The easy way out!

Before I start, I just want to let everyone know that I'm sooo sorry that things have been so crazy and kept me from blogging. But, now I am faced with the situation of having so many great pictures from the last few weeks that it would take me eons to do a traditional blog with each set of pictures... so, I'm going to just post a BUNCH of pictures and captions. Hopefully a picture will truly speak a thousand words!! Happy Christmas!!

Still truckin'

Sorry that the posts have been so scarce of late. I have several excuses!

1. We have had our first visitor, Rachel, here for the last week plus and we have been doing lots of sight-seeing. So much, that we seem to be exhausted in the evenings and after a few rounds of Dutch Blitz, we hit the sack.

2. Ruby is on a bender... a "no liquid" bender that is! She decided suddenly that she hated the taste of her formula. Formula she has been drinking part-time for more than a month. Then she decided that she really didn't even like water, so we're having a bit of a stressful time trying to get enough fluids into her. We've been certain for about 2 weeks that her top front teeth are trying to come through, but so far nothing is visible. ARG!! She also has been sleeping horribly, which in turn means that we are sleeping horribly.

I managed to make it through the shortest day of the year--it really wasn't that bad... but I must admit that the grey days coupled with Ruby's increasingly foul mood has put a major damper on my Christmas spirit. Both Jared and I feel as if it's just too much to keep in the spirit for two months, especially since we will be missing our families this year. We are so thankful for everything that God has provided... but, there are still hard days living so far from our loved ones.

Tomorrow, hopefully, I will be able to post some of our adventures, but if not, just know that I am feverishly working on our Christmas newsletter... better late than never!

Celebrating Christmas!

Christmas in Denmark is celebrated in much the same fashion as in the US-- with LOTS of shopping! There are several malls in Copenhagen (which I was quite surprised by!) and then there are walking streets such as the one sh0wn here. It is hard to see in the picture, but the street is packed with people and decorations (you can click on the picture to get a bigger version of it if you're interested!). It really is quite festive!












I wanted to post a few pictures of Ruby in her Christmas dress from my Dad. She looks absolutely adorable in it and got lots of comments at church yesterday! It is a bit big on her still so hopefully we'll be able to have her wear it a fair bit this winter and spring.

We had our Christmas carol service yesterday at church yesterday including special music from the choir (which both Jared and I were in) and a mens' quartet (that Jared was in). It was a wonderful service and we were glad that Julie, Jared's co-worker, could join us there!

Baby, it's cold outside!

It may be cold outside, but we come out from this weekend with warm hearts! All week long we have been dealing with our heating system which is over 25 years old and barely working. Thankfully, we were able to get a repair man out on Saturday afternoon and he got it fixed--yippee! While Jared and Ruby stayed home dealing with that situation I was able to go to a cookie making party at Jared's co-worker's home (she's the same one who invited me to the decorations party a few weeks earlier).

We were each supposed to bring dough for 100 cookies, but I think that I'm the only one that stuck pretty close to that guideline. Everyone else brought enough dough for several hundred cookies! Since the ovens are smaller here, we were only able to put one sheet of cookie in at a time and it took a LONG time. We started at 1:30 in the afternoon and when I left at 6:15 they were still making cookies. I guess they did finish up shortly after that and then relaxed and ate take-out in front of the boob tube! They are showing the first season of LOST every night here until Christmas, so people are getting really hooked on it (including Jared!). I only manage to stay up about every other night because it doesn't start until 9:30 or 10:30 depending on the night... too late for me with how tired Ruby makes me these days!

After the cookie party we went over to our friends, Danny & Claire's, for dinner. She had fixed delicious chicken enchiladas, corn casserole, fresh guacamole... tex-mex heaven! My mouth is watering just writing about it! Ruby and Carter had a good time playing together and really were cute scooting around on the floor after each other. I think that they're starting to get used to each other and relax, so that's been good to see. Once again, we are just so blessed to have found friends so quickly and easily here. God is so good to us!

Woven Paper Hearts

I spent a lot of time this last week fiddling with making woven paper hearts. These heart shapped baskets are traditional Scandinavian decorations, especially around Christmas that are used to hold candy or Pebernödder (Danish cookies) and are hung on the Christmas tree or around the house. The simplest heart, which is also the one you see most often, is on the bottom left of this picture.

I really liked the idea of making these decorations myself for our home, so I found this great website put up by a Danish fellow with dozens of different designs and have done 14 of them so far. I'm not sure that I'll be able to do any that are much more difficult that the ones shown here, especially without a compass or printouts from the patterns he has online.

The Danes will only really make these of red and white or red and silver or red and gold (playing off their national flag), but I decided to use various colors. Eventually I want to have 25 of them and use them for an advent calendar of sorts for Ruby. I can hang them up on a line of ribbon and have a treat and verse(s) to enjoy for each day leading up to Christmas. My Grandma used to always give us an advent calendar or two growing up and my sisters and I would argue over who got to open it each day even if it was just a picture and a verse inside. For as long as they last the hearts will remind us of our time here in Denmark.