Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

our christmas card this year: 

(no spectacular announcements like last years)

May the true meaning of Christmas fill your hearts and homes.

Love, Maria

a christmas tradition

I'll share our special Christmas tradition in a moment, 

but let me begin by introducing the Worlds Best Babysitter Ever!!

World, meet Christmas Tree (he keeps Adam busy for ages) :

'hello!'

only kid friendly ornaments on the tree this year!

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Now, for our Christmas tradition:

Every Christmas since Micha's been born, we've made a little memento ornament for the Christmas tree, and it's become a precious tradition (last years ornament)I hope to keep alive for many years to come.

 This year we attempted to make Cinnamon Applesauce ornaments, using (as the name says) cinnamon and applesauce in equal quantities (I used half a cup of each) to make a dough and than baking the shapes in the oven for a while to harden them.

As per usual with Pinterest ideas it looked a whole lot easier online than it was in real life. 

The dough came together quite well, but it was super sticky, and it was hard to roll out. 

I finally ended up rolling it out between two pieces of baking paper. 

Cutting out shapes wasn't too easy either, to be precise: the cutting wasn't that hard, but moving the cut out shapes from the table to the baking tray was a bit tricky.

look at that concentration!

Micha and I made little hearts and two gingerbread men (one for Micha and one for Adam), and they turned out pretty cute. 

After they had hardend up in the oven I decorated the gingerbread men ornaments with a bit of white paint in a piping bag to resemble icing.

They did seem a little fragile, so we ended up making some back up ornaments in case the cinnamon ones break:

this one is Adam's , it says '1st Christmas'.
I dipped his little fingers in paint and pressed them onto the ornament

Micha painted and 'glitterized' his ornament all by himself

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Even though it was all a bit messy and tricky, it smelled heavenly and we had fun!

And we held onto our own little family tradition!

Score!

Love, Maria

Do you have any fun Christmas traditions? Do tell!

life lately + Adam 5 months

 - brothers enjoying each other. 

Adams face lights up whenever he sees Micha and Micha is mostly so sweet and gentle with Adam. Already Adam loves it when Micha is acting silly, 

I can only imagine how much fun these two will have once Adam gets older

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- saying goodbye to a beautiful and sunny fall. 

I'll miss the pretty views from my livingroom window.

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- this funny monkey is growing up.  

 We said goodbye to his soother last week. 

I was kind of dreading the moment but we felt it was time. 

So we made a little party out of it with balloons and his favorite food and then let him throw his soother in the garbage. We told him he could pick out a toy the next day. 

There were a few rough nights (especially the first), but things are going a lot better again and there's no searching for soothers in the middle of the night anymore!

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- this cutie pie is now a five-month-old! 

 After a pretty rough week about a week ago, things are settling down again. 

He seems older and even rolled over for the first time. 

I'm able to put him down for his nap awake and he falls asleep by himself, which is so great!

He's a smiley, happy, giggly baby and we all love him like crazy!

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This week I'm going to decorate the house for Christmas 

and on Saturday we're putting up the Christmas tree! 

So excited!

Love, Maria