Time is slipping through my fingers faster than I like. I’m beyond thankful for my newsletters. I’m finding myself going back through them and adding my personal notes here to the kids scrapbooks. What a huge blessing this task has been. It’s become a journal to remind me of all the little things I was sure I would not ever forget.

Today is St. Martins day again. I can’t believe a year has gone by since our first lanterne laufen with Danes school. This time we were fully prepared. This time I had a glass for the gluhwein after, and this time we had our lanterns ready. In fact, on Monday Dane, Tess and I spent an hour tracing, cutting, gluing and sweating to get our lanterns ready.

The teachers already had the templates ready, grass, a hedgehog, a moon and a bunny. Tracing the templates was already tricky, but cutting grass out of curling wax paper, and a hedgehog too, had me feverishly working with my tongue half out of my mouth. Apparently keeping your tongue half out of your mouth helps concentration. Who knew?

Once the cutting was completed it was time for gluing. Gluing turned out to be even harder than cutting. The wax paper cut-outs kept trying to curl back up into a tube, and all the edges on the grass and the hedgehog kept trying to glue on everything but the main lantern paper. I did it though! I got the whole lantern traced, cut & glued. Then I had to glue the whole scenic paper to top & bottom & attach the handle. Also all with curling paper that wanted to glue to everything but the top & bottom. Finally finished, I got lots of compliments from the teachers, the other mothers and even the kids.

Then, last night, at last, came our lanterne laufen (literally lantern walk). Dane was so fascinated with the lightbulb dangling from his stick he would not let me cover it with the lantern shade I’d spent an hour tracing, cutting & gluing.

Lanterne laufen