The Holidays are Here!!

Now that the holidays are here, we've been quite busy! Who isn't I guess ;) Joel's been sick off and on... between taking care of a newborn and his man cold I haven't had much time for anything else! I am trying to document our lives as best as I can, so I leave my camera out where I can always see it and snap pictures if possible. Basically when there aren't little humans needing me constantly ;) I use to blog in the evenings once Emma went to bed, but since having little William I am exhausted and burnt out by the time evening rolls around... plus I am so ready to spend some quality time with Joel when he comes home. That leaves me Emma's nap time to get stuff done! And that's usually if both kids are sleeping, which is a total mom win if they are!

First picture I've been able to take of these two together. William isn't even facing the camera, Emma's hair is a mess and she might have food still on her face, but this is real life I guess!

I love her little profile, I think it is the sweetest!

#reallife all the time!! Anyone else have a baby that spits up a lot??

"Joel! Put William next to your face so I can take a picture of you together!" Aaaaand this is what I got! Typical Joel ;)

That wrinkly forehead gets me every time!

#momlife with spit up on my shirt ;)

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We've had two parties, one Thanksgiving party with our fellow American friends here in Sweden and one Christmas party with our LDS ward. Joel started feeling sick on his birthday, which was also on our Thanksgiving party so by the time the next day came when we were going to celebrate with his family he was too sick. Horrible timing to get sick, really. No one wants to be sick, especially on their birthday! Plus when Joel gets sick he gets reeeally sick. I'd rather be sick just because it is so hard seeing him so down.

Our Thanksgiving party was so much fun. William slept the whole time which was way nice! Emma unfortunately woke up on the wrong side of the bed that day and cried about 80% of the time... so I was trying to calm her down the majority of the time. I don't know if she had 'stranger danger' feelings that night or what, but she was way upset about something. Other than a cranky toddler, the food and the company was great! We mainly sat and chatted with the sister missionaries (I have a soft spot for sister missionaries! I take them in like I would a little sister). Whenever we meet with the sister missionaries, we usually tell them our love story because they enjoy it so much. We had met one of the sisters before, so she told us we had to tell her companion our story ;) We don't mind... in fact we love telling our story. For me, it is such a great reminder to remember all the little details in how we met that we were meant to be together.

"Where's our food mom and dad??!"

An off focus picture of Joel, but whatevs ;)

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We had a Christmas party at our church building last weekend, and oh gosh it was fun. Swedes have so many traditions, and I love how passionate everyone is about the food, singing, and dancing. I feel so blessed that our kids get to experience and grow up with two different traditions. It will be interesting to see as our family gets bigger and our kids get older what traditions we will have in our home with our mixed cultures.

I get asked a lot how Swedes celebrate differently, and I think they just have a lot more traditions especially what food to eat on Christmas Eve. When we were dating Joel was shocked to hear that my family didn't eat a certain food for Christmas! I've realized that's because we have Thanksgiving to eat our traditional foods! At least for my family, we usually just relax and eat pancakes or french toast on Christmas. We are all about being lazy haha!

At our Christmas Party with our ward, there were a lot of different activities going on. There was a jeopardy game for the adults, and in the classrooms there was coloring, cookie decorating, and a visit to santa! At one point during the party my sister-in-law walked into the cookie decorating room where Emma was sitting by herself and eating the frosting off of a bunch of cookies... haha oops! The rooms were all so cute and decorated, whoever put this Christmas party together did a great job!! My mother-in-love helped decorate the tables, and I think they were so beautiful!

After the activities we had dinner, or as the Swedes call it Julbord which translates to Christmas table. Julbord consists of a certain kind of bread with ham, cheese and mustard on it! And let me tell ya... it is DELICIOUS!!!! I won't admit how many sandwiches I had ;) there is also a rice porridge called gröt and a drink called Julmust. Clementines are also eaten over Christmas time. A lot of different families Julbord's are different, but I feel like this bread, ham, cheese, and mustard mix is the basic food to eat on the Julbord.

When dinner was over the kids came to the front of the room and sang some songs, the main one being Santa Lucia. To understand, PLEASE watch this 2 minute video Swedish Lucia for Dummies. It's hilarious. Joel and Emma were so cute standing up there while the rest of the kids sang... and Emma was just looking around watching everyone! I cans see now why the holidays get more and more fun once having kids!

I love seeing these three cousins together!