waiting

a quick trip into the city and then of course waiting for the bus at a temporary bus stop. it's super exciting and the morning light was interesting. i realized once more how much i enjoy the city landscape with all it's lines and stretching out reaching out across the finder in my camera.
we will be back in the city i'm sure. though sometimes it's hard to keep one eye on thea as she wanders as i'm caught up looking through the finder. o well this was a little moment and i will take any little moment to focus and enjoy and take it all in. sometimes it's good having to wait for the bus for 8 minutes...

{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.

a bit of thanksgiving

yup, it's the third year we are not celebrating thanksgiving anymore... why? o well we moved back to our homeland of switzerland and i just don't find the leisure and a good and fair turkey to put into the oven...
we do celebrate it in a tiny way, this year it's pumpkin pie for afternoon snack or late dinner, what ever suits the folks of the house best. i love the memories of thanksgiving dinners, as well as the cooking of,at our house or our friends house at greenstreet...
maybe some day i will be up for a full swing menue and big house full of family and friends to, as for now i keep the memory up front and savor those moment's, still.

fuer meine deutschsprachigen leserinnen, hier ist ein kleiner fakt zum schmunzeln, zum "truthantag" tag.

golden glows in november

there is a lot of bleakness around us in november, barren trees and barren fields, though some gold is still glowing. i take it and keep it and remember it when dusk is early. sitting and knitting on my golden shawl will be just the thing to do. i have not touched the project in 6 months and i decided to overcome that fear of not anymore knowing how to go about the pattern.

and there is lot's of sewing going on in the late afternoon hours, i'm making some progress and it is even more exciting to sew as i have decided on a recipient of the project... more later
as for today, there should be a quick trip to landi for a leaf rake, grains for the chickens and then at 4pm the piano tuner will arrive. we have been waiting for 3 weeks now to let the piano get used to it's new environment, o it's so exciting and i'm so happy for my two piano playing men to be able to enjoy their music making again. of course the girls have been doing some playing too, when ever the fancy struck.
and for all of you who celebrate thanksgiving, enjoy your circle of friends around a wonderful spread of delicious baked and cooked foods! i'm thankful having some very special thanksgiving memories in my heart.

a walk and all it's wonders

going on a walk through the woods, finding the magic place called "moss-huegeli", building gnome forts and throwing the "ideal" spear as far as possible. having hiding competitions all along and tug of war with the rope one of us just could not leave at home... lot's of talking among friends and nature lovers. lot's of sharing be it one's secret hiding spot or deep feelings. there is really so much enjoyment, so much growing and watching the growth spurt going on. and in all this realizing, we really don't have to travel far, we just go for a walk in the near woods.
the kids were not super excited when we left the house, but soon some big games were played and everyone got involved with their enthusiasm. even me... i'm usually not the one running, though i'm walking along and watch and get involved when the moment strikes. helping thea through a thicket of brambles, rescuing her when stuck in the muck or lending a hand to a balancing girl when it gets slippery. this is life and we love it.

the last photo is a special for the ones who have visited us and know the castle kyburg, yes it is the kyburg right there in the middle. so please come back and visit again, i'm sure we will run through woods and visit castles once more....

gingerbread all week long

there has been lots of ginger bread dough kneading going on over the course of the past week. lot's of excitement and many helping hands have been involved. a week a go, we were decorating little ginger bread houses at sunday school, as we have been working on the story of "the wise and the foolish builder".
we had two little houses left for my kids to decorate, amos, naomi and thea had so much fun with the house, and as soon as the decorating was done, one had to be brought over to our neighbors, as the girls felt very strongly that the girls next door would be so happy to look at and eat their decorated ginger bread house. the one amos decorated was eaten by ourselves and amos best friends, which came over on thursday afternoon.
and so we had to go on with more baking and this time elias made a set of plans for a churchbuilding with a steeple. and this time we also wanted to try making some "stained glass windows" with hard candy. even the church mouse "pipsi" had to be made and right away moved into the building.
this time we made all the gingerbread panes and went for a visit to our friends house. all the decoration in the bags, even eggwhite and powdered sugar to make the "glue". so finally yesterday afternoon we put the church together and decorated. it was super exciting and everyone got involved and lots of ideas were put together in that one church. and after dusk the bike light got put into the building and we all were delighted about the colourfull windows.

being together and building together was exciting, eating together will be the purpose of our next visit at our friends. it is sharing our life's, building community, working on relationships and growing closer to each other.
i am so very blessed with family and friends. living life, i know has not to be lived in haste and hurry, but with family and friends in community and led by scripture. yes indeed it is good to commune together and grow in patience and love and not just build on ginger bread houses but also build on community with our focus on christ.

{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.

coco and candles

there has been a candle dipping afternoon for the boys. this is an every year returning big deal in our neighborhood. for four days the community center is set up for candle dipping. young and old go and enjoy the candle making, so did amos and his friends. of course naomi wanted to go too, but was not allowed....
she just broke out with chicken pox and for the next few days she will have to stay at home. just the "informed" can come and visit, but they do and that's wonderful. instead of going to the "dipping hall" i got her a block of wax and together with her friend they melt and make little candle boats. the nutshells have been collected over the course of last year and i quickly ran over to the hall to get some wicks. we improvised on the wicks bottoms, the tee light candle wicks have that aluminum bottom. ours didn't so we cut a little bit of card board and this served the girls well to hold the wick's up in the little boats.
after the boys got back we all enjoyed a cup of hot coco and one of the yummy ginger bread houses we have been working on yesterday afternoon. there will be more on our ginger bread endeavor soon to come.

winterize the fig tree

in our front yard we have a fig tree, it suffered greatly last winter, when we had such a long super cold period in february. after clipping off the dead branches it grew happily and produced a lot of figs. though just three fruits were able to ripen. never the less it seems as the tree is healthy and i would so very much like to get it safe and "cozy" through the coming winter. this the reason to get some straw and burlap all wrapped, tuck the branches a bit together and bundle it up. we are getting ready for the cooler time of year. we are lighting candles for afternoon tea and as the bundled up fig tree, i start to bundle up myself and thea when we quickly go for a bike ride, or a walk.

yellow::leafs and lot's of them

are around me, all around the house, the neighborhood and i love them. especially when for a moment the sun is quickly appearing and some rays are floating through the gold still left up there on the trees.
there have been lots of happy moments yesterday with thea's birthday guests, lot's of laughter and phone calls, lot's of happy birthday singing, and of course she absolutely loved it to be the center of attention. the new skirt is being worn with different tops. there is lot's of twirling and whirling going on and very so often she disappears and is not being heard of for a while... i have discovered her with a new book, sitting still and studying it intently. for certain there is lot's of learning going on, it is such a wonderful gift a four year old in our house, the wondrous little person keeping us all in awe and often surprises us with a great joke which we all not understand but precisely because of it have to laugh out lout and love the golden moments.

november birthday

our little girl turns four today! happy birthday thea

o we do all remember when she was born, so quickly so happily and surrounded by all of the family, community folks and friends. such a special moment and we are celebrating her fourth year and give thanks to God for his gift which he entrusted to us. there is so much life in this girl, there is a lot of witt and will facing us. we love you thea and are looking forward to all the adventures you take us along with.
a bit of the little girl here here and here...

{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 advents suit case

a couple weeks back while i was shopping i stumbled upon a set of little suit cases. they looked like they would endure being handled by kids for a a good while and i had already a little girl in mind for whom i would paint the fill one box. so there i was at home with the suit cases and the paint brush in hand. of course it was fun to get some rainbow happiness onto the case. to make the colour last a bit longer i put two coats of gloss acrylic gel over the paint.
and then there were many hands helping me to wrap 24 little advents presents and load them into the wonderful advents case. it's already in the mail, on it's way across the atlantic to our little friend.
what an exciting project for all of us and remembering back when we had an aunt and an uncle sending an advents calendar for many a year, to open little presents. i specifically remember one year, when the calendar was a long red velvet ribbon with 24 big wallnut shells being glued on (front and back of the ribbon, each one half of the whole shell) and in each shell there was something very tiny, very special. i do hope that this suit case full of little presents, all little pointers toward christmas will cause lots of joy and expectation to celebrate the birth of our savior jesus christ.

dinner and "afterdinner"

there was winter salad (common lamb's lettuce, avocado, boiled egg and roasted sunflower seeds) for dinner, o it was wonderful and all loved it with a simple balsamic dressing. there will be more tomorrow and the day after too.
it got better from then on, i have been sitting with the machine a bit the past few days and my hands have been digging through the bag with fabric scraps, finding the larger ones to come up with a random order of sewing them together. slowly but steadily there are longish "striped stripes" appearing, not really knowing what i'm ending up with likely a middle size quilted blanket... it's super rewarding to use up those wonderful big scraps and sometimes i through a piece of some newer fabric from my stack in the mix. i'm sure i will be able to tell you a bit more sometime in the future...

soup for dinner

i had half of a huge zucchini in the fridge... what to do, as everyone had enough zucchini bread and ratatouille?
i leafed through my soup book "soups and stews" which i have grew to treasure and for the past couple weeks has become a regular open book on my kitchen counter.
so here i go, finding the "herbed zucchini soup" and it's so simple i even added the garlic croutons to it, as the kids as well as the adults love toppings with soup.

ingredients::
zucchini
potatoes
yellow onion
chicken stock
buttermilk
to season, sea salt/ground pepper/thyme/majoram

i hope your family enjoys it as much as my folks around the table tonight did "en guete"

bulbs are in the ground

our bulbs are planted a warmish saturday afternoon helped us along. lots of enthusiasm was involved, hole digging, planting and already we are so excited about all the tulips, muscari hiacints, and half a dozen "sicilian honey leek.
i also got the two straw bales, which will be an other project i'm trying out. the two bales will be sitting in the garden all winter long, in spring when they are soaked and some decomposing has started i will add a bit of compost soil and plant on top of those bales... i read about it here and it just got me excited to try it out. i'm excited to become a straw bale gardener. 

{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.

enjoying the leafs

we had a super busy day. so there really was not too many moments i had the camera in my hands, one though you see above... the afternoon task was, to rake leafs in the garden. our big chestnut tree is going into winter mode too. lots and lots of leafs the snow helped them to come down. so here we are, raking the wet leafs, never the less some enjoyment happen anyway, that's the difference of wearing mud pants.
i'm sure there will be a couple more containers filled with leafs, the tree is not bare yet. next thing is digging out the dahlia tubers, and digging in the many bulbs for next spring! o i'm looking forward to the next warm afternoon with the girls assisting, or better me assisting the two big diggers!