Poinsettia Christmas Tree

This is a poinsettia made of around 2500 single plants, watered 3 times a day :-D It stands at the Wiesbaden Kurhaus - this picture does not pay it enough tribute though.

The German Christmas Pickle is back... die deutsche Weihnachtsgurke ist zurück!

It never fails, every year I stumble across "one of the oldest german christmas traditions", the Christkind secretly places the presents under the tree, lights the candles (usually real candles on a real tree) and rings a very high pitched tiny bell to let the children know it was there.

after research it seems that it was only dubbed a german tradition over time.

So there you have it, the Pickle.

Which can be found in my fridge. Sour and in a glass jar. :-D

p.s., since my digital is still dead I will have to wait until my Mom emails me the pictures of the GORGEOUS pointsettia tree in the Wiesbaden Kurhaus made of 2400 (or so) pointsettias - maybe tomorrow? I´ll be sure to post it!!

A thought for the afterlife. :-D

This is for all my quilting friends who are not sure how they want to be getting cozy for that last long trip.. :-D

http://elbowoodsworks.com/casket_specialties.htm

Another quilter found this link and I had to share.. lol.. think they could do a log cabin or crazy quilt? Or maybe we should bring our own - what do you think?

My digital died..

it seems official, I can´t fix my trusted digital.. sniffers..
I´ve had it for at least 8 years, it´s a really nice yet totally outdated fuji MX-2900zoom that has travelled across continents with us, a small transformer in our luggage because it is 110 v.
Guess I´ll have to make myself a christmas present this year and find a nice digital again - or maybe just get a cheapo for now and look for a nice one next year.
Any suggestions?
I am SO LOST without my digital.. lol.. And I can´t post pictures of my new project either. Maybe I´ll just have to sneak my parents´ digital? he he he.. we´ll see.
Until I find a solution there probably won´t be many posts but that dilemma will hopefully be resolved within a couple of weeks!

Swan in love :-D

Only in Germany (?!) - this is the story of a swan that fell in love with a velo-swan this year and won´t leave his side.. lol.. it´s too cute.. now that the velo has to go to be stored for the winter they found it in their heart to put it in a location that is convenient for the ignored real swan so it can stay with it during the cold season.
I love this story - isn´t it great that the city of Münster is going out of it´s way and investing money into letting this swan be with his admired one? Over the course of the year the citizens of Münster have paid more and more attention to "black peter" and his girlfriend so that all efforts were made to give them both a way to make it through the winter together.. lol.. not so sure if the big white one cares but the small black one followed it the whole time into the winter accomodation.

Amazing Paper Cuts (not on my finger though :-D)

Wow - actually, at least triple-wow.. lol..
I´m off today..
I get to check my mail AND stroll through my favorite blog-neighborhood to see how everyone has been...
and I found this amazing paper art - click on A4 Papercut - I SO enjoy other people´s creativity!!!! He doesn´t just do those small paper cuts but tons of other things - the A4 cuts just happen to be my favorite this morning! Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!!
Back to my very own creativity challenge this morning - how to put a diaper on a 2 year old while crocodile wrestling with him at the same time.. lol..

Halloween 2006

Whew - who´d have thunked we´d get this lucky with the weather on all hallows eve? It´s been pretty warm all October and we decorated all around the house and between our neighbors and our house, set up outside and in the garages just in case it would rain. We´ve had many drenched trick or treatings in the past years but this one turned out to be perfect! For german standards we had alot of kids come to get candy and they were all dressed up really great - our first all german halloween was really fun! We´ve been so used to being in an american area where you know there´s candy in almost every doorway that it seemed odd to stay in our all german area this year - since we wanted to have a party here our choice was already made. The kids had tons of fun zipping around like a horde of energizer bunnies, the grownups were dancing all night - first salsa, then a bit heavy metal, back to salsa, merengue and then sort of 70/80s funky stuff - remember kung fu fighting? lol.. everyone had a great time and is already trying to get us to throw another one of these next halloween.. haha.. it really was great! Good food (salads & BBQ & german pretzels & greek tzaziki &&&..yumm) good company and good fun - what more can you ask for? When it finally started raining at around 1 am we were just greatful that it didn´t rain earlier. Unfortunately our digital is acting up so I didn´t get all of the pictures I wanted and didn´t even get all the decorations on either - darn! Here are some selected few though:


Nicole the dead school girl

and of course, Alex and Amber

clumsy surgeon and witch
we´re so dead :-D
the scary boriqua viking and death unveiled

Isa the mermaid breakdancing

What season are you?

OK, one for passing time. .lol..

You Belong in Spring

Optimistic, lively, and almost always happy with the world... You can truly appreciate the blooming nature of spring. Whether you're planting flowers or dyeing Easter eggs, spring is definitely your season!

What Season Are You?

I can sew this.. but can I read this??

Gosh darn it - I love the internet.. :-D
And I LOVE stumbling across free patterns, especially when my japanese reading skill really suck.. lol. but I think this is simple enough for me to figure out without actually having to read it, huh?
Domo aregato internet!!

London - finally some pics

Oh yeah - we finally got the pictures back from London - yippeh! Yes, it was my fault we didn´t have the digital with us to begin with but since it´s 110 V I figured noone in England would have a 110 outlet.. lol.. WRONG - out hotel sure did in every room! sheesh.. haha So I took the good old trusted 35 mm and here are some of the pictures. I can´t even put all of my London impressions in less than a 10 page essay so I´ll spare you the pain :-D But if you ever have the chance, go visit! I flew in on Thursday around noon with my colleague and got picked up by a limo service - veery nice, thank you Amgen.. lol.. then on to discover some of the surroundings of Hyde Park and Oxford Street until we got a hold of our boss and met up for a beer in a nice little pub around the corner from our hotel. Later on we had a business dinner with all the attendees of the meeting which was kinda fun since they were from all over Europe including the newer States of Lativa, Lithuania, Slovenia and other more eastern countries. Of course there were all the other European Nations as well but I was more curious to meet the ones from the areas I am not so familiar with. The next day was filled with one meeting chasing the other and worked our brains quite thoroughly but everything was well organized and the work part of this trip was fun as well (yippeh again! lol). Then DH flew in late afternoon and we began our venture through this 8 Million people city. I can´t believe how clean and green London is and felt so much more safe than in New York which has 8 Million citizens as well... So Saturday we went out bright and early to walk ALL OVER the city with hopping on and off buses and walking walking walking.. the weather was wonderful and we had a great time. At night we then went on to dance salsa at Salsa! on Charing Chross which was great but really crowded and hot. So we ate good, danced for a bit and left again to bathe in the huzzle and buzzle of a busy city like London at midnight. So here are the pictures mostly without comments as you can probably tell where they are taken at.. smile.. Oh yeah, no fabric shopping for me as I was more interested in oysters and toys at Harrods and forgot to visit the fabric department.. lol.. oh well, it was probably overprized anyways!


Disney Store on Oxford Street.. gotta love it!

Food Halls at Harrods. .hmm.. oysters..

Harrods at night (after our oyster feast)

at the London Tower

London Bridge from the Tower

London Bridge from the Bridge :-D




just another nice pub.. they´re everywhere I tell ya!

By Hyde Park - only in London :-D


Westerminster Abbey

What would HM do without bagpipes?? :-D

World Quilt Championship 2006 pictures

For all of you that have been waiting for the pictures to come online, here is the link for the german entries:
http://www.catherine-pascal.net/mancuso06/mancuso06.htm
Some of them just take my breath away and I know that I could NEVER EVER make anything even remotely as gorgeous - but I happily remain one of the people who totally appreciate the beauty of them so I guess that makes me part of the reason they´re made? lol.. or something like that.. ha ha..
Thanks Catherine (she´s the coordinator for Germany) - marvellous job putting it all together!!

And tomorrow I´ll finally post the pictures from London.. promise! :-D

why do babies grow up?

all I can say is SNIFF... why do our babies grow up??? Alex, our 2nd oldest is turning 18 tomorrow and is out partying as I speak (a little reminder, legal drinking age is 16 over here, staying out past midnight you have to be 18 though). Meanwhile back at the house of chaos, I´m making a cake for him that turned out to have 2 layers of devil´s food cake, some vanilla frosting in between and chocolate frosting on top... since I didn´t really have decorations and I had no idea what to do (just like Alex who has no clue about what to do now that he´s 18 and a MAN.. lol) I am calling it "I´m so confused".. lol..

Oh, in case you wonder about the Sky Diver dude toy next to the cake, that is the clue to his birthday present.. grin grin.. I wonder how long it will take him to figure out what it is..

Before I got around to making the cake we were all hanging out

outside with whomever walked by - including his cute little turkish friend from the neighborhood.. and of course the icecream eating monsters he usually hangs with...

nices, sunny day - what more can you ask for?

Craft Day September

To make things short, this is how we spent our day yesterday - September Craft Day - why write more when Kristin already did such a good job? grin grin.. and if you go to her site you can check out the gorgeous Raps quilt she finished yesterday!!!!
The pumpkin swirl cheesecake tasted really good, too, btw :-D

Metric baking...

Ok, here is my dilemma - I had the kraftfoods magazine in my mail last week or so and as my daughter was going through it to look for "yummy cupcakes for my birthday" she showed me this pumpkin swirl cheesecake..
As tomorrow is our monthly craftday and Silke wanted to make pumpkin soup I figured this would be a good thing to make for desert (yes, we do actually work on our projects and don´t just eat all day in case you´re wondering.. he he). Here is proof if you can manage to scroll down past these gorgeous ATCs ;-) because you´ll find a picture of some of us working and NOT eating.. grin
Anyways, I went shopping for all the ingredients for the cake today, had to go back for what I forgot the first time around and started crushing the ginger snaps and chopping the pecans. Actually, dh did the crushing. After mixing both with melted butter I put them in the spring form and guess what.....
I had not been thinking! It called for a spring form, a 9 inch spring for to be exact. I looked in my cupboard this morning and was really happy to find a spring form that looked like the standard thing. The one thing I left out of my consideration was that I was converting from inches to metric and the US system to the European system.. so no, the form was NOT 9 inches but more like 12.. lol..
So not enough stuff for the bottom layer of crust. Hubby had to crush some more ginger snaps and I expanded the rest of the recipe to try and accomodate for the changed measurements.
Somehow I must have gotten the Fahrenheit to Celcius conversion wrong because it turned out a bit darker than on the picture in the magazine.. :-D
But who cares, maybe I left it in the oven for 5 min. too long because I tried to compensate for the added ingredients or I was distracted by Juju and his friend sitting around the computer after destroying my work area..lol..
As it has to cool down over night and I want to take it to craft day in one piece I can´t even tell you if it turned out good yet.. except for that tiny little piece that got stuck on the pan when I removed the ring.. yumm.. ha ha ha - I hope the ladies can forgive me for letting it get too dark!
Monthly craft day - what a wonderful thing that is - we´re usually meeting up around noon and eat first, talk some and then work on our projects and talk some more and look at magazines - a whole Saturday afternoon just for us, women that can appreciate the sentence "and then I sat up all night taking all of the seams out again wanting to bite myself in the ass" .. ha ha ha..

Dino-Day

What a gorgeous day to spend at the Dino-Park in K-Town! Yes, there is more than World Cup Soccer there. The grounds are actually a permanent horticultural show that has beautiful new displays every year and some that are there for good - the Dinosaurs. Friend Tanya recommended it for a fun time with the kids so we threw the kids in the respective cars and met up. It was great - from a foggy early morning it turned into a very warm and gorgeous "almost autumn" day (tomorrow is the beginning of autumn according to the calendar). Isa and Megan are about to become a Dino Snack.. he he
Juju made the transformation from rainjacket to barefoot and rolled up jeans first and got adequately wet and dirty. It´s quite a walk that leads you through a cavern in the beginning, over a bridge to a neat tower (that we unfortunately didn´t climb - there´s always next time!) and down to the garden grounds with the dinosaurs.
Right at the beginning you can rent these cool dino carts for 2.50 €.
This is where they ask for donations - you can place them on the elefants trunk and it the coins will spiral down towards the funnel - coooool.. you can actually spot a 50 Eurocent piece almost all the way down the funnel. The kids could have emptied out both of our bank accounts here.. he he.. and still watch for hours after that!

It´s quite a walk that leads you through a cavern in the beginning, over a bridge to a neat tower (that we unfortunately didn´t climb - there´s always next time!) and down to the garden grounds with the dinosaurs where you can also find a huge playground with climbing, hiding, water and sand play areas for all ages.
These "onions" have entrance holes on the bottom and you can sit comfortably inside. If you´re lucky (like our kids) you´ll find an adult to spin and swing you around (Tanya) for a looong time and just giggle around the whole time.. lol

You simply have to love the sight of your kid locking himself in.. :-D
The steep climb behind the water area had me a bit worried but as there were a couple of bully kindergarten girls that Juju was standing his ground to I wasn´t about to embarrass him by helping.. lol..
The spiral thing on this water play area actually transports water up the hill by turning it - this is definitely one of my favorites here!
In between we stopped at a nice pond, looked at various dinosaurs, picked flowers and finally came to a stop at these sandboxes where the kids could sift the sand for fossil shark teeth and gems.. uuuuh...
Megan and Isa mostly found little pebble size rocks that they called gems.. ha ha..
Brandon and Juju are doing some nice exploring though.. but no fossils..
Isa ended up having to get the same dinosaurs as Brandon, only the little ones had different ones.. lol.. and the dino gettogether would probably have lasted longer if it wasn´t for these grownups!
What a great day - Juju didn´t make it out of the parking lot awake and Isa fell asleep later on the Autobahn (she missed out on an empty road that let me go 160 kps for a long time) and I actually got to sit down and write this entry while they were still crashed out on the couch.. lol..