Spring Break

I didn't intend to give the kids a formal Spring Break, since I knew we'd end up missing a lot of school days this month due to company and my running around. But Matt took some time off, which is wonderful, and I'm just not motivated to stick to our school schedule when he's home. I'd much rather work on projects around the house and spend hours just talking with him! As a result, we've accomplished a lot around the house, but the kids aren't any better educated for it. ;) 'A' spent the last week on a service project in Czech, building a playground at a school. He had a fantastic time and came home really spiritually motivated. He really connected with the man who went as the speaker to the teens, and it's been fun to listen as he shares about their conversations.

Matt and I took advantage of having one less body in the way and, in a moment of supreme insanity, decided to rearrange most of the rooms in the house. Only the kitchen and dining room were left unmolested! Matt drove his mom to the airport Monday morning and that afternoon we began our attempt to permanently damage our bodies with extreme physical labor. (We've eliminated "moving man" from our list of possible second careers.) Our house has three livable floors and an attic for storage. The top floor has three bedrooms and a bath; the main floor has a half-bath, living room, dining room and kitchen; the basement has an enormous room we'd divided with schranks into a bedroom for 'A' and storage, a tiny laundry room, another room we used for the younger boys' room, a school room/sewing room, and a bathroom. By the time we were done we'd moved 'A' from the basement to 'K's room, moved all three girls into our room, moved 'J' and 'M' into the girls' old room and moved ourselves into the school room in the basement. The boys' old room has become the sewing room/library. (We've got to have a place to put all these books!!!), and 'A's old room has become the play room. When we realized we were still capable of small muscle movement without much discomfort, we knew we still had work to do, so we moved the entertainment center/tv into the play room and painted the long living room wall a beautiful, deep red. Friday night will be family movie night; other than that the tv doesn't go on. No movies, no games. Just sad, slightly confused children, whose imaginations need to be stimulated again. ;) I've been pushing to axe the tv for years, so I'm thrilled with the new direction! Now the living room is a quiet room people read and play games in. And we have a our own quiet place to retreat to in the basement. Far, far away from young voices (and ears). Today we'll be shopping for a German schrank to place against our beautiful red wall.

Sunday was our Priest's last Mass with us. I was asked to make two cakes for 100 people for both his last Sunday and an award ceremony for him on Monday. (Side note on the roses- Being the far-sighted planner that I am, I decided to try to learn how to make frosting roses as I was decorating the cake. Youtube has several videos demonstrations posted, so I sat at the computer with a flower nail and pastry bag and tried to copy the experts. Some of my roses actually looked like roses, but others looked like "cabbages" according to my darling husband. The next day, Matt asked if he could play with my left over frosting and tips and sat down to give it a try. I should add here that he comes from a long line of accomplished artists. His great, great grandfather's paintings are sold at Southeby's, and both his maternal grandparents were phenomenal painters. That being said, I should have come up with some story about how the pastry bags are specially fitted to my hands and won't fit me any more if someone else uses them. But no...I said "Sure, honey!" Silly me. After his very first attempt I knew I'd been outdone. He sat there turning out and eating perfect rose after perfect rose, saying "This is fun!" around mouthfuls of frosting. I guess I have a new decorator now!) So, I spend a small fortune and invested in a full-sheet cake pan. A full-sheet cake is huge. HUGE!! I wouldn't fit in anyone's oven, so I took it to the chapel where there's an industrial size oven. An industrial size oven with a faulty thermostat. It took an hour and a half for the cake to finish baking, and I had to cut the top off because it was so dark and dry. Fortunately several of the wonderful ladies in our congregation were willing to make cupcakes for Sunday and additional cakes for Monday, so I only had to make one full-sheet and cut it in half for both cakes. Sunday's cake was wonderful, but Monday's half completely fell apart. I ended up with a ridiculous looking huge mess. So Monday morning I decided I was going to have to start all over, but not having a big enough oven, my plan had to change. I ended up throwing together a spice cake (16 & 12" rounds) with apple pie flavored filling, but I'd used all my powdered sugar making frosting for the cake that flopped. The store is closed on Monday, so Youtube (my new cake making friend) rescued me once again. I found a video on how to make Swiss Buttercream, which is made from granulated instead of powdered sugar. Oh, my gosh!!! Real buttercream is to die for!! Roll me over, dump a bucket of dirt on me, and stick a flower on top! It was all I could do to not stick my head into the bowl! I didn't have time to freeze the cakes before frosting, so it stayed really soft which is wonderful for eating, but impossible to really smooth. Father Mitch was awarded the Legion of Merit, so I tried to make the medal out of frosting.

Pope Benedict's older brother, Monsignor Ratzinger (Monsignor is a title of honor bestowed upon certain priests), came up for the ceremony. He's the most gentle, joyful, little old man. He looks just like Ernie, the Keebler elf! He loved my cake and asked if he could take a piece home with him! When I started to cut it, Father Mitch stopped me and said that Msr. Ratzinger wanted the the fourth of the cake that had the remaining medal on it, so he could share it with some of the other priests in Regensburg, so we sent him home with an enormous amount of cake.

I can't get the hang of the German cake filling, yet, but my German neighbor has offered to invite me over the next time she makes a cake. (I'm wondering if something didn't translate quite right when her daughter wrote out the recipe for me.) She makes absolutely delicious German-style cakes and I want to be able to add them to my repertoire.

I think that catches us up for the week. Life is as hectic and fun as usual; and we love it!