the many things on a weekend

 
there have many things been going on over the weekend, though over all it was very quiet. one of the reason for the slow and quiet feeling was the fact, that two of the kids were out of the house. elias enjoying a long weekend at his god mothers house, taking the train all the way to bern. and naomi left at the same hour friday afternoon, also on the train, though in the opposite direction. she was picked up at the next train station by my dad. both of them enjoyed a wonderful time visiting and were very happily arriving back home sunday night.
the two remaining kids enjoyed the time without the other two not less. getting a bit more attention by us adults...
i got to knit on my cardigan, and listen to james joyce, which i'm lending from the library, as well as some classical music one of them was purcell's shakespeare wonderful for a saturday night. and even got to read a bit. this absolutely counted toward a relaxing and slow weekend, good to enjoy just before school started again this monday morning. the kids were ready to go back, i didn't mind having a flowing and kid led rhythm for the last two winter vacation weeks.
and joel was working on fixing and mending and untangling the odds and ends of our in house network and computers, o well this seems like a black hole, though progress was made.

so now let's embrace monday morning, breakfast at 7:15, laundry is already being in the machine, the empty milk cartons in the crate waiting on the front steps for the milk man to stop by later in the morning.
at 8:10 i was reading the first book to thea, she loves the moment the kids run out of the house and catches me at a moment of trying to figure out what's next, of course next is her book!
by now joel left the house too and i have enjoyed the waiting of the machine to be done to quickly wind an other ball of the wonderful wool from retrosaria of portugal which is beeing knit into the effortless cardigan. it has been smooth and yes effortless, very easy instructions and the cardigan is growing so very quickly, wonderful.

loving the snow

the day in the snow, on the slope was super, lots and lots of snow up in steg. the ski lift was a bit hard though we all managed and the slopes were just the best. lots of snow, not to much preparations on the runs, this is skiing, i have not been so satisfied and excited about skiing in a long while.
this just a quick review of thursday's fun afternoon...

happy weekending!

{this moment}

A Friday ritual.
A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by SouleMama. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

take it easy

is an older game, we played it before we had kids and have not played it for a long time. just this week it has come into favor some how, by most of us. it's a nice mix of strategy and still lots of luck mixed in in order for the younger ones in the family to take part in the game without feeling to be at a loss.
and even if you lose, we all take it to heart "take it easy", it's just a game. on the other hand, it's not just a game, it's lots of math each of us does, when we add up the complete rows. first a whole lot of multiplication and then adding those results up to the total. i'm glad the kids discovered this one again, especially now as we are on winter brake and no one really want's to do worksheets. and yes i don't blame them for it.
thinking back to our home school days in JP.... o we often miss them, being with friends, learning so much together with other families, being it music, book club, geography club, and of course the monthly math game morning! this brings it back and i'm glad to have this memory

the trip to the frozen harbor

the harbor of rapperswil on lake zurich is frozen and open for people to skate and enjoy. it opened on saturday and as we are on winter brake  we just had to go and enjoy this event. it is the first time since 23 years.
we went there by train and enjoyed a good cup of soup as some beef jerky, though the kids did notice that the jerky is not american and that they like the american better, much better... never the less it's fun to have a picnic on the train.
then the ice, o it was perfect, and the boys felt bad that they decided to not bring their skates (as they where thinking, that it would be the same as on lake paeffikon, lots of snow on the ice, and skating was not fun...). the ice was almost clear and naomi enjoyed her skates a lot. the boys ran around and had fun never the less and thea too. it did give me an ere feel, walking on the ice in the lagoon of lake zurich, where usually there is just water and boats...
after some good icy time we went for a cup of tea near by and on the way home i was enjoying a few rows of knitting. over all we all had a very good time an exciting vacation day, yeah!

last night the people of the community went for a walk on lake pfaeffikon. we decided to go for a nightly walk as it was just so super crowded in the day. (those night photos are by joel)

the books we live with...

it occurred to me, that i did not do a book post for a long time (it was in june last year...). books are with us at home as well as traveling along on the way out of the house, coming along on holidays or weekends at my parents. i just ordered a bunch for naomi, she has been improving her english reading skills a lot, to my happiness. amos still spends many hours a week at the local library to read his beloved comics and what ever he can not find on his bedroom bookshelf.
so here we go, this is what we all enjoy at the moment:

this is thea's pile, her favorite to be told to her is "millie's marvellous hat", as i already told you a couple days ago here.

naomi's reading is interesting, there are mainly two types of books. when i put her to bed we read the books by patricia maclachlan she loves those and her english reading has been improving a lot. and then when joel is putting her to bed, he works through the "atlas der anatomie des menschen", naomi is very excited in any aspect of the human body. i got that atlas for free from the library as they put a new copy on their shelf. an other one she loves a lot is "julie ist wieder da!" a book about a girl fighting leukemia.

this is my pile i have been working for a while now sherry turkle's "alone together", i love to dive into this one and the thinking process is pushed further and further into the way we are interacting and living a more and more technology interwoven life. something i try to not be pulled into myself, but definitely i can see this around me, how people are increasingly functioning without face-to-face contact. and how all those social networking, texting and the e-communication has pushed people closer to their machines and further away from each other. definitely a very insightful read.

joel's books are a few, though he never run's out of the house without a good fiction in his hand.

elias loves books he is familiar with. the david macaulay books are an all time favorite of his, understandably they are so wonderfully illustrated and explain so much detail. and he also is still very much living in his "old world" with the books he has read and gotten to know when we were still living in boston. sometimes it seems like, this is the way he is staying connected with his time back then... and the french vocabulary word book is also to be found at his bedside most nights, i'm glad for that as he is not easily learning french but never the less is keeping up with it.

amos is definitely our most avid reader, it must be something like 500 pages a week or so. he reads almost whatever comes into his hands. and the big green one was a gift "mit 365 verblueffenden experimenten durch die naturwissenschaften", a daily read and do stuff...

(the local library, definitely amos' second home)

{this moment}

A Friday ritual.
A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by SouleMama. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

LOVE

as i was browsing on sew mama sew i came across the wonderful little "love quilt" by kelly and fell in love with it right then and there. of course i had to give it a try, with my own little creative twist to it. i love it and i'm so happy knowing to whom i will be able to pass this one on. (the folks taking care of our kids while we are out and about on valentines day....)
it was quick and easy, and i do enjoy using up all the little bits. i have never before done paper piecing so this is a first and i'm sure i will do it more often, though have to get used to the process of thinking...
kelly is selling the whole alphabet in her etsy shop. just in case some of you would want to get started on letter quilting too.

meanwhile i'm thinking of other little valentines, like this or this or this. well we will see what i manage to create within the next few days...

it's cold outside, lets warm up

the boys have been collecting bullets (here a bit of bullet history) at the town's outdoor shooting range. o how precious are those collected led filled pellets, we have been talking about melting the led out of the steel for a while now, though never got to do it.
with the cold days we have had (and it will stay cold for an other few days) we have been working indoors. it was a fun project which joel started with the boys, elias got his camping stove going and in a little steel tray the boys got the bullets over the heat. and what a joy to observe the led come out of those punctured steel cases, fun to see how the process was working. when it was hot enough all of it was dumped into the bucket with the cold water.
the boys were sifting through the led pieces talking about those very creative shapes and forms. i'm sure the process will go on, there are big plans floating in the boys heads...

our icy sun catchers

for my bedtime reading i'm enjoying amanda's "the rhythm of family", a book which is nice to read along as i have just a few moments before i fall asleep and it's inspirational. this way i fall asleep with ideas and thoughts of tomorrow, of a new day, a fresh start, a white sheet to be written on to be coloured and painted and made into something creative and fun. something which will shape me and my kids as well as the people we meet and interact.
o well this is a longish introduction to what we did a few days ago...
anyway, i just wanted to give amanda the credit for the sun catcher, as it is the february "do" thing in her book.

we got bun pans out, collected what ever nature things we could find in and around the house. naomi had the idea of putting the orange peel into it too. great idea, after having enjoyed a snack the peel went into the bun pan with all the other things. then we filled them up with water and put them outside into the cold fresh february air. it worked perfectly out with the weather, as we were just at the beginning of a cold spill here in europe (5-18F) and the icy rings where hung up at our entrance. the morning sun is being caught by them, the icy rings look great. the sun is not strong enough to melt them too quickly. i'm so happy they are still up, it's for five days now! and so far it looks like they will be out in the cold for another week or so...
we love the cold!

on the slope

 

we spent the weekend in the snow with our friends. a wonderful blessing to have friends living so close to the big mountains and they even have enough room in their apartment to host the six of us overnight!
we started out with a super cold saturday afternoon on the slopes, a yummy dinner in their cozy kitchen and a couple games of dominion. even a late night chat among adults after the kids were all asleep...
the second day was not less cold and as sunny as the first. again up into the snow in the afternoon. amos was on skis the first time and he managed very well, even the lift was a breeze, congratulations brave boy.
naomi of course was so happy with her board. for me still something i'm not capable myself, it looks already like she masters the skill well, and every hour spent in the snow she learns so much. of course elias was with us too and he was constantly on the lookout for new jumps...
thea and joel were sledding, "not too fast!" was the little girls comment to her dad. and we all loved the weekend a whole lot. i'm sure we will be back, and thank you for hosting us g & p!
(photos by joel)

{this moment}

A Friday ritual.
A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by SouleMama. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

the big snow is here

 

o the big happiness arrived alongside. the big kids of course were very excited to see all that white this morning and wanted to leave early for school. though i guess not really for school, much more for a good snowball fight before school... and i'm so happy they do like the precious white and don't mind to dress up a bit warmer. we also discovered the loss of amos' warm gloves as well the missing winter boots for elias. how this happened, i don't know.
the gloves we noticed already on tuesday, though amos didn't mind and was going to look through the "lost and found" box at school. knowing now, that they have not been there, he uses mine for the moment being.
the solution for elias was a creative one, we decided on wearing legwarmers with his regular keens. i was thinking he would wear the legwarmers over his pants to keep the snow out, though he decided that he wanted to wear them under his pants, in order to not be picked on by his peers. i'm glad he figured out a solution for not having snow boots and still being able to not get cold feet. they all came home very happy tumbling into the house, of course i had to hear all those stories of how they enjoyed that precious white.
and thea wanted to go out too. i helped her gear up, she was super excited to be able to wear her "new" snow suit and even more happy to roll around  outdoors. wonderful, i'm so very grateful for the way nature provides us with treats. this time it is the big snow at the beginning of february!

soup and stories

some times i have to empty the veggie drawer in our fridge, and this particular time i was so excited about the colour my soup turned out, i could not resist to take a photo. broccoli, leeks, potatoes and red bell pepper, some chili flakes and a piece of bacon which i had sitting there on a shelf in the fridge. it doesn't just look yummy it tasted fabulous and the kids were digging right into it too. when i looked through the photos on my memory card i had to put that second photo next to the wonderful green soup. our little girl is an avid "reader" and loves to be sitting there and leave through her picture books as well as any given news paper or magazine which has letters and pictures on/in it. i frequently let my work be interrupted, tending her and reading her one of the books. the favorite at the moment is "Millie's marvellous hat", a creative story with lots of imagination which she absolutely dives into and loves. giving the many hats new names, like party hat (the one with a bottle of wine and to classes on a tray) or any other of them she gets hooked on. wonderful and what's better for a three year old, than looking, thinking, creating in her mind and being able to communicate her thoughts to the people living with her, sitting and reading with her.