Making an American Halloween

Here is my plan. You all have to tell me if you think it will work. If you are Danish and someone such as myself came to you with this plan what would you do? I am determined to make our Halloween as American as possible! ...for my kids of course. :)

The school will have a Halloween party, so that box is checked. But we still need some official trick-or-treating action... The kind of action where Scotty can walk up to someone's door, yell "TRICK-OR-TREAT", hold his little orange pumpkin bag out, smile as a complete stranger drops a handful of candy in his bag, yell thank you, and run to the next house to repeat the process. Watching him do this with his sisters will make me extremely happy.

And we all want me to be happy...

My plan is to ask the Danes to give my kids candy. See, the school is having a party on Saturday, which is Halloween... After the party my plan is to get all the kids to go trick-or-treating in the surrounding neighborhood. To ensure the kids actually receive candy I will walk around to all the houses in neighborhood a couple weeks beforehand and explain to them that if they do NOT give my kids a "treat" then they will get a "trick". :) That's how it works... The name of it is pretty self explanatory: trick - OR - treat ...and tricks usually involve eggs and toilet paper.

Kidding. I will walk around to all the houses in the neighborhood, but I will smile nice and learn a Danish phrase so they will maybe like me. I will then offer them a couple pumpkin pictures to hang in their windows if they would like to participate in our trick or treating fun. I will even offer up a bag of candy so we don't get stuck with a pumpkin bag full or black licorice candy. Kidding... even black licorice candy would make me happy. :)

So do you think my plan will work? I hear a few kids go trick or treating but if I enter a neighborhood with 50 kids I think I should offer them up a warning so they have some candy to hand out.

Plan B is to fly to England. I hear they trick-or-treat there. I will look for cheap flights right now. :)

Yes, I know Fastelavn has the same idea.... but it doesn't make me as happy as Halloween. I miss the activities that make my kids happy. I miss Halloween.

I'm Famous

It's official. I am famous. :)

I was picking up Michaela from piano lessons on Friday and someone saw me and asked... "Tara? Oh, Hi Scotty!! Hi Poozle!!" I just stared at her and was totally confused!

Then she said she knew me and the kids because of my blog. :) So I met the woman who Dreams in Danish. :)

How funny that a stranger knows me, my kids, all about them, where we went on vacation last weekend, etc... :) For a moment I thought this was a bad/scary thing... then I felt cool, mostly because Sierra thought it was cool that "other people" read my blog ...which only means other people are reading what I write about her, which means SHE is famous. :)

Our vacation!

OKAY. As one might have guessed my children are keeping me busy... especially that little, cute one whom I chase around continually!!! Boy is she a handful!! My word!!! She has no fear, except of loud sounds, and she wants to do everything herself - including transporting herself. No stroller can contain her ...she can wiggle free of anyones' grip... At least she will hold my hand while her tiny feet take tiny steps and we move a tiny bit forward at a time.

Now that Scotty has started his new bornehaven I am hoping I can some free time during the day to catch up. ...Like today, my house is clean, dinner is leftovers, and the laundry is going, so I have some time to sit and catch up on the computer. I think my other problem is that my new Birthday iPhone is so handy I do all my "necessary" computer stuff on it... and the blog gets left behind. :(

Anyways, Skallerup Klit. That's where Paul took us for our Annniversary "Gift Trip". However, My real gift was NINE cans of evaporated milk! (Now, I need more pumpkin pie mix!) Only in Denmark would evaporated milk count as an anniversary present and make a wife happy. He says I'm hard to buy for, but I think gifts are easy here... Especially for the Americans, such as myself, who crave things from home. I've given peanut butter, chocolate chips, candy bars, fruit roll ups, and magazines... as gifts. Maybe Paul should splurge on the $15 box of Lucky Charms at SuperBest for me! :)

Skallerup Klit reminded me of a cruise (which I now want to go on). Everyone rents a summer house which are all centered around a main "fun" area. Indoor water park, huge play land, kids club with lots of activities to sign up for, etc... Golf, Tennis, Pool, Bowling Lanes... It's all right there and you sign up for what you want and when and just kinda hang out doing what you want!

In the end, it was a very nice trip... A little stress in getting there... I love you Paul. :) Our house was great! I loved having fires in the night and morning. It was even big enough for all of us to spread out. It had a nice kitchen and cold refrigerator and it was quiet and clean... even a sauna in the bathroom too!

The girls went on a horse back riding trip to the beach which they LOVED. We went swimming every day... usually twice. We went to the giant playland every day for hours, Scotty and Andrea both loved this. We played with the SmartUs games which are kinda Wii-like. We made TONS of candy and some glass jewelry. We went bowling, played putt-putt and pool, and ate lots of pizza because we didn't think to make reservations for the "nice" restaurant when we booked the house.

For a grand finale to our trip ...I got to have a Hot Stone Massage at Romulus!! Romulus which is like a giant sauna, hot bath, spa, retreat for adults... It was a surprise from my loving husband who took the kids while I relaxed on our last day there. Tak Happy. :)

The kids were sad to leave and have discussed pooling their kroners together to pay for another trip there. I'll even pitch in, I think it would be the perfect place to go in the winter when it's freezing cold outside. We will go back. :) House 242.

...pictures are stuck on camera. New SD card doesn't play nicely with computer and it's making me MAD.

5 years

Our family is going here so to celebrate our 5 year wedding anniversary....! See you all Monday!

http://www.skallerup.dk/

Suckin' up Pears.

This is my daughter eating breakfast. I wish I would have thought of this sooner!!!

She won't eat baby food anymore, at least she won't let me feed her anything anymore. She is so stubborn and independent and has the worst temper! She gets really mad at jarred baby food: she shakes her head no, attacks the spoon with both arms, refuses to open her mouth, will eat it only to spit it back out again, or will just cry and scream and hit her tray! I went to a lot of trouble to import this fine selection of baby food from various countries: Germany, Sweden, Poland, America, Canada, Italy... EAT IT KID!!!

But she won't.

I can't make her.

She wins.

...or does she???

Let's not forget I've been a mommy for nearly 11 years. She's just been a baby for one. I have experience on my side! I won big time by pulling out a bendy STRAW. It's great. She just sucks up the fruit like a little baby smoothie... There is no mess: no faces or hands to wipe, no food on the floor, no food in her hair... or my hair, the high chair is clean, no dirty bib... Just a little Poozle sucking on a straw for five minutes. YAY! Breakfast is done, there is no food on the floor, everyone is happy...

I'm sure there is a good reason why parents everywhere aren't pureeing everything and feeding it to their kids via straw until the age of three, but until she sucks up some of more of this expensive imported baby food she will have to deal with the straw. ...but she likes the straw, because if she didn't she wouldn't have anything to do with it.

PS - This only works with foods that are runny and that she likes to eat. :)

Apple Rules?

I'm convinced Johnny Appleseed spent some time in Denmark tossing seeds around. If you don't know who Johnny Appleseed is you'll have to Google him. :) ...maybe Johnny had a brother, Jens Aebleseed.

Anyways, there are apple trees everywhere in Aarhus ...everywhere except my backyard of course. :) We've picked from friends' trees and taken a few from the buckets outside people's homes that are meant for sharing... BUT what are the rules on picking apples off all the various "public" apple trees I see along the road or in a business parking lot? Michaela has decided she LOVES climbing trees, picking the apples, and then making applesauce with them. Free Applesauce, fine with me... just peel them yourself and don't fall out of the tree!

My neighbor has a pear tree that he hasn't touched... what are the rules about sneaking through the hedge in the middle of the night and picking some pears? I'll dress Sierra and Michaela in black and send them.

There are also berry bushes along the road, but I'm kinda afraid to eat those. What are they really...? Some look like an obvious blackberry, but what about those tiny blueberry-ish looking ones?? Guess I should do some Googling of my own!

Movies!

Scotty is learning to ice skate and Andrea is learning to walk. :)

Happy September

Happy Late Birthday to my MOM. Yes, her birthday is in August too, along with my dad and my bestest American friend Trini!! :)

August is done and it feels like it may as well be Christmas time since the year is going so fast. The weather has been GREAT! Today was hot and sunny and just perfect. We met some friends downtown for the Aarhus Festival. Before I continue... the "Aarhus Festuge" has a big poster to promote it. It so confuses me. However, the other day I noticed that on this poster there is a picture of a man bending over and a fart "blowing" out of his bottom! Why? It's barely visible and I didn't notice it until I was standing quite close to the very large poster... I didn't understand how farting played into Aarhus. I could make my own stories up but they would probably be mean... so I won't. :)

LOOK AT ME. How high-tech am I??!! I copied the picture with a link. See the bottom says "Keep Dry"? The farting man is above the "ep", you can barely make out his "fart cloud." ...Oh, Michaela is going to have fun reading this one! Anyways, I would like this as a poster to hang in my house... or garage someday. Pete, do you know where I can get this?
So. Scotty Rocks. He is a such a great little ice skater!! He actually wanted to do the second lesson of ice skating. He willingly put on his snowcoat and spent the entire hour on the ice stomping around kicking hockey pucks and building towers out of them. The goal, I assume, is to make him move around on the ice. It's ADORABLE!

Their Canadian teacher is so nice ...and funny ...and just a few weeks new to Denmark. At the beginning of class she gets the kids all in a circle and talks to them, in English, HA! She asks them "How are you all doing?" HA!! HA!! You don't ask that here! :) It's great! I like her much better than the Russian man who last year asked me to teach Scotty to skate myself. All it took was one lesson of someone taking a little bit of time with him and holding his hand, now he is perfectly able to walk around on the ice with his little hockey pucks by himself. I now feel it necessary to buy him his own hockey puck. :)

The girls are good at ice skating too. I'll watch them closer and report back. I will admit to being split between watching Scotty and chasing Andrea around the rink and up the stairs.. towards the end of the lesson I remembered Michaela and Sierra were there, bad mom, sorry girls, I love you guys.

But Andrea is everywhere! It's a constant chase, she is just go, go, go, go; but when she gets tired it's a big crash. mUm you'll never believe it. When it's time for bed I put her in the bed with a bottle and her fuzzy bunny and she goes to sleep. Not a peep from her!!! I know you don't believe me after all those endless walks around the lake at naptime. :)