Because our House is Just That Awesome – Page 2

It’s Math Time!

Not to say I’m a nerd, but this is my wall clock…

It’s pretty fun right?

Happy Santa Lucia day! The 13th of December is widely celebrated in Sweden as the feast of the early Christian martyr, St. Lucy. It is celebrated with such vigor there probably because Sweden is so dang dark and the feast of St. Lucy celebrates the triumph of light over darkness. It is celebrated in remembrance of St. Lucy visiting the starving Christians in the catacombs wearing a wreath of candles on her head to illuminate her path so as to leave her hands free to carry as much food as possible.

Traditionally the oldest girl in Swedish families brings everyone breakfast in bed wearing a flaming wreath of candles (cool huh?). There are also special processions and prayers to go along with the celebration. We, however, are not Swedish so Anne does not have to wear a flaming headdress (not this year anyways). Instead we are celebrating the day as Germans celebrate everything…with food.

For breakfast this morning Mom made us a Santa Lucia Crown. A sweet bread with maraschino cherries and a powdered sugar glaze.

Mom found this recipe in a cookbook called “Cooking with the Saints” several years ago and it has been part of our family’s tradition ever since.

Santa in a Candle!

Happy Gaudete Sunday everyone. Gaudete Sunday is the third Sunday of advent and is a day of celebration (unlike all those other feast days in advent…).

Today is the day we celebrate the nearness of Christmas. Today is the day that everyone wears pink (except Stephen), to show how happy they are. So, to celebrate this day I want to share with everyone one of our new favorite Christmas decorations. Santa in a candle!I think this could become a great new Christmas tradition like elf on a shelf, except Santa can’t move cause he’s stuck in a candle! Don’t ask me how he got there, because I don’t know. All I know is we were burning the candle, so the wax was all liquid, and somebody (Stephen or Nicholas) stuck Santa in the wax. Now Santa is trapped in the hardened wax. We could light the candle, melt the wax, and pull the jolly fat man out, or just burn the candle until Santa is free, but then we would lose this great decoration.

Power Ranger Pens.

Some people collect rocks,coins,stamps,and bottle caps. I collect pens, but not just any pens, I collect pens with attitude. You know, like teenagers with attitudes. I collect Power Ranger Pens.

There are two teams of Power Ranger Pens,the three

shiny ones and

the six matte ones.

Now I know there is not a yellow ranger pen, but I have not seen a yellow one yet.

Advent!

Many times when Advent rolls around, not only are we seriously unprepared (we almost never have candles for the Advent wreath), sometimes we even have to buy a new Advent wreath. But not this year.

No, this year we were more than prepared. This year we had our candles and the wreath to go with it. This year we have the advent calendar out, and all the pieces ready to be hung up. This year we even have a Jesse Tree (something I don’t even remember doing before now)! Yep, I think it is safe to say we were all prepared this year. Then again this post is a little late…

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

Happy St. Nick’s Day dear readers! Now if you didn’t know that today is St. Nick’s Day then you are not German. I don’t care where you were born or who your parents are, if you don’t celebrate the sixth of December by putting your shoes out for the patron saint of children to fill with candy then you are not a true German (the same way people who don’t eat hot dogs are not true Americans).

Now many people think that in German tradition St. Nicholas only brings gifts on Christmas, but that’s not actually true. In traditional German tradition the Christkindl (Christ Child) brings Christmas gifts. While St. Nicholas brings gifts on his feast day (today). he places his gifts in children’s shoes that they put out for him on the night of the 5th (Nathaniel’s is the cowboy boot).

Every year he brings us candy and a brand new Christmas ornament. The ornaments always work together on some theme (this year we got sea animals), and are usually picked out specifically for each family member. (They are arranged in order of oldest to youngest; the stripped fish at the top is Dad’s, then the blue seahorse is Mom’s, and the pink dolphin at the end is Veronica’s) This is a great tradition because now I have over twenty cool and unique ornaments.

This year to celebrate the day Anne made traditional German spice cookies and we packaged them in bags to give to our friends at the parish hall during coffee and doughnuts last Sunday (by the way please comment and let us know how they tasted). Like Nathaniel said, we’re really thematic this year.

What’s the Difference Between a Crystal Ball and a Disco Ball?

One sounds cool, the other just induces mental images of big-hair and bell-bottom jumpsuits. That’s why we have a Crystal ball.

And yes, it is our living room. Why? Because our house is just that awesome. Time for a crystal gallery!

note: I can’t set these pictures to open in a new tab, but if you’d like them to, just hold the ctrl button when you click them.

The Sewing Shelf

My mother is an avid sewer and like most seamstresses she has a small collection of fabric for future projects. So when we recently redecorated her room we added a nice little shelf for her fabric. A twelve square foot shelf.

After we were done Mom began sorting her fabric onto the shelf. She was going to take a picture of the shelf to send to her friends in Ohio. She said she was trying to find the balance between having an insane amount of fabric on the shelf and having so little that it was clear she wasn’t showing her whole stash because she didn’t want to show that she had an insane amount of fabric.

Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture when this balance was achieved so instead you can see her entire -neatly organized- collection.

More Retro Lego

Anyone remember these guys? They were called Throwbots, or Slizers in Europe.
They are without doubt my favorite of the Technique robot figures from Lego. Maybe this is because they were the first set we owned when I was little, but I really don’t think so. I think they were just the most innovative and creative. Not only do they all look cool and are all composed of the same type of pieces, but they also have great boxes/ships they fold up into. These boxes even store their throwing disks! Despite their similarities they are all completely unique.

My favorite is Turbo (also called City in Europe). He’s the light green car one.

And just in case you haven’t seen enough Throwobot pics…

My Favorite Lego Sets

I had a chance this week to build and set up my favorite Lego sets of all time.

Those are the from a line of promotional Shell Lego sets. They were purchased by Mom and Dad when I was a little boy and I have always thought they were incredible.