Forty-Second Week in Germany

I started coming down with a cold over the weekend so the first couple days of the week were spent trying to get back to normal. I had to be better by Wednesday because I agreed to help the Kindergarten Room Mothers with baking "cupcakes" with the children. I was picturing in my head a Duncan Hines cake mix, throw in a couple eggs, water, maybe some oil and voila, the kids can stir and pour into their muffin cups. Right? Seems simple enough. I watched as the room mothers proceded to get out all of the stuff. They brought aprons, little wooden boards and individual sized rolling pins, table decorations, Easter music boxes, a recipe book, measuring cups, cookie cutters, and then all of the ingredients. Oh my, the ingredients. I quickly realized that we weren't making cupcakes, we were making some sort of shortbread cakes. The kids did amazing well. We took them from the two kindergarten classes in groups of six. They started the whole project from scratch each time. We baked them, set them aside to cool, and then called those six kids back out to decorate their cakes. Avery was very proud of hers. I would've taken a picture of it but she had it eaten before we got home from school.

Wednesday afternoon was a luncheon for the moms in Bailey's class, but to be honest I was exhausted from the baking morning, and so was Bryn. She definitely needed a nap.


That evening at 7:00pm, Bailey said that she really wanted to enter the eggshibition at school. And, get this, Thursday was the last day to enter a project. We had known about it for a week or so. My initial reaction was, we don't have time to complete a project. If you wanted to do this, we should have started it last weekend. I full-on blame my mom for my going through with this. Whenever we came home and said something was due the next day, or we needed something for school, she was always willing to help us get it done. The problem, being that it was that late, was that we could only use supplies that we had in the house. We debated for a while about what she could do as her theme. It took forever to blow out the egg plus it kept making me gag so we just used hard boiled eggs for the rest. I think it turned out pretty cute. Bailey and Avery worked very hard on it. They even made it to bed by 9:00pm.

We had an unfortunate event happen at dance class with Avery this week. I am so proud of her for taking on the challenge of going to class where everyone speaks German. It has been great for her. At the end of class, they make a circle and bow and say good-bye in German, French, and English. This week, they went to make the circle and no one would take Avery's hand. After class, Avery put her head in my lap and cried and said, "No one would take my hand, they don't like me." I tried to console her but I didn't really know what to say. I try never to say, "Girls are just mean," because I truly believe that it is learned behavior and saying that just perpetuates the problem. I know kids at this age are fickel and one day one person is their best friend and the next day another person is their best friend, however inside, I wanted to go over and pound those little girls. Avery doesn't deserve that. She would never do that to anyone else. I hope I can get her to go back after the two week break.

Saturday was the most beautiful Spring day we have had so far. We walked down to Bad Godesberg to a little Italian Restaurant and went out to eat for the first time in so long. We had some shopping to do, so we took the train into Bonn and shopped for a bit. It was truly a great Family day. That night, Greg took the older girls to the theater to see, "Horton Hears a Who." They had a blast and loved the movie. Sunday, we did the normal Church thing. I have included a picture of the girls in their special Church coats my mom got them for Christmas.