tis the season.

Two weekends ago we went to our second Christmas market. It was in a village about 25 minutes from ours in Sankt Wendel. There are Christmas markets all over in Germany and it's kinda the talk of the people these days. When we were in Garmisch we ran into a small one there and it was nice but nothing big.  Let me tell you, we were not disappointed with Sankt Wendel's!

Although it was very busy and turned pretty cold for the girls we stayed as long as we could. We ventured there on Saturday evening and saw a live juggling fire show - we likened it to mini cirque du soleil.  They were all decked out in extravagant costumes, lots of music and fire and my favorite was the animal guy on stilts who even did a back flip!  We tried to get a picture (taking about 20) but none turned out very well... here's the best I have...

The show started with them pulling in this beautiful carriage while making a lot of creepy bird noises!

Also at the market was loads of hand made items, a traditional wooden pyramid (see picture) but larger than life size, dozens of handmade nativities in cases for viewing and a whole section of elf cases where they were like dolls but moving - everything was done in such detail.  They also had a live nativity (which was walking around when we were there and we couldn't find the darn camels!), reindeer and donkey's!

We are planning to get to at least one more Christmas market before the end of the season and if I get a good picture I'll share.

During that same weekend we had three Christmas parties and later in the week David ventured to two more without the ladies.  The girls even met (and did great with) Santa.

Evelyn meeting Saint Nick and something was really funny to me!

Since it's been raining for three weeks I've been trying to get creative with indoor activities - I got this one from my childhood, thanks mom!

And, finally the last two days... oh they've been exhausting!  I've been trying to potty train Norah and today, we quit!  She's in total control of her bladder and decided to not once go on the toilet but instead go in-between those times (I had the timer set for 5 min in-between visits)! I was literally by her side ALL day and the second day she had about half as many accidents but still, didn't go on the pot and didn't poo in over 36 hours, ouch!  So, since she's decided against it for now we're going to try again in a month.  I'm sad too cause we had a bunch of totally cute signs and stickers and m&m's but... those things can wait.  I wanted to document how adorable she was in her undies so here's a CUTE pic of that :)

Norah picked out the shoes and put them on sister - love it!