Christmas is coming...

...and we're keeping busy, how about you? ;) I hardly take time to update the blog anymore, but I'll try to get better about that in 2009! I've been singing a bit lately - in November, I sang Sara Evans' "Saints and Angels" at a fashion show at a local shopping center. This past week, I sang "Let it snow" as a guest performer at a local "Christmas Café", which a local choir put together. A few performances with the band here and there. Having fun!

Eirik is just growing so fast! Getting so tall, and can do so much! He understands everything we say, and can say quite a few things himself. His language development is slightly delayed, since he's learning two languages at the same time, however, that is completely normal. I am very impressed with his language, myself, and isn't so far behind as some other bilingual children I've known. Each child is different, and learns at his or her own pace. Eirik has lots of words, and sentences, so he communicates just fine. :) He's enjoying helping me bake the gingerbread cookies and eat the juicy clementines of advent season, and we're looking forward to traveling to visit Grandma and Grandpa Nilsen for Christmas. They've recently been here to visit, they came down to celebrate Thanksgiving with us, a yearly tradition we have in the Nilsen home. Most of you know that Thanksgiving as we know it is an American tradition, and isn't celebrated in other countries. Eirik's preschool was interested in it this year, since they have 3 american boys attending there, so they made a turkey, and I made them a homemade pumpkin pie to share. We celebrated on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, since we had visitors from north and south Norway. Eirik wasn't able to enjoy much dinner, since he started throwing up during the evening. He was feeling better after a couple of days with fever, and hand foot and mouth disease. The things that go around preschools! Ugh.

Arnt's been busy on his car in the garage, but he's getting closer to finishing it. Tonight he's out there, doing metal work, shaping the pieces that will form the back window/hatch. When he's NOT in the garage, he's inside playing and dancing with Eirik, or outside going for hikes with Harley, or sledding with Eirik.

This past weekend, we invited our mother's group over with their kids for a pre-christmas party, with horse and sleigh rides, gingerbread cookies, rice porridge, and norwegian berry spice drink (gløgg). Yummy!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season, and hope you have a Merry Christmas! Hopefully we'll post again before traveling north.

Hugs, Aimee, Arnt-Einar and Eirik (and Harley too)