My Christmas 2014

Christmas is over for this year. It was our first year to spend Christmas here in Finland. My younger sister and my older sister with her husband and kids came over to our place. We had a nice traditional Christmas Eve dinner, later opened presents, ate desserts, talked soooo much, danced, made funny jokes, laughed, filmed, took photos, walked a dog ect ect. It was a very fun night :) They all stayed over and surprisingly we managed to find a place for everybody to sleep! Next morning I had a lot of cleaning to do, but it took me so little time to get my home look normal and tidy again. My sister Anni stayed her for 3 days and my older sister's dog Bonnie also stayed here (she's still here) because they wanted to go to Estonia and needed somebody to look after Bonnie. I was super excited about that because I love Bonnie and I always miss having her around. So, I have been walking with her outside every day abour 4-5 times. It's so fun!

Our Christmas tree and gifts under

Me, my older and my younger sis :)

Table of desserts

 My two best sisters!!!

 Little Jonathan! He makes us all laugh and be a bit childish!

 This year Santa (aka my husband) was so generous and I got pretty spoiled. I got really really really nice gifts. I am so grateful for all I got (from all of my other family members), but surely the most grateful I am of my family around me. This Christmas Eve was really special and fun and I am glad that even though we live here in Finland we can still have family around and we can still have our traditional Christmas Eve celebration :) Next year we will be celebrating Christmas Eve at my sister's house. At least that's the plan right now :)

Like I said my younger sister stayed here at our place longer. So, on Christmas Day we spent most of the day eating left overs from Christmas dinner, played a lot (Monopol, Alias, Pokker), laughed SO much and walked Bonnie many times! Jay also had days off so it was fun to spend time together doing nothing important, but still having fun and being relaxed!

Christmas Day lunch.. using left overs from Christmas Eve dinner

Deal! (not sure who was more happier to make that deal?!)

Walking with Bonnie

Snowy pinetrees!

I have quite long Christmas break as normal for teachers :) I truly enjoy that I can just be at home, take Bonnie for long walks, drink a lot of tea, sleep in, watch movies (watched If I Stay and Gone Girl), read books (currently reading "Will Grayson, Will Grayson"), and just be relaxed. The other day I went to the zumba and I am going again on Tuesday. 

Selfie with my princess!

New Year's Eve is already on Wednesday. I can't believe 2014 is going to end and we will welcome 2015 already. I still remember the millenium.. everybody thought that 2000 is the end of the world. Even though I knew it wasn't true, I was still a bit scared that moment when the clock turned 12am and new year started. :P Oh well, it was almost 15 years ago :D Time really passes by fast! So, we better enjoy every moment of every day! :)

Two weekends: trip to Estonia, Christmas show, ect.

Last weekend I went to Estonia with Jay. He had his brother's birthday and I decided to use that free time to spend some time with my family. I visited my mom and stayed there over night. We had a nice dinner together and then we watched tv together and had some late night treats :) Next day I visited my grandparents. Mom also went with me. Like always at grandparents' place I was eating SO much! After few hours there I took a train to Tallinn, went to the hairdresser and then visited my other grandmother. And of course I ate so much at her place, too!!! Later that evening I did some shopping and then I met up with my younger sister. We went to the movies to watch "Nullpunkt" (Point Zero). It was such a good movie. Actually it was the first Estonian movie that I had ever watched in the cinema. Usually I am not a big fan of Estonian movies, but that one was really good!

When the movie finished we went to my sister's place. I hadn't seen her Tallinn apartment yet. We watched tv at her place, chatted and had late night tea and chocolate :D The next morning she went to work and I met up with Jay. We did some shopping, checked-in at the hotel because we couldn't get a boat tickets to the earlier time of the day..so we decided to spend some hours in a hotel before our boat was supposed to leave. We were actually both so tired and it was good to just sleep and watch tv. We sure got back home pretty late and I had to wake up early next day.. So, I was pretty sleepy at work on Monday :P

But talking of work. Last week was quite fast and busy. On Friday we had Christmas show with kids and that went so well. Parents' gave us some very nice presents too which made that evening even more special :) I was definitely so proud of every kid :)

I decided to take it easy yesterday and so I didn't clean at all (although last weekend we didn't clean either because we were in Estonia). But yesterday I went to the mall to finish shopping for Christmas gifts. It took me about 3 hours :/ I also bought a new journal for myself and I posted a Christmas package to my besty. Most of the day I was writing either letters or Christmas cards to my friends. I am going to send out over 20 cards. So, that took a while. 

Today was woke up so late (11.30am) and had a quick breakfast because I needed to start cleaning. I wanted to get done before my friend was coming over at 2pm. But later she texted me and told she couldn't make it today. So, I spent my afternoon watching some youtube videos and just buring candles and enjoying a good lunch. It's almost 5pm now and I am going to make dinner. Jay got from his workplace a homemade pasta machine. So, I am going to make homemade pasta! We'll see if it comes out okay :P

I cannot believe I have only 5 days of work left and then I'll have my Christmas holiday! I already know that next Saturday when it's my first day of vacation I will stay in PJs the whole day, watching movies (I already have a list of movies I want to see) and just have a super lazy day in!!! After that I can be more productive, clean, go to the foodshop or run whatever errands I need. But Saturday will be a lazy day at home :D 

Christmas is coming up soon and I am so excited. We are hosting a Christmas dinner at 24th December. My both sisters will come with their families. We bought quite a lot of Christmas food from Estonia last weekend. But I still have some things I need to buy here. I am still deciding what dessert to make. I know my sister will bake something, but I might as well.. Let's see. 

Right now I just want these upcoming 5 work days to pass by very fast :D

This year I made my own gingerbread dough (I got the recipe from mom). I have baked gingerbread cookies twice - 2 weeks ago and yesterday. I spiced up my cookies yesterday adding dried cranberries and cashews to the dough. These came out the best gingerbread cookies I had ever tasted! (I also used hald plain white flour and half whole wheat flour)

My breakfast yesterday! Still (and always) loving the gingerbread curdsnack :D PS! This mug was a gift from one of our kindi kids :) I got it on Friday after the Christmas show :D 

 Getting reading to write some Christmas cards!

Celebrating Christmas with workmates and more of my week

Hello, hello! Work days have been so busy, but so fun! We went to the Winter Circus with kids and it was so cool! The whole week I have been kinda sick :/ I have got cold and now I am coughing like crazy. On Friday I was feeling extra bad and stayed home from work. I visited doctor to make sure it's nothing serious. Throughout the day I started feeling a bit better ( I was drinking lots of tea, eating honey and garlic ect). The same afternoon I got a call from work and was still invited to our workplace Christmas Party. I actually felt so bad in the morning when I called and told I was sick because I knew I would miss out our Christmas celebration. But at the end I still got to go there. We went to see Mamma Mia musical and after that had super nice dinner at Kappeli restaurant. The food was delicious and musical was so funny! Overall, I am so glad I got a chance to go there and have fun with my colleagues. At work we are now going to practice for out Christmas Show with kids. It's going to be in 4 weeks! I cannot believe how fast time flies!

I had my sister with her family and my dad over yesterday. We were celebrating my dad's birthday as well with Fathers Day. It was very fun to see them all. I baked a plum cake and my sister made pizza and brownies. So, I definitely ate quite a lot of sweets. Later I went to the shops with dad and I invited him for dinner afterwards. And today when I had my student here to practice reading, my sister texted and asked if we were at home, they were on their way here. My sis and her son were here with me while her husband went to the furniture shops to find some stuff they needed for their new home. It was nice to catch up with my sister and just talk about everything. And I love my little nephew :D I always like having him around :D

So this weekend I have been with my family mostly! It's 4.30pm now and I am planning on making dinner soon and then I want to watch some tv shows, knit a sock and make a face mask :) Relaxing end for the weekend! Next weekend my mother and her bf will visit us :)

I have been thinking a bit about Christmas gifts already because I know how fast time will go in December. I have a gift right now only for Jay. But I am sure I will go Christmas shopping quite soon - maybe will start next weekend already if I figure out what to buy..

Not the best photo, but this is the Kappeli restaurant..it's all glass and it's already in Christmas lights! So beautiful and romantic!

 Salad for appetizer! Maybe doesn't look anything special, but it was the best salad I had ever tasted!

 Main course - smoked salmon, potatoes with garlic and dill, creamy false morel stew. All so perfect!

Strawberry sorbee with fresh strawberries and chocolate cake!