Germany Party

I have decided that I need to beware of lists. I become obsessed with them to the point that I HAVE to get everything done on them. I am still working away at the 20 or so things that we didn't get done on our Summer Bucket List. I listed 83 things and we are so close to accomplishing the all. I have now created an Autumn Bucket List (which I will post about soon) but I can't seem to shake the few things left on the summer one...

Learning about a new country was on the list and I was so excited to find out that one of my new friends in this area was from Germany and some of our new neighbors lived there for a while and spoke German. I decided that was perfect for some great information about Germany.

We had them all over for a German party this last Sunday. My friend Nadine let me borrow some things from Germany to decorate with. I made some paper wheels in German colors and mounted them on BBQ skewers put them in some of the beautiful ceramic mugs that Nadine brought over. The table above was the children's table.

This was the adult table.
We also put German words all over the house to let the kids learn a few words in German.
Dinner was authentic German food (except the fact that we had hotdogs for the kids :)
Our great neighbors made this German dish called Zwiebelkuchen (onion cake) It was SO GOOD! Even my kids loved it.
I was so impressed with Palmer he was pretty adventurous. he tried just about everything! The funny thing is that I cut up cantaloupe and fresh pineapple for the kids to eat and that is what he didn't want. His pickyness mostly extends to fruit.

We had zwiebelkuchen, brats and sauerkraut (which I had never had and LOVED) garnished with real German ketchup and mustard. It isn't like ours, Authentic German potato salad (complete with German pickles) and German rice pudding. We also had the fruit and hotdogs for the kids. The kids were all pretty good to try the German food.
Josh printed up different facts about Germany and gave one to each of the kids to tell everyone about. They were things about population, holidays, school life and customs. We all learned a lot. It was fun because after someone would share a fact, those who lived in Germany would tell us things about their experiences.


We then told the kids to each go and find a German word and teach it to us. It was a frenzy for the kids to get the words they wanted. The funniest were the ones who wanted the one on the ceiling.

This is a laminated newspaper that was put out in Germany when the Berlin Wall came down. Nadine told the kids about that and explained about families being separated by the wall and how excited everyone was for it to come down. I think it was so mind boggling for the kids to think about something so extreme.
Nadine had an actual piece of the Berlin Wall. It was funny because when I first put it out Palmer saw it and said "wow cool, a German rock." (we are easily impressed in our family). Little did he know how cool it actually was (he found out though).
For dessert we had apple strudel. I was so nervous to make it for the first time, but it turned out so yummy!

German night was so great and now we need to go and see Germany for ourselves :)
P.S.  Even though I am not in one picture, I really was there...promise