Fastnacht Day 2012

Yesterday was my favorite "minor holiday" of the year-- Fastnacht Day! If you aren't living in the middle of PA Dutch country,  HERE's a quick link about Fastnacht Day from a local PA newspaper.

Basically, we get together and make a lot of donuts.  And eat them.  And then eat some more.  And basically eat so many donuts that it tides us over til the next donut day. :) I actually started this blog in February, so I actually have Faustnacht Day of 2009, 2010, and 2011 archived as well (p.s.: oh, my heart!! Just look at how little all of my sweet nieces and nephews and Collette were in those pictures!!)

This year, I didn't get too many great pictures-- we had 8 kids 5 and under, and making sure they didn't eat raw donut dough, get too close to the fryer, or lick every single donut to get the sugar and sprinkles off was a pretty full-time job. We invited our friend Danielle, so her 3 kids added to the fun (and to the chaos!). You can check out Danielle's fabulous blog and her take on her first-ever donut day HERE.

Collette loved to use the rolling pin. Too bad it was our only one, so she didn't get to use it as much as she wanted to. Note to self: bring Collette's mini-rolling pin next year. 

 Concentrating very hard with her donut cutter.  Please take notice of her owl barrettes.  I had other bows picked out, but she was adamant that she wanted the owl barrettes. She actually has four owl barrettes, which she refers to as "Mommy owl, Daddy owl, Lettie owl, and Baby Brother owl."  Today she wanted Mommy owl and Daddy owl. LOL

 Cousins Tabby, Autumn, and Collette kneading the donut dough:

 Rubbing off excess flour on her sweater:

 Mmmmmmmmm. Chocolate donut holes.  Yumo.

 Here's our best group shot, with a variety of our donuts.  Let me tell you what, it's not easy with that many kiddos.  I love that half of the kids are eating, holding, or reaching for a donut.  

At the end of the day, we all went home with chocolate donut holes, potato donuts with powdered sugar, and cinnamon sugar, vanilla filled donuts with chocolate icing and sprinkles, and chocolate filled donuts with chocolate icing and chocolate sprinkles.