Week 16

This week, I will have to summarize with one post. I am already quite a bit behind on the writing!

The boys had two field trips to farms this week, which were very fun for them. The first day, they went to the Arla dairy subsidiary nearby. They saw all kinds of dairy cows, and the milking machines. They were particularly fascinated by the milking machines -no one even has to touch the cows, mom!- And came home with lots of stories. They also each got a drawstring backpack with the Arla logo, a ruler with the Arla logo and a cow stencil built in, and an udder cup with cow spots on it. The next day, all of the kids from their class went to another farm nearby. While they were eating lunch, two cows gave birth! That was a bit surprising for our boys. One of the babies had a bit of trouble, and had to have chains put around its feet to be pulled out, the other came easily. The teachers all told me that the boys were quite wide-eyed at the whole experience! I bet they were! They also got to play in tractors and hay stacks at the farms, so all in all had a fantastic time!

 When the weather turned cold, they asked if they could go play outside. They were very amused at the "plate" of ice that had taken hold of the sand toys outside.

 At school they made these hedgehogs out of clay and the outer shells from some of the tree seeds. They were pretty cute. They sold them to the parents at the Julecafe -what a great fundraiser.

 Svea loved the crunchy grass, and was outside chasing the big kids while we were trying to eat breakfast in the morning. I went to get her, but thought the picture was cute and took it first. I figured my legs are still longer so I should be able to keep up.

 Anders was being goofy one afternoon, and put Svea's vest on instead of his own coat. I think the look on Torben's face says it all.

 I finished another novel this week. I didn't really have time for reading (well, I did at the expense of writing my blog posts...) but I had borrowed it from the library and it had to get returned. It was interlibrary loan, so not as easy to renew. It was a great book, made me want to travel to Italy.

On Thursday (American Thanksgiving Day), the boys' school had an Amerikansk Thanksgiving. Jeff made pumpkin pie, stuffing, and cranberry sauce, and their teachers made turkey and mashed potatoes. The kids all got to try all of it. It's fun that they go to a school where they can decide to do this, to share the traditions of our children with the children here, as well as our kids learning the Danish ones. 

Thanks to the wonders of the internet, we were able to get the WGN feed of the McDonalds Thanksgiving Day Parade in Chicago in the afternoon, after the boys got home from school. We were excited to see the WIU Marching Leathernecks!

 This Care Bear was Svea's part of the parade. Though she enjoyed watching all of it with me.

 Although it was Thanksgiving, that's not really a holiday here, so this is what we had for dinner. Fish with yellow sauce, bean salad, cabbage, poached eggs with tomato and bacon, and frikadeller -pork meatballs. It was all delicious, but definitely looked a little different from what we normally would have for Thanksgiving!

 Elfie found us! I think he was glad that we are much closer to the North Pole here, and he gets to spend a bit more time with Santa since he doesn't have to fly as far. The boys were very excited to wake up Friday morning and see Elfie looking down at the table while they ate their breakfast.

 And, this week I finished the Nanowrimo project! It took a long time, and a lot of time that I probably should have been doing other things, but I wrote a 50,043 word novel during the month of November. It was a fun challenge! I haven't actually read what I wrote. It might be incredibly horrible! But I finished it, and that was the goal.

 And this was nearing the end of our week. Svea has taken up colouring whenever she gets a chance. We bought her a princess color book a couple of weeks ago, and she seems to be really enjoying that.