Final Christmas picture of the season

The weekend before last, we took our Christmas decorations down. Natalie helped. Of course, she had to wear the reindeer antlers one last time:

And with that, I promise not to post any more Christmas pictures - until next Christmas...

Painted finger(nail)s!

Last weekend, Natalie told me: "We haven't painted my finger's yet." She told me that her friend from daycare often "paints her fingers". After a little further conversation, I deciphered that it was nail polish she was referring to. So we raided my drawer and came up with three different colors:

Look, how pretty!

Best of 2009

Recently I looked thru some pictures from the last couple of months, and I noticed that there usually was about one picture per month that really stood out to me. So I figured I'd do a "best of 2009" in pictures. Some are funny, some are goofy, some are cute, and a few might even be called beautiful.

Here are my favorites, listed by month:

January.
Trying on a pretty dress.

February.
First sunglasses.

March.
Eating oats.

April.
Easter egg hunt in the back yard.

May.
At the zoo.

June.
"Driving" Mommy's prize car.

July.
Just hanging out...

August.
At the beach.

September.
At the park.

October.

Halloween party at daycare.

November.

Decorating Halloween cookies.

December.

Happy Birthday, you goofy girl.

Edible snowmen

Here's a craft Natalie and I made between Christmas and New Years. Of course, we had to taste the ingredients while we made it... I'm not sure what was more fun, making them or eating them!

Edible snowmen!

Natalie, the photographer

Natalie got a camera for her birthday. A real, digital, "kids tough" camera where she can take real pictures. She had so much fun with it. She opened it as the last present on her birthday, kinda late in the day, so she only had a couple of hours to play with it on the first day. After she went to bed, we downloaded pictures from her camera - all seventyone of them!

It was so much fun to see her pictures. There was, well, half a mommy, then three quarters of mommy, then:

Yay, Mommy!

Then there was half a daddy, then three quarters of daddy, then:

Yay, Daddy!

Some of the pictures were really cute, like the pictures of her toys, and of her food, and of Dora the Explorer on TV. It was really a bit of a view into the world of Natalie. Some items apparently have more importance than I would have expected, like this one:

Daddy's foot!

But what amazed me most was how beautiful some of the pictures really were, like this close-up of our Christmas tree:

Very Christmassy, indeed!

A few days later, we let her brint it outside while we were walking from our car to the museum. Some of those pictures were almost postcard-worthy:

City streets, seen from Natalie's perspective.

And here's one more I just had to add, because I really like the mood it's portraying:

Oh, Christmas Tree!

A day at the museum

I had some vacation I needed to use up before Christmas. Karsten also took a day off, and we went to the Children's Museum with Natalie:

Doctor Natalie!

Flying on an airplane - with the seat belt on, of course!

Working the crane with Daddy.
Maybe it should be "three geeks" instead of "two geeks and a girl..."


Look at the trains!

The last picture is my favorite. She climbed up in a tree-house maze that she couldn't figure out how to climb up into before. She's getting to be such a big girl! From the new vantage point, she could see the trains running on tracks under the ceiling. I love the curiosity on her face.

Snow!

We got a lot of snow in December:

Ehm, a little help, please...

Of couse, we have been playing outside a lot. We even made snow angels:

Who knew that snow angels could be so much fun!

Christmas day

On Christmas Day, we went to Aubriella's house for a Christmas party. The two girls had so much fun - they just play so well together!

Two little monkey's jumping on the bed...

Natalie was playing around and just being generally silly all day. Here, she's checking out what might be going on under the table...

Just exploring...

Later, after the girls got in their jammies, they got to play a new game that Aubriella had gotten for Christmas - go fish! It was a little difficult for Natalie at first, but she soon caught on.

Here, fishie, fishie...

It was wonderful to see Natalie play around and have so much fun, and it was great for all of us to see our friends again!

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning, Natalie came to wake us up - she wanted to show us "something". Santa had been here and left her a big present! Complete with a big green "star" (her name for the bow), because Santa knew that green is Natalie's favorite color:

Not quite awake yet...

The present was a doll bed that Natalie and Daddy assembled together.

Then, Natalie and Daddy made breakfast together. They made "Daddy-cakes", which is "klatkager". If you speak Danish, you'll know what that is, if not, well... To long of an explanation to post here!

Making breakfast.

Then Natalie discovered that Santa had also filled her Christmas stocking with goodies:

Wonder what is in there...

And what was she hoping for most of all - the one thing she would tell us about when we asked what she wanted for Christmas?

A green candy cane!

Later that morning, we made cupcakes for the party we were going to later that day - complete with pink frosting!

Yummi!

Christmas Eve

We had such a great Christmas Eve! We made our traditional Christmas dinner with turkey and all the fixings, both the Danish and the american kinds, so we were totally stuffed. Natalie helped set the Christmas table, and it was beautiful:

We watched the Dora Christmas movie while we had dinner. Natalie knows it by heart by now, we must have watched it at least 50 times in December. But it is so cute, and the music is so well made, that I'm still not tired of it!

While Natalie was watching the movie, I cleaned up a little after dinner, and Karsten put the presents under the tree. When Natalie came in and saw all the presents her eyes lit up like the lights on the Christmas tree!

We followed our traditions and walked around the Christmas tree and sang Christmas songs. I had printed the lyrics, so we all had a copy, and Natalie "read" along and sang along happily, even to the Danish songs that she doesn't really know or understand. She really enjoyed that part.

Then we unwrapped presents. It took us a couple of hours to open them all, one at a time. Natalie was so good, taking her time and really enjoying the process. We made sure she said thank you for the presents, even if the gift giver wasn't here. I got a little video of her unwrapping, (the video is a little long and probably a little boring to anyone who isn't a close relative... Don't say I didn't warn you...)

After we finished all the unwrapping, we had our special Christmas desert called ris a-la-mande. And per tradition, someone had to find a whole almond in the rice-almond-cream-pudding-like-desert, and of course that someone was Natalie. She got an ornament with Tinkerbell on it as the present for winning the little game. And the ornament had Tinkerbell candy inside. She was very happy with that.

And of course, we had to sprinkle the reindeer food on the front lawn that she had made at the daycare party. It was made of oatmeal and sparkles. The glitter from the sparkles in the moonlight and the smell of the oats were to make sure Santa's reindeer would remember to come to our house. A little magic at Christmas time couldn't hurt, right?!?

Natalie went to bed very tired and very happy on Christmas Eve. It was wonderful to experience it all with her. Seing the joy in her eyes was the best present I could ever have gotten this year!

Happy New Year from Natalie

Scenes from our New Years party: