Uh oh!

We're about to start a new year! There are so many friends I should have had time to see this year, so many things I should have done. Now I'm running out of time!
Where did all these days go? Why did 2011 just fly past and never stop for a moment?

 

Photo is borrowed

Merry Christmas!

I wish you all a blessed Christmas, and hope it will be a joyful holiday for you all.
We've started the the day out in the woods - on a bright, sunny morning.

Bad hair day

Well, the truth is: Every day is another bad hair day for my sons ;-) Every morning all the beautiful curls are like felted wool.

Tons of water, a special brush and patience is what it takes to fix it in the morning.

Knitting

People who know me, know I like to knit. But I only knit in periods. Sometimes I'm very fast, and sometimes things takes forever to finish. This took for ever. But now they are all done, and will be given away to two adorable little personalities.

Four Sundays preparing

We have been preparing for Christmas, preparing for the little king to come. The very last candle of advent is lit. Let all the four of them shine brightly!

I can't show you everything we've done so far. Some are secrets.

But we decorated our ginger bread church. The powdered sugar icing wasn't half as successful as I had hoped, it was all liquid - I didn't have enough powder. But the kids were happy anyway :)
The snow is coconut powder. It doesn't look to bad after all.

Saint Lucy's day

Well, we are not catholics nor are we obsessed with saints and stuff. But this day has been celebrated here in Norway for a while, and it is quite pleasant on one of these dark winter days in December, with the little kids carrying candles (mostly electric "candles") and singing.
The family activity for today was baking the traditional St. Lucy's buns. They are saffron-scented  sweet buns in funny shapes.

 

This fall, my little daughter has had her hear in cornrows for months. It certainly doesn't look all that good all the time, so I have to refresh it every now and then. Here are two pics - one from the fuzzy two weeks braids, and one from the neatly refreshed cornrows. And this time we went for new colors on the elastics too :-)

Advent

Christmas is approaching! Three candles are lit and time goes by doing family activities. I'm used to Norwegian advent candle songs, but this one is beautiful too!

A candle is burning, flames warm and bright,

a candle of hope in December's dark night.

While angels sing blessing from heaven's starry sky,

our hearts we prepare now for Jesus is nigh.

A Candle is burning, a candle of peace,          

a candle to signal that conflict must cease:          

for Jesus is coming to show us the way;          

a message of peace humbly laid in the hay.

A candle is burning, a candle of joy.          

A candle to welcome brave Mary's new boy.          

Our hearts fill with wonder, and eyes light and glow          

as joy brightens winter like sunshine on snow.

 

And we've been cross country skiing  in the Winter Wonderland today!

King winter has arrived!

 The hours of daylight are few but oh so beautiful! Here are a couple of photos from outside my office yesterday.

Last weekend I forgot the second Sunday of advent photo. Here we are.

Our manger scene that sits next to the TV. I'm quite proud of this one - it's hand made from Madagascar :-)

And as I wrote in my last post, on December 5th we made some snowflakes. The result was good, and I love them hanging there. They're fluttering due to the heat from the heater below.

We go on with our advent calendar :)

4th of December the family activity was going to the movie theater.
December 5th we were making paper snowflakes and decorating one of our windows. I'll show you a pic once I've downloaded it.
6th of December was a disaster - on the note it said we were going to make snow lanterns. But little did we know the night before, that the snow was becoming too cold and not wet enough to make the snowballs needed for the lanterns. So we ended up searching the web for stuff the kids like to watch as a compensation for promises we failed to keep.
December 7th was the day where the boys were invited to a birthday party and mom was working all afternoon. There was no time for family activities, so we figured maybe that should be the day for a gift. So it was.
8th of December - that's today. We knew we were going to be sort of busy today and that there were going to be other people around too. So today was the day for making frozen bananas and eat them covered in chocolate. Yum!

I probably told you the same a year ago ;-)

I love advent!

I love all the smells that remind me of my childhood and of course of Christmas.
I love to do with my kids what I used to do when I was little.
I love to make new traditions that are ours, that my kids hopefully will continue with their kids.
I love the way we've found a solution for the advent calendar. I so much want my kids to count their blessing as a count down for Christmas, not their things. This month shouldn't be all about getting another little gift.

I'm sure our kids know we love them more than anything despite not getting presents until Christmas Eve.
So how do we solve this challenge when our kids already have one of these cloth calendars with twenty four rings on them each?

Every day there is a rolled paper note for each of them hanging on their calendars. The note says something about what kind of activity the family is doing together today.

December 1st: We're finding our wooden manger scene and putting it in a nice spot. (Now it sits next to the TV ;-)  )

December 2nd: Treasure hunt. They looked around the house for ten clues to find the treasure hidden in the laundry room. The treasure was the dinner ingredients and we made the dinner together.

December 3rd: Baking ginger breads. And so we did :)

First grade family night

I just have to show you some of the pictures from tonight.
Girlie and I have been out for a first grade family outdoors night.
We brought flashlights and headlamps to light up the trail and to se the reflectors in the trees showing the way to the different stations. Six stations there were on our way to the campsite. When we arrived the there the fire was already lit. And sometimes I ask myself: Is there anything as beautiful as a fire in the dark?

Well, yes there is one ting - the stars! It was a stellar night for stargazing! Ursa Major(big dipper) shone upon us. And several other constellations were to be seen too. Awesome!


The kids are used to the place. They've been here several times on their out-of-school learning days.
Tonight everybody brought food to roast over the fire. Lots of hot dogs.

It was a great night for both of us! Thanks to first grades parent contacts!

Just in time

My last post about the mild fall was posted just in time. The same night it was freezing.
When we woke up the next morning, the ground was covered in frost. Stunningly beautiful!
And the funny thing is it lasts!
We went for a trip today and somewhere even the mud wasn't that gushy any more. It was half frozen and sort of hard.

We walked around Stavsjøen - a nice little lake. The kids love the little bridge at the very end of the lake. They love balancing on the railing.

We made fire and cooked for lunch.   A bit cold but not winter cold any way!

Not winter yet

This time one year ago, we'd already had lasting snow for about a month. But not this year. It's still sort of warm weather. We wear regular sneakers and shell jackets every day.

It feels like the fall has lasted for a decade - that's a lot longer than usual.
Don't get me wrong! I love the fall - this is one of the most beautiful seasons, and it's wonderful not to freeze too much all the time. I love the possibilities for hiking and little trips that comes with the leaf covered grounds. I just wish I had more time for loving the nature, more time to spend outdoors.  But working some fifty hours a week on average and lots of weekends doesn't go too well with being an outdoors person. Sometimes I even have to come home from work Sunday night and just look at the pics from one of the family trips I was not a part of.
There has been no canoeing this fall and no camping so far, but i still am hoping for a camping. Maybe this weekend - I don't work until Sunday morning this time.
After setting our clocks to standard time again days are becoming shorter. No doubt the winter draws nearer, but so far I enjoy the fall as much as I can. This really is great!

Scout trip

The one I told you about - well, here are a few pics:

Happy Halloween!

I've had a day off today!
Halloween in Norway isn't as Halloween in the US. Most people here aren't very happy about all the kids begging for candies.
We used to be like that our selves!
But this year we invited 6 girls and 5 boys over for a Halloween party.
We started decorating the house on Friday. But Saturday morning we left for a scout trip (I'll tell you about that part later) and then, Sunday right after we came home our girlie and her choir had a concert. (That's going to be a blog post too.)
So I spent the whole day picking up the house, doing the laundry and cooking for these 14 kids - a girl party and a boy party.
On the menu:

Starter: Candy...
Main dish: Mummies
Drink: Dragon snot and Witch blood

Dessert: Spiders, ghosts, soil and worms, fingers (still warm) and more candy.

Spiderweb was everywhere inside the house and also on the porch. Bats, cats and spiders were our best friends tonight.

We all had a great time!

Happy birthday, hubby!

This afternoon I was teaching until 4.30 pm. That means hubby picked up our youngest and her little friend from the after-school-program.

When I came home I seized the kids, pulled them into our bedroom, showed them the presents I just bought for their dad and shoved them out of the room again.
The boys got changed for soccer practice and they all left the house only minutes after I came home.

The kids and I had planned the menu for the celebration, and our daughter and I started wrapping gifts and cooking once the boys were out of sight.

Well, everyone who knows me just a little bit, know I only do basic cooking, as do my kids :)
They ordered tacos with ice-cream for dessert. Thank God for understanding kids!
So the two of us did the frying and the chopping, set the table and lit the candles (only two).

Once she heard the key in the lock our daughter leap off her chair in excitement. As soon as they were all back in the living room, the "happy birthday" song echoed off the walls.

It's just amazing to see how excited the little ones can be about a birthday!

We ate enjoyed dinner and dessert before dad ran off to his job dinner...

Happy birthday, hubby! I just can't recall if there was time to say that before you left ;-)

Today we haven't been to far from home, but most of the area I haven't seen until today. There were tons of grey alder. I think I haven't seen that many in one place before.

Here is a picture of some of the cones we found.

 

The kids are checking out the view at what they call the meeting point.

More hiking

Trying out new places dashing around in the beautifully colored nature is actually a good treat for body and soul.
Here are some photos from our last trips.
Three different hikes:
To the top of Geitfjellet  - a nice little mountain for a view of the city.

Around Stavsjøen (a lake)

In the area of Saksvikvollen.

Splashy wet hikes but good anyway! Did you see the rainbow, by the way?