Lucia, Alex's birthday and Cooking contest!

December 13 is an important day in Sweden. We celebrate the Saint Lucia from Italy and the light that she brought to people. We do that by lightning a lot of candles and watching "Lucia trains" where children or church choir sing Christmas songs. It is hard to find this tradition here in the USA but we are so lucky - there is a Lucia festival each year in Sanford, not far from us, and we had a chance to go to it! It was a lot of fun and I was so happy to show the kids what Lucia is. If you are interested to read more about it info is here https://sanfordstlucia.com/.

Watching the children sing

There were a lot of Swedish pastries to pick from!!! So delicious!!!

Dec 16, Alex's birthday and of course we have to wake him up and give him breakfast in bed! :-)

Gabriel had made a little scavenger hunt with his gift so Alex had to find several notes to final get to his present. Marlee and Noah had done the same thing but a little more complicated one. 

I had prepared a surprise party for Alex since he had been so busy since we got back from the road trip and hardly seen his friends. It was great fun. When it started to get late the kids got to watch some TV while the adults kept talking :-) Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures of the adults... guess they were not as cute!

Such and Angel!

One of our coops visited a nursing home where we sang Christmas carols and gave Christmas cards to the elderly.

One day when Marlee and Noah had two friends over they decided to have a cooking contest and just use the things I had in the kitchen. I let them do it on one condition, that the clean up would be part of the competition. That was smart, lol! They did so great! Really yummy food, on Asian dish and one Taco dish. The Asian won with one vote. Of course the moms of the friends came to enjoy the dinner, too and vote.

While waiting for the dinner....

Time to eat!

We finished the puzzle that we started with mormor

Beach visit a beautiful winter day!