It's beginning to look and feel a lot like Christmas...

I was actually a bit shocked when I saw today that the last entry was in September... September!!

The fall went by in a blur. Liam is doing great at school, Anouk is doing great at her daycare. I've been super-busy finishing the book and Mark has been busy writing as well. Bookwriting was an all-consuming endeavor throughout the fall, with continuous re-writing, editing, revising and re-revising. And then all of the sudden the December deadline came and it was done. It took me the least two weeks to catch up on everything and catch my breath.

... and then all of a sudden Christmas is around the corner. And it's beginning to feel like Christmas here. Little by little the decorations have begun to crawl out of the Christmas boxes and the house looks more and more festive and cozy. Anouk's assessment: "I like the decorations, beautiful." And Liam is very excited about Christmas.

Here's Liam knitting a hat for Anouk's doll for Christmas:

Liam took his knitting to school for "show and tell" and I was a bit worried that he would get teased, but it went really well and the kids were interested when Liam showed them how it worked. A few weeks later he brought the finished hat to "show and tell". I asked him what other kids bring for "show and tell" and he replied "Things that we don't have, like computers". For the record, we have more computers than we need, but I guess none that I would let Liam bring for "show and tell"...

And here is the doll I made for Anouk that will wear the hat:

Doing some crafting during the bookwriting was really good for me. It was good to just relax, let my hands do the work and let my mind rest. Up to the last few weeks when I just collapsed onto the couch in the evening and then dragged myself to bed - no more creative energy left, actually no energy left at all...

I even started a quilt for Liam for Christmas and joked about how this is a perfect procrastination excuse: instead of writing another 3 study questions, finish another 3 blocks for the quilt... Then a friend confirmed that I was not alone with that method: there is actually a book about quilting instead of writing on your book... I have to ask her about the title...

Now that I can do some sewing without guilt I made some Danish Christmas flags for our window:

And I even tried to make some chocolate treats. There are lots of recipes for this online and it all boils down to a simple: melt your chocolate and pour it out onto some parchment paper, put some toasted almonds (or other nuts, or candies, or whatever) on top, melt some more chocolate and drizzle on top. Done. Easy. And super-good!!!

Encouraged by the almond bark, I decided that making caramels wouldn't be too tough either. And honestly, what can go wrong when you mix together sirup, sugar and heavy cream and bring it all to a boil? Well, it's guaranteed to taste really good, especially when you then stir in copious amounts of butter... But, if the recipe says to boil for 45 minutes, you should probably boil for 45 minutes, not 25. 25 minutes gives you very gooey (but delicious!!) caramels. Too gooey in fact to really cut up and put on a plate or put into little jars as a gift... So, what's a novice caramel maker to do? How about melt some chocolate, freeze the caramel and then dip the frozen caramels into the chocolate - chocolate-covered caramels!! mmmh!!!

And then the treats do all fit into a little jar as a gift. This one is for Liam's teacher.

And here's our kitchen window looking more and more Christmassy, especially with the snowflakes and the star that Liam made and the little gingerbread ornaments that arrived just in time for Nikolaus from Germany.

And since I haven't written a thing here for months I thought I should share some recent pictures of Liam and Anouk.

This is what the kids looked like this weekend as they dressed up: