Fasching / Carnival

It's "Fasching" season again. Also known in other parts of the world as Carnival. Munich isn't the best place in Germany to celebrate (Cologne is more reknown for it's parties) but it does make a valient effort.

For me Fasching ranks right up there with Hallowe'en - wouldn't miss it if it were gone. But once you have kids you kind of have to jump on the band wagen. So Lucas has been to several parties with his friends (lucky for Mom all still small no big ones with hundreds of kids) and well, Lea has had the privelage of tagging along. Lucas was a clown this year, and it has not been uncommon in our house in the last few weeks for Lucas to unexpectedly appear wearing his costume.

These pictures were taken this morning before the big Fasching party at the day care. You can't tell in the picture but they were really excited. Lea by the way is a dog (she's wagging her tail behind her).

Below is not another costume of Lea's but rather an outfit she picket out herself. Madame already has a strong sense of what she does and does not like to wear. Luckily when I changed her diaper I was able to make the swim suit dissapear. Oh what fun time we have coming upon us. And her shoes! Let's just say we're going to have to get a bigger closet...

January Highlight is Pics

Check them out here...

January 2011

The icing on the cake

Since it was Lucas' 4th birthday I felt that we needed to have a special birthday cake. The theme was (of course) Lightning McQueen, so we had the plates and napkins, even the gift bags were personlized with an individual car for each kid and their symbol was on their cup so that they didn't get them mixed up. But that part was easy, what kind of cake???

After doing some googling I decided that carving and decorating a cake to look like Lightning McQueen would be getting me in way over my head. So I made a white cake and filled it with chocolate butter cream. The grass, and road are marzipan fondant and the car is marzipan.The kids were giving edible modeling clay to make their own vehicles for their piece of cake. The cake seemed to make quite an impression, even if barely any of the kids actually ate any of it.

So after this adventure I decided that this year I am going to master making cakes that not only look cool, but hopefully will also get eaten :)

My first attempt was today, as I baked 46 cupcakes! I tweeked the cake recipe and it tasted a lot better although it was still very crumbly (is this normal for white cake, I haven't had it in years). My buttercream icing was okay, although way too sweet. Is there such a thing as a less sweet frosting?

So look forward to reading about my cake baking and decorating adventures this year. Lea's birthday theme is going to be a circus, so an animal cake is probably going to be on the menu! If you have any tips and tricks I look forward to hearing from you!

Happy 4th Lucas

On January 12 Lucas turned 4! The older he gets the more important these occassions become for him so we tried to make it extra special.

In the morning he got to put on his birthday crown and enjoy a pancake breakfast. In the afternoon his Dad came home early and his godparents Christina and Ralf came over for dinner. It was pretty exciting having everyone over. The highlight was a home for his Playmobil knights and of course some new accessories too. Lucas' birthday cake was a little untraditional, but since we had two cakes to look forward to in the coming days we thought, why not spoil him with his favorite treat! So donuts it was!

Lucas' "official" party took place on Saturday. We hosted 6 of his friends at our house for an afternoon of fun and games. It went surprisingly well and thanks to the warm spring-like weather the kids were able to get rid of a lot of energy outside :) Ralph and I need to work on our planning skills though; somehow we managed to forget to do half the things we wanted to with the kids. But I don't think they noticed and all had a great time.

Another year has flown by and Lucas has changed and grown so much. He is slowly becoming independant, is becoming quite the artist and is a very creative storyteller. We're looking forward to the upcoming year and all the changes it will bring and all of the great new memories.