Weeks 16 and 17- Germany

I'm so glad  our My Father's World curriculum spent six weeks exploring three European countries.  Europe is just incredible, and so diverse.  Although it's exciting and a nice shot in the arm to be headed south toward Africa,  we all feel there is still so much to learn about Europe!  We just don't want to leave.

Probably the most fun we had in Germany was using beeswax to create small sculptures.  In Germany, beeswax is a very common art supply in most class rooms.  I was excited to find some on clearance at the craft store.  Beeswax can take quite a while to get soft and moldable, so we cheated and used a hair dryer to speed up the process.  It comes in sheets so we unrolled them and tore off a piece, warmed it up, and started molding.  Mister made an elf and a knight.

Brown Eyed Girl made a menagerie of animals.

Petite just loves to have her picture taken.  She has a bit of blue beeswax in hand, but it didn't interest her the way Play-Dough does.

Brown Eyed Girl has been reading Amelia Bedelia and had been asking me for a few weeks to make a lemon meringue pie, just like Amelia. If you have ever made a lemon meringue pie, you know it's a lot of work between making the crust, custard, and meringue.  I felt bad that I kept putting her off and finally agreed, but I warned her this would take a while.  She did a wonderful job of sticking with it and learned how to separate eggs, juice and zest a lemon, and make a meringue (which was always impossible for me til I got my Kitchen aid!).

Our meringue was stiff and gorgeous and our custard was sweet and tart.  Here she is before we browned the meringue.

 And a picture of me thrown in.  I have to show up on here once in a while.
Our pie came out wonderful, but it turns out I'm the only one in the house who likes lemon.  B-E-G did have a little taste, but gave it a sideways thumb for a rating.  Josh admitted he had to choke it down cause he's not a lemon fan. And Mister wouldn't even touch it. Thankfully Grammy and Grampy like lemon and we also sent some to our brother-in-law who loves it.

Our German feast wasn't fancy, but we did have frankfurters and German potato pancakes, which everyone liked.

No true beer for us, but I happened to have a can of root beer in the fridge.  The Germans love their beer and I can't thank them enough for hamburgers!

As I write this post, we are finishing up the book Heidi, which is absolutely wonderful.  We all love it and I am so glad I pulled this classic off the shelf to read to my children.  The kids lay on the floor in front of the fire while I curl up on the couch. I cherish these moments of showing them what is good and pure and lovely in the form of a beautiful story.