Scenes from the Indoors

Hey, Go To Sleep!!! This is not a party, this is bed time, people!

Indian war paint with anti-itch cream.

Distraction from the itching with Cars video games.

...not quite distracting enough!

Dr. HF is very proud of her fort! It involved turning the entire couch around! It is such a cool fort I feel like hiding in it, myself! ...Where's mama?

My brilliant fort remained interesting for almost half an hour. That's how long it took to construct!

Puddles and Spots

...Although so much of parenhood ( polls may vary) is a wonderful, rewarding experience...bouncing giggling babies on your knee, sharing the joys of a new flower in spring with a toddler, the fun of building a fort in the living room and sitting back to watch the your children play together, developing the ever-lasting bonds of siblinghood....dancing across the sandy beaches in the sun....

...The rest of parenthood can be described as the mopping up of puddles (not pictured, you are welcome.) and the diagnosis and care of various outbreaks of spots:
Everything was going so well! But today, Margaret has the stomach flu and William ( although immunized)...has Chickenpox!

Painting Class

see www.oldwren.blogspot.com for what else we've been up to!

Happy Birthday, Ursi!

May you have a wonderful birthday!

Love, HF and family

We Are Royalty!

Young King William sports a crown created from orange and yellow construction paper and masking tape, his mother's old kimono, and a scooby-doo firefighter PJ top. A large sword "makes" the outfit!

I'm the princess, but I destroyed my crown already.

We are royalty! You must do as we say! We say "get-well-soon, Grandpa!" We also demand gummi-bears.

Letter from Daisy and the Daisy-picker.

Dear Oldwren,

My sister "Daisy" and I went looking for signs of spring for you. We found this in the neighbors yard! Flowers and spring-green leaves sticking up everywhere!
...But when we looked in OUR yard, it looked more like this:

Or this:

There *were* a few flowers in our yard, but we collected every single one of them:

...and gave them to a beautiful woman!

Love, Daisy and Daisy-Picker.

Fasching is Over.

Last Tuesday, the people of Allmannsdorf put on their white bed clothes, banged their pots and pans, and marched through the town for the last time this season.

The parade ended at the school. The band played its (two) songs.

And then we set fire to the Spirit of Winter !

Hasta la vista, wintertime! Don't hurry back!

Der grosse Faschingsumzug

On the Sunday before Ash Wednesday, Konstanz has their big Carnival parade. This year, we got a great view from Claire's apartment window - the parade went right down her street! Now you know why I suggested that apartment, Claire!

The parade was fantastic and lasted a full three hours. Because we were inside, the cold didn't matter! Claire took almost 200 photos - so I am showing restraint by only posting 10% of them. Check out these bird-people.

Look at these guys! Aren't they cool?

There were marching bands!

And straw monsters that were unruly and tried to attack the crowd!

There were troops of witches...

...who would steal innocent crowd members and take them for a little "ride" in their jail and then let them loose again - laughing as their victims ran giggling and screaming back to their family and friends waiting on the sidelines. I was REALLY glad we were watching from a 1st story windowsill after I saw this!

Jesters!

...and thing-a-ma-whatzits. Actually, a whole lot of thing-a-ma-whatzits.

According to Claire, this is my "boyfriend". Admittedly, it was exciting to see him go past, along with his gang of the scariest monsters of the entire parade!

Are these nice little housewives or scary witches? It is sometimes hard to tell ( cackle! cackle!).

Lucky for William, the pirates were there.

...and for some reason, a whole bunch of fish-people.

A dragon, of Asian influence.

William watching out the window, eating an oatmeal applesauce muffin - thanks for that book "1001 Muffins", mom. (Or was it only 101? )

Man, some of these creatures are scary looking!

These guys are supposed to scare away the snow. They practically scared away my son!

EEEK! So much of the parade is scary because the point is to scare away the winter spirit and make way for spring. This is a perfect example of a CORRELATION. Correlations are not necessarily causal! Every year, 40 days after Fasnacht, spring comes. Why? Is it because we scared away the winter spirits with our parade, or would spring have come anyway? We'll never know!

I don't know why William had trouble falling asleep after seeing this parade!

Fox-people.

Plague-doctor- jester-thing-bobs.

Can you believe William COMPLAINED that there were ONLY three castles? I thought an average of one castle an hour was pretty respectable! Kids these days!

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the parade.

HO NARRO!!

(Ho Narro! Means something like "hi there, fellow fool!" I am thinking of using this particularly apt greeting in all situations from now on!)

How the Creation Story Evolves

This morning, like many mornings, William and Margaret brought me a pile of books to read to them in bed before getting up for the day. One of the books we read was "Let There Be Light: Bible Stories", illustrated by Jane Ray. William chose the Creation Story. The following is an accurate transcription of how story time went today!

HF: ...and God created the light and the darkness, the day and the night. Then God made heaven, you know - the Himmel, and the earth. Then God made the land and the water. Look Marga! Water! Look! The sun and the moon! Then plants! Look! Trees! Then fishes! Look! Fishies! And a shark! Who can find the shark? William, please don't point with your sword. I find that dangerous. You almost poked Marga in the face. Put the sword down.
Wm: Look Marga! A Jellyfish! Do you know what Jellyfish is in German?
HF: What is jellyfish in German?
Wm: Qualle. I saw a Qualle on Spongebob and it stung Spongebob and Patrick all over. That's why Qualle are bad. Are Qualle bad?
HF: Um, some jellyfish do sting. But they only do it to protect themselves. Okay, where were we? Then God made the birds. Look! Marga! Birdies! Buck-bucks!
Wm: No, that's not how it went.
HF: How did it go, then?
Wm: God made the dinosaurs and when they got dead, they BECAME birds.
HF: Well, that's right! Good thinking!
Wm: Why didn't the book say that, then?
HF: This book is just an overview. It explains only the basics. If it explained everything, like how God created evolution, or how God was able to think up and design the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the book would be very long and we would never get to Kindergarten on time. Okay, where were we? And then God created the creeping and crawling things. ...Marga? Where are you going? Marga?
Wm: She wants to go to school now. So do I. I am a pirate and I want to show my sword to my friends.

Happy 1st Birthday, Elena!

Baby Elena of www.thekrentzfamily.blogspot.com turns ONE today! Congratulations on the first year of parenthood, Krentz family! The first year is lovely, but not always easy. Had I had enough energy, I would have made a cake like this one for my the first birthday of my first born! The real fun truly begins at one year - so enjoy what's to come!
Love, Auntie HF