Ich friere

That's I'm freezing for you monolingual folks. It's been mighty chilly round these here parts this past week. At this time I'd like to pause and take a moment to thank the person who invented space heaters. You Rock!!! Radiators are ok, but nothing beats sitting in front of a space heater with a mug of hot cocoa. We've been busy. What else is new. Christmas cards had to be addressed, German classes had to be attended, homework had to be checked, and gingerbread houses for our ward Christmas party had to be assembled. The kids stayed out late Tuesday night since I had to go to Mutual and Christy was kind enough to watch Ella and Mason while I was with the Young Women. The problem was picking them up afterwards. It had snowed that day and the temperature dropped, so the little hill in front of her house became a huge ice skating rink. I couldn't get up her hill. I had to wait at the bottom and send Jaxon to her house to retrieve the kids. Before leaving for Mutual I had to get Ella's Daisy outfit ready for her meeting tomorrow. More patches!! Remember how much I LOVED sewing Jaxon's on to his scout shirt? I started getting the shakes before I realized Ella's patches were iron on ones. YAY!!! So, I started ironing them, before I realized, Hey, Ella can do this!! So I put the girl to work. And she loved it. She asked for more to iron afterwards. Unfortunately we had to leave, otherwise I would actually have ironed clothes for once this decade.


On Wednesday, we had more snow. It got COLD!! Look at the temperature on my car dashboard:

The kids were tired from being out late Tuesday night, but I had no problem getting them up? Wanna know why? Two words: ADVENT CALENDARS!! Wednesday was the first of December, or otherwise known in our house as the start of advent calendars. The kids were so excited to start opening the little doors and seeing what treasures were behind them. Ella ended up opening three doors instead of just one, and Mason opened two. Oh well, it's ok if they run out a few days before Christmas.

Ella has a Polly Pocket calendar, Mason has a Playmobil one and the older boys both have a Lego calendar.

It started snowing pretty hard by the time the kids were being dismissed from school. I was on base so I went over to Ella's class to see if she still wanted to go to her Daisy class. I thought it might be cancelled because of the snow. I was secretly hoping it was so I wouldn't have to drive back on base in the snow when it was almost dark. No such luck. Her leader is a trooper and had the meeting. Ella had a great time and that's all that matters. Oh, I forgot to tell you, the kids had a two hour delay of school TWICE this week. Both on Tuesday and Thursday, the start of school was delayed two hours due to the icy roads. It wasn't too bad getting out of our little neighborhood and driving to the bus stop, but the extra two hours were fun for the kids. They were a little bummed this morning when they found out school was actually starting on time. On Thursday, we had German class here. We practiced conjugating verbs and answering some basic questions. Then Christy and I got down to business: building gingerbread houses for our church's Christmas party this Saturday. We decided that it would be easier to come with a whole bunch of little houses already assembled so the younger kids can just decorate them, and not get frustrated with trying to stick the sides together. We spent three hours working on them and got 60 finished. I was gonna help Christy today finish up another 40, but that girl has the work ethic of a serious CEO and knocked out a bunch this morning before I could even get over to help. Last night was piano lessons. Again, COLD!!! Since the only parking for piano lessons was in European Country Living's parking lot, we parked there and ran inside to look at their Christmas decorations, which, I must say, are GORGEOUS!!! The only problem is that the decorations are in a garden room that is partially outside, so it was freezing while we were picking out some fun decorations. I'll have to return when it is not in the 20's. Here are a few of the fun things we found: