What a day!

Today went something like this:

4:50 - phone call saying there was a 2 hour school delay due to snow...yes!

8:00 - make breakfast

8:30 - phone call saying school is now canceled due to snow

9:00 - Chimney sweeper arrived....he comes 2 times a year (winter and spring) and it is always a surprise...no notice ever! Yes, he wears a traditional chimney sweeper outfit and is covered in soot.

12:30 - I decide today is a good day to make my first batch of homemade spaghetti for dinner tonight. I was in the process of making the dough when.....

1:00 - furniture delivery....YES....we now have some much needed storage for the kitchen AND for the bathroom upstairs. That will be another post. Lets just say there is NO storage in German homes!

1:15 - back to making the spaghetti...

I read that fresh spaghetti is best with a dairy based sauce. So, I had all of the ingredients to make Artichoke Hearts and Tomatoe Sauce which is made with a heavy cream.

Add these ingredients plus a little water....

After I took this picture I realized that I had the dough hook on instead of the flat beater.....
Due to the large amount of counter space in my kitchen (wink), my cooktop doubled as my workspace. The dough is divided into 4 sections and then runs through the pasta roller several times to knead the dough. Then it runs through a few more times on smaller settings to create the thickness desired.

Here is the dough after running through one time....each piece ended up being at LEAST 4 times this size!!!
Now it's time to run the extremely long dough through the spaghetti cutter. Um...I learned that I need to cut the pieces into smaller pieces than I did today!

My kids loved this part!

Here is the finished product on the drying rack......

Basil Italian bread we had with our dinner.....

Colton took this picture of Ian sleeping. Yes, he has a bed, but the floor works fine too:)
Homemade pasta IS different....lighter and less chewy! It is DELICIOUS!! Totally worth the small amount of effort it takes to make. I see more batches of dough in our future!

Sunday drive......

If you were to visit our house on a typical Sunday morning you'd more than likely see my husband cooking something yummy for breakfast.....that is except for this past Sunday. Instead, we decided to load the kids up and venture out on the snow packed roads for a nice little drive to McDonalds! The kids think it is a special treat to get their favorite Sweet McGriddles (little pancakes) and the oh so popular McToast Schinken Kasse (ham and cheese in something like pita bread??)
Jacque needed a potty break while we were trying to quickly run some errands on post. He has decided that it is fun to check out every bathroom anywhere we stop!! Amazingly, the sun came out as we were waiting outside.....I don't remember when the sun has peaked out from behind the clouds this much!

This little river is on our way home......I think it looks so pretty with the snow!

The kids love to look for wild animals in this area. We see many deer, rams, and boars. They like to ride with the windows down in the summer and see who can spot the most animals. No windows were down today though!

A little further down the road are a few windmills.

Yes, that is the road we are traveling on. See those little markers sticking up on both sides of the road? These are used in place of the reflectors in on the center line of the roads. I've become very used to using these to guide where I'm driving at night....strange when I think about it, but it seems completely normal. Kind of like looking at the km on the speedometer instead of the mph. I thought I'd never be able to completely ignore the mph, but I can say it has somehow happened and I don't even notice it anymore.

...and one last windmill picture
The kids are hoping for a snow day real soon! Maybe tomorrow.....