Stars Were Shining, Kids Weren't Whining

This is a picture of my favorite Christmas lights. It is a building which was rebuilt as some company's corporate headquarters, but replicating the original which was designed by . . . anyone? Anyone? Schinkel! The building and the stars are all white by day, but I think they look great this way too. The stars are just for Christmas, and they are everywhere -- on tops of trees and market stalls, and hanging from windows, churches and street lamps.
There is a folded paper version with 16 points which Maddie and I learned to make last Friday.

Here is Frau Gabler, Maddie's homeroom teacher with her. It all happened just as Rob said it would' we told the kids we were going home soon and Will said "I don't want to leave Lietzensee Grundschule!". Granted he was mourning the loss of the five-hour school day (Westridge has them for seven hours a day), but he has really gotten acclimated and had a good time.

Not only does he have a best friend (Roman) and a girlfriend (Stefani), but one of the Turkish kids taught him how to fold his pants for sport class and has started trading things with Will (I don't understand his name -- Will says "Trazdem" which sounds like a relative of Trogdor).

And Maddie is in with a great crowd here too. Fanny and Jessica and Lena and all of her friends are nice girls. When Rob picked her up from Lena's yesterday, Lena's father kept saying "It's such a shame you're leaving! They get along so well!".

The same goes for the kids at church. I hate to be the one to bust the myth, but the church is not the same the world over. Anyone who has been there knows that there is more leg room in the Vienna 2nd ward. Similarly, Sebastian would tell you that there is just no comparison between the 21 toddlers and 5 adults in his Utah nursery and the 3 kids/1 adult in his Berlin ward. Today she took them to a playground near the church and they all came back with pink cheeks. He actually asks us when he gets to go to church here!

We also remembered as we were going out the door that Will had a talk today in Primary. So we asked what the theme was when we got there and Rob wrote it out during Sacrament meeting (one of many reasons why having sacrament meeting first is the way that God intended it). It was "God fulfilled his promise to send us a savior" or something like that, so Will talked all about his Lego advent calendar and how it is all a countdown to Jesus' birthday.

I should here recant all of that ranting about assembling the Playmobil calendars. All three of them have been a hit and were well worth it. Maddie gets some princess/unicorn piece, Will gets construction signs and luggage security checkpoints, and Sebastian gets horses and guinea pigs daily, and they all start off every day happy. I wish that I could find year-long advent calendars. Sometimes you need to feel rewarded just for getting up in the morning and opening that little door.

After church Maddie and her friend Maraly watched their younger siblings so that we parents could attend choir practice. Rob is going to sing a solo and give a talk next week, so we had to put in some time. All three of the kids have people from Primary they are really going to miss, but at least they've now got their e-mail accounts up and running so that they can keep in contact and have German penpals.