We are definitely in the Christmas mood around here. I made many many batches of cookies and have delivered them to friends, teachers and neighbors (American cookies are a novelty here). No pictures of that, I was too busy being the slave master of cookie central I guess.
Our tree is up and while it is another IKEA sight-unseen tree, I really like it. You know how when you go to pick a live tree out, either cut or uncut, and you can really turn it around or walk all around it and check it out? Then, after you have chosen your perfect tree, you cut it down (or take it to the front to pay) they send it through the tree wrapper thing and, voila, you have a nice compact aerodynamic tree to tie to the top of your vehicle and take home. Well, here, they skip the time-consuming part of letting you check out the tree and you have to just pick a pre-shrinked-wrapped tree from the pile and go with it! The only real deciding factor is height and then you can kind of guess at the fullness of the tree from the bulge. By the way, after many years of trekking through Talbott's looking for the perfect Christmas tree (often in freezing weather with young children in a backpack), Kevin is loving the IKEA trees! The best part is they are a bargain. Yes, the only bargain we have yet to find at all here. You pay 20euros to get the tree, and when you return it after the season, they recycle them for you and give you a 19euro gift card to their store. It's a sweet deal. Do people still say 'sweet'? We're so out of the American culture loop here.
I don't have a full tree picture, but here's the ornaments we bought for the boys this year.
We also have a tiny bit of snow on the ground. Enough for the boys to get the shovels and sleds out and have a little fun, but not enough to spend all day out in it. But it's at least a pretty white covering out there. And the mountains are finally loaded. Kevin took the older two skiing last weekend, but forgot the camera! We'll definitely make sure and take it next time, when we take Piper skiing for the first time. I bought him some used skiis the other day. Let me tell you, they are so tiny and cute I can hardly stand it. We'll be sure to get some videos and pictures when we take him!
Speaking of Piper, he's such a ham lately. I really need to get my video camera out and catch the things he says. My favorite thing he does this week is pull out his school folder, flip to the page where it says he had a birthday in November and sing Happy Birthday to himself while pointing at his picture. Except he only sings the 'Happy Birthday to me' line... over and over and over. Ego?! You think?
He also likes to help with laundry. Here he jumped into the basket after emptying it for me and said 'I'm dirty, wash Pipey!'
I think he also thought when he tucks all of his body into the basket, I can't really see him! Oh, the perspective of a child.
The older two have become game-aholics. I think all that Sorry and Go Fish playing while we were in the US got them on a kick. The latest is Scrabble. If I play with them, I make them follow the rules. Here they were playing by themselves and the game morphed into a tile up (little cheaters) Bananagrams version of Scrabble where they put words where and when they want but also score hundreds of points. It's all about winning, at least with E. I think we can safely say he takes after my family, particularly the board-throwing-if-you're-losing members of my family. I won't mention any names, but let's just say there were some sore losers in our house and now it has come full circle!
We're headed to Germany for Christmas, so I'm sure we'll have a lot of pictures to share from our travels when we return. Until then, we hope you have a wonderful Christmas! Enjoy your time with family and/or friends, celebrating the birth of Christ!
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