Tea & a Craft (& Supper!) for the Holy Father

To honor his birthday (today) and his visit to our country (this week)!

We began shortly after lunchtime - after I hauled called the boys inside from the yard (it's glorious here today!) - with some apple strudel and an easy coloring craft ...

But, a word or two first about the strudel - I had hoped to make some homemade, in honor of our Pope's German heritage, but it just wasn't to be. Oh, I had plenty of apples and raisins on hand ... but, try as I might, the extra time to scratch-bake never materialized. (Fancy that.) So instead I had Bill pick up some strudel at the grocery store on his way home from work last night - and technically, it was a danish, but that's ok. :)

While the boys munched, I showed them several interesting and child-friendly articles I'd saved about the Holy Father and his visit to the U.S. They especially liked the ones that discussed his favorite things and what he was like as a "regular person."

We found where Bavaria was on the world map ~

And placed a foam sticker there to remind us.

The gorgeous weather was distracting beckoning us, so we moved the "craft part" of the day to the deck. I had found a neat article in the Sunday Globe that discussed Pope Benedict's coat-of-arms in detail. I displayed it for the boys and gave them sheets to color as they wished. In true form, Bookworm colored it to match the picture as closely as possible, while Crackerjack used whatever shades struck his fancy. Earlybird was still eating lunch, and couldn't be lured from his mac-and-cheese to participate. :)

Inside we hung up the final products ~

And I read a lovely book aloud to the boys. I bought Joseph and Chico some time back, with this week specifically in mind. Oh, what a nice story! We are proud owners of 3 (once 5) cats, so the boys were thrilled to learn their Pope was a cat lover!   

This next photo doesn't really fit here, but I thought it looked so nice, I stuck it in anyway. ;) This is the tablecloth I wanted to use for our dinner tonight - it needed airing, so it spent the day hanging out in the spring sunshine.

And before we knew it, it was time for supper ...

Bill brought home some German wine (love the label!), and some Orange Fanta for the boys (we read it was the Pope's favorite!) ...

And I cooked up a German(ish)-themed meal ~

Sausage with apples, potatoes and peppers roasted in a cider dressing, pumpernickel bread and applesauce. Very yummy, I must say ...

But not quite as yummy as the Black Forest cake!

This afternoon I Tivo'd (real word, yes?) a special on EWTN, called Joseph Ratzinger: A Pope from Germany. My thought was that we'd sit down atogether to watch it tonight after supper. But it will have to wait for tomorrow, because here we sit now, at 8 p.m. ~ and between all the sun and the fresh air today (and who am I kidding the enormous meal, lol) we are all feeling sleepy and ready for bed. In fact, Earlybird's already there!

So I'm off! But as always, thanks for stopping by and sharing in our day. I hope you all had a good one, too. :)