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..

Kartoffelbug - think he´s hibernating?!

Kartoffelbug (remember him? see the previous post) seems to either have dug himself in the soil to hibernate or he has unfortunately ended his life since autumn is coming around and that is his normal circle of life.
It´s still sad because Isa loved him so much and he was sitting in my kitchen all the time getting new potato or tomato leaves including the occasional potato piece as a treat (he loved it.. lol). We have left his habitat up for now just to make sure in case he´s just hibernating (yeah, slim chance I know).
One can only imagine next years pet bug! And yes, you´ll most definitely hear about it and it will be treated great!

Kinderfest

Wohoo! Today they had the semi-annual Kinderfest at the Middle-School with the usual favorites - Kathy´s horses, free food, free games for the kids, face painting, the italian ice cream truck and the wonderful playgrounds that are usually only open for recess during school hours.
All of our children are part ape so they spend alot of time recklessly climbing the playground equipment. What a great day and a wonderful turnout for the community! Isa even received a free Mickey and Donald "The three Musketeers" DVD and a sing-along-tape that I´m sure I´ll grow to hate during our morning commute.. grin grin..

































Oh yeah, and of course there was the daily pet-stalking.. Juju is also known as the CAT-NAPPER now because he brings little Leo home all the time.. lol..

Blue Fabric Swap - ginglish

Hier die fragwürdigen Stoffe für den blau-Swap - 1 ist ein Halloween-Stoff, eigentlich sehr schön, 2 ein Osterstoff mit blau als Grundton und 3 ein Weihnachtsstoff..
Ich hätte auch noch andere grelle aber die reichen nicht füü 10 x 10 cm Quadrate..
Ach ja, und der hier:


These are questionable fabrics for our blue fabric 10 x 10 cm swap (what was I thinking - will that quilt ever get done???) so this post is for the other swappers to decide whether I can use these fabrics or not :-D

another thingamagic

and they got it right.. ha ha ha.. or maybe I just enrolled for the right field by accident? Well, all but the math part I think is right, after all I am math dyslexic of some sort.. grin

Your Scholastic Strength Is Developing Ideas

You can take a spark of inspiration and turn it into a full fledged concept. You are talented at brainstorming, visualizing, organizing, and independent thinking. You should major in: Natural sciences Computer science Creative writing Math Architecture Journalism

What Should You Major In?

More cat or more dog??

You Are: 80% Dog, 20% Cat

You and dogs definitely have a lot in common. You're both goofy, happy, and content with the small things in life. However, you're definitely not as needy as the average dog. You need your down time occasionally.

Are You More Cat or Dog?

I actually had another half hour to just surf and read other peoples blogs (mainly quilters) and saw this - had to do it.. lol.. you know me!

Juju is 2...

my baby.. sniff.. :-D
Oh well, with one out of the house and the other almost 18 I should have gotten used to the fact that our kiddos don´t stay small, huh? Well, I haven´t. I can´t believe it´s been 2 years since Kat was here just in time for Juju´s birth and when I look at this HUGE guy today I´m seriously doubting he was ever a baby.. ha ha
Due to the fact that my parents took pictures on his birthday and I think we even forgot to take pictures when his friends came over to destroy the house, here are only the pictures of Juju and his friend Leo who came over to check out cake opportunities that day (2 days ago already).
Unfortunately Juju started running a high fever the same night that just broke some time in the early hours this morning so I didn´t really have time to post them before. As you can also tell, I didn´t have time to clean up the upstairs hallway for the picture, either.. grin grin

Quiltexpo of the Eifel Quilt Ladies (part 2)

Here´s the rest of the pictures, I just got tired of having to insert them one by one and then moving them to the end of the post.. lol.. Again, some are not photographed very well, partially due to the bad angles I had to take them from. Some didn´t turn out very sharp either so that´s the reason they´re missing - I didn´t leave any out deliberately.
Hope I infringe no copyrights here, there were no signs posted with limitations or no photography rules!