Sweet Six Sunday - Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!!! As much as I tried to get this post done yesterday, the Christmas craziness set in and we had a morning of playing with the kiddos and a nap time full of food prep.  Everyone is now sleeping in our house and I am enjoying a moment of quiet before we head out to Disneyland Paris tomorrow morning! Cheers to another Sweet Six (or Seven) in 2016!

1. 'Tis the Season of Giving

We have been blessed with wonderful teachers at ABC Montessori, a lovely housecleaner and an amazing babysitter here in Poland! I always struggle with what to give to teachers as I want it to be meaningful, but when you are buying for six teachers and don't know them well personally, I turn to Pinterest for a creative idea. This year we gave each of them a cute little blanket with a wish to have a cozy Christmas!

Our school also helps support a local orphanage with clothes and food.  The kids helped us pick two children off the tree and we also selected a family to provide food to for Christmas Eve dinner.  We went a little overboard, to say the least, but we are so grateful that we can give to others and brighten their holidays! And I just love to give!

I also made these gift tags this year. Beckett made a comment about handing out the gifts to Reese and himself based on the letter on the gift - B for him, R for Reesie - and a lightbulb went off! It took a lot of effort this year, but since I laminated them, we can use them year after year!

2. Christmas Cards

We have missed home these last couple weeks a bit more due to the holidays, but the Christmas cards sure have brightened our spirits! We get them through Andy's company in large chunks and we love to sit on the floor as a family and open them! Thank you to everyone who sent one our way - you have no idea how much joy and love you sent to us in those little envelopes!

We had to get creative this year on how to display the cards!

I also got a sweet card from my BOB Mom's Group! Such a sweet surprise! Boy do I miss this group of ladies!

3. Our Elves - Hot Sauce and Girl

"Girl" joined our family this year and these two elves sure had some fun! The kids LOVED running down each morning to find their elves! It makes all of the effort and planning worth it!

Rocking my Barbie's roller skates from back in the day

4. Dinner with our Polish friends

One day, while at a local coffee shop, Vincent's, a man and his little daughter walked in and sat near us.  Beckett asked if he could say hello to the little girl, which was so sweet, but usually our kids either get ignored in this situation or the kids just stare at them due to the language barrier.  This time, the father asked his daughter to say "hello" back and we were shocked that he spoke English.  He asked us where we were from and after stating MN, he said that he got his Masters in MN.  We took a shot in the dark and asked if he got it at Carlson School of Management at the University of MN (where we got our degrees) and he said yes! This led to some conversation back and forth, exchange of phone numbers and we have since met up with them a couple times to get to know them better.  Michal and Karolina are both from Poland, Karolina has lived in the US a couple of times and went to an American school in Germany for most of her childhood, so they speak English very well.  They have a two year old daughter, Vicky (Victoria) and a four month old daughter, Olivia.  We visited their apartment this week for dinner (they hope to move into their new house soon) and the kids played really well together! We have really enjoyed getting to know them and their family and lovingly refer to them as our Polish friends!

5. Play date at Fikołki

After a cancelled playdate on Friday due to illness, we made the call to head out to a local indoor play area with some friends! It is SO fun to see our kids have friends again and see their excited faces when they are told we are going to play with said friends! My good friend, Tiffany, and her daughters, Avery and Addison, and another little boy, Victor, met us there and the kids played hard for two hours!

Sweaty little babes

6. Mr. India with the Blackburn Family

We had a great night with the Blackburns on Friday night, ordered Mr. India delivery, and shared some Christmas wafers.  The Christmas wafers are a Christmas Eve tradition in Poland where well wishes are shared for others as they break a piece off your wafer.  Fun had by all!

Blaine breaking the bread with Beckett

Pieces of the Christmas wafers

Grayson and Caleb 

Being a ham!

Bonus! 7. Christmas Eve with the Pellicciotis

We were blessed to share Christmas Eve with our good friends, Tiffany and Bill! We kept it simple - apps and desserts! Tiffany is a skilled hostess and had adorable little Christmas details everywhere! We ate (a lot), we drank and we laughed!

   

As we say in Polish (well, not me, but some do) - Wesołych Świąt!

Sweet Six Sunday

Hello there! I thought I would try something new! Each week there are new adventures and/or fun events in our lives that I want to document, but don't warrant an entire blog post.  A lot of the blogs that I follow have a Fab 5 or a Fantastic 5 or a Fun 5 - all on Fridays.  For me, it is hard to find a moment on Fridays to blog, so I thought I would do a Sweet Six - fitting for both Saturday or Sunday! :)

So here we go with the first ever Sweet Six Sunday!

1. Cafe Nero Get Togethers

A large part of my time over the last couple of months is meeting some fabulous woman and getting to know them better! Cue coffee dates! When the kids are at school, us ladies get together for coffee, laughter and great conversation. This week, I had two get togethers and both happened to be at a cozy coffee shop, Cafe Nero. These coffee dates make me smile and fill my bucket!

2. Kids' Christmas Concert

On Tuesday, we had the kids' first Christmas concert with their school, ABC Montessori.  I usually pick up the kids at 1pm from school so that we can head home for naps.  On Tuesday, they skipped naps and rode with their friends from school to the concert.  Andy and I met at home and headed to the House of Culture early to get prime seats.  There is nothing as sweet as littles walking out on stage, all dressed up, finding their spot, spotting us in the crowd and waving to us! The festive program was 40 minutes long and included many holiday songs, small group singing that Beckett and Reese were both involved in, ballet dancing, a river dance number, a piano solo, and a TON of cute moments! Beckett was very focused on the words of the songs - moving those lips with intention! SO funny! Reese was distracted by a broken string on her bell for her class' song, but she wouldn't let it go when her teacher tried to swap it out.  Lastly, the ballet dancers were the final part of the concert and the little ballerinas were supposed to take glitter from their pouch and blow it at the audience for a sparkly finish.  Almost all of the girls tried to shake the glitter off their hands the second they touched it and then the rest of the kids couldn't stop playing in it afterwards! Those are the memorable moments of events like this! Ha!

Bless the teachers and kids that worked SO incredibly hard on this concert! The kids have been practicing their songs for the last two months.

The kids made us these invitations in class!

Reese mid-bite! She kept shoveling the gingerbread cookies into her mouth!

3. Blue City Mall, TK Maxx and Christmas crafting

I had a free morning on Wednesday, without kids, so I decided to head to TK Maxx to check out their selection and get some presents for our teachers.  There is no J sound in Polish, so I am assuming the name is TK Maxx so the Poles can say it.  My friend, Robin, asked to come along for the ride and so we trekked out to a mall about 40 minutes away.  Blue City Mall was extremely nice and after a little window shopping, we headed to TK Maxx.  I was in HEAVEN! It was just like a TJ Maxx from the US! The sizes were US sizes and the books were all in English - which is hard to find here! The below pics shows my purchases - yes, four FULL bags of goodies! I will be back!!!

These were my four bags - plump full of Christmas gifts!

Small Christmas craft from a fun find at TK Maxx!

No need for more ornaments, but I had an idea!

Cut these circles from a firewood log.

Drilled a hole in the center.

Finished product!

4. Christmas Pokeno

Robin hosted a festive Pokeno night on Thursday with 12 ladies! I walked away with this beauty! Such a fun night with lots of laughter!

Check out my prior post to learn more about Pokeno.

5. Old Town Lights

We planned to head down to Old Town Warsaw last weekend to see the Christmas lights, but the weekend was full of rain, so we headed down after work on Friday.  It was beautiful! There is something special about twinkly lights!

Ice skating set up in the main square - hopefully next year we will do this!

Hot cocoa that was rich and thick!

We found a Christmas market near Old Town - nothing compared to Vienna, but still fun to look!

We saw a Polish Santa - sometimes they wear a Bishop's hat.  Can you see the excitement in Reese's face!?!

The kiddos were excited to head back out to see the lights after dinner!

6. Visiting Santa

Saturday morning we headed off to a nearby mall to see Santa! We had NO idea what to expect nor did we know if he spoke English.  We got there right at 9:45, hoping to get right in at 10am.  Little did we know that he didn't arrive until noon. Ha! We founds ways to spend our time before seeing the big man!

The setup was SO different than the US.  Below is the little area that he sat in - no elaborate setup, no line control and no photography.  We sat at a table near the area around 11:30 in case a line formed, but no line ever formed and we were the first to see him.

Santa in Polish = Święty Mikołaj

Reese's first instinct when she saw Santa - HIDE!

Beckett was excited to sit with Santa and told him he wanted Star Wars!

The best we could get with Reese in there! Thanks Andy for helping!

I had to snap a pic as we were leaving - small group, no telling him what you want. Just snap a pic and go!

And that's a wrap on the first Sweet Six! It was a great week with a lot of events! 'Tis the season!