Today is Fastnacht day — for those of you who are thinking, “fast-what?” it is the day before Ash Wednesday when households would use up the fat in their house before Lent started. It literally means in German “the night before the fast” (okay, I didn’t just know that. I googled it.). Making homemade fastnachts has always been a family tradition since….well, my grandmother’s grandmother maybe? I’m not going to be the one to break tradition. We like tradition.

So, at 5:30 am, I headed to the kitchen to start fastnachting the day using the original family recipe.

I quickly found that taking photos seriously impeding the fastnacht process. I had a time schedule I was up against.

I promise you won’t take in any calories by simply looking upon this picture. Sadly, I cannot say the same for myself since I did a lot more than simply look.

The boys woke up first and gobbled some down before I could clean my hands and grab the camera again. But, since the girls tend to sleep a little later, I did manage to take some pics of them.

That’s how long my kids will have spent in school over the course of 3 weeks. Between two scheduled days off around MLK Jr. Day, 2 days of missed school from being totally sick (not just a little sick), an astounding number of snow days, and our Disney trip…which starts tomorrow…only 2 1/2 days of school in 3 weeks time. Oh, the adjustment back is going to be hard…but I’m not going to think about that now.

Right now, I’m a crazy lady.

While Mark did this early this morning due to 12+” of snow (sigh)…

and then headed off to try to get some work done,

I was trying to keep these monkeys busy (okay, I have been depending on the tv a bit more than usual today–though I’m happy to say legos are entertaining them right now)

so that I could do this….

PACK! Yes, there are outfits laid out for each child for each day that I am putting in ziploc bags and labeling so that mornings in Disney are as painless as possible so we can get out of the room and get to the fun! (There is something I simply enjoy about zipping ziplocs so that they are basically vacuum sealed…does that make me weird?)

Can’t forget some of the fun stuff I worked on last week while the kids were sick and sleeping 20 hours straight….

pillowcases for characters to sign…love how these came out…

I have never been so happy to hear a medical professional tell my on the phone that my kids had “viral infections.” They DO NOT have mono! (insert sigh of relief here) I have never heard of a virus making a child sleep 20 hours a day. This one seriously took them out. But, they are improving. And, our Disney trip is not in jeopardy. (insert another sigh of relief here)

Of course, viral infection means that the rest of the family could get it yet…which would not be good. So, meet my new friend.

Who am I kidding though? Antibacterial hand stuff isn’t really going to help when I have a toddler who somehow climbs up on the sink and steals people’s toothbrushes, sneaks sips of water bottles even when I’ve tried to tell the kids to keep them hidden, and enjoys any other such germ-sharing tricks. Perhaps she’s got all sorts of immunities built up and will kick those germs to the curb. I’m praying that is so.

For now, I’m simply enjoying answered prayers already that the kids are on the mend, and I can keep preparing them for Disney World and reading our Disney books and doing all that Disney stuff I like to do (I’m presently somewhat addicted to fabric paint and being home with sick kids this week has given me too much time to feed my addiction…).