also accompanied them on two songs in the concert. He did a great job. Herr Geiger played his Geige, or violin, which always cracks the kids up, and Christian Stuckert, a very nice older man from town, played the piano.
Okay, sorry got off on a slight tangent there.
For the final song they sang "Stille Nacht". They had tried to include several different languages in the program, to represent the diversity (haha) at the school. There was something in Latin, Romansch, Swiss German, English, and High German. After the last verse of "Stille Nacht", they sang the first verse again, this time in English. It was very nice. It was a great way to take a break from all the hustle and stress of getting things ready for the big celebration and just enjoy the spirit of the season. Thanks, Nick!
