Merry Christmas to all!

Christmas day-The girls are wearing their gift from Oma & Opa

I've been quite lax about posting the last couple of weeks. So many Christmas parties, church obligations, school stuff...but here I am to catch up. We have successfully made it through the Christmas season in one piece. It was a very lovely time. Lennart and the two biggies have left to take Oma, Opa, and Uncle Marcus home and Sarah and I are left here to clean up. So what am I doing? Updating my blog-finally! Hope you all had a nice Christmas as we did. Enjoy the rest of the year!

Da da da dummmm! Ella's 1st Reconcilliation!

Ella is the girl in hot pink-Elisabeth is also there, in the poncho

What is the color of fear. That is the color I should be typing this post in. Ella had her 1st Reconciliation (Confession-for those of you non catholics) last Saturday. The priest wanted us parents to be good role models and also go to confession. Ella has been learning her prayers and the correct responses for a few months now and was totally nervous. What I couldn't tell her was that I too was nervous. I haven't been to confession since my very 1st one almost 30 years ago! I was secretly learning all the correct responses and prayers right there with her. We went alphabetically, so we got to be 3rd in line. We had two priests, one for the kids, one for the parents. Wow, the kid line moved quickly, but we parents apparently had lots to say,our line took forever. Ella came away from hers before I had mine. She was elated! She loved it-said she wants to do it all the time. We do have a really lovely priest. Feeling only a little relieved from her good experience, I headed off for mine. I'll spare you the details but it actually went very well. I was so worried, imagining the priest yelling at me and damning me to hell, I forgot, they are actually very nice, caring people, who actually want to help me be a better person not yell at me. During the following mass, Ella and her class sang the Hail Mary and at the end received their Certificate of Reconciliation. I was very proud of her! She did a great job, now on to 1st Communion in May!

Ice Skating at the Old Opera

So, look back a few weeks ago, on a Thursday after school. Rachel, Sarah, and I decide to take the kids to the temporary ice rink outside of the Frankfurt Old Opera.

It was a beautiful night. The 8 children had a blast. Unfortunately, two of them were not old enough to skate-just old enough to very thoroughly annoy their mothers. Yes, you guessed it-Sarah was one of those children! She took it upon herself to explore the area every chance she got. The bad part is, we are in the middle of the city which is very busy and full of people getting off work and coming around to drink hot mulled wine or finish some Christmas shopping. She is just small enough to maneuver very quickly and easily through the crowd. Unfortunately, I am not small enough and was constantly having a mild stroke thinking she was gone forever in a sea of people. After a few of the above mentioned strokes, I decided I had to get out of there-much to the disdain of my other children!

One week later, on the last day of school before the winter break, the three of us thought it a good idea to try it again, this time with even more kids from Ella's class. However, this time, Sarah and I left our little ones at Sarah's preschool. A much better time was had by all. Sadly, I forgot my camera but it's the same location, just even more kids. It was a really lovely way to end the school year with skates, hot chocolate, friends, and a beautiful backdrop.

My cup runneth over, with Christmas shows!

Yesterday seemed to be Christmas Performance Jubilee! First Sarah's 2 year old preschool class was up at bat. They sang Twinkle Twinkle and Jingle Bells. Very cute! Here is Jingle Bells (Sarah is in the middle wearing a burgundy dress):

After a quick trip back home for a nap, Sarah and I were out of there and off to Hannah's Christmas party. Her mixed age group sang a german song and her preschool group sang a super crazy spanish Christmas song. When Lennart and I first saw the lyrics and heard a pop version of this song, we thought they were crazy for trying to get our non spanish kids to sing this but they did a great job! Unfortunately, at the show they turned the lights down, so the video is way too dark and you can't actually see Hannah but you can hear them and it's too cute! For whatever reason, I can't seem to upload it here but did manage on youtube. Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsNG3gO47og

Following Hannah's show, all three girls and I were off to the German/American Choir's Singing Christmas Tree. It is a lovely show, but come 7pm, after a hard day of parties, the two youngest were not in the mood any more. I spent half of the show with Hannah hanging on me, asking how much longer and the other half chasing Sarah around the church and taking her back and forth to the bathroom just to kill time! It started out a great day, but I think ended with one show too many. Somehow, it's just not really special quality time if I keep getting annoyed and telling one girl or another to stop complaining and just feel Christmasy! Remind me of that next year, if I mention trying something similar again.

PS. The following video is Hannah's Grand Finale. Live, she is in the3rd row in the middle. On the white screen above, she has long blond hair and a blue long sleeve shirt on and is in the front far right.

3rd Annual Christmas Cookie Decorating

The long awaited, very highly anticipated, super dooper, fun for everyone Christmas cookie decorating/cookie exchange at the Poth family house has finally arrived. My girls have been asking for months, "When are we decorating cookies at the Poth house?" Every year, our hostess, Leanne, goes to wild lengths to ensure that everyone has fun and has once again succeeded. After baking some 200 cookies for the 18 children to decorate, making 16 different colors of frosting, and filling a trillion little bowls with assorted cookie toppings, she whipped up lots of yummy goodies for us moms.

MMM, I sure look forward to the baked brie and champagne!

Most of these kids are already friends, but there were a couple that were new to us. Hannah immediately hooked up with the cutest little thing named Lottie and they seemed like they had been life long friends.

Leanne makes the cutest decorations for the day. I especially like "Don't frost your friends"

We moms don't get all this fun and excitement for free, though. We each baked 8 dozen cookies to earn our keep-that's right 96 cookies! Or in my case, 96 pieces of chocolate walnut fudge. Everyone takes 10 of each type of cookie and now my kitchen counter is home to a myriad of yummy Christmas goodies!

After all the fun, Leanne even fed our children dinner-no not cookies! Hot dogs, pizza, and pretzels.

After a long, but very fun afternoon, I put the big girls in bed and Sarah and I tried to stay awake to see Elf on television, so much for that!

Thanks for a blast, Leanne and can't wait for next year!