Five Christmas's Later

Full disclosure: this will be a marathon post.  I had thought about making the following into a few posts, but in the end determined a marathon weekend = a marathon post.

 Christmas weekend is always busy, as I'm sure it is for a many, many people.  We have the added excitement of celebrating Natalie's birthday as well.  In truth, it was a great weekend which started out very non-traditionally with a holiday haircut thanks to bubblegum. See the culprit.

Doesn't she look a little too proud of the gum in her hair????

In truth I think both Natalie and I are happy with the end result - I mean, isn't she cute??? (Not that I'm biased or anything....).  Hopefully she won't put gum in her hair every time she wants a new 'do'.

Following the haircut and change into Christmas clothes, we had a mini-photoshoot (enjoy grandparents :o] )

Thanks Nana and Grandad for the coats!

Christmas day in our house will always be extra busy, because Natalie's birthday is also on Christmas day.  To combat this we try our best to schedule the most low-key day possible.  It started off with muffins....chocolate muffins.

Followed by presents and FUN :)

 

Then we transitioned to celebrate Natalie's 5th birthday!!!!  I can't believe she is FIVE - where did that time go again????

And here she is fighting for her loot...who knew Papa was such a fan of bath toys???

And enjoying the rest of her presents.

And now we (the parents) are tired., despite the relatively low key day.

We hope that you all had a very Merry Christmas.  We are so very blessed and thankful for this year and wonderful season.

Over the River and Through the Woods

Merry Christmas in Swedish

Each week flies by quicker than the previous week.  We're enjoying this time of year, but it seems to be going by way too quickly (hopefully January and February will go by just as quickly???).  We started off the weekend with our first Christmas program of the season.  This program was at Natalie's school and she knew all of the songs by heart, including hand motions. 

The weekend continued with a trip to Scandia, Minnesota, our own version of Sweden in the Mid-West.  We then went on a COLD nice a nice walk in the woods to see the St. Croix River, a tributary of the Mississippi River.  In hindsight, I suppose we may have planned a bit better with the girls attire.  But, they were extremely obedient - Joe had instructed them to wear the clothes from last nights program again before putting them in the wash.  I don't think he meant exactly the next morning.

My favorite people.

Who says you can only relax by the water in the summertime?

Linnea's learning how to be a photographer - Joe had asked her to focus on our faces :o)

And completed the day with the annual model train set-up.

And puzzles...

Ending with a little goofiness courtesy of candy canes.

Natalie says, "I don't know why Willow keeps biting me"....I think I may know.

 And so the season continues.  We hope that you are enjoying your Christmas season!

Sweet Tooth

Christmas cookies.  

Does there really need to be any text regarding these delicious, labor intensive, unhealthy, creations?

Today we spend the majority of the day making sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies.

I decided to make a double batch of each.  The reason for the increase in batch size?  We had company to help with the cookies AND I'm not planning to make these again for several months (perhaps 12 months?).

It was a lot of fun, but I think we may have overdone the batch amount.  This is the loot after sending two platefuls home with our guests. Anyone who has a sweet tooth is welcome to visit :o)

And just for fun, I took some pictures of the Christmas sites in the Norman house.  Did I mention that I like this season a little bit?

Mysigt

I LOVE this time of year. There are so many reasons for my fondness, but one particular reason is the mysigt atmosphere. Mysigt is the Swedish term for cozy, and the lights of the season definitely contribute to this feeling.

Christmas trees help too, with all of their lights.  And so, this weekend we spent most of Saturday afternoon decorating our tree.

And finished by taking photos for the grandparents...

We like our tree.

It was a lot of fun to decorate on such a perfect day - it was snowing and as the snow continues we'll continue our enjoyment with a Christmas movie and hot cocoa in our very mysigt room.