Christmas at our House

1. The Decor

Nativities...

and strung up things.


Norwegian "nisse", hearts, candles and stars...

and a greeting.

A very special snowman,
And, of course, our beautiful children!
All ready and waiting for the tree, which came later.


2. The Tree

Last year we cut down our tree at a christmas tree farm here in Norway. It was a lot of fun, so we decided to do it again. We learned last year to watch out for the stumps of cut down trees.
I don't think anyone fell on them this year. It didn't take us long to find our tree, there were so many good ones. The kids were super helpers - I think they were excited for the tasty warm raspberry drink they would be having when we were done, compliments of the tree farm, which has a u-pick raspberry patch in the summer. They pick berries from the patch and make them into yummy juice in the summer, then warm some up for all the tree seekers in winter. Yum! What a treat.

A Little Late MERRY CHRISTMAS Everyone!

We miss all of you. Christmas was lots of fun in this part of the world, it was even white here in Stavanger before leaving for our Hytta, and is still white and CoLD! That's a Stavanger record for us.

snow man

One little Snow Man.

Snow Crowd who built a tall Snow Man

TalleR.

Uh Oh!

They build another one.

Snow man and a snow fort . . . which later became a snowy fort.
Snow crowd loves the snow!
The End.

We finally got some . . .

S N O W ! S n o w, s n o W, and more s n o w. It looks like winter. It looks like Christmas. It's been snowing all day and it is still snowing. This is the first time it has snowed all day for us in Stavanger. Some of us (the kiddos especially) have forgotten what a snowy day is like. After the kids finished up their morning chores they were outside, then in and out and in and out again and again, all day. They made snowmen, a big snow fort, went sledding and sliding, made snow paths . . . they played hard in the snow. Their snow gear is very wet from all their super snow fun. The yard is filled with snow stuff and snow tracks getting covered with more snow. They just came in for the night. It's 10pm. Wow. What a perfectly beautiful sight. And, it's so much lighter outside right now . . . even though it is night time. I love that winter "light". I've missed it. Good night.

Halloween was a while ago, but . . .

Aren't these the cutest kids you ever saw?

They did a super job getting their jack-o-lanterns ready.

And, there were no scary rotten ones this year
(like Adam's last year that was black on the inside and full of oozy juice . . . lovely!
He was so disappointed. The funniest part is that he still wanted to carve it out.
Couldn't bring myself to let him, or me if that's what he was thinking).
Only one that had a super, suPER, SUPER hard shell. Mine. I couldn't carve it.
The only thing I could do was drill it with a strong knife. I'm amazed we even got the top cut off.
Adam had to scoop it out because it was too skinny for my arm.

This year, Adam was a wizard again (for some reason he was very particular
about being a dark wizard. Maybe I should be worried), Mary Alice was a Mermaid Princes (thankfully simplified from the Mermaid-Princess-Ballerina-Fairy idea) and Eli was a Dragon.
I found some great costume ideas on the Family Fun website for for Eli and Mary Alice and made a cool cape for Adam easily out of a fitted sheet.
Sorry about the two steps back on the holidays, I'll get back to Christmas next time.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Princesses

Mary Alice is our little princess. Everyone else must know that too, or she must have told everyone she wanted a princess barbie for her birthday, cause guess what she got? Not just one but . . .

5!!! and one prince, and one baby princess, plus 7 little dwarves. WOw. She already had one, then Adam gave her a prince on her birthday, then Grammie's princess came in the mail, then when the day of her long awaited party arrived, the neighbors gave her one, then a little friend gave her one and a little cinderella (not pictured), then a little friend who could not come to the party gave her one and then the babysitter! It's funny how they seem to get a lot of something for their birthdays. I daresay, this is one lucky little princess. Nowadays, when I tuck her in at night, she has tucked in the whole lot of princesses right next to her . . . but mommy just tucks in her little princess.

Just the family for Thanksgiving

Since we are far away from home, Thanksgiving holiday doesn't really exist.

SO, this year we decided to have Thanksgiving on Saturday with some friends, to enjoy a little longer day, rather than on Thursday right after school for a couple hours. BuT, Adam got sick Friday night. Instead of a few friends to celebrate with, we just had our family. And, it was alright. We had a very enjoyable day and didn't stress about anything. Even Adam got to enjoy the meal from a distance (thanks to daddy's thoughtful furniture rearrangement). We saved him a big plate to enjoy later . . .
and he did, all the next week . . . when he finally felt better.