CHRISTMAS

We wish all our readers, especially our families and friends, a merry Christmas! Have a peaceful and meaningful time and enjoy each other. 

For Christmas, we combined our families' traditions and created our own. For a start, we went to the Minnesota zoo to admire some beautiful creatures. Here are a few of them.  

sea dragon

 caribous

 Asian wild dog

 camels

 leopard cubs

 bears during their 7-month-"nap"

 Samu and the penguins staring at each other

 Fish!

 Back at home we got ready for our little celebration.

 And after a little singing and praying ...

 it was finally time to exchange gifts. Samu loved his new piano as well as all the other gifts. (THANK YOU!)

Marko and I hadn't given Christmas gifts to each other for years (almost a decade), so we felt it was time to revive this tradition. Both men were very excited about the new boxing gear.

And I got spoiled with tons of goodies including a memory foam pillow and tickets to a Muse concert. So the gifts were thoughtful and fun. But above all, we loved being together as a family and celebrating this holy time.

FINALLY!

Finally, finally, finally! Reports are written, papers graded, the semester is over! Happy holidays, dear readers! We have started our Christmas preparations now and are very excited to report that the traditional Finnish ham has already been purchased along with 5 bags full of other deliciousnesses. Hurray, Christmas can come!

Looks like we will have beautiful snowy and sunny Christmas. 

Vrrrnnnn ... Christmas can come! He's ready.

 
The tree is ready too.

 Choosing some carols.

Preparations: salted salmon and joulutorttuja from Riikka's baking party - kiitos!

Piirakkoita in the making.

 Outdoor action.

 Thank you Erica, Virgile and Nelson for a delicious dinner, awesome company and these pictures!

All this is very exhausting!

FINNS, FRIENDS AND SNOW

This Saturday, we were excited to host a get-together for the four Finnish families we have recently been hanging out with. We rented the community room of our co-op, made pizza and put up tons of Christmas decoration. 

Samu loved the pizza - to eat and also to play with. He is eating shirtless these days for obvious reasons.

The festive table

Lots of space for the kids

Antti drawing with Otso and Samu

The highlight of the night: Otso's "movie", in which a dolphin and a frog screamed and laughed a lot, and in the end a scary ghost (Sonia) appeared but everyone was saved by two princesses on a horse (Elsa and Sylvie).

Adults enjoying the show

Otso

Thank you all for a very entertaining night!


FINALLY: THE FIRST SNOW!

Samu was a little suspicious at first but ended up loving the bobsleigh.

Men making snowmen.

Isä is so much fun!

Samu and his first self-made snowman.

We met Jenna and George who also enjoyed the fluffy white awesomeness.

Snow(wo)manbuilding is serious business in our community.

SAMU'S FIRST CLASS PICTURE

This was taken on Samu's first day of school. He was kind of overwhelmed, so all the pictures look a bit sad. He is doing very well now. :)