St. Lucy's Day

December 13th is the feast of St. Lucy.  We were very excited to celebrate it this year, now that Lucy is getting older.  We had a lot of fun tailoring some of the old Swedish traditions of this day into our own life (which was busy busy busy at the time.  This little celebration took place in the half hour we had between James coming home from an exam and bedtime).  Lucy (the eldest daughter) carried a tray of saffron buns that we baked to the table.  Then we ate the saffron buns by candlelight while listening to "Santa Lucia" on youtube.  Lucy's godmother even sent us a special candle for St. Lucy's day, which is now Lucy's pride and joy.  Any time she greets James or I, or we finish our meal prayer, she proclaims "Happy Saint Day!"  All of her pajamas are "St. Lucy's Day pajamas."  And sometimes she points to things and says "that's special for St. Lucy's Day."  I think she had a good time.  

"Lussekatter" which means "Lucy's cats"  I'm not sure why...  They are saffron buns with raisins, but Lucy picks off the raisins, even though she usually likes raisins.

Here are a few pictures of a sleepy Charlie and me from the other day.  I have a new strategy in the quest for sleep with Charlie.  He wakes up between 4:30 and 5:30am.  BUT, sometimes if I let him play on the floor for 30 minutes, he is then ready to snuggle under a blanket with me and go back to sleep for an hour or so.  I will take it.  At the point these pictures were taken, Charlie is ready to get up again and is getting cranky that I am not complying.

I wanted to say thank you for all of your kind words and prayer for Charlie as well.  In this past month, we have been overwhelmed by all of the love and support we've felt from everyone we know.  There will be more blog posts about this (ahem... all you Secret Santas), but I wanted to say it now too.