BAPTISM DAY FOR NIKLAS

I have missed a lot of blogable things of late. (I truly apologize for that, stay with me through the next couple of months, I promise to do better.) But of all the things I have missed, I vowed to finish this one. One reason is because our first son was baptized on April 26th. He has chosen to enter into this sacred covenant with his savior Jesus Christ and follow his example. I could not be happier than to see my children make this kind of a decision in their lives. The second reason is so he can see how much we love him and how important he is to us in our family. Here are just a couple of pics of the day:

The proud parents with Niklas

Baptizer and baptizee

Some of the people who helped make the day special: Michael gave him the gift of the Holy Ghost, Steffen spoke about the Holy Ghost and Marielle led the music and prayed.

Meike came all the way from Switzerland to give a talk about baptism.

Martin was cool as usual and helped set up everything for the cake buffet.

Karin added moral support when needed.

The missionaries provided the interval music while Niklas changed.

Here's a pic of the gang - all his friends who came to see him be baptized.

LITTLE DRUMMER BOY

Jeffrey has a new love!

After finishing 2 years of introduction to music, we were faced with the task of choosing an instrument. I signed him up for percussion, but the other kid didn't show up. Jeffrey sat down on the drum set and pounded away. The teacher said, "Well, if he has that much interest for the drums, you should consider just starting him there." So we did. I figured that our Rock Band drums would suffice for awhile at least. Three weeks into his lessons has been a short "while" however. He started crying after the second lesson, "when do I get my drum set?" We have been blessed to not have to buy one just yet, as we have a friend who had a set in his basement and has allowed us to borrow them for awhile.

Jeffrey can't stay away from them. Normally he is scared of the basement... that fear is suddenly gone. He runs down there several times during the day. (I know this will not last forever.) Today he started at 7:45am. I am glad we don't live in an apartment. He loves to rock out and "practice his beats". It is really fun to see how much energy and concentration he puts into it.

A side note on the subject of Jeffrey: today for lunch we had an interesting conversation. He said he wanted the other half of his heart back. If he hadn't been so serious I probably would have laughed, but instead I had to explain, that he never had a whole heart and he couldn't just get it back. Some things just come out of nowhere and really get you thinking. I suggested he could be happy that it was only a half a heart he was missing and not half of his leg or something, because this way he can still walk and run. The conversation took its turn.

THE CAKE I BAKED BUT DIDN'T MAKE

Last fall I flew to the states on Oct. 9th. I had also been invited to a wedding reception that very night - a wedding reception for which I had volunteered to make their wedding cake. (This is a secret hobby of mine for anyone who doesn't already know.) So I had planned this elaborate 5 tiered wedding cake with alternating cakes of chocolate chip (recipe: compliments of Lee & Lisa Broadhead) with an incredible chocolate mousse filling and orange cake with an orange buttercream filling (recipe: compliments of Sister Smith). Then my husband booked me a flight to the states. I was a little worried how I was going to pull off getting this cake finished before leaving for my flight at 10am. The biggest thanks here goes to Sister Beazer. She is an older sister serving currently with her husband here in our ward and I had heard she had made wedding cakes in a bakery for many years before she retired. So we met and planned how everything would work. I made all the cakes ahead of time and froze them. Then the day before, I made all the fillings and frosting, ordered the flowers and gathered all the other paraphernalia together that one needs to complete such a monumental task and took it to her and wished her the best of luck and thanked her greatly. I knew it would turn out great... and I think it did.

Here are some pictures of our work of art.




This post is dedicated to Mariella, who also tasted several of the cakes I made for Peter and Maren to try, but didn't see the finished product. Since Mariella and Steffen need to decide what kind of cake they want for their wedding that's coming up, I thought I would post a few of my previous cakes...


This was the yellow cake with lemon creme I made for Franzi's wedding.



This was the strawberry cheesecake with white chocolate frosting I made for Julia's summer wedding.

WII ARE GETTING FIT THIS YEAR!

I know, it was funny the first time, but not as funny this time... I had to say it again though, I just couldn't resist. My kids love the WII Fit board and are always battling over who gets to excercise. They try to out hula or out ski or out race the others and it is fun. I love that they actually enjoy the idea of excercising.



Since Tyler is always around, he is probably the best observer. Here he is carefully watching Tori.



But just always watching is not really any fun. He wants to be part of the action. "I too, I too" he begs and steps on the board... of course throwing the weight way off and frustrating Tori in the process. How can she beat my scores when Tyler is on the board too.


And here I have caught him making another attempt to get on the board. "Ah, ah, ah Tyler," I say and he looks at me again to make sure I'm not looking before he puts his hand down where he knows he's not supposed to.

WHAT WE DID AT MIDNIGHT

We toasted in the New Year with sparkling apple cider, kissed, and then headed outside for the show!


New Year's Eve in Germany is crazy - like 4th of July crazy. The streets are so littered in the bigger cities, that you literally have to wade through the debris from the night before. Our little street is not in the big city, but the show is quite worth watching anyway.


The fireworks display lasts at least a half an hour, and as with most years, this year being no exception, we were frozen by the time we headed back inside.


The kids really get into the action too.


All the kids have sparklers and pop rocks and can't wait to help an adult light off some little spinning thing or anything they might be allowed to.


I'm not sure if Tyler really thought he'd get to light everything in "his" package, but he wasn't letting go of it for anything. It was his!


When we came back inside we had "BERLINER," most commonly known as a jelly filled doughnut. This is a huge tradition to eat these on New Year's Eve / New Year. I'm not sure why, but we do. Funny thing though, Boris and Becky lived in Berlin the last 8 years or so and Boris told me that in Berlin they call them "PFANNEKUCHEN" which means pancake. Go figure! In any case - here's wishing you all a belated HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

WII ROCKED IN THE YEAR 2009!

Boy, It's kind of lame to post this late after the New Year, but I am just trying to stay caught up and keep everything chronological.

Since Christmas was "the most wonderful time of the year" and we received lots of fun gifts, we invited family and Becky and Boris and their kids over to try it all out and to help us get to the next level of Rock Band, so we could have a few more songs to play to. Not everyone made it till midnight and some did whom you wouldn't have expected them to. Wii played till three, what a blast!!!

CHRISTMAS EVE TRADITIONS

Christmas Eve is a night of traditions at the Schulze home. Every year the evening begins with a meal of fresh Schlesien Wurst. Even the preparing of the sausage is tradition, as it is done differently in different families. In Benny's family the sausage is first boiled and then fried in butter and served with Sauerkraut with pinapple chunks, boiled potatoes, gravy and most recently - Finnish sweet mustard. For desert we have a huge bowl of fresh fruit with fresh whipping cream. Besides that, the table is lavishly decorated with Christmas goodies and cookies that Benny's mom has spent the last month painstakingly preparing for this night. After dinner the program begins. We were "only" 12 persons this year - a relatively small group.

We act out the Christmas Story with costumes and all. This year we had the angel, the three wise men, Maria, Joseph and a baby lamb (not pictured - the pillow laid in swaddling clothes)...



Then many share something on an instrument they are learning or share a poem they have memorized...



Then we sing lots of Christmas carols, ending of course with Silent Night. This song is not typically sung until Christmas Eve.


In the end we open our gifts and enjoy what is left of the evening together, talking, eating, reading, playing games, eating some more or whatever we feel like doing. I coerced my children into posing for a picture (or more) in front of the tree.



I was asked on the post about Nikolaus how we celbrate Christmas [with conflicting traditions], actually though, my mom's family always had the tradition to go to Granny's house Christmas Eve and then the rest of the presents and stockings and Santa gifts were opened Christmas morning at home. This suits us perfectly, so that is how we do it too. We are then also keeping the traditions started in my mom's family and I love this!