Girls Trip to Paris

I had the best weekend. It felt like every minute and every hour kept unfolding in this lovely way to present more and more happiness and enjoyment. 

18 Months

We really rang in the New Year with a bang. 

On New Year's Eve, Aksel woke up with bloody ears and so I called the pediatricians office to beg for an appointment before they closed for the holidays. I was unsure if they'd give Aksel another appointment because I had brought him in just the day before to get his ears checked. He had woken up several times in the night complaining of ear pain. 

Unfortunately, our regular pediatrician, Sigurlaug Agustsson, was out of town and we had to see the on-call doctor, Dr. Ries. She looked in his left ear and said she couldn't see anything because of ear wax. I asked her to remove the wax so she could see. She said it wasn't necessary. 

What does that mean? 

Dr. Ries & Aksel

Bilan

Otto and Aksel recently had their "bilan" at school. Translated directly from French, it means balance sheet, or parent-teacher conference in English.

Christmas

Otto lived and died by the chocolate advent calendar this year. And when we woke up on the 24th of December and were able to eat the last and largest chocolate out of his calendar, I thought we might all burst with gladness. 

He kept telling everyone in our family we only had to go to bed one more time and then THEN it would be Christmas. 

I convinced Ben our family should go ice skating on Christmas Eve. He was super skeptical. Luxembourg City had a Winter Lights festival this year, and as part of the celebration and Christmas Market, they had transformed Place Guillaume into an outdoor ice skating rink. 

Weihnactsmarkts

Luxembourg Kreschtmaart

I took full advantage of the Luxembourg Christmas Market this year, visiting four times -- once as family, once with Ben, once with a group of friends, and once with just Otto.

It's a small market in comparison to the larger, more famous German markets, but the allure of Christmas sounds, hot chocolate, sausage, raclette, fresh grilled salmon sandwiches, grompere kichelcher, roasted almonds, rides on the ferris wheel and shopping were enough to lure me there multiple times.