In the Night Garden...

Last night I stepped outside for a moment and caught this little guy wiggling away. Bas had just told me a story about how his father caught him one when he was little, so I decided to go get him! I pulled my sweater over my hands, and picked him up and put him on the patio table before I went and got Bas, so that he could see it. He was pretty prickly! After a couple of minutes, I put him out of his misery, and put him back down on the ground. He hunkered down for a while, long enough for me to take a couple pictures, before he braved his escape route! Viva le Hedgehog!

Of course he was hiding his little head for the pictures, after being so rudely detoured!

An apple pie and couch painting saga...

Yesterday I decided to make an apple pie. I love apple pie with Thanksgiving dinner, and at Christmas (not much of a fan of pumpkin, and I can't get the canned requirements here anyway - and there's no way I'm making it from pumpkin scratch, so apple it is!) But I think I've only made 2 pies in my entire life - and both under the direct supervision of my mother (a master pie maker) so I knew that I would have to make at least one practice run...

Thankfully, my mother put together a recipe book a few years ago with all of our favorite family recipes which includes everything for our holiday celebrations. It doesn't include a recipe for the filling, but I found a great one in one of the old classics that my grandmother sent me years ago (a set of Fanny Farmer, Pilsbury, and Betty Crocker that I couldn't live without!) so coupled with my Mom's pie crust recipe, I felt extremely confident in my endeavor, if only I'd known...

I gathered all the ingredients for the pie on our regular Saturday trip to the store (stores are closed on Sunday, we have to load up and make sure we don't forget anything!) And after breakfast was cleaned up on Sunday, I decided to get the pie making under way.

And then came the first predicament... the recipe called for 3 cups of flour. It doesn't say whether the flour should be packed into the measuring cup, though; and that always causes a decision crisis for me. As many of you know there is a very delicate balance when it comes to ingredients with baking. And packing flour - or not, can definitely cause a "situation" if you do it wrong. I mean, it's basic chemistry!

The instructions section mentioned that the flour should be sifted. (And it was way too early to call my Mom in the states for help.) So I was perplexed. Did that mean sifted before putting the flour into the measuring cup? Or sifted after putting it into the measuring cup - and if it was after , still should I pack or not?

Well, I finally decided to pack the measuring cup, and sift after. Still need to speak with my Mom to see if that was a bad decision... in the end, I'm not even sure if that was the cause of my troubles. Because of course there are always other variables in play when it comes to baking...

Like your work surface and how much flour you put down before you roll out the dough... our counters here are definitely not the best for rolling. And I thought I floured enough, but who knows. So after very carefully making the dough, I spent a whole hour just rolling it out. I was trying so hard to get it perfect. Maybe even that was the problem, I just took too long...

Anyway, after rolling it out, to what seemed like an 1/8 of an inch (by the way - that's really thin!) I started to try and do the transfer to the pie plate... and believe me, this was not easy - it seemed stuck to the surface EVERYWHERE! I was trying to pry it up with the dough knife my Mom gave me, but it only seemed to wrinkle up into unusable thicknesses... I was nearing exasperation, when....

I heard Lulu say to Bas in the living room, "Paint Couch, paint couch!" and then Bas said, "Are you going to draw the couch?" (Meaning, are you going to make the couch the subject of your drawing?") And the thought flashed into my head - "No... she doesn't understand that yet, she's going to draw ON the couch!) But I was so wrapped up in trying to get the perfectly rolled out dough into the pan that it was too late. Bas suddenly announced that there was crayon all over the couch. The pie crust was done, crumpled, a total loss. (I don't blame Bas for this, it probably would have happened to me, too.)

I was so fed up. I had spent 2 hours already on the pie crust alone, and we wanted to do some other things with our Sunday, so I packed it all in, rolled the wasted dough into a ball and set in a bowl. Forget this! Didn't even refrigerate it!

But after heading out for a fun little excursion to a Weinachtskunstmarkt (Christmas craft fair) I decided to give it another go. I finally just hand pressed the bottom layer of the pie crust in place (pie making Gods please forgive me!) and put the filling in. But before I added the final crust layer, I rolled it out again. So at least the top layer was good.

And, when I did, I brainstormed that I should use the rolling pin to pick it up, by rolling it gently to get it up off the (now much more floured) surface - and it worked like a dream!

SO - in the end, it all worked out. And now that I figured it out, I think I can get the whole thing made properly. We'll see, I'll give it another go next weekend!

The pie turned out pretty well. The filling was awesome, although next time, I need to put more apples in (cutting up the apples is NOT fun!) Guess, I'll do it again next weekend, just to make sure I have it down. So much for losing any weight anytime soon!

Luna's new haircut.

I finally cut Luna's hair a couple weeks ago and never posted these pictures... It was totally uneven, longer on the sides towards the front; because as a baby she rubbed it all off on the back of her head, even though she was born with quite a bit. And I didn't want to cut it while it was short, so that it was at least shoulder length all around, when I finally did. Well, when she started school, I just didn't want her waiting anymore, so I did the trim myself one night! Not too bad, if I don't say so myself! Oh yes, and you'll notice no bow! She still wears one most days, but since the Goodey barrettes work now, we use those, too!

Trick or Treating!

We decided to go to dinner tonight at a little Greek place a couple towns over. Figured we would have a quiet Saturday night, nothing special. Well, on our way back home, we saw a couple kids, dressed up in costumes trick or treating! So we hurried home, shoved Luna into 3 more layers of clothes, and then into her pumpkin costume; before heading out the door. (Fortunately, we always eat out early!) We just never expected it! We made our way around our street a bit, and I think even the houses that weren't expecting anybody went ahead and found something, just because Luna was so darn cute. When they opened the door she would say... "TwickTweet - Canny?" And then "Danke!" after getting the bounty. Too cute. We then loaded into the car and went over to the neighborhood across the lake, where we knew a lot more ex-pat families live, and quickly learned from some young American girls that the places with pumpkins or porch lights were the ones to hit. And in the end, Luna made out pretty well! She was thrilled! So were we...

These are our neighbors across the street. She's a doll and helped take care of our place while we were on vacation. She loved Luna's costume. 'So süß!' she said! (So sweet!)

And here's Luna with the goods after getting home.

Some of the stash...

Yay! I guess we should have expected it after a group of teenagers knocked on our door last night at about 11pm - they must have spied our jack-o-lanterns... but I just never thought that there would actually be so many kids out!

Happy Halloween from our Little Pumpkin!

I decided to make Luna's costume this year, because there was relatively little hope of finding one in her size here. They do have them, but their mostly scary, and mostly too big. So I made her a pumpkin costume, much like the one I had when I was about 3 years old. There was no hope of finding a pattern, so I even did that myself. She won't be able to trick-or-treat, but at least we have pictures of her in a costume!




Uh oh, fell down... now what am I supposed to do?



And yes, of course some candy... actually I had to bribe her with it just to get the costume on - she was NOT having it!

Happy Halloween!

First 4 Word Combination...

Luna had her first four word combination yesterday... It was "Papa goes in shower!" or more literally... "Papa... go... in... tau-tau!"

Foggy Morning

As any of you who have ever been here might know, it can be very foggy here. And we're not just talking a little morning fog that burns off - it can stick around all day! So while driving on a country road recently I saw a family of swans sitting in a mucky green pond, and with the fog I thought it would be the most gorgeous picture. So when it was foggy again this morning, I decided to see if I could go get the shot after I picked up Luna. Only to discover that they had drained the pond! (Most of the ponds around here are carp ponds, and they drain them in order to harvest the carp.) While I was very disappointed I did stop a few other places to see what kind of shots I could get, here are some of them...

Luna's New Lantern

Last night Bas was invited to Luna's kindergarten to help her make a lantern for St. Martin's. Here is the little guy they came home with! Pretty handy, huh?

Pumpkins!

Well, we are definitely the only ones on the block, but we carved pumpkins this weekend! I think everybody likes them though! Luna sure does!