Happy Birthday Daddy

Last Sunday was Tom's birthday & the his family spent the day at our place. The day's program was as follows:

10.00 Morning meeting
11.00 Bible study
12.00 Lunch
13.00 Free Activity
14.00 Birthday Song
15.00 Coffee & cake
16.00 Walk (this was cancelled due to extreme cold)
17.00 Snowball Fight (was moved to 1600 due to sunsetting)
18.30 Dinner

For the cake I made a mango & passionfruit layer cake with a merang top, & a blackforrest cheesecake.

Joshua also enjoyed helping Daddy open his presents...

Snow photos

I have finally got round to putting the promised photos on Flickr.

These 2 photos are the same day as those in my "snow" post only in the evening.

Unfortunately I didn't get round to taking a photo when the snow was at it's deepest, but it was upto the top of the pots (ie. you couldn't see the pots) & the trees behind the pots were almost completely covered as well.

My first Christmas

Tree chopping was cold

I sat in a highchair for the first time.

I loved opening my presents

And playing with them afterwards

Dansing round the Christmas Tree was fun too

White Christmas

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas. Just like the ones I used to know....
Well actually I've never experienced a white Christmas before. But this year my dreams came true & I got to experience a white Christmas. Now apparently it's all very technical, & to be truely a white Christmas 95% of the land must be covered in snow (which it was). However just the fact that all was white outside was enough for me.

As for the activites of the day. They started with the usual gathering of the family for breakfast out at Tom's parent's & then of to cut a Christmas tree. Then because of it being the alternate year, most of the family left to spend Christmas with the in-laws. So that meant that the rest of Christmas was celebrated with just Tom's parents, Pia & ourselves.

The menu for Christmas dinner was Ris alamanda (in which Tom found the almond), followed by roast goose, brown potatos, red cabbage, boiled potatoes & gravy. Then it was time to work off all the Christmas eating by dansing round the Christmas tree, before opening a couple of presents & off to bed.

What Happened to Global Warming?

Since my last post we have had snow everyday & temperatures have not got above 0. In fact on Saturday, the coldest day we've had so far, max. -10 & min. -16. I will post photos on flickr when I get a chance, but in the mean time here is a video I found on Youtube.

I can sit!!

Joshua sat by himself for the first time yesterday. Like anything done the first time there is a bit more practice & improvement to be made. He has to lean forward a lot to hold his balance, but he can stay upright for 2-3min. I discovered it quite by accident. We were at exercise class & I had been holding him in the sitting position on the floor. I let go momentarily to change position & noctice that he didn't fall over. At first I thought it was because he was leaning on the ball he was playing with, but when I took that away he still remained sitting. So it looks like he's one of those few babies that skips the rolling stage & jumps straight to sitting.

Snow

Today we woke up to the first snow of the winter. Everything is beautiful & white. I love it when it snows!! Of course in order for that to happen it has to be COLD (-1 at the moment, was -7 last night), but as long as you're sitting in side with the fire going... :-)

Christmas Baking

Sunday was the annual Family Christmas Baking Day. As usual it was a great time of fellowship & fun. Due to having Joshua this year I limited the number of things I made to 3. These were fruit mince slice, rum balls & apricot balls.

Other goodies made were klejner, vanillekranse & churrios.

The dedicated & talented building team were also at work again. This year's project was the Taj Mahal. It still requires a few finishing touches to make it look a little more authentic.

Surprise Revealed

Sorry to those of you who have been waiting with baited breath to hear what the surprise was. It has been a busy weekend (been home 16hrs in total), so only now getting a chance to sit & write. Tom took me to see the Oslo Gospel Choir. They were on tour performing a Christmas Concert. It was totally unexpected, yet came at just the right time. I had been having a rough couple of weeks with Joshua & really need to just have a break. The amazing thing is that Tom wouldn't have known this 3 months ago when he had to book the tickets, but God knew. I remember Tom & I discussing it & I said I'd like to go, but Tom said that we couldn't cause he had his work Christmas party that night. So that was the last I thought about it.

It was a great night & I once I got over leaving Joshua & began to relax I really enjoyed it.

Cultural influence

It's amazing the way a culture of a country slowly influences you until you find yourself doing things you vowed & declared you would never do. There have been a few instances of that since I moved over here. The latest is that I put Joshua outside to sleep sometimes. I still don't feel completely comfortable about it, especially now that winter has arrived & tempertures are not so high. But he is well rugged up with a beanie & jacket on & then wrapped in this special 3 layer doona thing. I also have very strict conditions as to when I put him out. It must be sunny & not too windy & the temperature must be above 0 (which actually rules out most days). The main reason that I have given in to this cultural norm is that the couple of times Tom has convinced me to leave him outside he has slept 2hr or more. I must say though that it doesn't work everytime.

Surprise!

This is what is written on my calender today. All I know is that I have to have Joshua ready to be taken care of for the evening by 4pm & I need to be dressed in smart casual. I'm guessing it involves dinner of some sort, but who knows what else!!??