December 4

Axel had in home economics learned how to make creme filled rolls. And now he wanted to try it at home. He and Rita went at it alone right after school yesterday. I tell yea, the rolls were very good but both livingrom and kitchen were covered with flour, spillings of creme and what not. But who's to complain when they had this much fun.

December 3

The stuff Christmas is made of.

December 2

Christmas decoration is serious business. Rita and Axel has done a tremendous job getting the house ready setting up all our julenisser. We have stickers in the windows. Stockings on the stair. And Santa hanging from the curtain holder ready to carry Christmas into the Qvistgaard household.

December 1

Finally we've reached the first of December. At least Erik, Rita and Axel thinks so. This year all 3 children has a full advent calendar with gifts. 72 packages in total. It took 35 meters of string and a whole roll of aluminum foil. We are curious to see what they will think. It is not all candy. There are things they can use as well.

Kitchen hand

This year Axel has cooking classes at school. Last Tuesday he made a bread but killed the yeast in the process. He wanted to do it right. So yesterday he baked two very delicious breads. Seems like the Qvistgaard baker genes aren't wasted.

Kitchen aid

It was big cooking day yesterday. Ellen was away at school and Rita had asked for lasagne for dinner. She also wanted to cook it herself. She really laughed when I told her to add tomato puré to the sauce. Turned out she thought I'd said "tomato puha".

41st Birthday

Yeah I know it doesn't lokke like it, but yesterday I turned 41. Ellen took this nice picture of me trying on this nice sweater I got from Mary and Gary. Thanks.

I always try to take the family out to eat at a well recommended restaurant. I think it's important for the kids to get a taste of a different cusine and better quality - and then not the least I love to do it for myself :-) This year we ended up at Cofoco. We had an excellent dinner of scallops, veal with grilled thymus (there must be a less clinical name but that's what google translator came up with - it was good) and creme brulee. Rita had fish and I had cheese for dessert. It was all very good.

First snow

Yesterday, we had the first snow of the year. Rita and Axel woke up really early. I guess it was the light from the snow which arose them. In a split second they dressed and down stairs. No breakfast. No nothing. Just on with boots, gloves and jackets and out!!! Wish it could like that on school days.

T-day

I know there's a couple of weeks to the US Thanksgiving. We however celebrated it this weekend. We had 17 dinner. It took 2 turkeys, 4,5 kg. potatoes, 1 kg. brusselssprouts, 2 pecan pies and 1 pumpkin pie plus of course breadrolls, cranberry sauce and stuffing. We managed to make it all at home. It took a bit of scripting to work it out with only one oven and the microwave. But it did. We all were full and happy when done.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Handsome guy

Erik got his braces off to day. He really looks good. He's got a wire in white gold glued to the inside of his teeth to hold them together. I tried to convince him that he now had a brilliant pick up line. Something like "Can I share my gold with you" or something like that. Erik didn't appreciate it.

Trumpeter

Axel is really into film music. I believe his teacher thinks it's fun so he gives Axel all the musical scores he can find.

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I forgot to add that last weekend we had a transcontinental concert when skyping with Paul and family. Isaac played his guitar - "Smoke on the water" while Axel did the theme from "Jaws". Pretty impressive.

Fomelhaut b

This is just awesome. The first pictures of a planet in another solar system! If you haven't read about it, you can do it here.

Halloween

Yeah, I know it's been a while but we've been busy. This tired witch was captured at school after a spectacular Halloween party which some of the parents in Rita's class had arranged. The kids had blue potatoes and ghost fingers (hot dogs).

Make up

Another picture of Rita and friend - this time Maja. I don't know what happened. Maja and came to play and in a split second the two girls changed the living room in to a beauty parlor. Now, I worry about when Ellen comes back from her weekend school because - seriously- I don't know where they got the make up from :-)

Rap R.I.P.

Last night we witnessed a great tragedy. Rita's pet beettle "RAP" died. RAP was part of a school project where Rita became responsible for 3 mealworms. She immediately named them Rip, Rap and Rup - Danish for Huey, Dewey and Louie. And she took good care of them. Two of them made it to cocoons and one broke out as beetle. In fact, he broke out so much that he wandered out of his box. It caused a bit of panic because we didn't know where the beetle had gone. Could it be in the kitchen? But - alas - Rap ended up drowning in the aquarium.

Old maid

Obviously, it's not Rita I'm referring to. Rita and Axel enjoyed a good game old maid on our vacation. It was a bit unorthodox though because Rita did her best to get the maid and not to get rid of it.

Indoor camp

We have just returned from fall vacation in Sweden. We had five days in the "new" summerhouse. The weather was fantastic. We had the low hanging fall sun illuminating the multicolored leaves in the forrest. It was really spectacular. I don't know how much the kids appreciated the view but they sure enjoyed it when we let them roast marshmallows in the fireplace.

Get me a dentist

Rita and Cecilie made chocolate muffins. We caught then digging too much into the chocolate. They had fun.

Bearlet

We went to the first show at the Royal Theatre with our seasonal tickets. It was a ballet for kids. The "star" of the show was a huge yellow teddybear called "Bamse" - known from national public tv. The story was that Bamse was to learn "bearlet" as he called it. The performers were all children from the royal school of ballet. They were wonderful and so gifted. Erik was too old an audience, so instead we had invited one of Rita's friends, Cecilie. I wasn't able to get a picture of the the two of them in the theatre so here is one from before the performance.

According to the theatre a video should be available on the homepage. I can't find it, but you can see pictures of the performance here.

Doorstep

So this is the doorstep. Axel and I had fun figuring out the right exposure. We had a bit of false light from the living room. So Axel placed himself in the window to shade for the light.